May 15

We got back pretty late last night, so we decided to write yesterday's post this morning because we were extremely tired. Lucky for you readers, that means two posts in one day! Yesterday was actually our shortest work day, but it was just as tiring. One of the sites was working on flooring and the other, dry walling and mudding, same as yesterday. There was actually a third site thrown in yesterday for a couple of people. They got to help clean up all horizontal surfaces (yes it's as easy as it sounds), and they actually readied the house for its final lead inspections, one of the last steps before the family gets to move in. This was really cool for the people involved (ourselves included) because we got to see the difference between some of the beginning stages and the end stages; we were able to get an idea of what all of our efforts would look like in the end. 

There was another addition to our sites yesterday as well, in the form of our dear little Flat Bucky. You'll get to see him in pictures later :)

After finishing up for the day at the work sites, we all headed back to Camp Hope to clean up for a fun night out. We started off the evening by going to the New Orleans Port Authority, where we met up with Paul Matthews, the Director of Community Relations. Paul graduated from Tulane University, but attended Bucknell for his freshman fall semester while Tulane was closed post-Katrina. Small world!

We learned about New Orleans' role in the country's shipping industry and took a cruise down the Mississippi to see the wharfs. We also got to see the French quarter from the river, and took lots of pictures!

After some delicious pizza from Slice, we headed over to the Tulane Campus where we heard from Dr. Lopez, the Dean of the LSU Medical School, about his experience working at Charity Hospital post-Katrina. He had been on duty the night of the storm, and was at the hospital for five days afterwards caring for patients while they waited to be evacuated. There were 200 total patients in the hospital, and 20 ICU patients who had to be transported from the first floor to the second floor due to the flooding. Oh, and can I remind everyone that they were without power the entire time? Talk about a stressful situation. Needless to say, he had a lot of interesting stories to tell us about the experience. After that, we went back to Camp Hope to get some much needed sleep!

KRT love <3

Beth and Ashlynn

(Van 3 all day!!)