Exit Interview with myself

The last couple days were relatively uneventful. Here is a brief highlight reel:

• There is a family of dolphins on the Seabee base that I finally went to go visit. Their story was pretty remarkable. They were a group of 8 trained dolphins that had their marina flooded during the storm surge, putting them out to sea. Being domesticated, they were sitting ducks out in the open water so there was a frantic search during the days following. Sure enough, a search team found them all together with minimal injuries. They are currently being kept in what seems like really cramped conditions in 5-foot deep pools on the base premises, but I think that they looked pretty happy. Their trainers seem pretty nice.
• Along with Red Cross volunteers, there is a group of Scientologists staying at the shelter. I finally approached one and asked the "volunteer minister" about why they were in MS. She said that the Scientologists believe their religion has something to offer people who have recently been involved in highly traumatic situations, like Katrina. Their "technology", called Dianetics, is supposed to be an effective way to cope with the mental shock. I further engaged her in the basis of Scientology and tried to get at what the religion was all about. My conclusion was that it was it was a complete clone of Hinduism. There didn't seem to me any unique aspect to its teachings. One of the books talked about how Scientology was influenced by the teachings of the Vedas, but it was a better solution to the problems of the "rampantpoverty" in India that Buddha later attempted to eliminate by "civilizing the continent". A bunch of balderash. I didn't really want to get into it with the lady so I just left her telling her that the only difference I could see was in the name.
  

The day before you leave, volunteers are required to go into HQ and "outprocess". Part of it includes an interview with a Mental Health counselor, who assesses whether you had suffered any sort of mental trauma from the experience. I wanted to get the thing over with asap, so I gave her a bunch of generic answers. But I wanted to record some of my actual feelings to the questions, which will mostly be of benefit to me (so please skip if you are not interested in my personal reflections, which is understandable):

Q: What did I learn from this experience?

Several things:

1. I don't like blogging

It was a worthwhile experiment to have this blog for my trip, but in general I'm not happy with it. I had an idea of using it to log episodes in my adventures, but I found that simply relating the events was somewhat empty without adding my own thoughts/emotions. Yet I wanted to avoid that as I'm always weary of revealing all my thoughts which may be misconstrued or offending to others. I'm also sensitive to the proliferation of blogs today and the myriad of opinions they release to the blogosphere pawned off as news or fact. Finally, the scariest thing of all was that often times during my day I would think about what I'm doing and how it will be framed into my blog later. I believe Sameer touched on that idea in his own blog. That's a problem to me because I don't intend the events I record here to be some sort of play or performance. That would totally taint the service experience.

In general, I'm torn between defining this blog as an online diary and a dry timeline of my life. Neither is that appealling to me, so until I find a balance I'm discontinuing this blog.

2. I am weak, weak, weak...
...mentally and spiritually. This experience has exposed so many of my deficiencies, which I don't care to elaborate on here. I'm plenty aware of them, and that's all that matters. I feel that I have so much room for improvement, especially in terms of my approach to giving. I haven't cultivated the ability to give with a pure heart, and thus I still have an empty feeling after this act of service. Right before I left, I tried a couple other experiements in giving to see how I felt. I tried to pull the Nipun-like "give away all the money in my wallet" act, but I couldn't find anyone who would accept the money (about $80, and I had to give it indirectly by asking other volunteers to find a worthy cause to put the money towards, since I wasn't going back out to the field). Next I spontaneously gave a way a bunch of clothes I had brought on the trip (including a few items I was particularly attached with) to a volunteer friend who was working at a Red Cross shelter that was trying to gather some supplies for its residents. I could lie and say it made me feel the joy of oneness with humanity, but it really didn't.

Probably the single greatest inspiration in my adult life has been the teachings of Swami Vivekananda. I have the 8 volume set of his complete works, but it was taken me a year (and counting) to put down just the first volume. His message just really resonates with me, and I find myself reading a chapter, thinking about it for a few days or even weeks, then going back and re-reading, etc. Just a very deep message. Anyway, after bittersweet experiences such as this I am always buyoed by his message:

"Freedom is never reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself."

"To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverence, tremendous will. 'I will drink the ocean' says the persevering soul, 'At my will mountains will crumble up'. Have that sort of energy, that sort of will, work hard, and you will reach your goal."

3. People in the South need sustained aid.
I've mentioned it in a previous post, but people here are just plain poor. Hurricane or not, they need help. Driving back to the kitchen from our run one night, Jo said something interesting: this place has been struggling since the South lost the Civil War. You can trace their plight to the 19th century, when their economy was entirely dependent on slave labor. Since then they've been behind the rest of the country in terms of creating economy and have never caught up. For example, I still have little idea of what people did for work around Bay St. Louis. My best guess is that they worked in the tourism industry at the casinos. But there is no real opportunity here. This year I got to know a new area in Computer Science research: IT for developing regions, which targets rural areas in third world countries. After visiting MS, I think there needs to be IT for developing (United) States too.

Q: Do you think you made a difference here?

