I should probably wrap this guy up, just in case.

Hi all, it's been a while. The blog fell off the last week or so due to a total lack of internet. My friend Emily came down for the last week and a friend was nice enough to let us stay in his house that he was about to move into. That house had no internet and I didn't have quite enough time at NENA to update.

Things ended on a great note. There were no volunteers the last week, which was a little sad, but Emily and I insulated about 1/5 (using all the insulation we had) of one of my favorite residents' kitchens. NENA threw me a lavish surprise going away party. It involved seafood and presents. Needless to say, it was amazing.

Emily and I drove out together under an enormous rainbow. Whenever I leave New Orleans, I feel that I'm leaving a small piece of myself there, and this time was no exception. Part of the reason it's taken me until now to finish this is that readjusting to life in Massachusetts was a little painful. I miss amazing food, the aesthetics of the city, being able to wave at strangers, and most of all, the incredible people I met in New Orleans. Needless to say, I will be back. Hopefully by January. We'll see.

To say that I'm happy with how this summer turned out would be an understatement. I would not have had it any other way.


Hey Angela, gonna drive yourself to New Orleans
Hey Angela, don't you know you're everything to me?

Garden in a (Graveyard?)

My friend Alex's and my final project for our architecture class:

Lucy visits, we beautify the Lower Ninth Ward, and Son Servants takes a bow

Some graffiti I found in the French Quarter

Currently eating salt water taffy. You can take the girl out of Boston. . .

One of my best friends from school, Lucy, visited at the beginning of this week. As much as I love New Orleans, it felt amazing to see someone from home (well, second home, tied with NOLA). Some shots from the visit:

















Lucy in front of the skyline.


















View from Lucy's hotel. Hot damn.

















Walking the Mississip'.

It was a busy week with Son Servants. They tackled a bunch of grass cutting as well as a week-long drywalling project with amazing enthusiasm and efficiency. One ill-fated group unloaded an ungodly amount of mulch into the church across the street to store it for this week's Lower 9th Ward Beautification Project. We were entertained by a few excellent recorder-players while they did so:


































We started the Lower 9th Ward Beautification Campaign this weekend, which involves NENA partnering with the Salvation Army to landscape a bunch of homeowners' yards with small trees and flowers. It turns out there's an enormous Lutheran conference in town-- as in, 37,000 Lutherans are currently in New Orleans-- so we got 40 of them to help us out. Along with Son Servants, that meant we had 80 volunteers for two days, which was absolutely insane. However, largely due to the awesomeness of both groups, we got a LOT done.

I'm still having serious you-can't-stay-in-New-Orleans-forever talks with myself almost daily. I absolutely can't believe that I only have two weeks left here.

A weekend with my favorite people, Son Servants, and more

A subtle message in the French Quarter.

Another crazy week, and very little time to write about it. My folks came last weekend! Unfortunately, I was doing homework while they did the typical riding the street cars and museum visiting, so I don't really have any new exciting things to report. However, we had a great time eating, relaxing, eating, relaxing, eating, and eating.

Saying hi to Faulkner. "Caddy smelled like trees. . ."

Dad becomes introspective in the alley.

Hanging out by the Mississippi.

Giggling in front of heart graffiti. Awww.

With great effort and concentration, Mom destroys a pound of crawfish. Seriously, it was amazing.

How I spent Sunday afternoon: doing homework at a coffee shop on Royal Street. Note the silver people outside, who I can only assume are the Tin Man's grandchildren. I had a good time talking to them while pretending not to notice that they were silver.

This week was fairly crazy, given that my coworker Clifford was on his much-deserved honeymoon. In order to deal with the 30-volunteers-a-day week, I drew up a detailed schedule of clients last Friday, which helped a lot.

Just as with the week before, this group of Son Servants was incredible. I felt so lucky to be able to work with such kind, engaged, and motivated people. At the end of the week, they had cleared about 11 yards, painted at two houses, installed a faucet at one house, drywalled half a basement, and grouted an entire kitchen. Aside from that, they were so much fun to hang out with.

One of our clients whose yard they cut needed her fence painted, but didn't have the funds to buy the paint. One of the Son Servants groups (they were in three groups of ten) went by Home Depot and bought it for her. Tears came to my eyes when they put the paint can on my desk. Every change in New Orleans now is so incremental, so individual. In a place that has been largely forgotten by its government and its country, the compassion and thoughtfulness that it takes to pick up a can of paint means so much. The client was thrilled, and the group returned to paint her fence the next day.

