In New Orleans once again. I actually missed it for the two weeks I was gone. It’s the same city and same issues as before, but the new organization we’re working for (Habitat for Humanity) gives my time here a completely different feel.

We got here on Wednesday and got settled in our house. I really like the place we’re staying this round. It’s a brand new house built just like other Habitat houses here in the area. It’s relatively small but has 3 bedrooms, one bathroom and a decent sized kitchen/living area. We have bunk beds and about four people per room. Bathrooms to people is roughly, oh a good 1-13 but we have been managing just fine.
Our work is going to be awesome. We’ll be split up usually every day working with different groups of volunteers on different kinds of projects. Our first day of work as actually probably the physically hardest day I’ve experienced thus far. They had two house sites relatively close to one another… approximately 1.3 miles apart. They didn’t have access to their usual pick up truck because it was on other sites. They needed these house wall frames at the site about a mile down the road… our task- move those frames to the other house. We literally moved them all by carrying them. The van had to follow behind us (so we wouldn’t get hit) but it felt like it was more to pick up those teammates that might have fallen behind! Thankfully, no one did. We made that trip 3 times. It seemed very impossible for a very long time. We did it though and that night pretty much crashed into bed.

This weekend was pretty exciting for me… I got hang out with my dad here in New Orleans. He was on his way to California to speak at a conference and was able to arrange a 24-hour layover in town. He rented a car and picked me up from my house. He got to meet my new family and then I took him all around town. We went to the old place I used to work and live and then out to dinner. It was so great to be able to chat and catch up. The next day we took the ferry across to the cool historic area of New Orleans, and then walked around the French Quarter. We had such a great time and it was so awesome to be able to do that. I have the best dad ever.

I don’t have internet so my updates will be probably weekly, if that, but I’m really looking forward to this round of projects.

Love,

Abigailllllllllllinprocess