Highlights from Kreie Fish

This is going to be my last entry for awhile. Who knows? Maybe I’ll wind up in New Orleans again sometime soon. Time will tell. Right now the idea of coming during Thanksgiving or Christmas seems attractive. Maybe flying instead of driving and maybe bringing the entire Kreie clan down. We’ll see.

I go back and forth on the idea of continuing to travel down to New Orleans. Sometimes I convince myself that this will be the last trip for a few years, but then other times I feel like I have to come back once or twice every year. This morning was one of those times that made me feel like I need to come back. We had breakfast with Reverend Lance, Miss Joanne, and Lance’s mother at the Oak Street Café. Just talking with Lance makes me want to keep these trips alive for many years to come. There is so much that still needs to be done in NOLA, and now I feel like I’ve made some lasting relationships down here. Grandma Frances was upset that no one had called her to meet us. So, now I have a reason to go back soon. I need to see Grandma.

I had many highlights on this trip. My first and foremost best memory was this fantastic group that made the trip down from Minnesota. We coexisted in this small house, bumping into each other on every turn, yet the drama was kept to a minimum. We all felt like we were living a real life episode of “The Real World.” But in all seriousness, this Minnesota group was the best – an awesome group of people whose relationships I will carry with me hopefully throughout my life. These folks took this chance to just set their sails for New Orleans and hope for the best. We all took a bit of a leap of faith. This was a courageous, caring group of folks who have left their mark on this city that needed them so much. Thanks, guys, for a trip of a lifetime!!!

I enjoyed the work. My highlight was crawling around beneath the floor of one of the Galvez houses for two days hammering in floor boards. I got extremely dirty hanging out with the roaches, but my work was needed and my nail pounding skills were honed.

We met some super awesome people on this trip! Because we stayed in our own accomodations, we didn’t meet the number of people we met on previous trips, but the people we did meet on Galvez were the best –

Rocky, our med student super worker friend from LSU; Cynthia, the cute-as-a-bug energetic Washingtonian who became Dottie’s new best friend; Rob, Kris, Roya, Jason, Katherine and the rest of the Berklee Music School staff – we’re still jealous that they each got their own rooms at a posh, French Quarter hotel!; take a look at their blog, too: http://berkleeonthebayou.wordpress.com/

the gals from Memphis; Theresa, the New Orleans native who can pound a hammer with the best of ‘em and look good doing it;

Terry - one of our very patient house leaders;

Carol, from Denver who was brave enough to come to New Orleans to work completely on her own; Fran, our friendly neighborhood professor from Detroit; and our Americorp gal pals Alex and Sarah who really knew what they were doing, thank God.

You guys were the greatest! What a gift to get to know you all!!!

Of course our evenings out rocked the house on most nights. Thanks to Kim and Sam for chairing the entertainment committee. Tops for me were Jacque Imo’s and the Rock and Bowl. Here’s to another amazing NOLA adventure. Hope you are touched by this blog in some small way and that you will keep the volunteer spirit flowing. Do your part, do your thing, and be the change!!!!

www.chriskreie.com

Highlights from Jen Beans and Rice

Jen Beans n Rice Blog “Highlights”

Just wanted to drop by and share with you all some of my highlights from our trip. I think my favorite night out had to have been Thursday night at the Rock n Bowl……just getting to hangout with some of our new friends and also listening and dancing to the best Zydeco band ever!! Well I haven’t heard many other Zydeco bands but J. Paul Jr. was great. I just couldn’t stay still, it just made you want to dance, dance, dance and that is what we did. Good times, good times! Some other highlights were the big Tomato festival and seeing the French quarter filled with people and tons of live music….it was great. Ooh and some of my favorite food highlights was our dinner at 13 on Tuesday night (tons of vegetarian and vegan dishes!!!! Yay for me and sam!!), the portabella sandwich on Friday night at Angelini’s was delicious, by far the best mushroom sandwich I have ever had. Oh and the vegetarian delight at Jeaque Imo’s was so awesome…..New Orleans is definitely a great place to get a variety of great food!! Lets see, other highlights included getting a tattoo, staying in our great house, spending time in our awesome neighborhood, meeting new peeps, working our butts off, “glistening” with sweat, how good it felt to take a shower at the end of the work day, meandering through the French quarter on numerous occasions, breakfast with the rev and miss Joanne, spending the day at the animal shelter where I made fast friends with Griselda and Giselle and had the opportunity to play “kitty cat symphony” where I had all the cats attention and they were bobbing their heads and following the toy in unison…., getting to actually meet and talk with “the Jeaque” of Jeaque Imos, our numerous free deserts, meeting and speaking with some of the locals, getting to meet and talk to Ricardo Crespo…..what a great guy he was. Our new friends Cynthia, Justin and Rocky were a blast to hang out with and such great people. I hope that someday we can get together again whether its in New Orleans, The twin cities or somewhere else……that would be awesome….but we will see. I guess as I am writing this, I also have to mention my car ride with the same people for 22 hours each way……..then spending the entire week in the same living quarters. Boy do you get to know people real fast when put into a situation like that…..but it was great. We are just one big happy and dysfunctional family! J Another great trip with a little bit different perspective but great indeed! I wonder when I will be returning to my home away from home again….??? Most likely …….soon enough!

