“Home is where the heart is” must be the oldest cliché in the book. Yet after spending a week with eight newly acquainted volunteers from Berklee College of Music helping to build a home for a family of displaced Katrina survivors, I have a newfound respect for the cliché.
The thoughts that linger have much less to do with the hours of work covered in sweat, sawdust, and paint, or the quality of work we did (which was excellent, truth be told!); they have everything to do with the people I met and the stories we shared.
Read the rest of Marian’s dispatch from New Orleans on Boston.com.
Read more blogs from the Gracenotes New Orleans 2011 Trip.
We were all wanderers in the water
in the misery and madness
in the solemnity and sadness…
(waiting for the cavalry to arrive)
– from “Song of My People (‘a Katrina poem’ for all y’all),” by Arthur Pfister, aka Professor Arturo
I had been to the Jazz Fest a few times in the early 2000s, one of the teeming masses, stuffing my face with etouffee and oyster po’boys, listening to the Nevilles and Odetta, but never had I experienced the real grit and glory of New Orleans.
This trip is different for me: I haven’t been back since Katrina, and now it’s hard to find a way to express the tragedy that continues to challenge this city.
Read the rest of Michael Heyman’s dispatch on Boston.com.
Read more blogs from the Gracenotes New Orleans 2011 Trip.
Day One at Habitat for Humanity, and one of the many things I learned today, is that New Orleans is HOT. Not just like the New England summer heat that we complain about in July, but really, really hot.
Despite the heavy heat, we had an amazing first day. We were not sure of our location until we arrived in New Orleans, and we ended up being placed in the 7th Ward, on Allen Street. Berklee College of Music has been a volunteer group to New Orleans every year since 2007.
Read Leigh’s full dispatch on Boston.com!
Read more blogs from the Gracenotes New Orleans 2011 Trip.
Lady from Allen Street (sarcastic and with a smile): “What are you going to do when the rivers of the Mississippi floods us again?!”
Michael Heyman: “We’ll come back and build some more!”
This is the spirit that my team has been clenching onto this week. It’s been two days … we’re tired yet jovial, exhausted yet determined. I think it’s safe to say that we are facing one of the biggest challenges in our lives. For me, I’ve done mostly everything in my life for my own survival … for my own pursuit of knowledge, enrichment, and growth. But standing on the grounds where people have died for much less, and driving through the Ninth Ward by the levees, has really made me rethink everything I’ve done for myself up until this week. Read More »
By ccevallos
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Tagged berklee in new orleans, BerkleeCollege, Corinto Cevallos, Gilly Cantor, habitat for humanity, Jenna Logue, Joe Chinni, Leigh McLaren, Magen Tracy, Marian Wilson, Michael Heyman, new orleans 2011
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this morning, our fearless leader mike popped out the side door of the house and told us how psyched he was that he could trust us to handle the concrete on our own. michael, magen, corinto and i looked at each other, like, “is he talking to us?”
he was. apparently, now we know concrete. in the words of magen tracy, “it kind of made my day.”
corinto posing with the rebar for our concrete
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