WHY.. or more so, HOW IS IT POSSIBLE that nineteen months after the huricanes, and there are still blue tarped roofs? why is half of the new orleans population STILL displaced. why are there people still waiting for FEMA or inrance companies, or whoever to pull through? more so, why is it that the insurance companies wont take a fucking stand and pay the people for the damages to their homes? sure they were only covered for storm damage, not for flooding, but do they honestly think the flooding would have happened if it weren't for the storms? i cannot even fathom what it would be like to return 'home' and have it just not be there. the convienient store down the street,the grocery store, movie theater, plaza, neighborhood, neighbors...gone. obviously i have not even the slightest idea of what these people have gone through, and are still going through today, it blows my mind.
Number of housing units damaged, destroyed, or inaccessible because of Katrina: 850,791
Amount committed to Katrina relief by the federal government: $85 billion
Number of FEMA trailers occupied in Mississippi: 94,000
FEMA trailers still needed in Mississippi: 9,000
FEMA trailers requested in the New Orleans metro area: 69,706
FEMA trailers occupied in the New Orleans metro area: 31,517
Number of Katrina victims still missing: 1,960
Number of missing victims 20 years old or younger: 245
At least 1836 people lost their lives in Hurricane Katrina.
it makes me feel horrible, i mean physically ill to think abou it all, and i feel depressed and i wish i could do more, and i feel so often i could be doing more than i am, but then i even wonder how much of an impact it is really making? and i'm sure that is just the debbie downer in me, but honestly. the other day my team and i worked on a KaBoom build for national youth service day, and for that we built a playground in Plaquemines Parish, anf the entire community was just FEMA trailers, i mean hundreds of FEMA trailres. and it was really great that we made a place for the kids to play... but in all honesty.. is that really helping them? i mean, once we put in the playground the kids, as well as the familes will begin to fel a sense of community, and maybe even a feeling of home, but what happens when the FEMA trailers get pulled? all the families who were unable to rebuild or make permanent arrangements are just left? displaced again? and with what... a playground? gfjhbkl; bah. its so hard, and frustrating. [as a sidenote, i absolutely loved the KaBoom build, and i believe it is a great organization, as well as a fantastic experience... but i can't help but ask myself these questions.]
annnd i've been asking them a lot lately.
oh well, just a vent. i guess.
anywayyyyyy.
transition week [aka summercamp!] is now over. good times. but we are now at our next project in Lake Charles, Louisiana. we are working with Partners in Prayer and Service and United Way, and staying at the South West Louisiana Volunteer Housing Facility..it's basically a five star hotel compared to where i was, but i'd be lying if i said i didn't miss Camp Hope, and some people staying there. (: anyhow, it's going to be ineteresting, cos we are basically living and working the the same place.. and there isn't much of a downtown scene.. so basically i'm feeling some cabin fever may take place. oy. lets hope not. we are starting off by doing assessments, them moving to the rebuilding phase. i have a feeling it may be like what i did in alabama, but im crossing my fingers it won't be. we'll see. tomorrow i'm going out and doing chainsaw work, followed by repainting the showers cos the other team painted them with water based paint. good times. (:
so much going on, but as usual, my a.d.d. has set in. more later.
hope all is well.
miss you all. <3
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
rolllllercoaster.
lately, things have been crazy. andi know i say that a lot, but i mean really really crazy. good crazy. bad crazy. mainly just crazy crazy.
lets see. i guess i'll start back in bama. the most memorable [seeing as i have the memory of a snickers wrapper] would have to be FLORIDA. so, we're sitting around at 6:15 on friday night [ we ACTUALLY got saturday AAAAAAAND sunday off!] anyhow. we couldn't decide what to do, but all i could think about was how much i missed the beach back home. so, for some unknown reason my crazy teammates actualy humored me when i said all i wanted to do was sleep on the beach. so, the only bus station still going to panama city beach was leaving at 7:30, and it was then like 6:40. annnd it takes an hour to get to the bus station. so we pack our shit as quick as humanly possible. get in the govy topping out at about 102 mph. we got there at 7:26 and the bus left at 7:30. quality! so.. in order to go the 90 miles south [normally just a 3 hour trip] we take a freakin 13 hour bus ride there. we basically went in a huge circle north and east and every freakin way but south...
