Thursday - April 19

Hey it's Sephanie Gibbs and get comfortable because ALOT happened today.

So I personally started the day bad seeing as my room mates and I woke up 10 minuets late. Not a great start for Natalie's 17th birthday but whatever. MOVING ON. We reach the the work site today and thank god we had a half day because our work space was cut down to about 16 inches. The boards for the flooring was put up and hammering isn't all that easy with no elbow space.

The Birthday girl!

"Do you see what I see?"

The "Colonel" surveying his troops.

Anyways, at 11:45 we packed up and went to St. Charles Ave Church to see a powerpoint on Katrina flooding.  During lunch, one volunteer introduced the group to a tour guide in training, which another volunteer shortened to T.I.T. ... a mistake we all picked up on and had a good laugh.

After lunch and a few intense games of foose-ball/pool . . .

we broke into our tour groups.

These are some of the "Brad Pitt" houses in the Lower Ninth.

The rebuilt Industrial Canal levee.

Musician's Village was Habitat's first post-Katrina project.

New public housing complex.

Part of the floodgate system on the 17th Avenue canal.

In my group I had Joe, Matt, Ryan, Mackenzie, Kyle, and out guide Francis ... or was it Margaret?  (For some reason, which we still have not figured out why, Joe kept calling our guide Margaret, a fact which we the kids kept from him ... we got yelled at later on for that haha.)  Some how we convinved Joe and Francis to take us on a wild goose chase for Drew Brees (for those of you who don't kno he's a football player-dont worry I didn't know either). After a while, and with the help of google, we found his house and ended up talking to the workers in his yard (his name was Stuart who informed us he couldn't really give infomation on Drew becasue of some contract). I'm getting off topic but whatever, we ending up stealing flowers from his yard and running away. Francis said we were the best tour group she's ever had (we even beat out the tour where all the kids fell asleep and she sat in silence for a full hour).

After droping off Francis, our car had a hilarious trip back to the hotel, yelling out HELLLLLLOOOOO! to those walking by. (We've decided that the people are so nice that they don't even have a "Close Door" button on the elevator.) 

Okay, we're now all back at the hotel and some kids went for a swim . . . 

while others showered and got ready for dinner at Durword and Cathy Dunn's house. 

So now we're all piling back into our stylish white minivans (notice a patern developing yet? thank god gas is like $3.88 down here) and of course, we get stuck in traffic. Not to worry though this traffic was actually really amusing (you'll see in a second). There were crazy painted buses wih people piled on and as we slowing crawled down the street next to this mini parade, we rolled down the windows and they pelted us with martigrass beads (ous car got more beads cause we're cooler).

Once the traffic cleared and we reached the Dunn's AMAZING place, it was time for dinner. They had a loft style with amazing art, 5 levels, and an awesome roof deck view. Ask anyone and they can tell you about the crazy colored glass "chandelier" from Murano above their dinning table. Dinner was great with mac n' cheese, smoked brisket, bread, salad, brownies/cookies, and lemon merange bread pudding. We all trudge up like 20 flights of stairs and watched the sunset (aww so cheesey).

Long story short, we're back at the hotel now, Natalie got like 5 "happy birthday" songs, 2 cards, and an Easter basket (it was half price) of her favorite candy. 

Today was fun but no one has escaped the rath of the New Orlean sun burn and sleeping tonight will be anything but painful. Night!

And a coda from Geralyn . . .

I am impressed with the teamwork on site each day.  Everyday (possibly every minute) you hear laughter, you see kindness, you see teamwork and support. Everyone makes everyone laugh.  We have fun and we are working hard.  Couldn't imagine being in NOLA with anyone but the high school groups!

Friday morning update - Avery informed us that Francis called her as soon as she got home from the tour and said that she had never had so much fun leading a tour!