11 October 2005

a bit about my "missionary work" as my mom calls it

so i've decided that i'm going to write and go to the gym everyday i'm not working for american dollars. the story i'm writing now is driving me a little crazy, but i have sent an old story out and feel productive. i guess i should write something about my going to new orleans to take supplies, but it was so surreal i don't really have much comment on it. Delissa, the owner of the wonderful bar sepia (downstairs if that tells you anything about my struggles) and friend, organized for us to drive down there and take the donations left at the bar. we drove the 22h with mr. hooper (quite unexpectedly- but he donated the truck) and literally dropped the stuff and started DRIVING BACK!

one thing that D said that has stayed with me was that there were no thank you's. my first response was, yeah- but we didn't do it for thank you's. but that doesn't mean that as a human being you don't say thank you. we couldn't get the boxes of clothes off of the trucks fast enough before they were being ripped through. the statements that stand out in my head most are "where are the plus sizes?" and woman holding up a pair of pants saying "who can wear these little things?". it was a bit of an anticlimax. i don't know what i expected really, but i didn't expect that.

i don't know. i say thank you to everybody for every little thing. driving through slidell, seeing the utter destruction and feeling the devastation moments before this lead me to believe everyone must be in a state of shock. but i'm sure it goes deeper than that into a number of class/ political issues that are ugly, complex and that i'm still suppressing.

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