In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

I've never been good at conclusions. Yet here I am, charged with the responsibility to summarize our trip to New Orleans. What should I even say!? We have experienced so much over these past few days that a "summary" would fail to do it justice. A few words on my behalf wouldn't be able to capture each moment of laughter, fatigue, joy, reflection, and personal introspection that each one of us have felt time and time again. NOLA '13 was an experience to remember. Today, our last day of service, we were able to see just how much we were able to accomplish. While many believe that community service is often in vain, and fails to make a lasting impact, we were able to see the progress we made through the trees we planted, the weeds we chopped, and the beginnings of an improved church for the local community. I learned a lot through this experience; from species of wetland trees, to drywall installation, and how to avoid fire ant mounds. But the most valuable lesson I learned is the importance of continued human interaction and community development. In a time of tragedy, the community has the ability to serve as a root for regrowth. Just as we broke apart plants at the Common Ground Nursery, repotting their roots into new soil, hoping for life, the community has the ability to be that root. Individuals can help one another thrive, restoring lost culture and improving conditions.

Tonight, we are going to the French Quarters to experience more of New Orleans' finest cuisine! As we eat our meal, I hope we are able to reflect and appreciate the company of one another. I believe that because of this, I have made a new group of friends who I can depends on as I finish the last semester of my undergraduate career!

- Evangelista

Wednesday, Jan 16

Hello world! This is Leo, it is my turn to renew our blog today. It’s our sixth days in New Orleans. For the past days, we did a lot of community services, and we had one day break to explore the splendid culture of this city. However, that also reminds me I only have three days left to live and work with my amazing teammates. Soooooo sad about it.

Today, we (except Tom, Terrence, and I. Excuse us, but we were really sleepy since we did not sleep well last night due to some well-known reasons) got up around 7:30 as usual, and then we had a breakfast at Common ground.  As common, I made a peanut-butter-turkey sandwich for myself, although everyone regarded me as an alien because of so. After breakfast, at 8:30 am, we started our construction work at the church, which located just across from where we live.  We worked there yesterday, but today, we did a different work, which I believe most of us haven’t done before: MUDDING.  Denise, a staff at common ground, taught us how to do mudding step by step.  The progress of mudding was quite complicated, in a word; we were required to use light-yellow tape to cover the cracks between drywalls.  Although it was a really challenge for us, everyone was pleasant to welcome the challenge. But that is not the case after nearly four-hour’s work.  Since we have to keep the same gesture while we were mudding, arms and back were really sour after a long time work. In the light of living a simple life, we had a simple lunch: just some sandwiches and red-bean rice left from yesterday’s dinner. After lunch, the whole afternoon, from 1:30pm to 4:30pm, we continued working on mudding. Finally, we finished mudding all the cracks on the roof.

There are two things that really need to be mentioned today. One is saying goodbye to some unpopular people, which means we could look forward to a good sleep tonight. The other is the dinner we had. Ashley, Sarah, and Wu Jin prepared Jambalaya for us, which was pretty delicious! BTW, Jambalaya is one of the most famous food in New Orleans. Anyway, we had an awesome dinner and that made my day. After dinner, Smitty, the lawyer gave us a speech about racism several days before, came back to common ground and told us his personal experience with Katrina. Smitty is a humorous person who has his own unique perspective as well. He told us what he saw, what he heard, what he did, and what he did before, during, and after hurricane Katrina. In addition, he shared some personal standpoints about the New Orleans’s reconstruction progress. One thing that impressed me most was his viewpoint about the relationship between volunteers and New Orleans citizens. He proposed that New Orleans citizens should think about what they can offer to volunteers while they are serving in New Orleans. Since in his eyes, the relationship between volunteers and residents is like the relationship between donors and “donees”. Although volunteers came to New Orleans and helped people out of trouble out of their humanity, citizens in New Orleans still need to think about something that they could give back to those volunteers. These could be New Orleans’s unique culture, New Orleans people’s kindness, or even its delicious food.

