Wow! Already two days down!!
We were up bright and early on Friday at 6 am to receive a brief orientation and then head out to work. We split up into two groups. Each group had a house to gut. "Gutting" is a term that basically means turn the house into a shell. Everything is pulled out, including cabinets, refrigerators, stoves, and the walls. Last year when we worked at Waveland, MS, only about an hour away, we were doing the exact same work. It really hit home to me the mind-blowing amount of work that needs to be done here. The house that we worked at Monday probably wasn't touched since the storm. That's a year and a half. How many hundreds of other homes still haven't been touched?? How many more years will it take to not only clear out all the houses, but also rebuild??
It’s a very sobering feeling to realize that somebody once lived in the house that you're turning into a shell, that every scoop of your shovel contains treasured items that once made up somebody's life, that the only possessions of the person's life that hasn't been destroyed are the few things they took when they left town for what they thought would be only a day or two to flee the storm: a change of clothes, a purse, maybe a book. Everything else is gone. What would that be like? How hopeless would it feel to lose everything??
We're staying at a place called Camp Hope, a Habitat for Humanity camp. Saturday is not a work day, so we traveled to Waveland, MS, where we worked last year, and worked on a man's house who we met last year. It was really cool driving through Waveland because a significant amount of progress has been made since last year. There is a lot of rebuilding happening. You can tell that many people have been returning and fixing things up. There is much less debris scattered about. The beach is much cleaner. It brought such a hopeful feeling to me that a town could indeed truly unite and fight back after such a devastating tragedy.
There were also three foster children at the house we worked at today. This was such a blessing for me, as I absolutely love children. All three of them had new guitars and they formed a band and played some tunes for us. Their hit singles include "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer," "The Hokey Pokey," and "Rock and Roll, Baby." It was one of the best concerts I've seen in years.
Well, people are waiting for the computer, and the group is watching Taladegan Nights, and I've already written too much so I will be signing off for now. Hopefully next time I write we'll have gutted many, many more houses!! And more importantly, have connected with many more residents!
