Common Ground Relief - A Magic School Bus Experience

According to My Research

When we arrived at Common Ground Relief in New Orleans we really didn't know what we were getting into.  We got connected to the organization because the engineering side of me wanted to do some wetlands restoration work.  However I didn't understand why it was important or how it connected with Hurricane Katrina until I got the chance to ask some questions.  The city of New Orleans is completely surrounded by wetland areas.  These wetland areas are created by the Mississippi river as it slows down and deposits sediment before discharging into the Gulf of Mexico.  These wetlands are the city's primary protection against hurricanes, as the shallow water and vegetation absorb the storm surge.  However, human activity in this area has prevented the wetlands from doing their jobs.  Thousands of canals have been constructed to make shipping and logging practices more efficient.  However, these canals allow the storm surge to completely bypass wetland areas.  Also, a complicated system of levees has been constructed along the Mississippi River to protect the city from flooding.  However, these levees also prevent the surrounding wetlands from receiving new sediment and nutrients to maintain a healthy ecological environment resulting in the loss of countless acres of wetland every year.  It was these impacts to the wetland system that exacerbated hurricane Katrina and multiplied the devastation.  As such, one of the objectives of Common Ground is to help to re-establish wetland areas around the City by growing and strategic planting of wetland grasses.  For more information about the organization look here http://www.commongroundrelief.org/wetlands

Take Chances, Make Mistakes, Get Messy!

We had a variety of projects during our stay at Common Ground, but we were given very little information about what we were supposed to do or how we were supposed to do it.  This lead to a lot of trial and error experiments for Gloria and I as well as Pierre and Marion (the other volunteers we predominantly worked with).  The most notable example of this would be our attempted construction of planting boxes in a "fan shape fashion".  The only information we were given is that the first and second box were built, but the second one was completely wrong and the widest the boxes should be is 4ft.  I'll attach a sketch of the actual design below, but it took us most of the first day and a couple hours in AutoCAD to do all the math to come up with the right dimensions.  

Also, we completely abandoned the idea of doing it in imperial units as it wasn't going to make our job any easier.  We also developed an elaborate system for levelling the boxes using stakes, string and a flexible plastic tube which I won't get into here.  But there was a definite theme of projects being significantly more complicated than we were led to believe based on the instructions we were given.

Another major theme of our projects at Common Ground was getting dirty.  Whether we were digging in the nursery, planting in the wetland or building a sandbag island we ended up covered head to toe in sand, muck and mud.  Showers were mandatory and most days I just threw my socks away at the end of the day rather than attempting to clean them.  But I absolutely loved it!  The end of every day brought such a sense of pride and accomplishment for working hard and using our own hands to make a difference.

Oh Please Let this be a Simple Project.  With the French? No Way!

I already mentioned earlier that we spent most of our time working with two other volunteers named Pierre and Marion.  They are Civil Engineering students a two month internship from France.  Now their English is miles ahead of mine and Gloria's French, but the language and even cultural barrier combined with a lack of information for our projects certainly made things more difficult.  They were great people and had a lot of good ideas for how to tackle our projects, it just took a while to explain ideas so that everyone was on the same page.  I also caught myself feeling like a three year old whenever I would say a word or phrase in french and they would "praise"  me for my knowledge of the language.  But I'm sure they were just making fun of me for my horrible grammar and accent.  Regardless, we had lots of laughs and generally enjoyed working together.

We Never Used to do this in my Old Country

As is the case whenever you visit another part of the world, there are some things that are just a little bit different than life home and New Orleans is no exception.  Here are couple of things we noted outside of the heat and humidity.  Firstly, fire ants (aka little f***ers) are everywhere.  Whenever you are outside working you need to have an eye out.  If you stand in the wrong spot, or pick up the wrong piece of wood they will be all over you and they really really hurt.  Poor Gloria has a bad reaction to their bites and ended up with bumps all over her legs.  Secondly, subs are called Po-Boys.  We asked a number of locals the difference between the two of them and although they tried to explain it, the sense that we got is that they are basically the same and successful businesses in the area always refers to them as Po-Boys.  New Orleans is a place that really values tradition and as a result a lot of nation wide chains don't fair so well in the city.  Another, unique experience was getting used to riding in the back of a pick up truck to go anywhere.  Apparently wearing seat belts is only mandatory for people in the front seat, so we would often shuttle back and forth to different job sites sitting in the back of the truck.  It took a while to get used to being stopped at a light beside a police car sitting in the back of a truck and not feeling nervous.  And finally, I can't talk about the differences between Canada and New Orleans without mentioning Bourbon Street.  Bourbon Street is what New Orleans is famous for.  It is where all the tourists go and is like walking through one continuous party.  We visited during the Southern Decadence Festival, which is like a miniature gay Marti Gras and the entire street was packed with people, drinks in hand, dancing and dressed in costumes and drag.  Each bar has it's own balcony overlooking the street and music blasting for everyone to hear.  Being a pair of introverts, Gloria and I tired of the spectacle quickly but it was certainly something to behold.  Other than some of these differences, Gloria and I felt like the City of New Orleans was a good fit for us.  There is definitely a sense of community between those who live there, and people seem to be much more conscious about social justice and environmental issues than most of the rest of the world.  Hopefully we can come back again and see how things change.