Digital Analogue

Gutting!

Today was the first workday. After some van confusion, we got over to the site around 8:30. It looked like... it looked like a house. Surely it didn't need gutting; it even had curtains in the windows! But note the RV poking out of the back yard---it's one of three or four back there, a common strategy for coping with post-Katrina reality. You have a job in New Orleans, you own a house in New Orleans, but you can't live there; so you get a FEMA-subsidised (or -provided, I'm not sure) RV to park on your lawn until you can get your house rehabbed or rebuilt.

The street it was on was likewise deceptive. Though not a fancy neighbourhood, it looked generally fine, with big old houses kept in a decent state of repair, with cars in the driveway and parked in front. But if you looked a little closer, you could see a porch roof propped up by a two-by-four, a doorway opening onto a missing stair, a boarded up window, and other giveaways. Plus the biggest giveaway of all: a lot of them had one of those RVs parked in the driveway or in the yard.

I keep getting distracted by talking to people. More of today's pictures tomorrow!