anyhow. no matter how long it took, we got there at 8:30 in the morning. once we got there the wind was craaaaazy. it would have been suuuch a beautiful sunny day, but the wind chill was cold as hell. we quickly realized we could no way in hell sleep on the beach that night, so we rented the tightest hotel ever. right on the beach, king sized bed and two sets of bunk beds! hahah. mmm. good times. there were seven of us, so we basically laid on the beach cheersing to judy from the greyhound station and life love and liberty? mm. it was crazy and amazing. sunday [easter] we had like a 3 hour trip back. glorious glorious weekend.
other than that, i am now out of bama. back in nawlins with my team and i got to go back to work in the musicians village for the pas two days. so tomorrow morning we are heading out to somewhere aound houston texas for transition week, then my tem and i are going to lake charles louisiana and we'll be working with partners in prayer. doing what exactly no idea. we'll see. (: so so so glad to be back, even though things are different. i so actually miss some tings from bama, mainly being the hawk. mmm.
anyhow. i;m way over the ten minute time limit of camp hopes comps. and i just got yelled at. tiiight.
night kids.
more later i'm sure.
lets see. i guess i'll start back in bama. the most memorable [seeing as i have the memory of a snickers wrapper] would have to be FLORIDA. so, we're sitting around at 6:15 on friday night [ we ACTUALLY got saturday AAAAAAAND sunday off!] anyhow. we couldn't decide what to do, but all i could think about was how much i missed the beach back home. so, for some unknown reason my crazy teammates actualy humored me when i said all i wanted to do was sleep on the beach. so, the only bus station still going to panama city beach was leaving at 7:30, and it was then like 6:40. annnd it takes an hour to get to the bus station. so we pack our shit as quick as humanly possible. get in the govy topping out at about 102 mph. we got there at 7:26 and the bus left at 7:30. quality! so.. in order to go the 90 miles south [normally just a 3 hour trip] we take a freakin 13 hour bus ride there. we basically went in a huge circle north and east and every freakin way but south...
anyhow. no matter how long it took, we got there at 8:30 in the morning. once we got there the wind was craaaaazy. it would have been suuuch a beautiful sunny day, but the wind chill was cold as hell. we quickly realized we could no way in hell sleep on the beach that night, so we rented the tightest hotel ever. right on the beach, king sized bed and two sets of bunk beds! hahah. mmm. good times. there were seven of us, so we basically laid on the beach cheersing to judy from the greyhound station and life love and liberty? mm. it was crazy and amazing. sunday [easter] we had like a 3 hour trip back. glorious glorious weekend.
other than that, i am now out of bama. back in nawlins with my team and i got to go back to work in the musicians village for the pas two days. so tomorrow morning we are heading out to somewhere aound houston texas for transition week, then my tem and i are going to lake charles louisiana and we'll be working with partners in prayer. doing what exactly no idea. we'll see. (: so so so glad to be back, even though things are different. i so actually miss some tings from bama, mainly being the hawk. mmm.
anyhow. i;m way over the ten minute time limit of camp hopes comps. and i just got yelled at. tiiight.
night kids.
more later i'm sure.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
finally.
alright, lets see here.
i probably should have started this thing loooong time ago, buuuut, hey at least i've started it.
well, life as of yet can probably only be described as insane.
here's a little overview of the past... wow three months already?
