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From Sally Szuster:

Today and yesterday were spent in the hardest hit areas in New Orleans, helping to re-built the severely damaged homes. Despite the extraodinary damage that was inflicted on these homes, many still had owners living there -without heat or running water. These are underpriviledged neighborhoods, and for some, there was no alternative.

The home that we worked on yesterday was by any standard, unlivable - the dirt, dampness and mould and crumbling walls looked like it was beyond repair. And yet, it was being lived in by a man in his 70’s. The workers from Rebuilding Together, an extraordinary organization who aids underpriviledged home-owners with restoration and rebuilding were on site to guide us through the work. It was explained to us that most of these homes are historic, and can’t just be torn down and re-built. And so we spent the day cleaning, spackling and repairing. Rebuilding Together hopes to turn the house around in the next 10 days.

Today we spent the morning in a truly ravaged part of the 9th district. Every home that we passed was shattered, but still, remarkably, standing. As we began to work in front of one of the homes, Sydney Davis, a 67 year old man casually strolled by. We were working on his home. I asked him how long he had lived in the house, and he smiled widley showing his only remaining 2 teeth, and said “since the day I was born”. It has been in his family for 150 years. I’ve come to realize that so many of the most affected neighborhoods were made up of people like Sydney -who were were born and raised in their corner of New Orleans, whose extended family lived either across the street or down the block. Sydney spent Hurricane Katrina in the attic of his next door neighbour and was rescued in a few hours. The death toll in this neighborhood was high -many weren’t able to get out of the attics that they fled to and Sydney used the work “luck” to describe his circumstances. He went to his temporary trailer in the backyard to get two published books of photos about Katrina from The New York Times and CNN and showed us the photos of himself and his neighbours during the rescue effort.

While we were working around Sydney’s home we had the opportunity to meet Diane Keaton, who was there on behalf of The National Trust, who is working to preserve these historic homes. She was lovely, and thanked us for our work there.

One of the many haunting things in this city is the spray paint insignia on all homes. Its a large X put on my the first response workers indicating when they had arrived, the state of the home and how many dead were found.

Today’s construction work will finish early for Shabbat. I think that I can speak for our entire group when I say a time of refection will be welcomed this Shabbat.