Today is Tuesday our first full day at camp Buras. We are on "island time." Our wake up call was supposed to be at 8:00 and a meeting discussing our work duties for the day was at 8:30. We were all up waiting and had breakfast when the wake up call was at 8:30. Our meeting began close to 9:00.

We had a group of guys go to a small church to dig for a pipeline. Two other groups worked on resident's gardens. The majority of us worked at camp Buras in the distribution center, kitchen, and tent city. Two other groups later left for child care duties.

We have been able to make friends with the locals. While I (Debbie) was serving dinner I struck up a conversation with a gentleman who has 22 grandchildren and he is very proud of each one. Kim met a 5th grader from Boothville Elementary whose dog survived Katrina and was saved by the animal shelter and recovered when the family went to the shelter. The last thing she told her dog when was evacuating was "I will always love you even when I get old."

Another local is a shrimper. He catches and sells the shrimp to the dock in Venice (which is the southern tip of LA). He was here for 8 months with no electricity after Katrina hit. He wears bear claws and aligator teeth as part of a necklace he has.

Part of our group worked on Helen's garden. Helen is 73 years old and has lived here all her life. She lost her home but was able to rebuild. As a thank you to the group, Helen fixed them gumbo. The group loved it, we wish we could have been there!

Getting ready for tribal council.

Debbie and Kim