The Grand Finale

Today is Friday and the last post was actually from Thursday. My posts might appear one day late.

A fantastic and successful end to a very productive week.

Today we finished all of the exterior framing and completed a fair amount of the inside wall frames.

At the beginning of the week, the two groups (UWindsor and the Netherlands high school students) were each working within their own areas on individual homes. By the end of the week, there was lots of crossover between the two groups and before we knew it, we were all working alongside each other and the Americorp team.

The build ended with a great wrapup team meeting where the students shared their feelings about the week. Some very profound experiences were revealed. That my friends is experiential learnign at its best!

As we said our goodbyes, and snapped our final photos of our new friends and the build site, we were inspired by what we started with on Tuesday morning and how far we came in helping two New Orleans families to realize their new dreams.

One of the many highlights of this trip has been our incredible bus drivers Mike and Casey. Mike is our Windsor to Tennessee and Tennessee back to Windsor guy. Casey, our Tennessee to New Orleans driver has been with us all week and has been as much a part of this trip as the rest of us.

Casey is like everyone's grandpa (well maybe father in my case). He's the kind of guy that would give you the shirt off his back. He picks us up every day at 7:00 am and drives us the 30 minutes to the site. He offers to run errands during the day and just shows up midday on the site just to show his support. He also takes us out at night to the parades and downtown.

Today Casey had a special surprise for us when he picked us up. He went back to Musician's Village to talk to David Fountan and Smoky Johnson. David gave him special Zulu beads and Mardi Gras cups for all of us and a coconut painted black -a traditional Zulu prize.

But Casey didn't stop at that! He then drove us back to Musician's Village and we were all able to experience Mr. Fountain's musical shrine. The blaring jazz music filled the street and set the tone for a great visit with David and several other locals who were anxious to share their very moving stories about how Hurrican Katrina affected them (and still affects them). David then presented Sandy with another black coconut AND THE most prized of all the coconuts, a gold one! We also got to chat with some local school children.

We're all back on the bus now and looking forward to a hot (with any hope) shower, some Camp Hope grub and some much needed rest before the long bus ride back to Windsor tomorrow at noon. But, some will go bowling tonight - an interesting activity given how sore we all are.

One of the really neat things about being back here for a second time is that we have met many of the same people we got to know on the first trip. John Wilkes Booth, a local from St. Bernard's parish, continues to have his dinners here every night and still shares his stories. Pete, who was a Habitat builder on trip one, dropped over yesterday to help us build and stayed all day today too. He's a fantastic supervisor and very knowledgable. And David Fountain. How good it was to hear his giddly laugh again.

Enjoy the roof over your head tonight! I know I will.

Beth