SO the thing I've learned about deoderant on this particular thrip to New Orleans is, really, what's the point? It looses it's usefulness around 7:30 a.m. as we load the tools back into the vans, and if you don't have your dust mask covering your nose as your work partner reaches up to hold down the sheet rock you are drilling in, well.... whose fault is that?

Of course I've learned so much more, from so many of my new friends. From how to get a good angle on the drill and really put my weight into, to how to get spackle off my nose with the only spackle free part of my fore arm. The work of the house has been so much fun and inspiring. We have made such a difference in these four days. Yet each of us is conscious of how much work there is still to go to make Ms. Oreen's home habitable. And we will have to leave without seeing it in that freshly painted, new rugs on teh floor, ready for the furniture stage. The next group of volunteers will have that statisfaction, but we will leave knowing we did the grunt work to get it ready. Who knows what we can accomplish today. This is the kinda energetic work crew you only wish your contractor would bring to your renovation projects. Terry just left for his daily Home Depot run (the first of many) and that third pot of coffee is looking low already.

Something else we have learned, or been reminded of, is the importance of sitting with. For the last three days, 79 year old Miss Oreen, has sat with her grandson Deon, on the side stairs outside the house. Watching the occaisional cars go by slowly, some with former neighbor calling out to her from open windows. It has been 19 months since she has sat her, outside the house she moved into in 1959. And slthough she has moved from one relation to another with hotel rooms inbetween, her sense of being a home owner has never left her. " I always knew I'd get back in that house," she told us. "God sent you to me and i thank you both." SOme of our best memories are being made on those stairs, which we each pass (and often stop at) as we go down to the Genisis Baptist Church where we use the bathroom, set up our lunch and store our ladders each night. You will here more about this church, which has been so generous to us despite the fact that it's congregation has deminished by over 50%. (It's choir gone from 22 members to 5). We pull off our masks and take a cold water bottle to sit on those stairs with Miss Orren and her family. She greets us with a sparkled eyed smile that melts the fatigue.

Yesterday we heard more sirens that usual and there was actually a stop right outside the window where we work. AS we leaned out, trying to be discreet, we saw three young African American males, hands spread on the hood of their car while three police officers patted them down. They stood submissive, in what seemed like a familiar stillness, looking down or to the side for a long time...long enough for us to lose the end of their story as we went back to our drills and ladders. I asked Ms. Oreen about it later. She say they have "Jump Out" Tuesday and Thursday down here where police can stop a car for no reason and you gotts jump out and be searched. "It don't sound legal to me, but I'm g lad for it," she says. The crime in her neighborhood was worse before the hurricane and it's very bad now.

WEll, folks are heading down to start loading the van, and I'm still in my PJs haven't seen my daughter up here for breakfast. One more thing I have learned.....That your children really will eat Lucky Charms every morning for breakfast if you let them!!! (Sorry Timmy. Hello to my Honeys on Smith street)

Becky