November 17, 2006 Burn Out
Today I had the morning off and Lindsay (the 23 year old Oregon student that is housed at Kenner UMC where I’m housed) was quite burned out so we decided to take Tank to the park. Lindsay has spent the last couple of weeks gutting houses. When you go to a house that hasn’t been gutted, here’s a little of what you see…the front door is missing, warped or deceptively looks normal. When you go into the house, black mold covers the walls up to, and on, the ceiling. The smell is overwhelming and hard to describe. People here just call it “the Katrina smell”. The furniture is scattered about the rooms and items from the kitchen are found in the bedrooms, and vice-a-versa. Books, children’s toys, photo albums lay in ruin. They are all the same, yet different. At each new house there is an owner on the verge of tears as they watch volunteers haul their life out to the curb.
On the way to the park, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a piece of playground equipment with a dead vine on it. I told Lindsay I wanted to stop and take a picture. It was in Lakeview (remember I told you that Lakeview had 8 -12 feet of water) at a school that cannot be used because of the Katrina damage. We ended up peeking in windows and then going into a classroom. I’ve posted the photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/patriciabondor/sets/72157594365836284/detail/ until I can upload them here. What an experience! So much for helping Lindsay relax from the emotional turmoil this job can cause. Hearing about and seeing the stories and damage over and over does truly get to you after a while.
Tonight we went to Wal-Mart so I could get an airline carrier for my and Tank’s Christmas trip to NC. It was like any Wal-Mart in any city. I commented to Lindsay about the contrast we live. Just a few hours earlier we were experiencing the devastation of Katrina as though it had just happened, and here we were in Wal-Mart looking at the survivors going on with their lives. Amazing! I don’t want to mislead you here though. Even though the surface can look “normal” looks can be deceiving. When I got back to the station earlier today, I was talking to Donna (a caseworker) who was telling me about a lady who had just had a nervous breakdown because of dealing with the ruin of her home. Remember to pray for the survivors, they are still in so much pain.
IHS,
Patricia