I took a bunch of photos while there. A few are interspersed in the text below. Many more are available at my Flickr account.
Hands On Gulf Coast operates a facility on Pass Road in Biloxi that serves as a base camp for volunteers in the area. Visiting volunteers typically live on the base, either in the main building or in the u-shaped tent city that wraps the parking area behind it.
Each day, breakfast and dinner are served to the volunteers by volunteers. The kitchen is open at all times, in case folks get hungry in between. Each day after dinner, there is a meeting. At the meeting, work crews report on what they did and the status of projects; new volunteers introduce themselves, say where they're from, and answer a silly question; announcements are made; the next days jobs are laid out; volunteers sign up for breakfast, morning cleanup, dinner, and evening clean up; outgoing volunteers say their goodbyes; and the music battle takes place.
I did not go on this trip seeking spiritual clarity or anything else in particular. I was, however, pleasantly surprised by the experience. What I observed during my time in the area strengthened my belief in humanity and its capacity for good.
For anyone interested in getting a sense of the experience, I've listed some of the activities, events, and experiences associated with the trip. Note that I'm not sure about the spellings of some people's names, as I never saw them written.
Saturday, 16 December
We were up early to travel to Biloxi. The Gulfport/Biloxi (GPT) Airport is in rough shape. There's a lot of construction going on. It's not clear if it was due to repairs related to Hurricane Katrina or just a general construction. It certainly was extensive.
Will from UNC, Ashville picked us up at the airport while dropping of another departing volunteer. We helped that guy get his bags out of the van. He told us that he had been there for three months and that it had been a great experience.
No one in the office when we arrived at the base camp, so we wondered around aimlessly for a bit and then sat down at a random table to eat lunch. There we met Jodi. She told us who we needed to talk to and gave us a few other options in case we couldn't find the main people. She also told us that she had been there for a while, but was on her way out.
We eventually found Sue and got ourselves checked in. The check-in process consisted of reading, filling out, and signing paperwork. Part of that paperwork was a photo release in case they happened to take a great photograph and wanted to post it online.
After check-in, Tacia (from San Diego) and Danielle (from Maine) gave us a tour of the facilities. The explained a variety of aspects of the base camp, including lodging options (main building and tent city) and, most horrifyingly, the four minute showers. We opted to stay in tents, rather than the main building.
Since we couldn't get a crew assignment for the day -- we got there too late -- we decided to go for a walk down to the beach (E. on Pass Rd to (R) S. on Veterans to the gulf). We managed to get a little lost, but eventually found our way. On the way there, we stopped in a little bakery called the Electrik Maid Bake Shop. The lady there was soooooo nice! We got a couple goodies and ate them along the way. They were so good that we stopped for more on the way back.
Though much work has been done in the aftermath of Katrina, as we headed south on Veterans Avenue -- toward the beach and the Gulf of Mexico -- we saw more and more signs of the devastation brought by the storm. Piles of debris (especially uprooted and felled trees) were visible from the sidewalk. Within a block of the beach, we could see some of the buildings (or their remains) that had taken the full force of the storm surge and were fully exposed to the winds.Later in the day, after returning from the beach, we talked to Sara (project coordinator) who told us that Sunday was basically the day off, but that there were a few outreach things that we could work on. We were very disappointed because we were effectively there for only two days of work and were being told that one of those days wasn't a work day. Luckily, we met Ivan at dinner and he told us just before the evening meeting that he was planning to go out and do some work on Sunday. We asked if we could join him and he agreed (Danielle later told us that she had told Ivan that we were looking to work, so that probably greased the wheels a bit).
At the evening meeting, Shabina and I volunteered for after-breakfast clean-up the next day.
Sunday, 17 December
Breakfast was delicious. Eggs, bacon, sausage, french toast, and more. Then we cleaned up after breakfast. Sayeed joined in, as did Emily from the University of North Carolina. Ivan helped us out here and there by showing us the ropes.
