Today we came back and finished the house in the morning. Quickly we moved on to our new house. We were supposed to work at a home but half the front wall was caved in and it was unsafe to work at, so we worked in a house down the street. The neighborhood was desolate, with gutted house after gutted house sitting there. Very few FEMA trailers were there, which means not many residents are moving back. The house we started work on was a two story house, and it was huge. The inside was a mess and we had to shovel out a mix of the owner's possessions and mud. This was the hardest work of the trip and by the end of the day we had only cleared half of the house. It’s frustrating that we can't do more, but we are all working as hard as we can.
One interesting thing that I am noticing is that unlike most work, I am really enjoying this work. At the end of the day I don't really want to stop. It’s almost addicting, because you feel so satisfied at the end of the day. Many people have been down here volunteering for months and all are hooked on helping out people. Our team leader today quit his job in Manhattan so that he could work for a couple of months down here.
