New Orleans

Alright, so I didn't make it onto the show, for some reason they wanted to focus on the heroes...

Watching the show was a very surreal experience. I became very aware of how normal everyone was, from the celebrities, to the heroes, everyone there was a normal person who the media tries to paint as a demi-god.

If they're demi-gods then why honour their work? But they're normal, down to earth, people.

Liz McCartney (the one who won) is a phenomenal person. Her and her boyfriend/ co-founder were two of the most inspirational people I've met. Not because they're great orators, or overly charismatic, but because they're normal.

We spent a week in New Orleans working alongside the couple and their organisation, and honestly, I think it was one of the most bizarrely overwhelming experiences of my life. The contrast between the lively culture of downtown New Orleans, and the desolation of the areas we were helping rebuild was phenominal.

House after shell of a house, person after person, desperate for some grasp on why, three years later, they still hadn't seen any of the help that they presumed their country would give them.

The resounding shadow of disbelief hung in the air, mingled with the smell of mildew and mold from the abandoned - how could this happen in America?

But in amongst all this there was hope. Like a small green shoot, fighting it's way through the ice. Small, but brutally determined. This generation has resigned to the fact that they will may never see 'home' in their lifetime, but they are determined, with the little they have left, that there is a future.

We worked on a house in a street of shells. There was nothing but residue. The whole block echoed a similar picture. But the house across the street had been rebuilt. A few children played quietly in the yard and the mother was expecting another. I couldn't imagine what it must be like to be a kid growing up on that street. It was silent. There were nothing lived there.

But this family had hope. They were one of the fortunate ones who had somehow made it out of a trailer. And they knew that however long it took there would be life here again.

When faced with all that (and there was a hellofa lot more that would turn this post into a novel) some of the team would cry on the trip from the site back to where we were staying, others would talk about what they'd seen, trying to process or find some rationalisation. I took photos and am still trying to figure it all out.

But Liz and Zach live eat and breathe helping people there. They didn't stop to figure it out, they saw a need and went to try and fix it. 'this is a solvable problem' was the statement they used and they were right, but for two people to have the faith to pack up their lives and start to find a way to solve it blows my mind.

They're amazing and truly deserved the award. The people of New Orleans deserve the award.

cnn heroes

so the lady (Liz McCartney) who's organisation we were working with to rebuild houses in new orleans (St. Bernard Project) won the cnn heroes award last night. the list of people was amazing, so any of them winning would have been phenominal, but i think it's pretty cool that it's someone i actually know who won!

i've set the tevo for it tonight. can't wait to see it (the fact that we were at the cnn pre-thing they did and may be on tv obviously has nothing to do with it... i'll let you know.)

she's an amazing woman and her and her partner more than deserve the award. the $100,000 will be put to amazing use i'm sure.

yesterday

Yesterday it was cold.

I'm not saying this for sympathy, but to try and paint a picture.

I'm Scottish, I know cold, but not like this. The wind was careering around like a rapid dog, wearing you down and biting at any glance of bare skin. I stood outside for maybe ten minutes before i lost the feeling in my glove-clad fingers and toes (i literally couldn't feel the click of my index finger on my camera. The poor guy from India didn't know what hit him.)

It was Saturday afternoon, time for the mobile soup kitchen. To say i'd avoided leaving the house all morning would be an understatement, however, i've never been so motivated to go out and see the guys.

Whatever i was feeling was nothing in comparison. i can't even imagine. apparently a refrigerator box and a keenly picked supermarket back yard and you're all the way... i'm less than convinced.

It's easy to forget how many people don't have the luxury of four walls and a roof when you're all cozied up in bed with a good book and a duvet twice as thick as you, but yesterday i remembered. And again this morning at six when i woke up and willed myself into the crisp morning (central heated) air. i actually can't imagine what it's like and pray that i'll only ever have to imagine.

