9th Ward 1:36 pm
Okay, so, finally the neighborhood plans (that I never thought were going to happen) are up. They even include the Lower Ninth Ward. I find this very interesting, considering I’m going to school for Urban Studies and would like to get into the planning field one day. Anyways, you can check them out here.
Also, I’m going to be back in New Orleans from October 11th until the 14th. So that’s really cool. I have a report to write about Hurricane Katrina for Urban Studies and I’m very excited.
9th Ward and Common Ground 12:04 pm
I’m back home now, got home Tuesday morning. Before I left New Orleans I moved our distribution center from N. Robertson to a location in a Catholic Charities building, at 2301 Gallier Street. I also moved into the building, which was a haunted former convent. Here is a picture of the building:
9th Ward and Common Ground 8:26 pm
It’s been awhile. Hi world, yes I am alive. I keep injuring myself, though. The other day I fell off my bike, leaving me with a giant purple bruise on my right knee, and last night I managed to slice my knuckle open on some rocks.
I’ve been working at the distribution centre on N. Robertson lately. I like it because I get to talk to the residents all day. The only problems are that it’s really long hours and the roof leaks, thus making the building a great breeding ground for mosquitos. I’ve gotten a lot of bites working there, despite our anti-mostuito candle and despite bug spray. We’ll see how long I stay working there.
9th Ward and Articles and FEMA and Hurricanes 12:11 pm
Yesterday we lost our water for two or three hours. It sucked. Andy thought that they were going to have to tear up the street to find the leak and fix it but luckily we magically got our water back. Before it came back on I was afraid we'd be without water for days. I really take water for granted. I mean, without water we wouldn't be able to shower, drink, flush toilets, do dishes, wash our hands… Yikes. Anyways, here is an article about our loss of water.
In other news, we may be getting our first tropical storm in the next couple of days. I think right now it's aiming at Florida but they're still keeping an eye on it. I really hope it doesn't turn into a tropical storm for us because, from what I understand, people living in FEMA trailers have to evacuate even if it's just a tropical storm. For us, we have to evacuate if there's a category two hurricane.
9th Ward and Friends and Life 12:53 pm
The other night Emergency Communities closed and left the Lower 9th to another location. They're a group who provide free food for volunteers and residents. I used to eat there all of the time because they had really good, cold cranberry juice. Plus it was a nice change from the usual potatos at St. Mary's. Anyways, here is a picture of me and Henry outside of the EC dome.
9th Ward and Uncategorized 10:18 am
Yesterday I took the day off because there was a funeral going on in the neighborhood on Desire and I wanted to go. It was very, very interesting, nothing like the funerals in Toronto. Basically, the whole neighborhood got together and the funeral turned into a massive block party. It was the least somber funeral ever. Everyone was there, all of Common Ground as well as the residents that came home. I was sitting on someone's porch for hours, eating and hanging out. Also, at some point I'm pretty sure a jazz band played, although I missed that. I did see some girl sing and played guitar though, she was pretty good, and she played later on that night at the evening meeting at St. Mary's. So that's my story about the 9th Ward funeral-turned-block-party that I attended yesterday.
9th Ward and Donations and Friends 10:04 am
Just some quick notes so y'all know I'm okay:
- Tarped a roof on Thursday
- Not many old timers left (Jamey, John, Dimitri)
- Most of my old friends are gone but I'm making new ones
- Brought all the donations around to House of Excellence and distro
- Went out drinking with Germ and his gutterpunk friends last night, found Chris
- Am moving into Chris' place until he moves on Wednesday
- St. Mary's is a breeding ground for gossip and who knows what is going on?
- Crack ruins lives
- The showers at St. Mary's suck
- I think I may want to work at distro for awhile
- I haven't gutted a house yet
- Some nice girl gave me a free camera, baby wipes, and bugspray
- I love people
Last night I saw Cindy Sheehan at Con Hall. It was cool because it was her first visit to Canada. I could talk about it for all of eternity right now, but it was about the troups in Iraq, not New Orleans, so I'm not going to bother getting any further into it on here. However, one thing worth mentioning was that one of her punishments for Bush would be to put him on a chain gang and send him into the 9th Ward to clean up the mess. Hahahaha. Good old Cindy Sheehan! I spoke to her afterwards and mentioned Common Ground, she said she does a lot of work with organizations like Common Ground.
