Prime Time

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 10, 2019.

Day Six was probably my best day yet in New Orleans, and a nice breath of fresh, humid air from the sudden change in mood I experienced yesterday. I was tired this morning, so I got out of bed at 6:30 AM with enough time to spare to change into my work clothes, bring my bag, pack lunch, and head out to the car with my classmates to get coffee. We left for coffee just past 7:00 AM and headed to Hi Volt Coffee located near Saint Charles Avenue. This morning, I ordered a bagel and some root beer, trying to avoid caffeine while also enjoying some local flavors. The bagel was basic, but it was quite good and made for a satisfying breakfast on this cold 44ºF (6.67ºC) morning. Once everyone finished eating breakfast, we boarded our cars and headed to the Seventh Ward to complete our work on Mr. Smith’s home. Today was our last day working on the home and my personal goal was to finish priming my window. I guess you could say it was “Prime Time.” Okay, I’m done.

Today was my slowest work day., but it started off lovely. The Smiths kept good on their offer to make hot chocolate; they provided us with hot water and cocoa powder along with cups and forks. This was one of the nicest gestures I have ever experienced, and that’s coming from a guy whose lunch was paid for by a random Japanese man back in March! After drinking my hot cocoa, I dawned my gear, collected a Rebuilding Together t-shirt, and got to work. I took more frequent breaks every hour or so in order to recharge my batteries and distract myself from scraping even more paint off of my window. I was making decent progress though as I had removed all of the significant chips from my window and successfully readied the surface for primer by lunch time. During lunch, I sat closest to my professors and the AmeriCorps crew, asking them questions about Katrina’s effects on the Seventh Ward. I learned that the Seventh Ward was under eight feet of water, which was about as high as the brick pillars over the Smith’s patio. During our discussion about the effects of Katrina, I asked my professor, who grew up in the San Fernando Valley, about the aftermath of the Northridge Earthquake as the Valley has some geographic features that resemble a bowl. My Professor explained that he was at the University of San Diego at the time, and that his home was destroyed during the quake. His family was out of place for eight months as their home was rebuilt. Noah, who is from Michigan, explained that one of the reasons he likes living in Michigan is because it is free of major natural disasters, such as Hurricanes, Earthquakes, and Fires.

At about 12:30 PM, I met with my facilitation partner and our graduate student to work on our facilitation for the class. Despite our preparation by reading the appropriate chapter of The Call of Service for our facilitation, we failed to realize that there was a prompt. Thankfully I was able to pull up the prompt on Blackboard and we worked on discussing our activities and questions. My partner already had quotes from our readings she wanted to incorporate into the facilitation whereas I came up with the questions we would ask the class. We also came up with our in-class activities to wrap up the facilitation. Despite that one setback, we created a comprehensive facilitation which would do well, but more on that in a bit.

I got back to work at 1:15 PM and began priming my window frame. I was nervous about priming correctly (it seems I’m nervous about doing ANYTHING correctly), but I decided to experiment with different techniques until I found one that worked best. I also asked questions from others and received tips on how to do a better job at priming. I continued priming about 2/3rds of my window frame until 3:15 PM when I packed up my gear and put it away. The reason why I only primed 2/3rds of my window was because the lower third was occupied by an air conditioning unit, which I wanted to protect. My other professor (Justin) did some more priming on my window frame, thus completing the job and making it look better than it did before.

As I was rolling up the plastic sheet lining the driveway and sweeping, I was in awe at how much progress my class made these past four days. We started with a home that has seen better days, stripped almost every window and door frame of pealing lead paint, primed said window and door frames, and glazed the windows. Sure, we accidentally cracked a few window panes but Rebuilding Together (RT) will replace those free of charge. At this time, volunteers will work on the home for about six weeks or until all repairs are made. The AmeriCorps volunteers were impressed with how much progress we made, expressing how much they appreciated our group and our contributions. They hailed us as one of their best volunteer groups as well exchanged hugs with one another saying our goodbyes. We then boarded our cars for the last time from the work site to Saint Jude (SJ) where we met for class.

