Thursday….Hard Days Work with a Southern Association Welcome

Today, like most other days, was hot and rainy. It is a very strange combination of weather we have experienced. Almost every day this week, it starts out warm, then rains, and then gets warm, and then we get some lightening and thunder and this continues all day. It’s nice because the rain cools it down, but otherwise, it is just interesting.

So Thursday became a very special day because instead of being served pre-made sandwiches that were a little soggy, chips and a brownie, we got to go out to eat! Even better is we got to go to Sonic – so dessert was also included! It was very nice and very much needed. The power of leaving the worksite for just a little while is unbelievable. We all came back from lunch rejuvenated and ready to finish the day. On top of getting to go out to eat for lunch, we also took a little time to try and find some of the devastated areas. Although we didn’t find much, there were still some houses demolished or not lived in with big red X’s on the front. The coolest part was we saw a drawbridge for the shrimp boats to pass by and were lucky enough to get stopped by the draw bridge and got some great pictures.









After finishing off another day of painting – which by the way we consider ourselves to be experts at and will be offering our services for a small fee - we traveled back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.

Thursday’s dinner was hosted at the Mobile Area Association of REALTORS® office in the historic district of Mobile. It is a beautiful building!! The highlight of the building is their board room; kitchen and classroom have French doors with plantation shutters that open up to a huge brick patio for entertaining. It had built in brick seating, flowers, cast iron chairs and tables and even a portable fire pit! We learned they do most of the parties in house and they should because it is a beautiful place! The food was great. Roast beef, mashed potatoes with onions, bacon and cheese, green beans and rolls. For dessert was an ice cream sandwich cake topped with whipped cream, caramel and harden chocolate (makes you hungery, right?). Dinner was followed by some history of their association and some knowledge of how a hurricane hits and the importance of knowing where it comes from.

After dinner a few of us wanted to continue the night and it was suggested we go to a local bar, Bo Jangles. It turned out to be a very local bar with a great atmosphere. Some of the volunteers (Judee and Todd) joined us for some pool and drinks. There were many laughs, snorts and stories shared – many of which we vowed never to repeat, but know that an unforgettable, great night was had! After about an hour, we decided we should call it a night because we had another early day.









That was it for Thursday. Only one more day until the end of our work! It is exciting and sad all at the same time. Check back for how our last day went!

Lights, Camera, Action!

Wednesday was a really really REALLY early day. So early, I almost forgot to wake up! We were suppose to be in the lobby in between 5:15-5:30 AM. I gracefully stop, dropped, and rolled out of bed at about 5:10 missing both of my alarms. I guess the lady at the front desk was trying to locate me, calling my room frantically. I couldn’t hear her amongst the loud scrapping of my white Colgate toothbrush against my molars and the steady stream of running water. I finally heard a knock at my door at 5:30am and it was the front desk person making sure I was up. Of course I was up! I just move like a zombie sometimes at hours when the sun hasn’t risen. When we arrived at the work site, the Mobile CBS affiliate news van was already there, with their big lighting attracting rod satellite erected from the van. It was the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and they came to us for a special report. They were going to film us working on putting the roofs on some sheds for one hour while giving the morning newscast. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to finish the sheds. We just worked on them for the newscast. There were only 2 sheds for the 14 of us to share and with that many people, it was hard for us all to be working on the sheds at the same time. However, Kim did manage to play and intricate part in the success of the publicity spot by holding a ladder and handing wood to the people on the roof. Kim passed along three $100 gift certificates from Walmart to one of the Habitat directors. The certificates were to be donated to the 3 families who’s homes were being dedicated that afternoon. The day raged with Sahara desert style heat mixed with on and off waves of rain. Roger, Kim and I finished painting the trim on house 1 and moved on down to do the same with house 6. Some of us ran into some Alabama wildlife that afternoon. Todd received a lovely wasp sting which was calmed within 10 minutes by applying a penny to the affected area. I ran into Freddy, a little tree frog that was hiding out in the port-o-potty. For the 3rd day in a row, we had soggy sandwiches for lunch while some of our group that was working on another site got to eat fast food. We ended our work early at around 2pm and returned back to La Quinta Inn to rest up before dinner. The hotel is under construction. I was watching one of the workers paint and almost wanted to pick up a brush and join in. Actually, from all the painting I’ve been doing this week, I’ve noticed that the door in my hotel room’s bathroom looks exactly like the ones I’ve been painting on he Habitat site. I’ve been critiquing it all week. There are a lot of drips on the door that shouldn’t be there! Another great thing about my bathroom was the jie-enormous cockroach that was laying belly up on the floor. It was struggling for life, breathing it’s last breath. I don’t like big, ugly bugs. I ended up throwing a mound of every towel from the room over the creature so the cleaning people could take care of it and I wouldn’t have to stare at it! That night, we ate at Ed’s seafood restaurant which was located off the causeway in Mobile Bay. Home of the "Yo Mama" platter, Ed's was surrounded by water! The highlight of this experience was the singer on the porch at the end of the night. He managed to sing for an encore an acoustic version of Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” mixed with Weird Al’s “Amish Paradise.” I don’t think any musician should ever do this if they plan to have a long standing career.

