I traveled to New Orleans with 11 USF St. Petersburg students for the Un-BULL-ieveable spring break trip. We partnered with a non profit called Youth Rebuilding New Orleans, whose mission is to find homes damaged in hurricane Katrina and renovate them using mainly volunteer labor. Then they sell the homes to teachers at a discount of around 20 percent.
Day 1
We arrived at USF St. Petersburg at 8:30 a.m.; a 2015 white Ford Transit van would be the transportation for the 11 people. The 11-hour journey to the Big Easy was uneventful. We stopped just outside Mobile, Ala. to have dinner at Papa’s Place, a small Italian restaurant. Judging by the owner’s reaction when we told him we were 11 strong, his establishment had never accommodated a party that large.
When we passed into Louisiana, a thick fog enveloped the roadway, and it persisted all the way into the city. The fog was so thick that any cars that passed above us on overpasses appeared as glowing white orbs, like banshees in the swampland we were passing over.
Day 2
It was the first day of work. The homes we would be working on were located in the seventh ward, an area that experienced flooding between 5 and 7 feet.
When we arrived on the job site, we were greeted by a shell of a home. It was composed of rotten wood. With one side missing and much of the interior ripped out, the lone baseboard floor was the rib cage of the dilapidated home. Our first day of work consisted of moving a pile of debris from an abandoned lot to a construction dumpster and deconstructing a set of stairs with a sledgehammer.
The work days ended around 3 p.m. After that, we would head back to the bunkhouse shower and head out to the town. After the first day of work, we headed to “Mother’s Restaurant,” a famous restaurant in the French Quarter. After dinner, we headed to the Mississippi river, and then to the Famous Cafe Du Monde and Bourbon Street.
Day 3
The third day matched the second day. The weather had become overcast and the temperature cooled. As far as construction went, we continued to destroy the concrete steps that surrounded the home and remove debris from it. After we returned home and showered, we went back out and spent the evening going through shops in the French Quarter.
Day 4
By this time it was Wednesday and our half day of work. We spent this day removing the chimney from the home and processing the wood that could be reused in the home. At the end of the day, we went back to the bunkhouse and made tacos for lunch. That afternoon, we took a tour of Mardi Gras World, one of the float factories that makes floats for the holiday New Orleans is famous for. That evening, the group went on a ghost tour of the French Quarter. The highlight of the tour for me was visiting the home that inspired the residence of a character from American Horror Story: Coven.
Day 5
My god, the cold. A cold front came through and dropped the temperature to the high 30s. It was so cold that we took our lunch break to visit a local goodwill and thrift shop for some warm clothes. Once we bought warmer clothes, work was much easier. During the second half of the day, I ended up dislocating my knee cap while moving some debris. This ended my ability to do manual labor for the trip. That night we ended up going out to the “Cat’s Meow,” a famous karaoke bar on Bourbon Street.
Day 6
Our final day of service was a half day spent at a new home, helping to build a rain garden, a garden that collects its own water supply from rainfall. After half a day of moving dirt and sod, we went back to the bunkhouse and were set free to explore the city. I went to the National WWII museum. After the museum, I regrouped with some other members of our team.
We found a restaurant that had a crawfish broil. After the dinner, the group went to the New Orleans Museum of Art, which had live music that echoed through the exhibit halls. Once the museum closed, we took one of the famous street cars to the French Quarter, got more beignets from Cafe Du Monde and walked to Frenchmen Street,. On Frenchmen, we met up with the rest of our group in the evening art market.
