Juhair Khan - Monday

I had no idea about this blogspot so my first blog which I wrote back home is posted in SOCS blog...

Its been two days since we arrived in New Orleans, the 2 day drive here was tiring and I couldn't wait for it to be over after a few hours on the second day. We arrived around 11pm on saturday and all I could remember seeing first in New Orleans was the tall bridges. The first thought that came into my mind when seeing the bridges were about the thousands of people who were trying to leave the city because of the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. That was all I noticed but my expectation of the city was that the whole city was half abandoned and I would see thousands of broken houses and empty spaces where houses once use to be. I expected to see people in very severe living conditions and many homeless people still.
However, this was not the case, after four years things have improved a lot, more than I expected.

The next day we woke up and had breakfast then went out for a driving tour of the city. This was the most exciting part of this trip so far. This was when I realized that the city of New Orleans is slowly standing back up on its feet. Many businesses opened up, many of the residence of NO came back, tourists were coming back, thousands of houses were being rebuilt, and the city looked very lively. Even with all this positivism of the city, there were still much work to do. The effects of the Hurricane is still present, but I believe slowly this city will come back to full recovery and possible even better then it was.

I am excited and thrilled about being a part of this and helping rebuild New Orleans.