Day number five in New Orleans has just ended, and I can't believe it. This experience is going by so fast, and is also so incredibly different from last year. I thought I knew what to expect coming down here again, and in some ways I did but in others I didn't. I knew what to expect when it came to our daily routine and the logistics, but I don't think anyone can really expect what we are going to get out of a certain work site on a certain day.
Today I went in the Kane-mobile, and we drove about an hour away to a community called La Place. There was a group that was there yesterday and they partially gutted the house, and our job today was to do Mold Remediation, which was something I have never ever done, yet alone heard of. All I knew was that we were going to be working with chemicals and needed to use respirators. When we arrived at the house we first finished up the last hour or so of gutting that needed to be done. I put on the white disposable respirator, goggles, and work gloves and started pulling insulation out of the wall. Once we finished all the gutting, we swept and cleaned up then had our lunch.
After lunch we started the part of the job needing the chemicals. We traded in the white respirators for the big, chunky plastic respirators with the huge filters attached to it, they basically reminded me of gas masks. Then we had one of three jobs in the Mold Remediation; using a wire brush to "wake up" the mold, spraying the chemical on the exposed boards, and sponging the chemical onto all of the exposed boards. I took the job of using the wire brush. We also had to use a spray paint system to let everyone know where we were in the removal process. If a board had a purple streak, it had been wire brushed. If a board had a white streak, the board had been sprayed with chemical and lastly if it had a gold streak, it had been sponged and completed.
As I worked brushing the wood, I looked around and just saw everyone else working just as hard at all their tasks. We all looked like aliens with the respirators on our faces, and we couldn't really talk to each other since we would have to yell to be heard, but we had this groove and understanding on when we needed to mark a board, or needed help finishing something. I realized I could never have expected how much fun I actually had on this work site doing all this hard labor for six hours today. I thought about it and came to the conclusion it wasn't because the work I was doing was fun, it was extremely hard it was because the people I was with made it so enjoyable. So far this week no matter where I have gone I have had a good time because of the people I am with, and never before have I felt like that. This is defiantly one of the best things that could of ever happened, and I couldn't of expected. I can easily say that each and every person on this trip is now a friend I will have for the rest of the school year, and for life.
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