Last Night in Buras

This is our last night in Buras. We are going to load up early in the morning and head for New Orleans. After an hour or so there, we'll head north to Knoxville.

Today was a very satisfying day to me. We finished the clean out of Pete's Place. Now he can start re-wiring and re-plumbing. His dream is to create a communigy based rebuilding assistance center run by locals. His heart is to see his community and his culture re-built. He is assisted by the woman who owns the two properties he is renovating. And she is on the local school board and will work to gather and maintain the community support needed.

On a more somber note, I had the chance to visit Camp Diamond. Diamond is a FEMA-built project that has 450 trailers (campers, not mobile homes) with families in each. The average trailer houses around 8 people. The location is an old baseball complex. the baseball fields are still there, but everything else is gravel, concrete and those 450 matching white trailers. They are fenced in and there are armed guards at the gate. At first glance it was very depressing to me. Our work (with the EC) has been to run afternoon programs for the kids. Our students have been quite successful in establishing rapport with those children and everyone was sad to have to leave so soon. (way to Go Ninjas!)
I have decided to take the hopeful position that we have planted a seed of hope and joy in these children. Our short time with them may be the ray of hope they need to get past their past (and current) tough times.