NOLA DAY!

TOday was a very informative, but intersting day I must say. We did not do any Guts today, We received money from Earl Schwartz to do educational things. We all decided to go on the Gray Line tour, which covers parts of the Katrina disaster in a 3 hour tour. It was amazing. The man who led the tour, Joe, knew a lot about the city and the individual people that have lived in NEw Orleans. He took us around to various spots of the city and described some of the damage that occurred. Also he noted on some of the event shtta happened. he talked about where he was at during the storm. He actually went to the hotel that was right next to the Superdome and waited out the storm. He says that he did not know anything about the water, because no one did. All he remembers was staying inside of the hotel, and experiencing the breaking of the windows, because the roof of the superdome was flying off and hitting the hotel. It was pretty eery to hear his story. he also talked about what happened at the convention center. People were dying in from and inside of the building. It was so sad to hear baout that because the whole time I was listening I was trying to picture myself in the situation. It was very hot on those days and there was no food or water, let alone no air conditioner, so people were suffering. People were being seperated from their loved ones so that they could be evacuated. The worst part was that there was over a thousand children who were seperated from their parents, and the last child was just recently reunited with their parents in the last few months. We saw a house that had the typical X that showed what was found in the houses and who searched them, but this house was different however. It had to X's, because a lot of the national guards were searching the houses in boats and were unable to get into the houses because the water was too high. Then when the water went down, it was searched 2 weeks later and 2 bodies were found at that time. At the end he let us know that 3 dollars from our ticket price was going to a charity of our choice, and we had five to choose from. i chose to donate to the SPCA which helps in recovering Animals. He also gave us a template of a letter to write to our congresspeople, I thought that the tour was amazing, and I am going to try and push for that to be included on the CSI trips next spring, it was so informative, and it also gives an opportunity to give a portion to a charity. While being here i am being faced with many obstacles that give me ideas for how to add new twists and experiences to the CSI trips. I would like to a see a community outreach of some form. Last trip we did a lot of gutting, and that is great and next year, when it calls we should definitely continue. However I see a lot of opportunities to help the community outside of gutting. If we could find places in the ommunity to volunteer we could do that. For example we could work with the school, and help pass out tests or somehting like that, the schools are always looking for people to help. A group of us Hamline students were walking down the street the other day and the prinicipal of the school invited us in for sandwiches I would love to take a full day with the kids and read and play, we could do something so awesome. There is also a lack of workers down here when it comes to sanitation. The parks are open, but there are no workers to pick up the trash that people leave, after they have finished their picnics. We could do that. I am trying to brainstorm as many ideas as possible and if I pitch them properly hopefully people will see them as interesting ideas. I am tired but still in good spirits.
TOny Wilson