Hello from Anna & the adult work force here at St. Gabriel. As with most plans, nothing was more constant than change. After the first day of figuring out local transportation to Loyola and to our work sites, things settled in very nicely. We ended up breaking into three work groups putting up sheetrock (drywall to us). Several of the ladies joined forces with the teens clearing out homes and tearing out drywall. The owners stop by, bringing water, some have stayed and helped with the work when they weren't working themselves. All have been more than appreciative! We have one of the owners stop by every morning with donuts. When she found out that we were drinking instant coffee, she went out and bought us a coffee pot and real coffee! We are looking forward to celebrating mass together on Saturday with the families whose houses we've been working on. We'll end with a pot luck supper. Friday night, the adults took some time off to take a tour guided by Fr. Doug and Sr. Kathleen around New Orleans. We started off by driving to the lower 9th ward. It soon became apparent that although the neighborhood we'd been working in which had between 3-11 feet of water, this area was 10 times worse! A lot of the homes are being hauled away. From there we saw the complete opposite as we toured the area along Lakeshore Drive and the Garden District. I don't know which was more depressing. Our evening ended with a riverboat cruise with dinner and a Dixie band on the steamboat Natchez. (It will make it to Cincinnati for Tall Stacks.) After another full workday on Saturday, we'll start packing our bags for the trip home.
I'll be putting some of our pictures from the 9th ward and Riverboat Cruise on soon.