A: Honestly, not really. My work wasn't critical... The operation would have carried on fine without me.

Q: In what ways could Red Cross ops improve?

A: There were a lot of things I had a problem with in the way the operation was run. You would be a fool to come here and see what's going on and not be a little concerned with the inefficiencies and misjudgements. I will say to RC's defense, though, that disaster relief in this magnitude is a very difficult undertaking, and I commend them for all of the work that has been done. Clearly they are providing essential aid for many people, and more than that extending a hand of compassion to people who have seen more hard times than most in this country.

I think the deepest problem is the attitudes of the volunteers. In general the spirit is not selfless, it's selfish. People are grumpy, they fight and argue, talk behind backs, complain about this and that including the clients, charge up unnecessary personal conviniences on the free Red Cross debit card, etc. People forget what they're here for, which is to serve. The pure spirit of service is just lost. People are all good hearted and they should be commended for their efforts, but they are expecting something in return which taints the whole act. I believe this is an unsolvable problem for the RC. They are too big and rigid an organization to influence the attitutdes in a uniform and lasting way of all its volunteers.

Q: What's next for me?
A: Easy. I've had an intention of going on Vipassana mediation retreat for some time now. Hopefully this winter.

Farewell tour and New Orleans

** Note: I realized recently that I had set my blog to not accept anonymous comments to my posts. I have since turned that setting off, so feel free to comment without having to create your own account. Thanks to Choks for pointing that out.

Today was my designated "day off", along with Paul, Catherine, and George. The four of us decided to take one of the rentals out to New Orleans to check out the city. But since it was no more than an hour away, and there wasn't much to do, we were going to leave in the afternoon. That left the morning to work. I decided to ride on 3059 with the morning crew so that I could say goodbye to some of my people. Jo, the lady who I have been training to take over for me, called me a "good man" for doing it, because the morning driver Thelma was getting on everyone's nerves and no one wanted to ride with her. I don't think I've ever been called that before in a serious manner. Jo's a very interesting lady, and I'm going to miss her. The fact that I had her respect meant a lot to me because she was an accomlished volunteer herself. Back in Missouri she cooks all of her food from scratch, including churning her own butter and grinding her own wheat. Her husband's an engineer for a NASCAR pit crew. These are just some random facts to help me remember her.

The farewell run was nice. The few people that I had "bonded" with were very warm. Most shook my hand, gave me a "God bless you" and told me they really appreciated me coming down. MS Baa gave me more beads and a hug. She told me to "stay focussed and on the good path". Just like my Baa would say.

New Orleans was really interesting. It is right on the Misssissippi River, which I expected to be much bigger (it was no wider than the mighty Sacramento River). They skyline was nothing fancy. Most of the buildings downtown didn't seem that badly damaged at all. The Superdome had a bunch of visible water damage on the roof, but in general it looked decent. It was also not nearly as large as I thought it would be. Apparently the French Quarter had recieved a foot of water, but that was about it. About 35% of the businesses there were open. But almost all of the bars and restaurants on Burbon street were open. In general it didn't seem too damaged. Jo had told me that New Orleans had gotten it much worse than Gulf Port, but I haven't seen the destruction at the level of what was back at Bay St. Louis. Driving up to the city, you could see destroyed buildings and smell some mold, but it wasn't flattened like it was in Waveland, for example. I think that the higher population density in NO meant that more people had been affected (and much of the area's population were elderly, something like 50%), but the damage to the area itself was probably less severe than Mississippi.

The Fench Quarter had a very unique feel. The streets had interesting architecture with a look that you would expect to be similar to a city in France. There were mostly standard souvinier shops, and a ton of bars and places to eat. We stopped at one bar that had live music. The band was really amazing... the electric guitar player and singer (who played trumpet for some songs) were awesome. They played some BB King, but they also seemed to perform a few songs they wrote about the hurricane (it was hard to make out all the lyrics). One really nice, emotional song had the chorus "Louisiana! You're gonna wash us away... you're gonna wash us away..."

One store we walked into was particularly noteworthy. It was an antique guns and coin shop. They were mostly from various periods in American history, but they also had coins that had come from the Greek civilization, etc. The item that immediately caught my eye was a display of old slave documents from the South, including titles of ownership of "young negro boy", etc. There were several of them, and they were for sale at a price of between $700-1000. I was shocked. It seemed really wrong that such a dark relic of this country's past was for sale. Who buys this stuff? I actually asked the store's owner, and he was sort of vague, but said that (individual) people travel the country collecting such documents. I was expecting him to say museums or something like that. I immediatley left the store, disgusted that this guy was selling such a thing. Apparently there are still people in the South profitting off of slavery.

We had dinner at a really nice restaurant. The food was amazing... I had a dish called stuffed Redfish that was outstanding. It was nice enjoying the company of the three others. I had an interesting conversation with Catherine about the ridiculously bleak situation of the Philadephia public school system. I was trying to push her to get some insight about whether there was something I could do to help from a technology standpoint for when I begin grad school. I suspected that the root of the problem was economic, but I intend to look into it further when I can.

