The Southern Chapter

Well, as far as I'm concerned, the South is awesome. Laid back, chill (that one's for you Dan), and extremely friendly. New Orleans is a great city. I would have to classify it as a small big city. It really isn't that huge, maybe 400,000 in population. According to wikipedia, it is a mere 350 square miles, compared to Detroit's 1, 295 square miles of urban area. Then again, Detroit is a monstrosity...

Back to Green Light. This past week we have been doing mostly light bulb installations around the area. People sign up with Green Light to have us come and change all their light bulbs, then we go around to their houses and change each one.

I will now present to you "Stories of CFL Installees," a small sampling of people I have met:

Sister Teresa, the smiling nun:
Blue 6 trekked across Lake Pontchartrain two days in a row to meet up with this wonderful woman in Covington, LA. Our first day, we had to meet the nun in a Domino's parking lot to discuss light bulb installations. Yeah, never thought I'd say a sentence like that. She then took us around to homes in her community that were in need of light bulb changes. Many of the homes were extremely low income. It was poverty many people would never know existed beyond the main street. Hopefully they now have a sense of how they, too, can help save the planet without having loads of moolah or being friends with Al Gore, while saving money on their electric bills.

Swamp Man:
We then ventured out later in the week to the swampy bayou, about an hour away from NOLA. There, was a home on stilts right next door to alligator country. An adult son and a father lived there with three adorable doggies. After we installed, and after the son picked flowers for us, he took us to his dock to try and stir up the gator that lived in the water near them. Unfortunately, there were no gator sightings that day, but he told us about his days as a swamp tour guide, and then some of the affects of Katrina. He went north during the storm, but when he came back, the big tugboat next door was on top of a roof of a house less than a mile down the road. Crazy.

The Great Swimmer:
Later that day, we came upon an older man's home whose son lived next door. While we were installing, he told us how when Katrina came, he stayed despite all the warnings. His house filled up with water up to his chest and he had to swim to his son's house (who was gone at the time) and he lived there on bottled water and canned goods for 15 days by himself. He then went around showing us all the water marks around the house and the water damage to much of his furniture. He's definitely a tough cookie.

Some people might think that people need to get over Katrina and stop expecting sympathy, but I don't think it's sympathy they want. I think they just want to tell their story, and most of them are amazing stories. We're happy to hear them.

That's all for "Stories of Installees." Until next time.

Anne

NOLA! NOLA! NOLA!

Picture: This was on a sidewalk in Baton Rouge, LA, where we stopped for lunch during our roadtrip.

Hey everyone!

My blogs are really becoming few and far between... Oops. Well, as many of you know, Friday, April 16, 2010, Blue 6 arrived in New Orleans, LA. The five-day road trip went by with very few wrong turns. It was pretty smooth sailing. I was able to drive everyday, so it made it much more enjoyable. I can now add New Mexico and Texas to my list of states having spent the night in! I have to admit, though I hear rumors about Texans being, let's say, extroverted, it's a beautiful state!

Our apartment is in Mid-City which is, you guessed it, in the middle of the city. It's recently renovated with wooden floors and granite kitchen countertops. The only thing missing is furniture... We have a table and a chair. We all sleep on army cots that double as couches! How convenient. It's two bathrooms, one shower. So far, it hasn't been much of a problem. We shall see.

Saturday, unfortunately, despite being told we would have the day off, we had training from 9 to 5. This was somewhat irritating because I invited Dan in town for the weekend and he ended up walking around by himself all day! I felt pretty bad, but we both knew it was out of our control. Luckily, he's a big boy and found ways to entertain himself. Not too hard when you're in an awesome city! So, that was Dan, now for the AmeriCorps Saturday. Our boss's name is Andreas, from Switzerland. He's this hip-looking middle-aged man with a curly grey fro who rides a scooter around. He came to the city in 1993 and founded GreenLight New Orleans in 2006, after Katrina. The office is this bright, old, purple house with turquoise shutters. The right side of the house is where Andreas lives, and the left side is the office. (Doesn't have much of a scooter commute now does he.) Now Bernie is the program manager who is 26, very energetic, and used to be a science teacher. He was our trainer all day. We learned that the basic goals of GreenLight is to reduce energy usage in the city while decreasing electricity bills for low-income houses and educating the public regarding climate change and saving the planet. We learned how to train volunteers for installing lightbulbs, as well as how to enter and search for information in the computer database. Happily, it was all pretty interesting and we were able to take a few breaks, so the day went by quickly.

Today, Dan and I had the whole day together, so I went and showed him my office and then had lunch at this sweet Mediterranean restaurant on the corner called Lebanon's Cafe. Then we walked around the Carrollton area (which is where the office is) and checked it out. There's a main street with some sweet stores and restaurants. It was nice to walk around a non-tourist-infested area! Then we had some gelato and drove back to my apartment and took the streetcar to City Park. It's a giant park in the city. Clever name, I know. The Louisiana Museum of Art is located there, and it has a free sculpture garden which was awesome. There was a giant safety pin by Claes Oldenburg. Awesome! And then we sat on the grass near a pond. There are few better ways to spend a Sunday!

Tomorrow we have more training. It's Earth Day week (as well as Mom and Dad's anniversary!) so GreenLight is super busy.

So far, this place is awesome. Already I definitely feel more on my own rather than in AmeriCorps. It's a nice change.

I hope everyone is doing well!

<3 anne