CTI in denver colorado.
absolutely beautiful. i love love love snow. i lived in marian which is the smaller of the two dorms with onl about 15 other girls, and no visitors! blowout. but i should be moving into walsh [normal dorm] after second round. it was incredible. i met so many amazing people and we did so much. lets see... first NBA game [nuggets vs. warriors] denver aquarium, beautiful downtown denver, we went to boulder which i loved, carrolls and long shots [local bars] kareoke, snow fights, cuddle puddles, and so on. oh not to mention all the training. i.e. cpr, first aid, diversity, disaster, red cross, etc. etc. etc.
i am now a member of the fantastic fire one warriors. my team is incredible, and i am so so so lucky to have them. we dance party and cuddle, and work our asses off on a regular basis. oh, how i adore them. anyhow, when we got our first project we were so stoked! we were stationed in new orleans, working in the musician's village with habitat for humanity and staying at camp hope. amazing. well, we were there about two weeks, and i was absolutely loving it. i love the culture, and working with habitat, and... everything. we were staying at camp hope, which is a gutted out school house that now houses about 800 volunteers at a time. it was hard sharing a room with 16 people, and having horrible bathrooms made out of plywood, and just praying you get hot water in the shower... but i still loved it. we were lucky enough to get real beds! it was great. its insane to think that here we were there almost two years later, and still almost half the previous population is displaced. its really bittersweet down there, because so much of the culture and life has returned, but saint bernard parish [right outside the city] is still a huge wreck. anyhow, the project was going amazingly well, but then i heard i was being deployed to enterprise, alabama. i wasw number one on our team's disaster list, so i had t leave me incredible team and project and head to bama onto a composite team for disaster relieif.
so i guess that leads to where i am currently.
i am on the composite disaster team they call sun 8 [gag. i'm fire all the way.] anyhow. the majority of the team is from the denver campus, but we do have one sacramento person and two perry point kids. then a nother whole team from sacramento came to hrlp out as well. it's been a rollercoaster ride without question. we are staying at the coffee county baptist retreat. its a beautiful house by a lake which we can paddle boat on and such. its lovely. (: it was weird at the beginning to actually be staying in a real house though. we have a fireplace and a dishwasher and a bathtub.....weird! it is hard though staying with 14 girls, and only one bathroom. oy. anyhow. we came right in the middle of the trasition between short term and long term recovery, and because it is a disaster, it is incredibly unorganized. at the beginning we would do things like debris removal, tarping roofs, assesment and scouting, data entry, phone center, etc. we were working with the christ the king, lutheran disaster relief. we recently moved locations, and now we are working out of an old house and all the different short term organizations have come together and we have formed the "Recovery Organization of Coffee County." i think this is a really great experience, but it is definitely frustrating at times. sometimes i feel like my time would be better spent if i were back in new orleans because this is such a self sufficient communtiy, they are already moving into the long term rebuilding phase, and new orleans is still a disaster. i honestly believe this community will be rebuilt within six months, which is incredible, but at the same time sometimes makes me feel like there is no real point for us being here. oh well, we really have helped to make a huge difference in the community and its great; and alabama really isn't that bad, its really beautiful here, and its amazing to experience souther hospitalitly first hand [i thought it was a myth!] hahah. lets seeeee.
beside thaaat.
well, this is silly, but i am pretty stoked about the new things i've learned while being here.
my skills now consist of...
chainlink fencing
tarping
deshingling
fork lift driving
driving that beast flatbed semi [stick shift! hollerrrr]
nailgunning
painting
caulking
baseboarding
chainsawing
roofing
cement mixing
bleacher making
debris removing
assessing
etc.
etc.
etc.
oy, a lot more i'm sure, but i'm pretty content with that so far. (:
anyway. it's been hard because i definitely i miss my family and friends both from home and denver, and.. well all over. but as of yet, i' m pretty content with life at the moment. infact, i think its incredible.
love. love. love.
p.s. sorry i'm a shitty blog poster, this is my first real one...gimme a break. i'll get better. promise. (:
i probably should have started this thing loooong time ago, buuuut, hey at least i've started it.
well, life as of yet can probably only be described as insane.
here's a little overview of the past... wow three months already?
