thursday

covered in plaster. i do believe i'm making a fashion statement! i've been going for the 'construction worker chic' look this last 4 days. monday was a very classic 'sanding drywall look'. tuesday brought a 'plastering' spin to the previous outfit. yesterday the new 'texturing' collection made it's debut. that look will definitely peak on friday.

the house we've been re-habing belongs to Les and Joyce Scharfenstein. Les is a retired elementary school principal. A sweet man who probably thought retirement would be easy.

I volunteered to work with the St Bernard Project because rumor had it they needed drywall work. originally we thought we were going to be working on a school. that turned out not to be the case. but that's ok. instead of a school One Brick is helping re-hab 5or 6 houses this week. that is in adition to the building the other half of our group are doing with habitat for humanity.

the st bernard project rehabs houses that weren't thorn downs so their owners can move back home. the homeownership rate in St Bernard parish before the storms was over 70%. unemployment rate was only 4%. median household income for the parish was $36,000. and they were (are) a very strong, deep rooted community. after the levies broke, the entire parish was flooded and their entire infrastructure destroyed. almost 2 years after katrina, the sewage system is still not operational. going by a very unscientific sample (driving to-from camp), only about 10% of the commercial establishments have re-opened. walmart is still not back; but the family dollar stores are filling that need. there are fema trailer parks, and there are fema trailers next to houses. a few of us wonder, what would be worst: living in a cramped trailer park with other people who have also lost everything? or living in a trailer next to your destroyed/currently un-inhabitable house? can't say we've come up with an answer.

"rebuild da parish or leave" was a question the people of st bernard asked themselves after the water went down. they chose the former. leaving home is not an option.

so we rebuild. and hope and pray that there isn't another big hurricane before a proper levee system is built.

st bernard parish managed to re-open their schools 2-3 months after the storms. the school superintendant vowed that when the first children came back, the schools would be ready to receive them. and she kept that promise. they joke that it took them less time to open a school than it took the federal government to re-open the post office.

everybody is grateful to us. we get fed by our homeowners, we get smiles, and compliments on our construction chic looks. and you can't help but be in awe of the unbreakable spirit of the locals. except that not everybody is faring that well, i get a sense that the younger generation's roots weren't as developed as their parents and grandparents, and they seem to be drifting (not all, of course, but at a higher rate than their predecesors).

one quick amusing detail about louisiana: drinking and driving is not illegal. there are drive-thru daquiri places... we all shake our heads. it's just so weird.

cafe dumonde's bignets really are as delicious as you've heard. very addictive. so yummy. actually, the local food is delicious. we're going out for crawfish tonight :)

ok, time to go. i've monopolized this computer long enough.

see y'all soon.