So basically what I learned on this tour was that the disaster was mostly man made because the levees werent done right. I also learned that the gov't turned down alot of aid from other countries after Katrina hit, many people made a lot of money off selling FEMA trailers and taking advantage of peoples desperation, and that even after 3 years the gov't still hasnt done much to restore peoples homes, but they did fix the tourist areas so it looks like nothing happened. It took 5 days for the gov't to get people food and water who were in the convention center or super dome. and even longer for search teams to rescue ppl trapped in their homes.
When buses finally did come to take people out of the city, families were split up onto different buses and sent to all different corners of the nation. People had no way of knowing where their family members were going or how to contact them so they could get back together.
People left with
nothing. All important documents had been destroyed, birth certificates, dental records, anything in a bank security deposit box, ect. All their old photos and memories were gone. and even for personal items that were not destroyed by the water or swept away in the current where not always easy to recover later. It took people weeks to be able to make a trip back to their houses in NO. Some people
still havent been able to come back. and for those who could make the journy, there was no garuentee their homes were safe enough to enter and retrieve personal possesions or that their homes hadnt been looted.
Katrina and the broken levees caused the most damage to property in American history.
The people who lived in New Orleans suffered more than most people when they lost their homes and jobs because many NO families all lived close together in the same neighborhoods. So while for the typical family who looses everything to a natural disaster can be taken in by another branch of the family until they get back on their feet, a NO family would have no one to turn to because every branch of their family had lost their homes and jobs also.
Think about loosing your home and what a
home really means to people. People work their whole lives to pay for or build their homes. Home is a sense of pride and security. It's a foundation (no pun intdended) on which you build your family and life. Home is where the heart is. For the people of NO, there was heart all around their homes. Family's lived in tight knit communities and neighborhoods. Many people havnet come back to NO because their friends and nieghboors cant move back and because there are no stores yet. and because people havent moved back yet, corporate owned businesses wont come back. So it's a catch 22.
***I'll say more later***
Thibidoux is where we spent most of the week doin work with Bayou Area Habitat for Humanity
***I'll say more on the service part later too***
I uploaded some pictures on picasa.... here are the links
Self portrait I did for basic painting class. It took me 18 hours to finish but most import is that I actually FINISHED IT ON TIME!!! I'm really proud of myself! (cept I still need to go in an fix a few minor details...but overall its pretty much done)
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Last week I woke up Monday morning with a bad stomach ache and ended up being sick all week with one of the worst stomach aches I'd ever had. (if you've ever been to a foreign country and drank the water or ate food you weren't supposed to and got really sick for a week, THATS what it felt like for me last week)
Kay Yow, NC State women's basketball coach, passed away last Saturday of breast cancer. She had been fighting breast cancer for about 20 years and was a inspirational figure for women everywhere. To be honest, I really hate wearing pink but in honor of her passing I have changed my ways and plan to make a line of pink Super NC State shirts.
for my first project we had to "reinterpret" a famous sculptors work. I was assigned to redo Constantin Brancusi's "Adam and Eve"
which is carved out of wood. I decided to recreate it with wire and just capture the contour lines of the form. I left the two blocks solid to contrast the wire frames because they are important in Brancusi's sculptures.
Still life painting: Session 2, 3 and 4
I thought this video was hot not jus cause I love doin portraits. making out faces with weird objects isn't anything new but I like how they made the process of building the face go with the music and changed views in the verse. Simple. but very good. I like...
"I'm runnin this, and I can jump the hurdles. I feel like I am racing a bunch of little turtles..."
Bigger turtles need bigger tanks...u can get a sense for the scale by his lil step cave thing which is in both pictures.
Me and Sofia before we went out new years eve.