Emily wanted to go out on a crew and asked if she could join us working with Ivan. We asked him and he agreed. We went to paint at Mr. George's house. The crew was Ivan, Emily, Shabina, Sayeed, and myself. We met Mr. George while we were there and had an opportunity to chat with him a little.The bathroom options were Mr. George's FEMA trailer or the port-a-pots at the Salvation Army comfort station, only a few blocks away.
Lunch was at the nearby Vietnamese bakery, since even the nearby Salvation Army comfort station is closed on the weekend. The food was delicious and inexpensive. Ivan told us that people really liked the place because they had never inflated prices after the disaster. The people in the bakery were amazingly friendly. The loaded po-boy sandwich that I had for lunch cost only $2.50.
After we finished painting and cleaned up, Ivan wanted to take us out to the (badly damaged) campus of the University of Southern Mississippi in Long Beach to see The Friendship Oak. We got lost -- well, really we simply overshot our destination -- but we eventually found it. The campus was in terrible shape, but the tree was amazing. It apparently began its life before Columbus arrived in America and is about as wide as a typical city block. After a brief wander, we returned to base.
Just before dinner I met Ann Merle and then her family, husband Steve, daughter Stacia, and son Jeremy. They were all really nice and personable. (A plug for Steve: he runs an acting school called Act One).
After the evening meeting, Sayeed, Shabina, and I decided to go paint at Mr. George's house again. But then, after much waffling, I decided to sign on to the gutting crew; Sayeed and Shabina followed. Shabina really wanted to go to the Humane Society, but no one else seemed to be going. She later found out there was a crew going there, so she went with them.
Monday, 18 December
Another delicious breakfast! But no clean-up for us today.Our tour guides, Danielle and Tacia, departed. It was sad to see them go, even though we had only so recently met them. It was easy to imagine how hard it was for them to leave and how difficult it would be for the people who knew them longer to see them go.
Sayeed and I went on the "gutting" crew to Ms. Mae's house on Croesus Street, with a view of the back bay. The crew was Giles (our crew leader), Hector, Naomi, Gregg, Zack, Margaret, Colin, Sayeed, and me.
The house was badly compromised, with holes in the floor, plenty of mold. In fact, I believe only Naomi and I managed to avoid the pitfalls (literally :-).
A lot of stuff had been removed from the house already (it was in the yard and on the curb), but there was still quite a bit inside. Most of us began by moving boxes out. I worked in the attic, shuttling contents to Sayeed, who passed it down. Giles thought the attic would be an all-day job, but we managed to get most of it knocked out by lunch, even as others did demolition and clean-out below.
Lunch was a delicious roast beef at the Salvation Army comfort station on Division Street between Lee Street and Nichols Drive. We were the first Hands On crew to arrive, but others quickly followed. It was good to talk with members of the other crews to hear what they had accomplished. The Merles, who we met the night before, were doing "molding" (mold abatement) and had spent the morning in Tyvek bunny suits. Sweltering work.
After lunch, I quickly finished up the attic and moved on to demolition work downstairs.
It was interesting to see how well the crew worked together. Without receiving explicit assignments, the crew differentiated, with some focusing primarily on demolition and some primarily on debris removal. People were careful about the presence of others in the areas where they were working. And when the workload got too heavy in one area, others pitched in.
Part way through the afternoon, a couple of ladies from across the street brought us iced green tea. They didn't speak much English, but they brought a glass for every one of us. Each time another one of us came out, they brought another ice-filled glass. They even brought us refills.
We weren't able to complete the job because (1) we didn't have a sawzall or circular saw and (2) it got too dark to work safely. I got the sense that everyone on the crew would have continued working if we hadn't run out of daylight (no electricity in the house, of course).
Almost everyone fell through the floor (some more than once).
Tuesday, 19 December
We got up early to travel back to Baltimore. Will, the same person who picked us up at the airport, had volunteered to take us back at 4:30 in the morning. Ain't that something?!
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