Today’s reflection started with highs and lows as usual.  After that, we developed a discussion on Smitty’s speech. Some people agreed with his views, but still many of us considered that some of opinions are out of date. From my perspective, nobody can ensure that his or her viewpoint is perfect; our opinions are easy to be influenced or limited by the environment we grew up, people we met, the age we live, and so forth.  For this very reason, reflections make everyone think from different aspects and benefit from different thoughts. In the end, we had a group game named Privilege Exercise together. Our team leaders: Jen and Tom gave out several questions, and the ones who thought the question fit for them would take one step forward. After this game, we had a discussion about this game. We thought this game not only tested our reactions toward discrimination or privilege, but also make us know each other more deeply.

All in all, it was a great day with work, with yummy food, with games, and with reflections. I cherished the days with all my dear teammates, and will cherish for the next a few days.

Tuesday!

Bl –Blo-Bloggin!!!!! Hello world and Welcome to Nawlins…it Courtney!! A city filled with nonstop parties, spicy food, friendly people and Mardi Gras. Today is day 4 of service and it has been such a unique experience. When I met everyone I didn’t know how well our group would mesh. We did not know each other from class or “extra currics”. After a few days we began to open up to each other more and our relationships became deeper than conversations about class, weather, and the souvenirs we were about to buy.

Luckily, instead of working at the nursery or nature center we got to help out at the church across the street. Apparently after Hurricane Katrina, once the water succeeded the congregation faithfully met where their church once stood. They have been meeting at the same spot 7 years after the storm on a concrete foundation. They have been collecting money and Common Ground is building the new church!!! Jenn and I adopted a small room in the front of the church, which will become a bathroom. We were taught how to measure, cut and hang drywall!! It was great fun and I thought I was actually a carpenter! Lol We finished the top ½ of the wall and in the midst had a mini-photo shoot. It was so satisfying to actually be able to see the progress and knowing that other people can see it as well. Time flew by so fast and before we knew it we were done for the day.

After dinner a older local, Smitty, came to talk to us about race and class in New Orleans. Although he primarily focused on his experience during the 50’s-mid 70’s, his story was compelling. One of the things that impacted me the most was him saying that “as long as you are making progress, you aren’t there yet”. He talked about the idea of social freedom and how we are still working towards it. Essentially we are living in the American Empire and have to fight against the norms in order to move forward. He was quite a character and had strong opinionated views but was insightful otherwise. He looks to write a book on existentialism, which explains his apprehension towards government and idea of control and empire.

This entire trip has been such an eye-opening experience for me. Rarely do you meet people who are genuinely thankful for the things that you do for them. The response that we have gotten back from the locals and people we have met along the way has been overwhelming positive and supportive. I have truly been humbled through this experience and have a better outlook on humanity and what is important in life. Life is not about selfish gain but the how we can uplift others hoping that those acts of kindness will be returned to us in the future. I feel blessed and appreciative to be apart of such an awesome group and would not want to spend my Winter break anywhere else with anyone else. Peace and Blessing <3

-Courtney B.

It’s Monday, TIME TO WORK!!!

Hello from New Orleans! This is Michiko.

The temperature dropped dramatically this morning, waking us up shivering from the cold. We headed to the Audobon Nature Center with Polly from UK and started our work!

Today, we continued the work that we had left out last Friday. We looked around the forest to make sure that all the baby trees were alright; straightening the trees and the plastic protectors on the bottom of them, cutting down the vines that were in the way with shears, and etc. Though the work itself didn’t require so much of physical strength, the coldness took away our energy quickly. After we have finished the morning work, we took a group picture with the staffs from the Audobon Nature Center. Despite the fact that the work we did was only a little, I felt really happy and satisfied when the staffs told us how grateful they are that we have done some service.

After the morning service, we moved to James’ nursery to do the afternoon service. Since it was freezing, we played “knight and dragon game”, a game that you need to run around and be in between two people, “knight” and “dragon”, you chose, to warm ourselves up. This game looked silly since people ended up running around in a circle, but it sure did warm us up! As for the afternoon service, we took away the weeds and replanted the plants. I did the replanting, but the roots were so hardly stuck that it was so much harder than I thought. It didn’t go out well with the others either; Leo got his finger injured from replanting, and Ashley was bitten by the fire ants.

