The Crawfish 5

Our team (Bill & Lea, Dave, Carol, and Carl) has been working on Jimmie’s home on Bayou Grand Caillou. Mostly we have been painting the exterior, but also have patched a hole in the floor, put trim around a door, and fixed the toilet. Jimmie and Adele have been home the whole time, as well as their rat terrier Nana, so we’ve been getting to know them over the last four days. Jimmie said he’s really glad to have us around, since they don’t get much company except when his momma comes over (he’s confined to a wheelchair and it’s difficult for him to get out.)

We also met one of his cousins who came by with a friend to clean the three alligator gar he’d just caught. We got to meet the neighbors on the other side too, who were preparing their crab traps to go out crab fishing. Crab season here is much longer than in San Francisco.

Monday through Wednesday we had good painting weather (no rain.) But last night a big paint. We did some work inside in the morning, and then were able to get back to painting in the afternoon.

Carl

The Cousins Thursday, Lena's daughter

We were greeted as usual by Lena's smile. Since we seemed to have some sun peeking through after last night's storm, Mike immediately started in the second railing on the front steps. STEPS FINISHED by noon! Ina Marie and Pat, master finishers, completed upper and lower kitchen cabinets, and with that we are ready for the doors in the morning. Marv and Bruce installed trim on all the cabinets. All these details are making it really look great.

Midday and all of us were thinking about food, when along came the younger kids of the group with ICE CREAM!! What a great, timely surprise.

After lunch, Ina and Pat decided to take the afternoon off. Marvin, Mike and Bruce did some carpentry work, finishing the bedroom floor trim and other details.

About 3 PM Marvin came over to get Ina and Pat because Lena's daughter Carmen and Husband Bruce had come from Mississippi to meet us. They were delightful with great stories of Mardi Gras in Houma, tug boating (Bruce is a Captain) and family. We shared family photos and stories, took lots if pictures and left with Ina Marie abd Pat laden with strings and strings of Mardi Gras beads.

Tomorrow we will be treated to Lena's cooking. No breakfast needed with the fabulous menu she has planned: Ris'e feve (rice & peas), shrimp gumbo, red beans and rice, crab cakes, home made bread and chocolate cake. Can we take her home?

Pat Blaikie, our journalist

I scream, you scream, we all scream....

Today the children, Pastor Linda, and I finally got to see the houses everyone is working. What a lot of work everyone has done, and what a lot of work remains to be done. Jim said today that he wished he could have one more week to do all that he would like to do. Bodie was our videographer as we visited the houses and distributed ice cream cups as a treat for our workers – and the homeowners if they were there. It was great fun to see what our church family has been doing for the past few days.

Every story is so touching. It is so hard to imagine what it was like to have two hurricanes go through and destroy so many homes. Most of the houses we are working on were flooded by Rita, but one house we visited today was not flooded. It was destroyed by the rains that came if after Hurricane Katrina blew off the roof. The owners of that house will be joining us for dinner tonight. They are members of the Houma tribe and we are looking forward to hearing more about the tribe from them.

The best part of this week has been meeting the people who were affected by the hurricanes and hearing their stories. Even after two and a half years, it is part of the healing process for them to be able to share their stories over and over again. I feel privileged to be here to be part of that process.

Cheryl 2/21/08

California Cousins

Mon: Arrived at Lena’s around 3pm Monday. Surveyed the jobs and decided to Mike would continue to work on the laminate floor with Ina and Pat as moral support/gophers. Marvin and Bruce took on the completion of kitchen cabinets. Lots of engineer discussion lead to a decision for corner cabinet placement that works well with Lena’s stove.

Trial and error lead to success on Mikes flooring job. Two boxes needed to complete the job.

The engineers will create a great corner area with a stained plywood side, stained to match the cabinets. Lena said she’s very happy we are here. She is a real sweetie.

Tues: The right tools make all the difference, ah yes! Once we had them we hit full speed.

Marvin and Bruce worked on kitchen cabinets, upper and lower. Solid!

Mike continued the not-so-easy task of installing laminate flooring backward. (A method he unfortunately inherited from a previous volunteer. This method requires frequent mental health breaks).

