Saturday, January 12, 2008

the MRE

it's been about 2 days. lodgings are bare, but improving. the house we're staying in has been gutted, but that's about all. currently there's no running water. plumbers were in yesterday and today working on installing the hot water heater and getting pipes put in. we've dropped some wires from neighboring houses for now, but we're waiting on an inspector to approve of the electrical work in the house so we can get it up and running. we also can't put in the insulation and sheet rock until the wiring's approved, so all the walls for now are stud walls, except for a section of what will eventually be a bathroom. there are a couple of port-a-potties out front and one half of a duplex down the road that we have access to for showering, kitchening, and computering. we do have about 3000 military-style meals ready to eat sitting out behind the house. so free food galore.

yesterday a group of like 20 jewish teens from a new york synagogue came by to help. mostly they moved some dirt around while throwing rocks at each other. charming.

foxy, tim, and i dropped by the branjolina site last night to check out the art installation. they've got these pink tents set up all over one section of the lower ninth ward. for every certain amount of money that gets donated to their organization, they put up a new section of these tent-houses that are supposed to represent where real houses will eventually get built. it's a pretty cool idea, though a couple of the lowernine.org people have noted that they're planning on spending way more money on these houses than they need to. i got some photos. i'll post 'em at some point.

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