Delay of Post

Due to the bad internet connection in our hotel room after the thunderstorm yesterday, Thursday's post will be delayed. We hope to have it up Friday afternoon.

Thank you!!

Poll answers

Because both of the polls have closed, here are the real answers!

Question 1: Who will sleep the most after the 15 hour drive?
Bill and Kim were tied, and both answers are wrong!
Ramona actually slept the longest. Kim slept the least!

Question 2: Who will do most of the driving on this trip:
You answered Bill and you were correct! But what you weren't correct on is who would drive the 2nd most! It was actually Kim everyone though you all thought it would be a hired driver!! (P.S. We wish it was a hired driver!!)

Check back soon for another poll!

Tuesday ends with a Fantastic Dinner!

Tuesday came and went and a lot more work was done. We completely painted every door and trim in a house (if it sounds like a small task, it wasn’t!!) and cleaned up some of the other worksites. Every day we are pushing ourselves a little more, but the end of the week, we will not only see the difference we have made to the houses but see the differences in ourselves (especially since we are all sweating so much, weight is flying off—well at least we hope it is!).

Tuesday night we were invited to a dinner hosted by the Alabama Association of REALTORS®. Our hosts were:
J. Danny Cooper, Executive Vice President of the Alabama Association of REALTORS®
Carl Clark, Governmental Affairs Assistant of the Alabama Association of REALTORS®
Lee Metzger, a local REALTOR®.

The restaurant, which opened in 1938, was Wintzells Oyster House. Now, 69 years and several hurricanes and tropical storms later, the restaurant is not only still in business but one of the most popular restaurants in the historic downtown district of Mobile, Alabama. Getting to the restaurant we saw some of the most beautiful houses we have seen yet! The area is surrounded with beautiful trees, houses and businesses!

After eating some delicious meals like Fried Pickles, Fried Green Tomatoes, West Indies Salad, Seafood Gumbo, Shrimp and Oysters, we were very whole-heartedly thanked for coming to Alabama and helping rebuild the lives people who were displaced by Katrina. The told us of the importance of what we are doing and how personal of a gift we are giving and how not only they were affected, but their city, state and how they helped others. It was a very uplifting, great time. And the desserts weren’t bad either!! One last thing, the dinner was topped off by our terrific waitress, Ms. Pinky! She was entertaining, knowledgeable and a very accurate waitress!

Not only did we have a great dinner, but we were even given the chance to win some door prizes! Some won birdhouses, Kim one a cookbook (this will be funny to some!), Ramona won a REALTOR flag, and one person was lucky to win a beautiful REALTOR® blanket.

