First day working with Relief Spark

Got to the Sheraton at 7.30, had breakfast, and then set off... except that by the time we'd got the vans from where they were parked, the convoy had left. We then had to kidnap one of the relief spark coordinators, Albert, to show us the way to the acorn offices (acorn being the organization coordinating the house clearing efforts). from there we (eventually) went to a house - albert still in tow - where we were supposed to be allocated a different site. Some fairly major confusion ensued, and about three hours later, we ended up joining the team who was working on that house. The three hours weren't the least bit boring though - we walke around, met different people and had some very interesting discussions about the situation (which hopefully some of the team will write more about - consider that an invitation, guys!), played charades (which i'm awful at - i can't mime to save my life, the words just seem to form on my lips in spite of me!) - and talked about current literary scandals (amongst other things).

The work varied in levels of physical difficulty, on a technical level destroying stuff is really easy, but the main issue was how hot and dusty it was. We were equipped with protective suits which were like our own personal portable saunas, and because of ripping out plasterboard there was dust everywhere which caused a few problems for people's eyes.

It was weird joining a team that had been working on this house for a day and a half. They had been very keen to go back after the previous day and it definitely felt like "their" project. They were perfectly nice about it, but I felt a bit bad for intruding, especially as there weren't any extra tools so we were all sharing the ones they'd been using all along.

Still, on the whole I'm really happy with things - I enjoyed the day even if we didn't work all the way through, the team continues to be wonderful, and i'm really excited about going working on the after-school program in St Bernard Parish tomorrow.

Some interesting information about the house clearing initiative, which I found out from Albert, is that it costs on average $4,000 to clear a house, which helps to put a value on the time and efforts of the volunteers. He thinks that all of the volunteers here this week with the different active organizations - a huge influx because of spring break, hence the chaos in the morning - could probably do half a million dollars worth of house clearing this week.

The idea of being a part of that is definitely really encouraging and stimulating!