Ryan Gale- Initial Impressions

So, after two days of travel, we finally made it to New Orleans. Yesterday we toured the city, and experienced the lively culture in the French Quarter. After being here last year, I was interested to see any change or new development. When we reached the Lower 9th Ward in our driving tour, I was amazed to see the progress. Althought not a large number of houses had been put up since last year, the area has improved. The foundations and steps that marked where homes used to be last year, were mostly gone and dismantled this year. Although the area was overgrown in parts, it made great strides since I last saw it a year ago. The rest of the city also has developed quickly in only a year. Downtown New Orleans and the French Quarter were lively as always, mostly with tourists, but the spirit of the city was still evident. It was interesting to see all of the pride that the area has in the Saints (especially since they are in the playoffs this year). It may give the city and it's inhabitants some sense of recovery, recreation and escape.
Furthermore, today the TCNJ group divided up into three groups and began work on our houses. I am currently working on putting up dry wall and mudding the inside of a house for a middle-aged woman a town over from New Orleans. The need of the work was evident when the woman arrived home from work. She did not own a car so someone had to drive her home from her shift at Wendy's which she had to wake up at the crack of dawn for. I did similar work last year, and it is nice to be able to work somewhat independtly and help others at the same tasks I had explained to me last year. We were only able to breifly talk to our home owner today, and I am looking forward to talking more with her and hearing her story. I hope to not only make progress on the house, but to be able to talk with those who lived through the tragedy that was Hurricaine Katrina and bring their stories back to New Jersey. Many of the problems that still exist in New Orleans are, if not forgotten about, somewhat ignored by society now, with things such as the economy and international conflict on many people's minds. I look forward to bringing the issues that still exist and need to be addressed to the forefront of people's minds back home.