But the best part of the night came when we were all presented with an award from the Governor of Alabama, Bob Riley. Each of us volunteers was made Honorary Colonels of the State of Alabama! With the award we got a certificate with an official Governor seal and a list of what the Honorary Colonel can do.

On our way home, Todd, another volunteer who will be the 2008 Dekalb Board president, told us the story Piggly Wiggly (after seeing the store Winn Dixie) and even sang us the theme song from it! It was quite entertaining!

We arrived back at the hotel and quickly went to sleep since we had to meet in the lobby at 5:30am because we were going to be on T.V. at 6:00am! Look for that story coming later!

Lastly…there will be some pictures posted later today or tomorrow! Ramona and I both forgot our cameras, so we are just waiting for another volunteer Roger to email us the photos!

Sweat, Paint, and a Dedication

Needed to take a break from the blog yesterday to be rested up for what we faced today. I (Ramona) would like to mention one of the highlights of Sunday night before we all went to bed. We played a game of Canasta which I haven't played in several years. Since I had 4 canastas in one round, I ended up winning at nights end! That put me in a good mood and aided me in securing a good nights sleep. We rounded our troops up at 7:15 in the lobby of our hotel, La Quinta Inn. Managing to make it on time, I was able to scrounge up some nice continental type breakfast foods to nourish my early morning empty stomach syndrome. We left for the job sight at 7:15am! On the way, we shared stories of Mendenhall and New Orleans with Pam who is the AE of Mainstreet Organization. It seems like everyone on the trip had gotten word of what we did in Mendenhall as all the volunteers were asking about our experience there throughout the day. The neighborhood we are working is has 37 plots with 31 houses already up and about 5 with families already living in them. We gathered our talents and divided the tasks for the day. Some of us painted, some built stairs, a porch, sanded, spackled...you name it and someone was doing it. The Habitat crew was surprised at our talent level and couldn't keep up with giving us jobs to keep us busy...but there was so so much to do and we managed to find something. It was a long, hot, HOT day! I don't know how I ended up wearing 3 layers of t-shirts that day! At 3pm we finished our day and headed down to the end of the block for a home dedication for the Lyons family. What a touching ceremony filled with prayer and a blessing over the home. The family was so thankful and even though our team didn't work on that particular home, they thanked us as we are contributing to the completion of so many other homes on the site. It was a great experience to chat with the kids and hear how excited they were for their new home!

The history of the waters of New Orleans

Today we embarked on a journey no one was expecting. While looking through the hotel information binder, we saw an ad for Cajun Pride Tours. It sounded interesting so we checked it out online. After looking at everything they had to offer, we decided to go on a Swamp tour with a City/Cemetery tour afterwards. Our van picked us up to take us to the swamp tour. We were excited, little did we know we were going to meet a very informative, nice, outgoing, opinionated driver/tour guide named Kathy. Within minutes she started telling us the real story behind Katrina. She even took us the “long way” to the swamp tour so we could see a little behind the scenes look at some small sections of the communities that was affected. Words can’t express the sad nature these homes are in still 2 years later!!! Kathy then proceeded to tell us her story.

Kathy’s Story: First let me say that Kathy was still very upset about the Katrina aftermath so I think some of her story may have been a little exaggerated for us to get the picture. She has been a tour guide for New Orleans for 27 years. When Katrina hit, she and her father had to get out. The National Guard made everyone move out with barely having time to grab clothes. Before heading out she got injured. Her foot was so bad she had to go to the hospital which was situated in the Lord & Taylor store! They made their way to northern Louisiana where they had family. Soon they were able to return but to what did they return to?

