Today was an incredibly productive day. We managed to complete all the first floor wall assemblies for the first house and the vast majority of the flooring platform for the back half of the second house.
One of our Habitat supervisors couldn’t be with us today and so Steve Hart donned his contractor’s persona and we didn’t miss a beat. Billy better get back tomorrow or Habitat may be kidnapping Steve.
David had a momentary flash of genius last night. Yes, hard to believe but true. And so as soon as Frankie’s and Johnny’s opened at 11 a.m., we were on the phone ordering Po’ Boys. It is alleged that it is the bread that makes or breaks a Po’ Boy sandwich. Another New Orleans masterpiece. As the picture below shows, Sarah (the Rhino coordinator) likes them too. In fact she’d rather chomp into hers than hold it up for a photo op.
Again today, the heat index topped 100. In order to be more consistent with water/shade breaks during the work day, David purchased a Harpo Marxesque horn that he keeps close at hand and which sounds every hour. The generator is turned off and mandatory 10 minute break is declared.
Today we went through 6 five gallon coolers of water.
A wonderful thing about tomorrow is that the anticipation of seeing walls go up easily counteracts our cumulative exhaustion of the week.
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And now a word from Michael and Geralyn. . .
Greetings from New Orleans! Today started off strong; we had a fabulous breakfast of Lucky Charms and fruit. Every day we’ve been reading inspirational short stories called “Morning Watch” before starting construction; little nuggets of wisdom to remind us how to be good Christians (Today’s title was the Golden Eagle- TBD later). We arrived at the construction site and we were informed that one of the Habitat leaders would not be there today so we took direction on completing the interior walls and exterior walls from Steve (good thing he had his Lucky Charms as well).
We started the day off working on the last interior wall and by the end of the day we nearly finished working on the exterior walls. We had Po’ Boys for lunch; they’re the best sandwiches we’ve ever had, although that’s a serious understatement in itself. We’ve had some great food down in New Orleans and we simply can’t thank the chefs enough for providing us with fabulous Southern dishes.
Since we hadn’t discussed the Morning Watch in the morning, we decided to debate about it in the car on the way back to the house (which, by the way, is very, very comfortable). The story was about an eagle that grew up as a chicken. Thinking it was a chicken, the eagle looked up to the skies and saw an eagle flying. Another chicken told the eagle-turned-chicken that eagles belong to the sky and chickens belong to the earth. So the eagle lived and died as a chicken, because he thought he was a chicken. We had quite a heated discussion over the point of the story, as well as whether eagles are better than chickens. Tonight a family from our hosting church is taking us to Drago’s, a restaurant that reopened in New Orleans. The restaurant is known for its exquisite char-broiled oysters which we all look forward to eating. Afterwards we look forward to playing another intense game of Monopoly which we’ve played every night since we arrived.
We anticipate completing the first-floor framework on Friday. It’s really too bad Friday’s our last day for a number of reasons. We’ll miss the people we’ve met and the new friends we’ve made. We have completed a great amount of work on both houses, but we would love to have had the chance to finish both. Working on construction in New Orleans has been a beneficial experience in body, mind and soul. We hope you enjoy today’s pictures.
-- Michael & Geralyn
For all you folks who are jealous readying our blog – be the first on your block to sign up for Louisiana 5 – November 10-17.
Thank you for your prayer support. It has kept us strong.
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