Building a home
Our second day at the NCS conference was spent on a Habitat for Humanity project … or as many joked, a “Habitat for Humidity,” given the sopping air and oppressive heat that comes with summer in the South. More than 100 cartoonists and their spouses participated, two busloads transported from the world of posh accommodations downtown to the harsh reality of post-Katrina devestation that, heartbreakingly, still looks like it could have happened last month. Thousands of homes just plain gone. Hundreds of others still marked with spray painted symbols from the desperate search for survivors. Watermarks on buildings up to four stories above ground. Places we think of everyday destinations - the Wal-Mart, the K-Mart, the grocery store - with their insides blown out and scattered across a cracking, abandoned, parking lot. It was not at all what I expected, and upsetting to see how a part of our country is such a wreck still, as if no one cares.
But the crews coming into Camp Hope care. They come from Americorps, largely, idealistic and young, students eager to serve, building homes for people who lost all. We joined them for a day, our 100-plus split into three groups on three separate homes, and then separated again into working teams. Here’s ours. I hadn’t done anything this tough in a while, and the heat made it tougher. But my tasks were simple — lifting, holding, measuring and carrying wooden siding made hefty with concrete while others more agile scrambled up ladders to nail it in place. We worked well together, and accomplished a good bit. On two other sides, other teams did the same, and on the roof, the daring who had a sense of balance nailed in the shingles. Teamwork builds a home.
On our return trip, the bus driver took us through the Lower Ninth Ward and there … there is little left. Empty spaces with weeds. A handful of houses, most in ruins. A spark of home with a new home here and there. And the wall that holds back the water. Crossing the bridge into the Upper Ninth, you could see that the land was lower than the water. An accident waiting to happen. And it did.
Over the weekend, I overheard other folks talking about taxi and other tours to see the devestation. It’s sad. And yet, it’s hard to believe what happened, and what isn’t happening, unless you see it for yourself.