Jen Beans and Rice signing off. (for the time being)

Friday, June 15th

Friday – Our last day on the job. It was a strange morning in that five of us shoved off for the Habitat site while the other five slept just a bit later and went to Animal Rescue New Orleans. (see Carla’s entry for more details on this)

Sam, Angie, Rose, Dottie and I returned to the houses on Galvez. It was more of the same – very similar to the work we’ve been doing all week. I have a few mixed feelings about Habitat now that the week is over. The experience this week has been nothing short of spectacular. We met countless great people and did work that was much needed in the area. But we discovered one hard reality about Habitat. It is unskilled volunteers doing very skilled labor under the guidance of house leaders who themselves have been working with Habitat for only a few short months. Because of this, we constantly built portions of the homes that we not up to proper code or that were flat out wrong. Much of our work during the week involved fixing things we had done on previous days.

But while the endless “fixes” were at times maddening, the overall experience of the week was fantastic. It’s easy to forgive the workers at Habitat considering they are trying to manage 400 volunteers each day, long term volunteers from Americorps, and several house leaders who are just learning to build homes themselves. It’s an awesomely huge undertaking and everyone at Habitat should feel extremely proud of the work they are doing.

One thing, one very good thing, we noticed at Habitat was the way in which they treated their volunteers. It was a very forgiving environment where volunteers where encouraged to try new things and were assured that any mistakes they made would be “ok.” There was a great deal of positive reinforcement on the jobsite that made everyone feel very good about the work we were doing. And we were constantly “forced” to take breaks to stay strong, hydrated and out of the sun.

We commented several times on site, the few of us that have been to NOLA before, that the overall attitude with Habitat was different from the attitude we experienced at Hands On. Habitat long-term volunteers and employees seemed much happier in their work than did the Hands On long-termers. Unfortunately I think we caught Hands On at a period in which many of the volunteers were suffering from some major burnout. That’s not to take anything away from Hands On. The experience with them was fantastic as well. If it wasn’t, we probably never would have wanted to come back.

On a few different occasions we compared this trip and work we did to our experiences on previous trips. Of course there were goods and bads on each trip. In my opinion the experience with Hands On was a bit more rewarding in that we could measure our progress much more easily. If 10 people went into a house to gut it, by the end of the day you could see tremendous progress. Sometimes you even finished a particular job in the course of one day. However, Habitat provided a more laid-back work site environment that was not such a drain on you physically. I liked the actual work we did at Habitat. I learned some new skills and I wasn’t draped in Tyvek all day long.

The moral of the story is that both experiences had their high points and low points, but both were experiences I will reflect on extremely positively and will take with me throughout the rest of my life. I’m grateful for everything these experiences have given me. They’ve changed my life, they’ve opened my eyes to some unfortunate realities in our country, and they’ve afforded me the opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the neatest, kindest, best people I’ve ever met in my life. If you’re reading this and haven’t done a volunteer trip like the ones I’ve taken, you must. You will never be the same.

On Friday we continued to work on the floor system of the unfinished Galvez house. We worked quickly and redid some things that had been done the day before. Our crew was smaller which gave us all a bit more elbow room.

Sam and I spent most of the day working side by side. What a coup it was having Sam join us. He made the trip exponentially better just by being there. I greatly appreciate Sam’s friendship and feel lucky to have shared this experience with him. Thanks, Sam, for your hard work and your drive to get all of us out every night. You were “the best” entertainment director. More music!!! There must be a band playing somewhere!!!

Friday was capped off with another muy fun night. We broke from work a little early to make sure Sam had enough time to get ready and get to the airport. We all bid him and his PT Cruiser a tearful farewell around 4:00. Angie and Kirsten rode out with him to the airport because they needed a rental car for Saturday.

Several of us took naps around the house in the early evening before we, once again, headed to the French Quarter. We did some souvenir shopping along Decatur Street then met Cynthia and Justin at Pat O’Briens for Hurricanes. Janet didn’t order one but experienced the joy of a Hurricane anyway. Our waiter Felix dumped a couple drinks on Kirsten and Janet, giving them a syrupy, bright red shower. Those girls – they just can’t hold their drinks.

We did a bit of a death march through the French Quarter following P.O.’s. We walked and walked and walked, some of our group weaker than the others because they hadn’t eaten in a long, long time. Finally we settled on Angeli’s on Decatur for dinner. By this time it was around 12:00. Dinner at midnight – that doesn’t happen every day. But it was a very good meal and our last chance to hang out with Cynthia and Justin.

Another awesome day in NOLA!