Why I Build

New Orleans build day #1

We had a late wake up of 7:30 am this morning, which caused some confusion since it had never actually been announced the day before. Some poor people got up at 6:30 (our normal build wake up) and got ready, only to realize they could have had another hour of sleep. We had an orientation by another B&B alumni who also works for the St. Bernard Project. She told us about the story of the man from whom they lease their offices. He had stayed to wait out the storm. When he went out to assess the damage, he saw a little water trickling his way. Just to be safe, he decided to take his dog and leave for a few hours. In the time it took to grab his dog and a change of clothes, the water was over his knees. He retreated to he second floor of his apartment building and stuck a t-shirt out the window. Someone came by with a boat and brought him to a bank roof for a real rescue. He and the others on the roof set a deadline in their minds... It shouldn't take longer than three days to be rescued. As Molly said, "how long does it take to reach America from America?" Three days stretched into four, four into five and five into six. They waited on the roof, in August Heat, for six days with minimal food and water, before they were finally rescued by the Canadian Mounties. I thought I knew all of the facts and the figures about affordable housing and I thought I knew why I was here. But when Molly was talking it really hit me. She talked about his experiences and why he let's them keep their offices in his building. After waiting on a roof for six days, he thought nobody cared. And to have groups coming down six years later to help him and his community shows that people do. I didn't see that impact in what I was doing until she said that. 

We split into two groups and went off to our build sites.I spent the rest of my day working to correct he mistakes of earlier volunteers. The original French doors on the second story had been salvaged, but the group that had been asked to paint them  had really done a number. Not only did they miss massive spaces and leave lumpy bits in the paint, they painted the glass. They didn't tape and the didn't seem to care. Josh A, Kristina and Christine C worked with me all day to scrape, tape and repaint the door. It was a little frustrating, but I am glad we were able to save the doors. We left a little early, as we were having dinner with our build supervisors (and B&B alumni) and they needed to go home and cook. We went over to Nate and Colin's house, where we had fried chicken and spaghetti. They have a very interesting style of house, which seems to be popular in New Orleans, a shotgun house. There are no hallways, only rooms that you must walk through to get to other rooms. We had a lot of fun meeting their co-workers from the St. Bernard Project. SBP works out of St Bernard Parish adjacent to NOLA. St Bernard Parish is the only county in the history of the US to be declared 100% uninhabitable after a national disaster. Every single house was condemned. They are working to rebuild homes and are currently building their first ground up house. They are a great group and I'm fad I've gotten a chance to work with them.