Thank You for Your Service
Author’s Note: The following events were written as they were occurring. As such, they were written in the appropriate tense at that time. The following events occurred on January 7, 2019.
After a brief night’s rest at Saint Jude Community Center (SJ), I woke up just before 5:00 AM and changed into my work clothes, consisting of a stained pair of jeans, a black t-shirt, and a sweater for the chilly New Orleans Morning. As everyone else was waking up, we ate breakfast courtesy of SJ and prepared our bagged lunches for our first day rebuilding Mr. Smith’s residence in the Seventh Ward. We left at 7:00 AM and headed to Hi Volt Coffee near Magazine Street by the mighty Mississippi river. While there, I ordered a vegan doughnut and some mineral water and, to be perfectly honest, browsed reddit and the stock market. This would be my last major taste of the privileged life for the day as we headed over to Rebuilding Together’s warehouse located in the Saint Claude neighborhood. We met with our representative from Rebuilding Together and watched a ladder safety training for the workplace. During training, we were informed that Mr. Smith’s residence contains lead paint, which meant extra precautions were needed in order to properly strip the peeling paint from his house. More details about these procedures would be provided on sight. After visiting the Chapman wall at the warehouse, we headed over to the Seventh Ward to meet with our AmeriCorps captain and get to work rebuilding Mr. Smith’s home.
This was a special opportunity for me. While I had never met Mr. Smith or even known of his existence prior to this trip, he served in the military, protecting our country. Whatever your views are on war, Mr. Smith makes up one of millions of soldiers who protected our way of life. To that, I am forever grateful. It is an honor to serve Mr. Smith because he served me.
So what about the work? After putting on my safety gear (a face mask, goggles, and gloves), I cut the chatter and picked up a ladder along with some Simple Green and a Paint Scrapper. I climbed up to the eaves of Mr. Smith’s roof where I, along with several of my peers, began stripping lead paint from the roof. After getting frustrated at what seemed to be a lack of progress, I switched over to stripping the window frames of paint, which proved to be much easier.
The task of stripping paint was exhausting, backbreaking labor. Despite this, one of my classmates seemed to be a natural to me. She was stripping paint from under the roof at what seemed to be a record pace! I couldn’t keep up, so I started copying her and her methods. In the end, we mostly worked next to each other throughout the day.
Our on-site supervisor was on top of everything. He knew where everything needed to be and took charge of the rebuilding effort. I recall him detailing what we will be doing on Tuesday. Because the majority of the paint was stripped off the windows and eaves, the plan was to start sanding tomorrow.
Towards the end of our “first shift” before lunch, I became somewhat restless. I was so focused on doing a good job at paint stripping that I did not pace myself too well. I felt guilty about taking a short break before lunch. Thankfully, lunch was an hour long, but due to an oversight back at SJ, I had no lunch. Luckily, my classmate who I stripped paint with packed extra supplies. Her, along with my professors and other classmates provided me with extra snacks. I felt uncomfortable with accepting their lunch offerings, but I was super thankful nonetheless; I would like to repay my possible new friends for their kindness, but then again, kindness is rare these days and I prefer to give rather than receive.
Because today’s focus was stripping lead paint from the window frames and roof, I climbed back up on the ladder and continued to work. I felt that my productivity decreased at this point. I was becoming more frustrated with what I saw as a lack of progress compared to my peers. I moved around to different parts of the home, even attempting to do work on the other side before returning to my original spot. I then decided to ask my supervisor for other work opportunities and began stripping paint from the green window screens instead. I worked along with one of my professors for about 30 minutes before 3:15 PM struck. At this time, I put the screen away, put some ladders away, and rolled up the plastic sheets containing the majority of the stripped paint. I then helped some other classmates clean up some remaining paint chips and we then headed back to SJ for our first class session in New Orleans. The class revisited our hopes and fears we wrote down before the trip and upon revealing them, we realized that we all shared the same concerns (crime, making new friends, speaking, etc.). We watched part one of the Spike Lee documentary When The Levees Broke, ate dinner, and split off to explore New Orleans
My fellow students and I visited Café du Monde and ordered beignets and shopped for hot sauce at the Pepper Palace, home to the world’s hottest hot sauce: The End. After one of my classmates purchased said hot sauce, we headed back to SJ and called it a night.
At the time of writing, I am trying to catch up on reading. While I am hoping that I don’t have to strip more paint and can focus on a new task, I am willing to strip more paint if need be. Let’s see what Day Four brings.