Son Servants fence-painters goofing off. Love these folks.

Two Son Servants guys and a mysterious mustached man in the middle.

As for other work projects, the Lower Ninth Ward Beautification Campaign is going pretty well. We've set up dates on which we'll be servicing most of the residents; the only problem is getting in contact with the last five or so. The newsletter is undergoing some major changes, but I think I can get it out (or at least a template for it) by the time I leave.

NENA had a party to say goodbye to Lubaina and Jessica (two Architectural Design interns who are students at Berkeley). I thought it would be a tiny little thing, but the team really joined together to get pizzas, wings, drinks, salad, and a big, decorated cake. It was a really nice party; I think everyone really needed to have a little fun. Later that night I went out with coworkers Burke, Ken (both in Architectural Design), and Wanda (Economic Development) to say a final goodbye to Lubaina and Jess. I'll miss them a lot. At the same time, I'm really happy to be getting to know the rest of the NENA staff so well. In part, I came to New Orleans because I thought I was lucky: I have a healthy, happy family, a great education, and I've obviously never suffered a disaster like Hurricane Katrina. But I realize now that my luck hasn't run out: I get to work with some of the most amazing people I've ever met every day.


































A sad goodbye to Jess and Lubaina, two of the most hardworking people I've ever met. You two will be so missed. Here's to hoping we meet again.

"Well-behaved women seldom make history." -Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

It is days like this one that I miss my feminist bubble of a college quite painfully. I really should have predicted this.

It is not fair that I am told that I am having a "temper tantrum" when I express frustration.

It is not fair that I am told "girls are softer than guys" and asked "why this woman is doing a man's job" while working.

It is not fair that a male volunteer should stand behind me as I'm trying to work while repeating, "wrong. wrong. wrong," before turning to his friend and saying, "I just went through this with her." As if a) I'm not the authority figure in the area, b) I was taking too long to do something or doing a poor job (I wasn't) and c)I wasn't even there. I have a name. It's Jenna. They know it.

A personal favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOv47njeLHQ

Of drywall and window fittings

I love this picture of New Orleans.


I continued work with Son Servants on the same flooring, drywalling, and window fitting projects. The volunteers finished tearing up the floors today, which was quite impressive. The drywalling will probably be a long-term project, which is great, because it turns out Son Servants will be sending more folks down for the next three weeks! The window fitting is quite complicated, but with some luck, it will be done by Friday. We also scheduled some grass cutting for Friday. Busy week!

I've started compiling a list of questions that volunteers often asked me (FAQ, if you will), which is interesting work. Often the answers are so complicated that I learn a lot from researching them (for example, there about twenty responses to the question, "why did the levees break?").

Every day I'm tempted to just to stay here and keep doing my work with NENA. With all its frustrations, it gives me so much joy to accomplish things with the cooperation of the homeowners and the volunteers. I know that I have to go back to school, and I will. Ultimately, it's a blessed life I have to be able to choose between working at a job I love or going back to the college that I love. Ultimately, I know my education comes first, especially given that so much of my heart stays with my school and the people who I know there. I take comfort in the idea that I'll be back.

After a month and half in New Orleans, the first day of rain arrives

I've been so spoiled; I hear it's rained almost every day back in Massachusetts. Even so, I really hate the rain generally-- gray skies make me sad and the barometer screws with my sinuses and makes my throat and head hurt. As New Orleans is, however, each enormous burst of rain was surrounded with a beautiful explosion of sunshine. Realizations like those make me think that I could someday call this place home.

Yesterday, we got a call from Son Servants, a mission organization (which is probably made obvious by the Jesus-centric name) who planned on sending us thirty-three volunteers. Unfortunately, this call was to explain that the group which was supposedly coming next week was actually coming today. Fortunately, this worked out beautifully. Half of the group headed out drywall the house of a favorite client of mine. The other went on to rip up flooring in one of the most damaged houses I've seen in a while.

The kids, who were in middle school, shocked me. They were remarkably mature, interested, and enthusiastic; they asked fantastic questions. I realized that I'd underestimated them based purely on their age-- and then realized that I'd always wished people would take me more seriously at that age (as I still wish people would take me more seriously at 19). Overall, working with them today was a great experience, and I'm unspeakably excited to continue working with Son Servants all week.

The day ended with me taking care of an adorable two-year-old named Apple while her mother and father planned a small business establishment with one of our case managers. This went very well until she dumped an entire cup of water on both of us while she was sitting in my lap.