Being in New Orleans

Today was one of the most eye opening days so far. I spent the day visiting other Common Ground Collective locations.

First I attended the Team Leaders meeting that happens every Monday, and had a chance to meet Malik Rahim, one of the founders. I learned more about the philosophy of the organization and realized that really the number one focus is rebuilding New Orleans while fighting the racism that has caused so many problems before and after Katrina hit. Second is to have a plan in place created by and for the citizens of New Orleans in case of another hurricane. The North Carolina chapter of Veterans for Peace managed to raise funds to donate a generator that was previously used as backup for a hospital. After updated from each team leader we all went outside to meet the residents of the Evergreen Apartments.

Ted, the other guy working on tech and I then set up another computer network for the residents there. So they now have two labs with three computers each.

Next we went over to the Common Ground Health Clinic to make sure their computers where working ok. We walked in a very small building that still looked like it's pre-Katrina restaurant use. Inside was a crammed waiting room. I have heard that there have been days when they had to stop taking patients 10 minutes after opening because there were so many waiting to be seen. As I said in an earlier post, only half of the hospitals in New Orleans have re-opened and the ones that have are not running to capacity. We could see some of the members of the all volunteer staff looking very busy, so we agreed to come back another time after clinic hours.

Next we walked through another historic part of town where any other time I would have liked to stop and see the amazing old cemetery, and beautiful old buildings. This part of town did see some storm damage (we even went past a church with it's steeple laying on it's lower roof), but it did not go under water when the levees broke. We arrived at the Lighthouse which is an old house where the volunteers that work at the clinic stay. They had another computer lab where they can do research, or just take a break. This network was cobbled together using all wireless even though they were all in the same room, so we began the first step of re-wiring the whole office.

We then caught the ferry across the river and arrived in a very different scene. This is the first time that I have seen the French Quarter, and it was looking as glamorous as ever. For the first time since being here I saw no signs of Katrina's devastation. It was all fixed up and tourists were everywhere. I felt like stopping them and asking if they knew what it looked like just 10 blocks away.

On a lighter note, Common Ground Collective might scrape by in some areas, but they have been getting great food donations from health food companies among others so it seems I will have no problem getting a great meal prepared by loving hands three times a day. Each of the centers that prepares meals open them up to the community so there is a good mix of volunteers and local residents.

I feel a bit like I'm at summer camp at times and I'm off to bed because they have a 6:30 wakeup team that goes from room to room so we don't miss 7:00 breakfast.