It's fairly late on our last day in New Orleans, with bags packed ready for an early morning departure. As I think about our time here and the work we did, a few things spring to mind, although I am still sorting through most of this experience (and will continue to do so for some time).
Primarily, I am again reminded of the strength of character of our students and community. The CA students were amazing from the get-go, as were the adults who were on this trip. Nobody wanted to be the one to stop working first, to not help out, to leave some task for someone else.
If you've been a regular reader of this blog, you know that most vans spent their time in the Lower 9th Ward. However, my van (Van 2) spent our first three days in New Orleans painting the inside of the Sims' house here in the Broadmoor neighborhood. When we arrived on Monday morning, we did not know quite what to expect, and many of the students had never held a paint brush, except for those in Jonathan Smith's classes. Soon enough, "cut work", "eggshell white," and the merits of rollers versus brushes were all part of their working vocabulary. At the end of the first day, we had started in on the entry way, living room, one bedroom, and the bathroom. Clyde, a neighbor of the Sims's, approached us on Monday and filled us on in on the details of the storm - water up to the first floor, beloved friends drowning in their kitchens, the loss of community.
When we returned to the mission, tired yet pleased, we began to hear about the job down in the 9th Ward. It was apparent that students felt like they were missing out. Still, on Tuesday morning we all headed back to the Sims' house and began working on the kitchen and back bedrooms. Given a choice to finish all of the interior of the house or to hand the job off to another group, the students in Van 2 voted to see the job through. I could not have been more proud of them. Only on Wednesday, once we finished the entire job, did I realize the magnitude of that decision. The inside of the house looked wonderful when we cleaned up on Wednesday afternoon, leaving the Sims' with a clean, livable space, and our students with a sense of a job well done.
On Thursday, Van 2 joined the other groups in the Lower 9th Ward. And this is the point where I'm not quite certain of what it all means. New Orleans is complicated at best, as is service work THREE YEARS AFTER A CATASTROPHIC EVENT! I find myself wrestling with the meaning of our work here: Is it the value of the work done that matters most? Or does the symbolic value of such a large group matter more? How does seeing the people who are changed by one's work impact the worker? And should that matter? I'm not really sure about any of this quite yet. It was great to hear a number of others - students and adults - struggling with the same issues this week.
I'm not quite sure what "my New Orleans story" will be to those back home...there's too much about the experience to work through. Still, I leave New Orleans grateful for all I have, and more conscious of the need to build service into my "regular" life.
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