We got back to the common ground at around 3, and some of us went to the museum, House of Dance and Feathers, with Williams College students. The founder of the museum, Ronald Lewis, built it in the back of his house in the Lower Ninth Ward. The museum collections feature the history of the Lower Ninth Ward and the cultural traditions of Mardi Gras Indians. He told us how Lower Ninth Ward is rich of its own culture of the second line of Mardi Gras Indians and is tied up community historically. The whole community would come together especially for the festival of Mardi Gras. The most interesting story that he told us was the first Mardi Gras after Hurricane Katrina. I was really moved by the fact that people who were forced to move away from New Orleans came back to New Orleans from all over the nation, and when they got together, all of them hugged and kissed each other on every street crying for feeling relieved and happy. From this story, I felt how Mardi Gras played an important role to the Lower Ninth Ward and to New Orleans.

After we had the dinner, we had Smitty, a writer who experienced all the civil rights movement and an evacuation after Hurricane Katrina, as a speaker. He told us his philosophy of how racism works in the society of New Orleans and in the world. His perspective was an eye opener to many of us since it was new to us.

After hearing from two speakers with two completely different perspectives, we all came up with some opinions and feelings toward the problem of poverty, racism, and community. During the reflection, we had an intense discussion on it, which was a great opportunity for all of us for sure.

Anyway, time here flies so fast that I cannot believe that we only have 3 more days in New Orleans.

I am looking forward to the service of construction work tomorrow!

French Dough&Jersey Bros

Hey y'all, it's Matt here holdin it down for today.  We started off a little later than usual this morning, but I don't think anyone minded the extra sleep.  We began the day with some unexpected free time in the French Quarter after our plans to see the Katrina exhibit in the Louisiana State Museum were put on hold due to an hour long wait.  Everyone went their separate ways, including Terrance who went back home after deciding it might be a good idea to bring along his wallet.  I went with Michiko and Lea amongst others to Jackson Square to do some shopping for the second straight day.  I proceeded to purchase a standard-sized chess set made of jade from a Pakistani vendor for a negotiated price of $120.  Feeling confident with my negotiating skills I tried to haggle another merchant on the price for a hat, but was unsuccessful in my attempt, settling for the original price of $24.  We headed back to the museum and went through the Katrina exhibit, which I think had a strong emotional impact on everyone in our group.  For me personally, I was really captivated by the first-hand, personal stories that we heard from the hurricane's victims, such as a mother and her daughter axing their way through their own ceiling to escape the flood waters. Afterwards we went upstairs and saw the Mardi Gras exhibit, learning about its history and importance to the city.  We then walked several blocks over to Buffas restaurant.  However, there were about 5 entrees offered on the menu, and all ridiculously priced, so the majority of the group walked all the way over back over to Jackson Square, where we had lunch at Café Demon.  I enjoyed live music while trying my first Gumbo, which was quite delicious.  With some time to spare we headed over to Café DeMon, where almost all of us ordered a personal bag of beignets.  I personally wasn’t overly impressed with the beignets, which to me wasn’t anything more than fried bread coated in sugar.  Next we decided to take a drive downtown, where we saw the Superdome, Tulane University, and a creepy cemetery with mausoleums.  I ended up passing out towards the end of the drive, so there’s not much else I really have to say about this part of our day.  We returned home to be greeted by our new friends from New Jersey! Their group is much larger than ours, consisting of about 20 frat bros and sorority sisters, so it’ll definitely be interesting living with them the next couple of days.  We spent the evening hanging out around the house and playing cards with our friends from Williams.  I think our group is starting to really come together as a whole, as I feel as if I’ve known these people all of my life, when in reality it’s only been 4 days since we left College Park.   I’m looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow.  Better catch some sleep before our new rowdy friends get back from their first night out at Bourbon St……

Hot Days and Hot Sauce

Hello from New Orleans, world! It's Lea tonight reporting on today's adventures in the hot sunny weather of the Lou'siana bayou!

