it's a hard habitat to break

So as you may know or not know DWR sent me to New Orleans to open up a store. I figure this would be a good time to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. My adventure started on Sunday night as I drove to Camp Hope. Camp Hope is located in Violet, Louisiana, a town in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana uses parishes i stead of counties. It is the home base for the volunteers for habitat for Humanity on The St. Bernard Parish project. Since June 1 2006 they have demoed or gutted out over 2000 Homes. I par-took in 3 guttings in 2 days. We’ll get to that in a bit. Camp hope is an abandoned Elementary school. It is being retro fitted to house volunteers each day. Which means – for now just the basics. Minimal power in each class room (which turns out to be dorm rooms that can house I would say 15-20 people (not coed). Minimal heat. The school has a TV lounge with DVD player, books and board-games. Loaner things like sleeping bags and wool blankets (re-read – Minimal heat). Dining hall, bathrooms with running water and showers.
As I hit Camp Hope and walked towards the office I felt like it was the first day of....well – camp. I went through orientation – met some cool folks from San Francisco, Portland and Seattle (Where are the East Coasters?) This story is starting to get long already – and I haven’t even gotten past night one. SO I will skip some parts here. The only other thing I will say is night one was very cold (minimal heat) Though – truth be told – once I was all zipped up in my sleeping bag – I slept just fine (besides my house last year didn’t have any heat due to a bad furnace – so I got use dot it).
Day1: I was put on gutting detail. Probably due to my mass strength and cunning skills with a crow bar. Actually as a kid I did like to smash things. My toys had a short shelf life. Anyway – I was put on team Black 1 (not sure why all teams were named black –but they were). My team was made of college freshmen from Seattle who were all friends and members of the Youth Coalition for Jesus Christ. Yes – let’s put the Jew with this crew. Coulda put me in the crew from San Francisco. Though I bet Jesus remembers the day I ate a ham and cheese on Yom Kippur one year. (Jews can’t mix meat with dairy – we don’t eat pork – and we are to fast on Yom Kippur. I’d be going to hell if Jews believed in it. Maybe that’s why we are the chosen people. I am so digressing and still have a lot to go. Anyway – my crew was very nice.
All teams gathered in front of Camp hope and we waited. Emerging from the morning fog of New Orleans was our ride. A bought shiny yellow school bus. We all loaded in our coolers and climbed on board for our day of work. A tool truck filled with crow bars, shovels and wheel borrows will meet us later. Ok – so do me a favor and close your eyes and…wait – strike that – you can’t read with your eyes closed. Ok – imagine your home as it sits now. Picture every room. Every item you own sitting. Every Item you own from furniture – to books – to magazines..etc. Now picture a flood of biblical proportions filling your home to the ceiling and beyond. All your items floating along. Then the house drains Items land where they land. Dressers on top of beds. Fridges on their sides. Magazine form a giant paper machete boulder. Now let this sit for a year and a half – and this is where we walk in. Our mission that we so choose – is empty out these houses – right down to the beams. Dressers filled with clothes became very brittle to the touch. We hauled out furniture – clothing- cleared medicine cabinets – dishes. You get the drift (NO PUN INTENDED)
As far as I can tell – house 1 was owned by an older couple. We found 1 rat. Many roaches – and now let’s get the fridge. I recall at orientation they said DO NOT OPEN THE FIDGE. These fridges have been sitting filled with food for a year and a half. For some reason a guy in my group felt it would be funny to open up the fridges. Ah - brilliant idea! Opening the fridge! What an incredible smell you have discovered. Enough about that. You know – once we cleared out the heavy yet brittle furniture and clothes – then it actually got fun. Smashing walls. Round house kicking doors down. Lebo-Smash!
I think this would be a good time to talk about the provisions back at camp hope. The cots were comfy enough – I mentioned the heat – the showers were amazingly hot and powerful (though the floors were a little slimy – Note to self: next time bring shower shoes.) The gave us 3 square meals a day -and then there was the drinking water. The Silver Bullet is what we called it in Black 1. It was FEMA filtered water in a silver can. Tasted like…..well – it tasted like water in a silver can. Basically – it tasted like a silver can. I only bring it up at this point in my long story – is because the owners of house 1 tracked us down at house 2 to thank us. They brought us deli meats of every kind, real water – gator-aide – and candy. They were so amazing. I was so touched by their generosity.
House 2 – the only thing I am going to say about them was – they were big magazine readers. Seemed to be a family. Son and daughter. The son was a big music fan. Primarily of the classic rock genre (had an autographed guitar by Crosby, Stills and Nash). He also had a pin ball machine. The daughter was into Disney videos. Part of our objectives was to salvage anything worth salvaging. Pictures, china, anything we think that could be saved. wE DID PLACE THE GUITAR IN THE salvage pi;l.e Then I believe the family can rummage through the pile. Sometimes we would have to scoot away scavengers going though the salvage pile. In one of the house - one of the scavengers took the fridge. Which - was filled with year old moldy food. Other than a science experiment - I have no clue what the possible value would have been. But one mans trash...
That night we watched Spike Lee’s documentary ‘When the Levy’s Broke’. We also had some soul food for dinner. Collared Greens, Rice and beans. Gawd I miss Soul Food. I used to work for a company that would have a Soul Food Lunch for Black History month.
Day 2: We actually had a recon mission. We went to an already gutted house to look for a woman’s great grandmothers China. It was hidden deep in a closet in her garage. We hunted high and low. We found so much china- but truth be-told I am not surer if Mc Donalds drinking glasses were our objective. As we were about cry uncle - we found a closet in her garage. After mass digging and removal or debris- - we found the China in perfect condition. We called the owner. As we waited I managed to find a a wedding album. ONly one picture was salvageable. None the less - she was so grateful.
Almost done with my story. House 2 day 2 was the worse I encountered. Deceptively big house. Many rooms and the people were pack rats. There was no way to enter the house. We had to walk in on-top of the rubble. Started clearing right way. They had so much stuff. The front bedroom seemed to belong to an older couple. Maybe in their 50's. They had a son and daughter. I think Marc and Megan. Marc was a weight lifter. Had lot of whey protein shakes - and a rusted weight set in the back yard. Was also a hunter - and a big fan of heavy metal. Megan was a ballerina. I also managed to save a statue of a ballerina (it only had a broken hand).
We would clear out as much rubble as possible. Then to save time - we would tear up the rug and roll it up with the debris inside (dry wall and ceiling fragments and insulation). We have may have gotten little ambitious on this house. We rolled up the rug and had a beached whale in the living room. It took all of Black 1 to get this beast out of the house. Good team effort for my last day as a member of black 1.
At the end of day two - I left Habitat for Humanity for my 4 star hotel and took a long hot shower. I have no epilog here. No words of wisdom. No final thoughts and no soap box to stand on. I am glad I had the chance to volunteer the way I did. I only wish I could have stayed longer. Perhaps next time. If anybody would care to join me - let me know. Is anybody still reading? Anybody?

Pix of this adventure can be viewed here. http://web.mac.com/leborocks/iWeb/Site/Habitat%20for%20Humanity%20Pix.html