One things for sure, i've never seen so many volunteers out helping or so many donations of stuff for the guys (one woman had hand knitted them all scarves) or so much gratitude for a (relatively small) thanksgiving meal, some clothes and a short hello.

my first thanksgiving and im very thankful

today i witnessed a miracle.

i don't use this word lightly.

i watched it unravel as the day went on in overwhelmed awe and awkward sadness.


today it got cold.

the temperature has dropped suddenly by about 20oC in the last week or so and was at -3oC today. dry and just beginning, it bit as i left the house to go help out at the pantry this morning.

the food pantry is one of my favourite things about the week, it never fails to encourage me in one way or another.

today, however, was an exception. it went above and beyond.

next Thursday is thanksgiving. a holiday that I've had no experience with first hand, but is very important to people here. it's bigger than Christmas in some ways and is a flagged date for families' calendars. as a special recognition of this, some people donated (a lot of) money, or food especially for the purpose of supplying Thanksgiving day supplies to our regular families.

this was no mean feat, so when i arrived to discover that more volunteers had appeared to help than should have i was pretty chuffed. we divided into two buildings; in one we gave out the regular supplies; in the other we gave turkeys, pumpkin pies, and the trimmings as a gift.

the morning was manic. queues were lined up (due to the first come first served nature of the turkeys) a half hour before we even opened.

as i walked in the door to the pantry and saw how much food there was i admit to being worried. the last few weeks we've been staggered with around 60 families in the combined day and from what i could see we were going to be very pushed.
this morning alone we had over 60 families.

granted, we ran out of a few things, but the basics were given. and we'd fed more than usual so i was pretty chuffed. i figured we'd be alright cos there's normally just a few extra come at night, most of whom had already come. we'd be okay.

the turkeys were running low, but it would be okay. (at least that's what i told myself)

so tonight.

we arrive to, again, people waiting, but that was fine we had a guy drop off a donation of more turkeys so had enough for the few extras that would come and then we'd use leftovers for the homeless guys on Saturday.

or so we thought. they came. and came. and came. we ran out of turkeys (which was the bit i helped with in the evening) so headed over to the other building to help there. the place was packed with helpers, all busily putting together bags.

knowing how much food had been left from the morning i figured they must have been quiet and only just gotten busy. how else could we explain the amount of food on the shelves? i chipped in and made up a few too and then i heard it. one of the women's sons shouted in excitement "we reached 100!" surely not. how was that possible? where did the people come from? where did the food come from?! where did the volunteers come from?! it felt great that we had helped that many families (each averaging 4 or 5 people) but i hadn't seen a single person that day who didn't need the food, and that was tragic.

then something else amazing happened. i noticed a women i know carrying in big bags of food. her father had been committed to helping the pantry and homeless from when it began until he died less than a year ago. it had been a massive blow, not only to the family, but to the guys who he helped and truly cared for. she kept taking in more bags so i asked where they'd come from? her boss had heard about the pantry and just committed to giving a large donation every month. then another lady came and offered a stream of bread donations.

then the final numbers were called.

a hundred and nine families.

i've only been doing this for a few months but i know how much food we had at the start of the day and we should have been pushed to feed the morning. there was not enough food to feed that many people, and there was food still left at the end of the day.

i grew up with stories about god providing for people in need, mostly from the bible, occasionally from someone who knew someone that *insert impossible need* and i have to admit that a part of me only believed them in theory. i have faith for big things, but it's one thing to dream something and pray and believe for it, it's another thing altogether to actually see it.

we were so caught up in the chaos that we didn't even stop to think, will this be enough, we just all knew it had to be and pray that somehow it would be. and it was.


there is absolutely no doubt that it was by the grace of God that we had enough food today.

a hundred and nine families. over three hundred and thirty full bags of food from the normal pantry alone.

i don't understand.

i praise God for it.

and he left more.

i'm speechless. really.

thirty six months later

today i was searching for a book with info and images from the immediate aftermath of katrina and it got quite frustrating because the ones you could look inside had a lot of photos very similar to what i already had. (why by the book when you have the photos?)

then it struck me - the photos i have are very similar to the ones of the immediate aftermath.

three years later.

there's a little less water now, granted, but three years have past and the desimation in a lot of the city is still very aparent.

how can it be that so little has changed in that period of time?

people have so much unrealised potential. we're a powerful force of energy when we want to be.

is there really any need for such a mess?

What are the dreams that lie behind your fears?

I just got back from a trip to New Orleans (that I'll go into detail about soon) that blew my mind. Give God half a chance and that always seems to be the outcome.

A team of ten of us to do some construction work predominantly. The most eclectic team you ever met: from 16 to 60; from electricians to artists. But from the word go we meshed impeccably and became a team in the best sense. We were family. All of us gave 120% to every task and worked more fluidly than I could have dreamed of.

Thinking back on how much we achieved and the impact we made I can't get my head around it.

One of the guys shared something he'd been reading one night “ what are the dreams that lie behind your fears?” and it resounded with all of us.