Bright and early Sarah and I (Lea) trekked to the other house and whipped up some pancakes for the rest of the AB team. After a delicious breakfast, both our AWB group and the 5 students from Williams College headed over to some semi-built houses just 5 minutes away. This is where we began our laborious morning of sheet rock-moving. Our efforts this morning contributed to several groups of people: the Louisiana Home Builders Association, The Home Builders Association of Greater New Orleans, and a chapter of the National Football League Players Association. These three groups have come together in an effort to "bring homes and businesses back to the Lower 9^th Ward and restore the area to the vibrant community it once was." Despite the layers and layers of slick mud on the ground, working  together we were able to move 200 sheets of dry wall into two different houses. With an undercurrent of disappointment due to missing our planned trip to Eracism, a group discussion on combating racism in New Orleans, our group was able to feel satisfied with the extreme progression in our work (I mean really, we went from moving 3 sheets in 20 minutes to 10 sheets in 20 minutes...Much improved!). 

After our exhausting morning, we took our first trip into the French Quarter. There was singing and dancing and good times all around! Most of the group headed over to Cafe M(something or other) for a bite to eat. We're talking alligator and po boys here,  real southern food! This was nothing compared to the hot sauce debacle. Terrence, Leo, and Veronique thought it would be a good idea to try the "hottest sauce in the universe." What were they thinking? Many funny photos, videos, drool, and regret ensued, leaving three very adventurous but in-pain AWBers. After an attempted mid-jump picture on the train tracks and an almost missing persons notice on Tom (somebody couldn't find the car....) we all walked through the French Market. This market is by far one of my favorite markets! There were masks and coasters (which many of our group bought) and paintings, oh my! The beautiful weather did nothing but help create the perfect day for New Orleans traveling! 

A long day, today was a perfect day, which ended with a delicious meal of barbecue chicken and macaroni and cheese with a side of community development. Our reflection tonight began with highs and lows (which not surprisingly focused on the hot sauce debacle and the French Quarter adventures...) but continued with an in-depth and thought-provoking discussion on the aspects of community development. We broke up into pairs and ranked several categories of important issues in the face of a disaster. Many pairs came up with similar ranking for similar reasons, but we all flip-flopped on how to rank them. This discussion gave us all some insight on just how hard it can be to pull a community back together after a disaster like Hurricane Katrina. 

Here's me, hoping for more perfect weather and more satisfying service in the days to come!
<3 Lea

x

first day of work work work

Hey worlddddd, it’s Veronique

Sleeping on the beds was way more comfortable than sleeping on the floors at Concord United Methodist Church. Although thankful to stay at a luxurious church for the night in Tennessee, I was highly grateful to have a bed! A beautiful night sleep was well needed for all the work we did for today.

The girls, without a surprise, woke up earlier than the boys. However, I do applaud the boys for getting ready in time for the project! The first day asked us to help plant at the Audobon Nature Center, which was about a 15-minute car ride from Common Ground Relief. I scanned the city during the drive to there and took note of the aftermath from Hurricane Katrina. It was mindboggling how much of a difference can be seen even just from the neighboring communities. Abandoned hospitals, damaged homes, rundown recreational centers—all clearly showed signs of the hurricane even years later.

Once we got there, we were told about the disaster before beginning our task. Amy, the Director at the Audobon Nature Center, educated us of Louisiana’s condition from before and Hurricane Katrina. She then went into detail of the purpose of the marshes and wetlands at the center during the hurricane. The wetlands’ great ability for flood control helped save the community next to the center as it held about 1 million gallons of water per acre. Wow. I could never imagine a piece of land with a bunch of trees have the capability to do such a thing.