CTI in denver colorado.
absolutely beautiful. i love love love snow. i lived in marian which is the smaller of the two dorms with onl about 15 other girls, and no visitors! blowout. but i should be moving into walsh [normal dorm] after second round. it was incredible. i met so many amazing people and we did so much. lets see... first NBA game [nuggets vs. warriors] denver aquarium, beautiful downtown denver, we went to boulder which i loved, carrolls and long shots [local bars] kareoke, snow fights, cuddle puddles, and so on. oh not to mention all the training. i.e. cpr, first aid, diversity, disaster, red cross, etc. etc. etc.
i am now a member of the fantastic fire one warriors. my team is incredible, and i am so so so lucky to have them. we dance party and cuddle, and work our asses off on a regular basis. oh, how i adore them. anyhow, when we got our first project we were so stoked! we were stationed in new orleans, working in the musician's village with habitat for humanity and staying at camp hope. amazing. well, we were there about two weeks, and i was absolutely loving it. i love the culture, and working with habitat, and... everything. we were staying at camp hope, which is a gutted out school house that now houses about 800 volunteers at a time. it was hard sharing a room with 16 people, and having horrible bathrooms made out of plywood, and just praying you get hot water in the shower... but i still loved it. we were lucky enough to get real beds! it was great. its insane to think that here we were there almost two years later, and still almost half the previous population is displaced. its really bittersweet down there, because so much of the culture and life has returned, but saint bernard parish [right outside the city] is still a huge wreck. anyhow, the project was going amazingly well, but then i heard i was being deployed to enterprise, alabama. i wasw number one on our team's disaster list, so i had t leave me incredible team and project and head to bama onto a composite team for disaster relieif.
so i guess that leads to where i am currently.
i am on the composite disaster team they call sun 8 [gag. i'm fire all the way.] anyhow. the majority of the team is from the denver campus, but we do have one sacramento person and two perry point kids. then a nother whole team from sacramento came to hrlp out as well. it's been a rollercoaster ride without question. we are staying at the coffee county baptist retreat. its a beautiful house by a lake which we can paddle boat on and such. its lovely. (: it was weird at the beginning to actually be staying in a real house though. we have a fireplace and a dishwasher and a bathtub.....weird! it is hard though staying with 14 girls, and only one bathroom. oy. anyhow. we came right in the middle of the trasition between short term and long term recovery, and because it is a disaster, it is incredibly unorganized. at the beginning we would do things like debris removal, tarping roofs, assesment and scouting, data entry, phone center, etc. we were working with the christ the king, lutheran disaster relief. we recently moved locations, and now we are working out of an old house and all the different short term organizations have come together and we have formed the "Recovery Organization of Coffee County." i think this is a really great experience, but it is definitely frustrating at times. sometimes i feel like my time would be better spent if i were back in new orleans because this is such a self sufficient communtiy, they are already moving into the long term rebuilding phase, and new orleans is still a disaster. i honestly believe this community will be rebuilt within six months, which is incredible, but at the same time sometimes makes me feel like there is no real point for us being here. oh well, we really have helped to make a huge difference in the community and its great; and alabama really isn't that bad, its really beautiful here, and its amazing to experience souther hospitalitly first hand [i thought it was a myth!] hahah. lets seeeee.
beside thaaat.
well, this is silly, but i am pretty stoked about the new things i've learned while being here.
my skills now consist of...
chainlink fencing
tarping
deshingling
fork lift driving
driving that beast flatbed semi [stick shift! hollerrrr]
nailgunning
painting
caulking
baseboarding
chainsawing
roofing
cement mixing
bleacher making
debris removing
assessing
etc.
etc.
etc.
oy, a lot more i'm sure, but i'm pretty content with that so far. (:
anyway. it's been hard because i definitely i miss my family and friends both from home and denver, and.. well all over. but as of yet, i' m pretty content with life at the moment. infact, i think its incredible.
love. love. love.
p.s. sorry i'm a shitty blog poster, this is my first real one...gimme a break. i'll get better. promise. (:
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