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Greetings from Chalmette, La.

zuzu

Hi there — just a quick drop-in to let you know that I’m in Louisiana, at the base camp from where my Habitat group is operating to gut houses in St. Bernard Parish. I don’t get much internet time, so I have to make this quick.

Very hard work, very tiring day. The homeowner was at the site where my group was working, and the house had already been half-gutted by another team when we showed up. Lots of moldy drywall and dust-choked carpet to take out. I didn’t think we’d finish, but we did, with the exception of one tile wall.

I’m off to the airport to pick up someone who missed her plane Sunday. I myself lost my wallet between the apartment and the airport, but luckily had thought to bring my passport. And also luckily, my neighbor found the wallet and slipped a note under my door, which my catsitting friends found today.

More later.

12 thoughts on Greetings from Chalmette, La.

  3. thanks so much for coming down to help out. my family is in new orleans proper and our house was one of the lucky ones that only got a little wet around the floorboards. but my wife worked in chalmette. because she was the manager at her work, she was in the first group of people let back in. it was a devistating blow to see everything so destroyed. so many of our friends lost everything. and even now, seven months later, new orleans, st. bernard, st. tammany, & plaquemines are still not back to anything close to normal. sure, we had mardi gras, but if you strayed more than a block off the parade route, devistation was still everywhere. i think that everyone i know has some degree of ptsd. i get these great waves of survivor guilt as well as the whole ptsd thing because our home wasn’t totally destroyed and we were able to more-or-less return to normal as of the end of november. but thanks to a lot of great volunteers and people who are still caring about what’s going on down here, we all just might make it through. thank you.

  6. i think what you’re doing down there is absolutely wonderful. isn’t FEMA kicking volunteers out though? as i understand it, the DHS is bringing in bible-thumpers to convert the heathens while they provide assistance. i hope this is not accurate. best regards.

  7. What you’re doing is great. I have met many people who work and volunteer for Habitat and I have not witnessed them ever being Bible-thumpers but rather actually being Christian – what a concept. Good for you.

  10. i think what you’re doing down there is absolutely wonderful. isn’t FEMA kicking volunteers out though? as i understand it, the DHS is bringing in bible-thumpers to convert the heathens while they provide assistance. i hope this is not accurate. best regards.

    FEMA is playing games with the camp funding, so the various groups who are at the camp are setting up a new, non-FEMA one. And we did meet a couple of Bible-thumpers the first day with “Chaplain” on their T-shirts. Not sure who they were with, though, since I had to run out and get my ID to finish registering and when I came back in the tent, they were there. VERY heavy on the ONLY JAYSUS CAN GET YOU THROUGH THIS! crap, which I found pretty insulting in a heavily-Catholic area and a non-Bible-thumpy organization.

    Today, we had a new house, with much much muck. I spent a lot of the day cleaning out a closet that had rusted shut and was filled with wet, stinking clothes. We’re going back tomorrow, and I promise I’m getting out to the Walgreen’s today so I can get a cord to connect to the internet with.

    And thank you for all your kind words. I’ll have much more when I get my own laptop connected, including the pictures I took today.

  11. Your work is much appreciated zuzu! My best friend from college is from Chalmette and she sent pics last week. Her mom died when the levees broke – she said FEMA’s been worthless and its still such a mess down there.

  12. Yes, please keep posting, zuzu. My boyfriend and I are headed down the first week of June. We’re going for vacation but will spend a couple of days working with an organization to help out. I was hoping by the time we got to visit it would be mostly cleaned up, but it doesn’t sound like that will be the case at all.

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