Little did they know, their lives would be more interrupted than you could imagine. 3 months of no power!! Grocery stores gone, banks covered in water, no working hospitals to speak of and schools ruined. Their homes: indescribable. They were told not to touch their refrigerators because they could very easily get Ebola poisoning. They were also instructed to get them out of the house as quickly as possible. Because of that hundreds of refrigerators sat in the middle of the street. Not to mention the homes, well at least hers and the ones most affected, had mold everywhere and who knows what else. So where did Kathy go? After basically threatening the White House by telling them of her handicap and her interviews with CNN, and after 9 months had passed, Kathy got a FEMA Trailer. Now just a couple months ago she was told that there are extremely high levels of formaldehyde. She was also just told that she now has to find a new place to live. Kathy started looking for a new place to rent and guess what, the prices have skyrocketed! Her old place used to be $500 a month – now a few of the same units are $1400! Residents are having a hard time buying houses because the unaffected areas raised their prices and mortgage companies don’t want to give residents in this area mortgages because of the risk. If you are lucky enough to get a mortgage, you can’t buy a house because the cost of insurance can reach up to $10,000 a year.

The moral of Kathy’s story is that 2 years later, there are sections of New Orleans that are still not searched for people. There are still around 150 people unaccounted for. Thousands among thousands of people who had to leave New Orleans will never come back. So how does a town recover?? Only time will tell!

Now on to the swamp tour!
Many of the pictures will describe the fun we had! We sat on a pontoon boat while looking around at alligators. We even got involved a little! I believe the following pictures will be self explanatory!



The swamp









Cory feeding the gator










Ramona, Bill and Kim feeding the raccoons marshmallows!













Then we all met Junior!














City/Cemetery Tour: Kathy is back for this portion as she was our tour guide. We went through several areas of New Orleans. First, the above ground cemetery. It was beautiful and strange all at once.












Next the most affected areas:










Side note: There are many houses that have X’s spray painted on them with numbers around it. The numbers of the left and right are telling the important people who went into the house. The number of the bottom is how many bodies/people they found!











Then on the Garden District where there are the oldest houses, Tulane University, and several other historic homes:











Lastly, we saw the French Quarter, Bourbon Street and Brad and Angelina’s new home (sorry Kathy went by too fast, I couldn’t get a picture-but the outside wasn’t all that impressive).











All and all we had A LOT of fun and learned more then anyone would have imagined. Now we rest in the hotel room, writing these blogs, and will be on our way to really helping people tomorrow in Mobile, Alabama! Hope you enjoyed the latest blogs of our journey! Keep up with us and log on again!

Christmas in August- a picture diary

The van packed up before we left on Thursday. Thank you Michael Goins!



The shady gas station stop in Cairo, IL at 4am on Friday morning. SCARY!



Our faithful driver recovering.



Bug juice on the windschield.



Jane Donahue Windsor, our trusty navigator!



Dah dah dah dah dah dah daaaaah Bonanza! Yay Memphis TN at 7am!



Cleaning the bug juice with a skwiggy.



GROSS!!!!



On the road again:)



No we are not in West Virgina:)



Our decorated limo!



Genesis One students help us unload the van.



Teachers enjoying their "Christmas in August"



They were very surprised! They had no clue that everything on their list had been purchased! A couple months ago, I (Ramona) had contacted Mrs. Skiffer who I worked with on a missions trip last year. She was so shocked to hear from me and to hear that RANWC wanted to donate school supplies to the school. Mrs. Skiffer asked the principle, Mrs. Clayton to gather a list from her teachers. They dreamt big and didn't expect to see their dreams come true. We received a very warm welcome! Lots of hugs and smiles and proclaimations of what a blessing it was for us to come through for them. The school down south are no where near the poshness of the ones we went to up north.









This math teacher was SSSSOOOOOO HAPPPY!!! He's been waiting for these calculators for his students for 3 years!





Kim and Bill with Mrs. Clayton the principle



Ramona, Kim, and Bill with Mrs. Skiffer





Mississippi Burning, true story with Mendenhall roots...the famous courthouse



Can't leave without going to Sonic's at least once!



Very very long bridge over water to New Orleans





A room with a view!



After about 15 hours of driving, it was time for bed! But who slept the longest?