My facilitation was up today. My partner and I asked the class to reflect on their highs and lows of the week. Most students experienced great satisfaction from doing service by repairing the Smith residence, while most students did not enjoy the lack of sleep this week brought. My partner then presented a quote from the textbook Exploring Leadership for College Students who want to make change (2013) while I asked the class to pair up with someone they have not spoken to much, reflect on their definition of leadership from the first class session prior to New Orleans, and how they saw their definition of leadership applied to their work with RT. One student shared with me how Leadership requires empathy and that she saw it applied to understanding the Smith’s situation. Another student shared with the class how she saw the aspect of “knowing, being, doing” applied to our work. Once the class chimed in to this question, my partner shared another quote from The Call of Service (1993) about leadership (quote on p. 125) while I shared a similar quote on p. 124. I then asked the class to pair up with another student with whom they did not speak to that much and answer “how do they find meaning in what they do.” A student shared with me how she finds meaning through serving others, while I shared how I found meaning through serving the Chapman community and leaving a lasting legacy when I served as Vice-Chair for the University Program Board. The majority of this class stated that they found their meaning through serving others and leaving a lasting impact. I think we are all similar that way to be honest, we realize that what we offer as leaders “…isn’t the be-all and end-all of what we can offer” to others (Coles, 1993, p. 244). My partner and I concluded our facilitation with a “Tap a Friend” activity where we divided the class into two groups and took turns tapping people on their shoulders when a prompt, such as “tap someone you consider a friend” described someone. We concluded the activity on time. Having realized that I was so focused on conducting the facilitation that I forgot to tap people, I turned to my partner with the intent of tapping her on her shoulder ten times, one for each prompt. We hugged for five seconds instead and she told me that she was glad to have me as a partner for the facilitation. That made my day.

Our class then watched part four of When The Levees Broke, which documented the aftermath of Katrina by examining the FEMA situation and lack of political will to do anything. This part showed how the residents of New Orleans were left to their own devices and how property value in the Lower Ninth Ward skyrocketed. The documentary’s speakers had negative views on gentrification, not wanting the city to become a small White town. Later on in this part, it was shown that some engineers went to The Netherlands to explore their advanced flood control systems and how they felt embarrassed at how inadequate the New Orleans flood control system was.

From what I have experienced in New Orleans thus far, the town seems to be doing a good job bouncing back. Katrina strengthened the communities of New Orleans and while it brought out the worst in some, it also brought out the best in many, many more people.

When asked if we had any questions or comments at the end of the documentary, I briefly discussed how cultural values may have played a role in how Katrina was handled. I am a strong individualist and I strongly believe that individualist cultures have their benefits, yet I noticed how there were differences in how Katrina was handled compared to the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami that struck Japan in 2011. Whereas the Japanese people helped out the people of Fukushima by buying their products and elderly people sacrificing themselves to clean up the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the residents of New Orleans were left to fend for themselves while nothing was getting done in terms of rebuilding the city and assisting the largely working-class population. There are other factors to, such as Japanese culture’s heavy emphasis on discipline and organization, but my point was Japanese people were more inclined to help one another out whereas America did not seem to be that way. Once again, I got ahead of myself as this is something that will be discussed after the trip.

Before getting dinner, I asked my two professors for feedback on the facilitation, to which they said it was perfect. They like the quotes used, how we concluded the facilitation, and how well organized and prepared we were. They also noted how serious I took the facilitation which was yet another boost. Earlier today was Prime Time, but tonight was also Prime Time.

Tonight’s dinner consisted of jambalaya and other pastas available to the volunteers staying at SJ. After dinner, I tagged along with eight other students where we headed over to Fry and Pie in Bywater to eat delicious French Fries and fancy desserts. The sweet devil pie I had was quite good. This restaurant is located behind a popular bar and occupies what used to be a Cuban restaurant, featuring art that, let’s just say prompts discussions about current events. We then walked by Gene’s Po-Boys, which gained notoriety after being heavily featured in Drake’s music video for “In My Feelings.” After taking some short videos of our dancing, we headed back to SJ and called it a night.

My cynicism from yesterday disappeared. I’m feeling better about my classmates also being my friends after today. I even got to talk to most of them today and learn a little more about them. It is a very unique group of people who are also kind of quirky, like me. Tomorrow is our first day without serving the community, but our learning has not stopped because of it. Let’s see what Day Seven brings.