Ina Marie and pat began the staining of cabinet doors. At the end of the day upper cabinets were indoors, stained and flooring finished (and documented on film).

Wed: Arrived around 8:30 am to Lena’s smiling face. She is enjoying our time here as much as we are.

Ina stained kitchen cabinets and with Pat varnished cabinet doors. Cabinets will be varnished tomorrow. Lena did the honors on the last of the doors.

Bruce and Marvin installed the lower corner cabinet and trim all around. It is looking GREAT!

By noon Mike had finished the decks front steps and started on railings.

The afternoon resulted in Mike’s completion of one side railing on the front. Other side started and will be completed tomorrow. Thanks to the expertise of our resident engineers Lena now has really solid upper and lower cabinets in her kitchen. Staining thanks to Ina Marie and ready for tomorrows varnish. Pat varnished the cabinet doors, which are now ready for installation.

Tomorrow Lena will have put together, nice kitchen. Good thing. She’s cooking for us on Friday.

Hang 10

“Hang 10” is our team name.

Why? Because there are ten of us.

Because we come from California.

Because we hang sheet rock.

Because cool, dude.

Every team has created its own cheer. Our cheer is:

Hey dude!

What do we do?

Make sheet rock rock.

Besides hanging sheet rock, we have learned how to mud it, sand it, tape it , then sand it again. We learned the importance of “measure twice, cut once.” We learned that a new window, set in place, still needs pieces of sheet rock cut carefully to fit around it, and strips of metal edging held in place by many nails. By pounding nails we learned why the name sheet “rock” is apt.

Our team has six adults and four youth. This morning team (adult) and the four youth went on a swamp trip. When they were asked if they saw anything different, they replied with “everything.” It was flat. The weather was cold and windy. They learned the difference between a bayou, swamp and marsh. It was eerie and weird, with hanging Spanish moss and creepy trees. They saw the last remaining grove of Cypress trees still living, and they have little spikes under them coming out of the water. They saw oil rigs and man made oil canals. They learned about a way to catch fish called “cast netting” One of them said that there must be a lot of wild life here because they hunt almost anything that is possible. They saw a dead alligator. They saw lots of blue herons, and it was cool to see them flying around in their natural setting.

The youth came back to the center after their trip. We all had lunch, and a short devotion together as a team, and went back to work in our job sitefor the rest of the day.

-Susan Sargent

Bodies' s Swamp Day

Day three since arrival

Today i went on a swamp tour with Cheryl, Pastor Linda, Katie and Christian. On the tour we saw lots of birds, trees, and dirty water, but no aligators. After we went on our tour we found a picnic table and had lunch. We enjoyed good conversation and a great time. Tomorrow will be another adventure in Louisiana

Hey Y'all!!

Hey Yall what up in California where there are no bugs!

It is day two in the great state of Louisiana, and everything here is going swell. Did you know that Louisiana is the number one state in oil production? Crazyness i know! Also in Louisiana there are many critters that the youth are not found of such as; snakes falling out of trees, ant that will make you strip, ( the only way to get them off of you is to take off all of your clothes), Aligators that you can not out run and oh yeah, them DANG MOSQUITOS! It is a totally different world out here, this really is an eyeopening experience.
It was our first day on the job today, but unfortunately we were not able to work for long. The day started off with breakfast as a group, fallowed by meeting in the church for orientation, later on the group leaders went to vist the sights and got acquainted with the families whom homes are getting restored.
Our house needs quite a bit of work, we are going to be able to demolish a bathroom and try and rebuild it all with in a week. Now I have to tell you all about the man of our house Martin. Martin is this great fellow with great stories. He had this one about how he had a racoon that would fallow him around and do what ever h said he was trained and tamed to do what Martin wanted. Martin would call for the racoon to get in his truck and he would listen. While he was in the truck he loved to play with the windows so he would ride e street with the racoon rolling up down the windows. The neighbors would get a kick out of it.
Well now it is time for us to go do group bonding, sing songs, and get to know people better. Stay updated with our trip by checking the blogs daily. Talk to yall tomorrow.

In Peace and Love ,
Kelly Corrine