Fourth Day 03/27/2008

Another early morning I awoke to the sound of Colbie Colait's "Bubbly". I wasn't feeling to bubbly this morning I didn't want to get out of bed. After forcing myself to get dressed, I met up with everyone in the lobby. We loaded up the vans and headed out to the Holy Cross-neighborhood where we meet up with a man by the name of John. He is in Americorps and works with the Rebuild New Orleans program. He introduced us to Sydney Davis who is a homeowner in the neighborhood. He stayed behind when the storm came in order to protect his home after the storm from looters. He found himself stuck in the attic and had to be rescued by someone cutting through his roof. He told us next time they are told to evacuate he won't be sticking around. He allowed us to photograph him he said at his age people taking his photograph doesn’t bother him. He said not much bothers him anymore. After talking with Sydney, John took us down the street where they were disassembling a home to reuse the parts to restore other homes. The Rebuild New Orleans program takes down houses and saves the pieces, like doorways and moldings, in order to help fund the program instead of solely rely on the generosity of strangers. The next home we went to was the home of Miss Gibbs. I was not expecting to get emotionally attached to this woman. After she answered the door John explained to her who we were, and without hesitation she invited us in and opened her home and heart to 20 strangers. When we first entered the home she kept on telling us don’t be afraid to go in Miss Gibbs home, and come on baby come in go in my room and see don’t be afraid of Miss Gibbs. She offered us coffee or water, while telling us stories of how she had to be rescued by boat after the storm. Miss Gibbs is by far the biggest hearted woman I have ever met. I was so interested in what she had to say I wasn't even worried about getting the right photograph, I just wanted to hear her talk. When we left she gave a few of us a big hug and told us she loved us and that she wished us a safe trip back and for us to have fun the rest of the week. As we were loading up the vans she yelled once more from her doorway "Love YOU!" After arriving back at the hotel we dropped our bags in our room and met back in the lobby to go get lunch. We walked over to Mothers and I ordered a turkey po boy. Our waitress was so nice they called her big booty Pat. After stuffing our faces we came back to the hotel and were given time to rest. I was able to take and hour-long nap it felt amazing. When I woke up I had to meet everyone back in the lobby for critique. After crypt. we packed up and headed back out to the Algiers neighborhood. It is a neighborhood that wasn't badly affected by the storm because it's levees held. In order to get there we had to get on a ferryboat and cross the Mississippi River. While on the boat we met a couple of locals and they told us to stay out of a certain part, past this street that I can’t spell the name of... We split up into groups in my group was Rich and Amanda. We decided to walk towards this bridge. While walking our path was cut short and we weren’t able to get close to it so we walked down into the neighborhood where we found Mardi Gras World, where they build Mardi Gras floats. As we were walking through this part of the neighborhood we noticed there wasn’t a lot of difference here from the places that had been affected by the storm. This made me wonder what the whole city looked like before Katrina. While walking we suddenly saw the street sign we weren’t suppose to pass, we had been walking in the bad part of the neighborhood the whole time. As soon as we crossed the street there were beautiful old restored homes. I suddenly felt very safe, unlike before. We all became very uninspired because we have seen so many old home since being here, and we were also so wore out that we weren’t feeling very creative so we walked back to the ferry and headed back to the hotel. Tonight we were able to get back by 6 and we have the rest of the night to relax, blog, and edit. Of course as soon as I got back into the room I passed out for a couple of hours. Now that I have been able to nap and shower I feel much better and tonight I will be able to go to bed at a decent time. Even though I'm physically and mentally exhausted, I can't wait to get up tomorrow and do it all over again! I love New Orleans!