Lights, Camera…Activism!

So you’ll have to put up with the less eloquent JS for this entry, but Joyce is out so I am posting.  What a day! 

Getting started.  We arrived at 7:45am at the “Musician’s Village” site where Habitat for Humanity is building homes for musicians displaced by Hurricane Katrina.  We ended up assigned to a home project in the Upper Ninth Ward on the corner of Desire and Law Streets. 

The workday. Our task was to lay the subfloor over the joists on a new foundation.  Lots of nailing, snapping of chalk lines and grouting the joists throughout the morning left us ready for our PBJ and ham & cheese sandwiches (Habitat volunteers provide their own lunches, Joyce and Carly generously provided a luncheon spread after a late night grocery store trip last night).  But we were in for an unexpected treat! 

Lunchtime! Margeurite, a local resident who welcomes the Habitat volunteers because they help bring residents back to her neighborhood, served up a “crawfish boil” for lunch.  After a quick training session by fellow volunteer and Louisiana native Andy, we were ready to pinch the tails and suck the heads, mixing the wonderfully peppery “boil” with the succulent tail meat. Back to work after lunch (and some naps for exhausted kids, what a week…tiring but exhilarating) for a couple of hours. 

Rolling up.  Rain forced us to stop a little early, and although the students were really into their jobs, no one complained!  We returned to our hotel to clean up, and everyone enjoyed dinner at the nearby Acme Oyster Company.  Bedtime came early for all of us, and when we asked why the lights were going out before curfew, one student answered, “Hey, we just built a house today.”   Not quite, but the Habitat volunteers were impressed and grateful, and one former New Orleans resident can come home again. 

April 25, 2008 - Friday (Written by Sheehey … on Saturday) First I’d like to say that we’ve had some requests from our readership for students to give their perspectives of the trip by writing a few lines in the blog entries.  I can only say, well, we’ve tried.   I’m sure the parents understand! Friday began with our four film groups working after breakfast on the structures of their movies.   Once everybody had a plan for their final day at NOCCA, we drove into the city proper to spend time doing our choice of  “things New Orleans.”  The group I was with took the Canal Street streetcar to the oldest burial ground  in the city, the Saint Louis Cemetery (1789).  It’s noteworthy for its above-ground tombs and ornate artwork.   Others shopped, ate in interesting locales, went sight seeing , and had their own streetcar experiences (including one that took its passengers half way to its destination only to break down). We were present in time for the afternoon session at NOCCA, where we were all together – the NOCCA creative writing class and the SB students – just like our first day.  We wrote with them, shared our work,  and processed our experience here over the last week … the joys (making new friends, hearing their stories) and regrets (never having enough time, not being able to be in all places at once).   Some things said were:   by Michael (a NOCCA student), “I was touched and happy that South Burlington students were interested in what we had to say.”    Several others in his class confirmed this, and finally one student (Lauren) piped up, “You guys are basically in Canada, and yet you come all the way down here to talk to us!”   This prompted all the New Orleans students to get up, walk up to the map, and see just where Vermont really is!  The SB students took heart in hearing firsthand from the NOCCA students that their interviewing, videotaping and documenting was not seen as a burden to our new friends, especially when Lauren said, “It’s not that we LIKED telling our stories about Hurricane Katrina –“ then Hillary finished with, “We just liked telling it to YOU.” So it was with a little sadness that the class ended and the students left us, but not before they all exchanged email addresses and phone numbers, and not before a few promised to meet up with us in our last days in New Orleans. In the evening, we went for dinner in the same district we went on our first night in town ( Frenchmen Street in Marigny), and several students returned to NOCCA at night to view the culminating recital for the dance students.  Everyone was in bed early (11:00 pm!) in order to get a good night’s sleep before our day of manual labor at our N.O. Habitat for Humanity site.