Habitat in Retrospect (+ photos!)

I've finally had a chance to decompress, and I think it's time to write some final thoughts. (Plus I promised Mary, Susan, and Abby that I'd post pictures by Sunday. My bad!)

Overall, I think the week was a fantastic experience. The fact that we had such a small group actually made it much better. We spent most of the week hanging out - which could have been bad, if we all didn't ROCK - and that gave us the opportunity to bond and get to know each other. I think Tom appreciated it, too. I have no idea how our group compared with other weeks, but I do know that we had a good time, and I know you did too, Tom!

When I have the opportunity to do this again, I will do a couple things differently. First, I'll just drive. The money that I spent on the flight and rental car was definitely not worth saving the 13 or so hours longer that the drive would have taken me. Just suck it up and drive, you lazy ass! Actually, I can't think of a lot of other things I'd do differently. Sometimes I wish we had been in a larger group, because I think Mark and Tom may have been a little less motivated to keep us on task. We seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time chatting. Then again, maybe Tom is just as lazy as I am. (Just kidding Tom... sort of.)

I'm really looking forward to my next build. There are some houses under construction in our area, so Veronica and I will be looking into those. I think we may also schedule a 'working vacation' around a week at a Habitat build some time next summer. It'd be fun to get a cheap hotel room and have some slightly nicer digs (no disrespect to Lagniappe) to shower and sleep in. All in all, I'd definitely recommend this sort of thing to anyone, regardless of age and/or experience. We obviously weren't skilled, but there was still plenty of work for us to do. So get out there and volunteer!

(If you're actually interested, you can visit the Habitat for Humanity website. Just look for the volunteer link for information.)

But I digress. I promised pictures, and here they are!


A typical sight next to the water - just slabs and piles of rubble.


This is what's left of the Waveland City Hall. (Thanks to Pam for the correction!) Waveland is just a mile or so from Bay St. Louis. Both towns were right at eye of the hurricane when it made landfall.


Here are the homes. There were 8 (?) homes under construction at the time - all at various stages. Most of the frames were built during a recent "blitz", when a large church from the Chicago area sent over 200 volunteers for a week.


Abby hard at work with her favorite task - caulking!


Here's Mary sweeping up on the last day. She made me promise to mention that she didn't spend the whole week sweeping, and I can attest to the fact that I saw her doing a multitude of other tasks!


This is Tom in his typical "work" pose.


Susan and Tristan (an Americorps volunteer) on the scaffolding with me. Susan was a bit nervous at first, but we even got her using the nail gun by the end of the week - on the scaffolding!


This is Ted and Shea - Mary, Susan and I met them on our night out (Wednesday?). We started trying to get the dart board on the left to work, and they invited us to join them. 3 hours and 3 gin-and-tonics later, I realized that I needed a LOT of practice. It wasn't pretty. Not pretty at all...


Here we are hard at work again. That's Mark, the Habitat site coordinator in the back.


The crew and homeowners. Back row: Dawn, Niko, and Tom - Dawn and Niko are the future homeowners. Tom is Dawn's father. Front row: Abby, Jake (another Americorps volunteer?), Susan, Tom, Mary, and me.

Well, that's it! I hope you enjoyed the stories and photos. I definitely enjoyed the experiences in them!

Day 4

It's technically Day 5, but too early to make any comments about today. The last two days have been great. Work on the site has been going steadily. Lots of caulking. I've had fun using the pnuematic nail gun - the rapid fire feature is lots of fun!

On Tuesday night, we took a drive to Biloxi - about an hour by the route we drove. The bridge on the road along the coast is out, so we had to go up to the freeway and then back down. On our way back down to the coast road, we drove through a town that looked like it weathered the storm fairly well. At least, until we got about 3 blocks from the water. From that point on, all we saw were slabs and driveways. It's hard to describe. All the rubble has been cleared away at this point. I can't imagine what it must have looked like right after the storm.

In Biloxi, the casinos are hard at work rebuilding. Because of the storm, legislation changed and now allows them to be built on land. (Previously, they were only allowed on water.) We had a nice dinner at the only one open, but I always find myself a bit depressed from the environment.

On Wednesday, we wanted to eat at a the Bay City Grill. We'd heard about a great microbrew they had, and that the food was the best in town. Unfortunately, they were moving stuff out as we arrived - they'd closed the day before. We ran into the owner, and when we mentioned why we were there (to try some of the brew and food) he invited us in for a pint. I'm looking for an adjective, but nothing really describes it. We heard the story about his trials after the storm getting things running, then having $3,000 to his name and buying $3,000 worth of liquor to sell. They were pretty much day-to-day, using this week's profits to buy next week's supplies. It was a great opportunity to have some good IPA and hear some stories. Painful as well, but the people here are resilient. (Or stubborn. Depending on your point of view.)

After finding a place to eat, we stopped by Benigno's (pronounced behn-ing-gos) for some beer and darts. Mary had been looking forward to darts since we heard they had a board. Not 5 minutes after we started trying to get the second board up and going, Ted and Shea (pictures to follow) invited us to join there game. 2 hours and 3 gin-and-tonics later, we had to make our exit. It was great fun, but not something I can do every night!

Yesterday was actually much tamer. Work on the site continued at a reasonable pace, and we had a nice dinner at Rickey's around the corner from the church. Tonight should be more interesting - we've been invited to Daniel's for a final wild night out.

I have more to write about the emotional aspect of the experience, but it's time to clean up and get ready to head out. I'll get more tomorrow when I get back. I'll have to edit this as well - they've asked for the address so they can read it!

Day 2

Today was a great day - I am so tired! We actually got to do some heavy lifting, which was a mixed blessing. And we found some of the difficulties associated with a house that's built by a mixed crew. (We had some mixed results with boards that should have been straight, but were anything but.)

Last night was interesting. We (myself and the 3 other H4H volunteers - Mary, Abby, and Susan) took a little trip along the coast. There were so many houses that just.. weren't - empty slabs was all that was left in many spots. Lots of people still living in trailers and plenty of homes for sale. Rebuilding has begun in many places, but it's more noticeable at the higher-income homes.

I have some good pictures, but those will have to wait until I get back. I forgot the cable for the camera. And not only that, Richard - the coordinator for the church - has been nice enough to use his laptop, but I don't feel comfortable working on it for the whole evening!

We had some great southern food the last few days. I had some red beans and rice for lunch yesterday, fried catfish last night, and then a muffaletta sandwich for lunch. (The muffaletta is of Italian original, actually. It's ham, salami, some cheese, and then an awesome olive spread topping. Oh.. so good.)

Gotta run - someone's wireless connection isn't working, so I'm going to go pretend I know what I'm doing. More soon!

Day 1

Well, today was pretty light. The organization is fairly lax - the people at the Lagniappe church (where I'm staying) didn't really know where I was supposed to be. And there are only 3 other Habitat for Humanity volunteers staying here.

But, we had fun putting up some siding and doing some caulking. Lots and lots of caulking. I did say before I left that I wanted to learn some skills, so that's one down!

Not much else to write about today. The church has air conditioning, and there's plenty of space. They have room for ~250, and I'd guess that there are only 40 here at the moment.

It's been fun so far. The other H4H volunteers and I are headed off to a local bar for a couple drinks and some local food. (We had red beans and rice for lunch - a Mississippi classic.)