Today we worked at a different site. This is a house that is almost ready for the resident to move back... actually, she bought this house after hers was torn down, but it's hers now! Nick and Beth were working on drywall, and putting blinds up, and I was taping drywall, and getting a bit better at it.
The project's neighborhood has mostly brick houses, and is coming back more quickly than the first one... maybe 25% of the places show signs of being worked on or occupied. One sign of this came in the form of two moving vans which stopped outside the house.
Out jumped two fellows selling bedroom sets door to door... like some sort of Fuller Brush Man thing. They rang the bell and started their spiel, but we said we weren't interested... still, a couple from down the block came out. We watched as the stairs came out, and the rear van was converted to a sort of showroom. Capitalism at its best!
For the first time I had two different projects to compare. I spent a long time thinking about who should be helped when the whole town is hurting... the first project was for a disabled war veteran, and a Native American. This one is for a woman, I've never met her. Does any of that matter? Shouldn't it just matter that the homes are owned by people? This has been puzzling me, and I don't have a good answer.
I now know the projects I'll be doing after tomorrow... the weekend I'll be doing things for church members, and next week I may be working with Project Acorn, in the lower 9th ward... or for another local group... we shall see.
My back was slowing me down a bit... I didn't do exercises this morning, and that may have contributed to the situation.
As we were going out to the site, we passed a dump truck with stuffed animals on it. I guess the driver didn't have the heart to throw these lost toys into the landfill, so they get a home on the rails. Tonight the truck was parked across from the church, so I got a good shot of it. It makes for a small bit of jolliness in an otherwise grim landscape. I can't imagine being a kid in the city these days.
At dinner the waitress heard that we were down to work, and she came over and said thank you. A sweet and genuine end to another day of work.
1 comment:
Charlie, your "Does it matter?" question struck me as I had shared similar thoughts when I began volunteer work in NOLA last April. As we worked with different families, I learned that each has their own story and need for help. What they have in common is that they've reached out for help at a very vulnerable time in their lives.
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