Author – Grant
Based In – New Orleans
Today’s Photos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/32017704@N03/sets/72157613767017405/
I’m writing this on the morning of Day 102 and the very effort involved in typing is making me consider hiring a personal assistant for the day. Primarily my knees hurt from 8 hours spent resting my considerable bulk on them whilst tiling a floor in what is now not-so-jokingly referred to as The Asbestos Room. But take away the knee pain and it’s a toss up between my back, arms and legs for the runner-up spot in the Sore Olympics. We’re supposed to be running 6 miles in a few hours but I’m not sure I could drive 6 miles at the moment and Kate hasn’t stirred yet today. Laugh all you want at the two office workers who haven’t done a proper days work in their lives (I don’t remember my heart beat increasing once during 12 years of banking except when those two new secretaries were hired) but two days of manual labour has completely floored us. So by the end of the day, for the first time in over 100 days of this trip, we were both blissfully aware that it was the weekend and that means a two day break from the hard graft.
So rather than work on a specific New Orleans resident’s Katrina damaged house, we continued to work on the apartments next to the church today which doesn’t quite have the same feel good factor. I decided to dig a little deeper today and it turns out that if residents haven’t come back to claim their properties within a certain time period after the storm then ownership passes onto the city who then flog them off cheaply to any willing buyers. In stepped the church about a year ago who, presumably, bought all ten apartments for a pittance and now have a gaggle of free labour to help fix them up. This is causing me to ride an emotional roller coaster and I still haven’t decided if I get off particularly happy or not. Let me explain…
Good Thing = The apartments aren’t left to rot.
Bad Thing = Their original owners have lost their apartments for ever.
Good Thing = Once renovated, they will house more volunteers (many of whom are currently sleeping in the church or a makeshift shed across the road from it) which means better workers to renovate more houses for real New Orleans tenants who will, one day, live in their homes once more.
Bad Thing = Once the volunteering is over (i.e. when New Orleans is ‘fixed’) then presumably the church will sell them and profit from flipping apartments picked up cheaply through adversity and worked on by volunteers (it’s a bad thing in my eyes because I don’t like the thought of further bulging the coffers of the church who already seem hyper-rich in comparison with the average wealth level of the people they preach to)
Good Thing = But they may use these funds to invest in other community projects.
So you can see that I’m a confused fella and whilst working on the apartments isn’t as fulfilling as directly working on real people’s houses, I should console myself that it isn’t as bad as being assigned to the crew that is cleaning the church which is, presumably, being funded by the money raised in the name of the First Street Restoration Project. Personally I’d be a bit miffed at the thought that my charitable donation was being used to buff the reverend’s pews rather than build Mrs Ida a new k
itchen because her old one is scattered across Louisiana and Mississippi. Still, all this ranting is just venting because, come Monday morning, we’ll be there at 8am and will do whatever they tell us to because we’re wimps. Writing all this also means that I can’t pass on the blog to any of the other volunteers as they would probably be appalled at what an unchristian asshole I am. And, of course, they would be right.
Based In – New Orleans
Today’s Photos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/32017704@N03/sets/72157613767017405/
I’m writing this on the morning of Day 102 and the very effort involved in typing is making me consider hiring a personal assistant for the day. Primarily my knees hurt from 8 hours spent resting my considerable bulk on them whilst tiling a floor in what is now not-so-jokingly referred to as The Asbestos Room. But take away the knee pain and it’s a toss up between my back, arms and legs for the runner-up spot in the Sore Olympics. We’re supposed to be running 6 miles in a few hours but I’m not sure I could drive 6 miles at the moment and Kate hasn’t stirred yet today. Laugh all you want at the two office workers who haven’t done a proper days work in their lives (I don’t remember my heart beat increasing once during 12 years of banking except when those two new secretaries were hired) but two days of manual labour has completely floored us. So by the end of the day, for the first time in over 100 days of this trip, we were both blissfully aware that it was the weekend and that means a two day break from the hard graft.
So rather than work on a specific New Orleans resident’s Katrina damaged house, we continued to work on the apartments next to the church today which doesn’t quite have the same feel good factor. I decided to dig a little deeper today and it turns out that if residents haven’t come back to claim their properties within a certain time period after the storm then ownership passes onto the city who then flog them off cheaply to any willing buyers. In stepped the church about a year ago who, presumably, bought all ten apartments for a pittance and now have a gaggle of free labour to help fix them up. This is causing me to ride an emotional roller coaster and I still haven’t decided if I get off particularly happy or not. Let me explain…
Good Thing = The apartments aren’t left to rot.
Bad Thing = Their original owners have lost their apartments for ever.
Good Thing = Once renovated, they will house more volunteers (many of whom are currently sleeping in the church or a makeshift shed across the road from it) which means better workers to renovate more houses for real New Orleans tenants who will, one day, live in their homes once more.
Bad Thing = Once the volunteering is over (i.e. when New Orleans is ‘fixed’) then presumably the church will sell them and profit from flipping apartments picked up cheaply through adversity and worked on by volunteers (it’s a bad thing in my eyes because I don’t like the thought of further bulging the coffers of the church who already seem hyper-rich in comparison with the average wealth level of the people they preach to)
Good Thing = But they may use these funds to invest in other community projects.
So you can see that I’m a confused fella and whilst working on the apartments isn’t as fulfilling as directly working on real people’s houses, I should console myself that it isn’t as bad as being assigned to the crew that is cleaning the church which is, presumably, being funded by the money raised in the name of the First Street Restoration Project. Personally I’d be a bit miffed at the thought that my charitable donation was being used to buff the reverend’s pews rather than build Mrs Ida a new k
itchen because her old one is scattered across Louisiana and Mississippi. Still, all this ranting is just venting because, come Monday morning, we’ll be there at 8am and will do whatever they tell us to because we’re wimps. Writing all this also means that I can’t pass on the blog to any of the other volunteers as they would probably be appalled at what an unchristian asshole I am. And, of course, they would be right.Here endeth today’s lecture. Molly needs to go back to the vet for a bunch of x-rays to finally figure out why she limps like a prominent Nazi leader as her rest and anti-inflammatory experiment was clearly a flop. Oh, and it’s Valentines Day so I need to write Kate’s card before she wakes up. If she hasn’t got me anything after the anniversary debacle then please address all future correspondence solely to Grant.
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