Hop’s Blog

This one’s going to be a bit long…there were lots of new sights, experiences and insights that greeted us today…

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Came through a long night’s drive into rain and fog in Louisiana. Crossing the Lake Pontchartrain causeway, we began to see the first signs of the devastation that still remained after 16 months since Katrina. Houses and houseboats in the bayous were still damaged, and some were outright destroyed, the walls and contents still littering the ground and water.

Yet the veterans from the previous trip in April ’06 were impressed with how much things had already improved. Gone were the countless of blue tarps over damaged roofs. But still a smattering remained, and damaged roof tiles and garbage piles were plain to see as we drove.

We stopped first at St. Leo the Great Church, the group hosting us, located just north of the French Quarter in a formerly flood-ravaged neighborhood. Again as I started taking pictures of damaged homes (with their gutted refuse at the curb and rescuers’ spray paint marks still on the walls), the veterans told me, “wait until you see the bad stuff.” Already here were signs of repair and people returning to their sparsely populated neighborhoods.

Prior to Mass beginning, some of the primarily African-American parishioners casually greeted we tired travelers outside, with instant thanks and beaming faces. One woman walked to each member of our group with a genuine, warm-hearted hug. In the midst of what could make most people depressed, the men and women of St. Leo’s were dressed in their Sunday best and radiated contagious attitudes of joy and hope. If you didn’t catch the feeling then, it was nearly impossible to escape during the following Gospel Mass…the music and the energy were incredible! We all were touched at how their Mass was a true celebration, as opposed to the lower-key obligation it can become in many of our lives.

(Note to Our Lady of Lourdes parishioners: If you think Father Tim’s masses are long, they pale in comparison to the hour and forty minute marathon we witnessed today…and most seemed like they couldn’t get enough!)

Proceeded up the road to our home for the week: an abandoned middle school that’s just been opened to house volunteers. A couple hundred of us are on bunks in the gymnasium. When Katrina happened, the water was about a foot over the tops of the basketball hoops. Although a lot of work has been done here, like the surrounding neighborhood it’s still musty, damp and on the edge of habitable (not many homes are occupied yet here). It gives us just a glimpse of what conditions were like for the Katrina refugees in the days following the storm, but on a FAR smaller scale.

We’re joined by volunteers from all over, including a lot of college students giving up their last week of holiday break. Each of our groups will have a different house to gut each day. All the work begins tomorrow…until then, we have the afternoon and evening to catch up on some sleep and get to know each other a little better.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 7th, 2007 at 8:44 pm and is filed under New Orleans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.