Thursday May 16

Thursday May 16

As our week with St. Bernard Project has come to an end, we all reflect on our time working on Miss Cassandra's and Miss  Cynthia's homes. Today, at Miss Cassandra's house we continued to hang drywall and worked to mud and paper tape all the walls. Although both jobs can be frustrating and even tedious at times, it was very rewarding when a piece a drywall was measured to fit perfectly or when Taylor, our site supervisor, commented on the flawlessness of the paper tape. Even though we faced some minor set backs at the beginning of the week, such as not having enough large pieces of  drywall, we didn't get discouraged. We all put in a tremendous amount of effort and we were able to complete some, although we wished we could have completed all, of the week's goals. As we were cleaning up and taking some group pics, some neighborhood kids stopped by. They were brother and sister and were interested in what we were doing. After we told them about our work at Miss Cassandra's house they asked if they could help, and we had to tell them they couldn't because they were too young. But we can all agree that it was very heartening to see their willingness to help a neighbor that they did not know. It was definitely a great way to end our time at Miss Cassandra's house. 

Over at Miss Cynthia's house we continued to work on the floors. The group was able to finally finish tiling the kitchen floor! Yay! Everyone at Ms. Cynthia's house can definitely attest to the frustration and difficulty with flooring, which made finishing the kitchen floor that much more rewarding. Maddie and Ashlyn worked all day on trying to finish up the laminate wood floor in another room and unfortunately were not able to finish. But Marta, the site supervisor, said to look at it as a metaphor for New Orleans. It has almost been 8 years since Katrina hit and there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done. The city is not finished being rebuilt. Our work here isn't done. The unfinished floor is a testament to that. So as disappointing as not finishing the floor may have been, we all can use that as a reminder to continue to return to this city that we have all fallen in love with. 

After taking lots of pictures of the work we have done and the houses that are one step further to being completed, we headed back to Camp Hope to get ready for Rock'n'Bowl. We were all really excited for the Zydeco  music and dancing. Some of us were also excited for the appearance of a certain site supervisor.

We all showed off our bowling and dancing skills, some more skilled than others. Regardless, we all danced the night away. Janice and Ben were even able to steel a dance with each other. Some of the SBP staff also came and we all had an awesome time with them. Rock'n'Bowl is definitely the coolest bowling alley that we've, or at least I, have been to. It also had the best bowling alley food that I've ever had. 

All together, today was a great work day! We said goodbye to Miss Cassandra's and Miss Cynthia's homes and the fantastic SBP staff. And incase you were wondering, Taylor, the awaited SBP supervisor,  did go to Rock'n'Bowl, so we were able to leave with a proper goodbye. Although we're sad that we won't be working with SBP tomorrow, we are off to work with Grow Dat Youth Farm! Let the farming begin.

KRT Love, 

Fallon