How much can you achieve when you let go of what scares you and give everything? What is that you see when you think you're not looking but don't hope to hope for?

Our team stepped past fears and saw dreams we didn't think we had. We came home with a need to see more.

Why not.

It goes

It goes

cars, people, lines and light

one hundred nameless, faceless. plight


It goes

car, person, line and light

one name, a face, a life worth. fight

night in

it's friday night so what else would you do but battle some guitar hero, watch a movie and eat some pizza?

i'm babysitting a friend's kid tonight, he's eight going on 28 with a crackin sense of humour so it's far from a hardship.

i'm stayin with them for a couple of days (which he seemed pretty chuffed about and i am too) they're great i love spending time with them.

tomorrow we're heading to the mobile soup kitchen to cook meals for around 60 people so i started cooking up for it last night. i was sure i kept smelling beef all today, i think i'll be smelling it for some time, which would be fine, but i didn't especially like meat before.

so i find myself tonight, persuaded (more like ordered) to sit down, switch off the lights, put on my 3D glasses and watch spy kids 3D. i've watched a lot of movies in the last year or so and often find it hard to watch one without analysing it. for some reason this doesn't seem to be a problem with this one... possibly because it comes complete with a feeling of sea-sickness.

id better get back to it since the adventure seems to be heating up: the president (george clooney of course) just asked the boy spy to save the world, and his sister! and who's the vilain? sylvester stylone of course...

there we have it

history has been made.

obama was called just as i was about to go to bed, and is running away with votes as i type, so now i find myself fixated by mccain's impressively gracious speech and comments from people who stood by mr king jr back in the day.

i mean whatever you think about the political standpoints, thinking about this from a racial standpoint, it's major. these guys who are speaking gave all they had to fight for a glimmer of equality, and hearing them talk about living to see something that they never would have hoped to dream for is amazing. watching footage of reactions from people in kenya (from the same place my parents just got back from) to be honest it's a little overwhelming.

but really cool.

needless to say i'll be buying a paper tomorrow to keep and show my grandkids one day.

and praying that the psychos stay at bay.

the new presidents about to give his speach so im off to listen.

this is history.

history

well i just got back from another night of looking out for some crazed kids (although this time minus the sugar) and find myself sitting watching the climax of the political 'tug-of-war' that's been the main story of the news for the past 20months and all i've been hearing about (and trying to stay out of) since i've been here.

i guess this happens every four years but the fact of the matter is that whatever happens tonight is history in the making. whoever wins, to put it bluntly, there will be either a black man or a woman in the whitehouse upper teirs. it's very interesting but to say that the country's on tenter-hooks would be an understatement.

as an outsider (who ultimately will be affected by the outcome) it's been a bizzare experience. on a spur-of-the-moment trip to the city over the weekend to visit a friend (who had been given the day off college in honour of the candidate who studied there) it became very clear, while walking through a sea of blue badges and monogramed tshirts, who new yorkers were voting for.

people here are very open about who they support and curious, and up for debate over everyone elses views. despite my best efforts i didn't quite manage to sneak under the radar, being put on the spot on several occasions and having to watch very closely what i said so as to stay completely out of debate. apart from anything else, i was brought up in a culture where it just isn't the 'done thing' to ask someone who they vote for, and i generally avoid the political party conversation (opinionatedly debating over mildly varying shades of grey) with anyone who i don't have a pretty solid relationship with so am not about to divulge anything to strangers if i can avoid it. to be honest i really don't know who i'd vote vote for if u had to.

it's a mixture of morbid curiousity and the unavoidable hype but i really am quite excited to see who's going to win. although not quite enough to fuel staying up till all the states are called (so far there's a lot of blue on the map but it's really close.)

whatever happens tomorrow's going to be a new day and there will be unhappy people regardless.

Yesterday was halloween.

This year, instead of getting dressed up and silly with some friends and cheesy tunes from the 80's, I went along to soft play area from heaven with a bunch of kids. I was just gutted they weren't for adults.

Afterwards I stayed over at a friends to watched her kid and his friend in the morning. Needless to say, there was little sleeping involved after they'd been pumped full of candy and this morning they were up at the crack of dawn, deciding to completely clear out the garage as a surprise for his mum when she got back.

Since I got back to an empty house, I decided to go for a walk and then chill out with some decaf coffee (after realising that I'd substituted water for caffeine filled fluids) and watch The Silence of the Lambs.

I'm pooped.