Afterwards, we were given the task of planting 50 trees at one-side of the wetlands and given one warning: watch out for fire anthills. Clearly Tom undermined this warning, since he stepped on one and nearly got attacked by a huge colony of these monsters. My trip leader, Jen, helped me successfully plant six tree plants. A high-five was highly necessary after every planting, as it required blood, sweat, and tears to shovel in the muck. (just kidding… but really). Then, we set about 30 others just around the wetland to prepare for our project on Monday. Once that was completed, we drove to our next task but were given a lunch break beforehand. Thankfully, we were all starving and used all of that energy gained from lunch to weed, replant, and remove water from the plant ponds. Everyone’s hands came out full of mud, except for me. Gloves are the way to go! Sarah, Jen, Ashley and I further satisfied everyone when we cooked a dank dinner of chili, vegetarian chili, corn bread, rice, and salad. You may now call us chefs #YES

Of course rounds of games were played after dinner, since most of us fell into a food comma—filled with laziness, while Kenneth, Courtney, and Matt went for a grocery run. Once we realized they have been back hours later, we stopped the games and reflected as group about our day. We began again with our highs and lows then continued to another activity that involved us to pick a piece of paper from a pile that had an incomplete statement. The activity exposed people’s deeper emotions and their reactions from the day’s task. We then became even more emotionally engaged when we moved onto our last activity of an “open floor”, where each of us just talked about our realizations of the destruction and observations. I personally felt more connected with my team after today’s reflection and I look forward to tomorrow’s relaxation time with them at downtown New Orleans!

First two days!!

Hello! This is our first blog post from NEW ORLEANS!! We just arrived this afternoon, after seventeen hours on the road!

Yesterday, we left campus around 9:45 am from Stamp and began our drive to Knoxville, Tennessee. After a few pit stops at random gas stations—one of which had jarred pigs’ feet (yum)—we made it to Concord United Methodist Church. We were amazed at how nice and welcoming everyone was to us in the south. Jane, our greeter at the church, offered us four tickets to the University of Tennessee vs. Ole Miss game, which we distributed by picking names from a hat. Courtney speedily drove Sarah, Ashley and Matt in the van and we all had a great time even though the Vols lost. 

While the other members of our group were away at the basketball game, Terrence, Lea, Leo, Jen, Tom, Kenneth, Anna, Veronique and Michiko had a very in-depth conversation about the little things in life.  This included discussions about llamas vs. alpacas, favorite TV show, movies, and—interestingly enough—Chinese child-birthing policies.  A few games of Bananagrams were played. We also ended the night by briefing the layout of our nightly reflections for the week. Everyone had a nice night’s sleep on the soft and cushioned linoleum tile floors!! (not)

Then, today before the sun came up, we were up!  We left the church in Knoxville and began our 9-hour-long ride the rest of the way to NOLA!  We had a nutritious breakfast of pre-packaged muffins and donuts from ANOTHER random gas station (yummier). We passed through Georgia, Alabama and then Mississippi before reaching Louisiana.  Halfway through Mississippi, we ran into massive storms.  We noticed how easily the roads in this part of the country flood since much of the area is incredibly flat, and we saw many car accidents along the way.  We saw a swamp. Terrence recorded unnecessary amounts of insignificant footage that will hopefully lead to a wonderful momento of our trip!

Finally, we reached our destination: a nice little pair of houses that make up the Common Ground Organization. All of the houses in this neighborhood seem to be built recently. They are really fun colors and have solar panels on the roofs. Our house is pink and there are two chickens in the backyard. Sometimes they follow us around. There is also a dog and a cat that live in the other house.   Again, everyone we’ve encountered has been really nice.  After we were settled, we began playing Bananagrams again and then Pictionary, telephone style.  Apparently, Terrence is a scientologist and Leo enjoys bathing on a beach, possibly naked.  Soon after the dinner that we cooked ourselves, the power cut off briefly.  We attempted to tell ghost stories, but the power returned before we could.  Lastly, we all convened for our first reflection.  Everyone shared their “highs” and “lows” of the day and what we noticed about the area driving into NOLA. It really got us thinking about what we’re here for. We are all excited for our first day of work tomorrow, removing invasive species from the Audobon Sanctuary.

Till tomorrow, this is Sarah and Terrence!

PS: We have to think of a group name…