Last day in LA

Sadly, I have reached the end of my time here in New Orleans and must begin packing and getting ready to move back to Denver. I have to admit that I am not looking forward to the trip back. Our van is a 12-seater and the 12th is half a seat in the way back of the van. The problem arises with our cargo van- they forgot about us and so now, last minute, we are sharing a truck with another team. We have to fit three people to a bench now the whole way back. Hopefully no one explodes. There will be tension in that van, that's for sure.

On a lighter note, we have been told that our next project will be somewhere in Texas, working with FEMA. We do not know yet where we will be staying, but at least we know the state!

It snowed last Thursday, and so I thought it would be appropriate to have some pictures of the craziness taking place in Louisiana. It was so amazing that we all jumped out of bed and rushed outside with our cameras.


It really was sticking to the cars!

Here is Jack saying, "What is going on?"

New Orleans

Sadly, there is still a lot of damage here, and a lot of houses that are so damaged that they are going to be bulldozed soon. It is sad to look down a street and see that all of the houses are empty because they are uninhabitable.



The parking lot and the sign were part of a mall that is now completely empty.



These are some among the many destroyed houses I have seen that have not been cared for since the hurricane.

The real KaBoom Build

The other weekend, my team and I did some ISP- building a playground in New Orleans. It was a lot of fun and we got to be pretty creative. The next day, we went back to the playground and took pictures of it without all of the people there. It looks amazing!

KC and I painted this pole! It says New Orleans spirling around the pole and LSU at the bottom with the S as the S in New Orleans too. Also it has the fleur de lis.
Some people got to paint this mural, which we all sat in front of and got a picture because it was pretty neat and very brightly colored.

KC and I got to put this sign together!

The finished playground!

KaBoom Build!

football game!

The football game was lots of fun, and of course, the Saints won!




The crowd was so big- there were almost no empty seats! We were the second to top row, but it was still a really fun experience.

I can't even believe that three years ago, people were evacuated into this building after Hurricane Katrina. It's hard to imagine people living there and the roof being torn off.

New Orleans

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving, which was full of food at the community center, which one of the locals at Camp Hope cooked for everyone. Today is Pizza Friday, which means that we get out lots of tortillas and put sauce and toppings on top, cut them in quarters and serve them! It is a pretty easy day, and last week, we managed to watch two movies while making the pizzas.
We have put out a list of all of the food we have made over our month here and are having people vote on which meal was their favorite. The idea is to go out with a bang and to make the last week of food the very best we possibly can.
I can't believe that we have been here for almost a month now! As a team, we went to see Hurricane on the Bayou on IMAX last week, and Amanda Shaw was in the movie playing with her band. She was very good, and we wanted to see her play. My team leader Elizabeth, KC and I went to see her in concert on Friday in New Orleans. This weekend, we are going to see a New Orleans Saints vs Atlanta Falcons football game at the Superdome, which should be fun.
Some of my teammates have been seeing ghosts at night in our room, which is pretty freaky. The first incident was when KC and Sierra saw a bright flash of light from a camera that woke them up. Then KC saw someone standing at the end of her bed and when she looked away and back, the person was gone. Last night, Elizabeth said she saw someone standing at the end of her bed in a white tee-shirt, who bumped her bed. The weird part is that we went on a ghost tour a while ago and were taking pictures trying to find ghosts. Now it seems that the ghosts are coming back to find and take pictures of us!