As we were driving home, the last thing I remember in the car was that the road was really dark. When I looked around I realized that none of the homes along the freeway had power, and the streetlights weren't working either. Two months and counting without electricity for NO residents.

Route restructuring?

Today we finally were able to give feedback on the needs of people on our route. "Little John", the one true leader at my kitchen, called a meeting with all the ERV drivers to get information on what's going on with people in the area. A lot of drivers on other routes seemed to indicate what I felt with my route: People are starting to stand on their own feet, and although our meals are greatly appreciated and some depend on them daily, they have become more convinience than necessity. One route stops off at tent Wal-Mart, and there he said they served people who grab a meal on their way out of the store with a full shopping cart. I was glad to see that this information was filtering up to decision makers, although I am still not sure how quickly action will be taken (do route changes need to go all the way to Red Cross central command for approval?) Back at camp, I ran into Mike who said that Kitchen 7 will be merging with 34 to consolidate routes. This may be an indication that the response to feedback will come sooner rather than later.

One issue brought up by a driver in my kitchen, Cook, was in regards to workers. Currently the policy is to feed anyone who asks, including construction workers who happen to be working in the area of our routes, but the point was raised that some workers are given money to get their own meals. Cook stated that although they have money, many have nowhere to buy meals out in the field. Additionally, there are large groups of hispanic workers coming into the area who speak little English that aren't being fed by their bossess sufficiently. I noticed the same thing the other day on my run, when we fed about 15 hungry-looking Mexican workers out in Kiln.

As for route 3059, I told John the truth: The people I serve are mainly taking meals as a convinience. I hope the route shuts down to divert resources to others in deeper need. Jo, a grandmother from Missouri, joined the kitchen yesterday and I took her on to replace me when I leave. She's another veteran volunteer, having run several kitchens on previous disasters. The one thing she had never done was ride on an ERV, but being that she had so much experience it felt a little awkward training her. She should be running the kitchen. Anyway, Jo was adamant that our route was a pure convinience feed. She pointed out that when you have people who ask you what's being served before making an order, you know they are not in desperate need. On the other hand I hate to be the one to break it to my people. Most likely I won't be, since my last day on the route is probably tomorrow.

Other than that the only noteworthy thing that happened today is that MS Baa came out with two huge Mardi Gras bead necklaces for me when we stopped at her place today. She had brought them for me from her house in New Orleans, which she said was pretty much unsalvagable. I understand they are friendship beads, and you're supposed to pass them on to another friend, who passes them on, and so on. Maybe they'll make their way to each of you back in CA.

Church

This morning Catherine was going to drive out to the beach near our kitchen to show a new volunteer the damage over there, and although I had already seen it I decided to come along. There was nothing to do at the kitchen anyway. We eventually made our way back to old town Bay St. Louis, which I had also already seen. At the Baptist Church where we make a delivery there happened to be Sunday church service going on. Just as we were leaving I told Catherine to stop the car. For some reason I felt compelled to sit in on the service for a while, so I got out and told her I'd meet her back at the kitchen later on.

The church was a full house, perhaps 80 people. I think every other person there was white. The church itself had recieved damage from the storm... one of the walls was ripped out from water damage. But in general it was in better shape than most buildings in old town. I walked in during a song (hymn?) which was really nice. There was some sort of horn (sounded like a trumpet), piano, and guitar playing behind the singing (the band was out of view from me in the front). I think the most outstanding characteristic of the music was that it was very melodious. After the music, the next thing I noticed were the people around me. Some were in tears, others were singing devotedly with their eyes closed, even young kids.

After the song the pastor (dressed in plain clothes) announced that a new family had joined the community/church, and invited the father to give his story. It was odd that a family was actually moving into the area, so I was interested. It turned out that the man had a few successful construction businesses in another part of MS, but one day he had a calling from God to "build houses for free." He then went about doing that for some time, when Katrina hit. He saw it as a sign to come to Gulf Port and help out. After spending some time here, he decided he needed to stay and thus moved his whole family down. It was a pretty touching story to listen to. He also said how "the voice of Christ was there, I just never listened to it." He read some passages from the Bible that inspired him to make the decision, but got too choked up and couldn't finish. It was very emotional, and it actually brought me to tears. After his testimony, there was more singing but I left. Later on I regretted not staying till the end of the service to mingle with the congregation, but in retrospect I think I left because I couldn't handle the emotion.

Back at the kitchen I was sitting around when a young black kid wandered in. The security guys who NEVER do anything walked all the way across the kitchen to question him. Luckily I was nearby and asked the guy himself if I could help him out. His name was Lorenzo, and had come looking for medicine for a cold. I told him we didn't have any, but told him he could take some water, tea, and a box of oranges. I walked the stuff over to his place which was just across the street. His house looked like it hadn't been completely built. Inside there was just an empty space and it smelled like some chemicals.

I'm recording this encounter for two reasons. One, because I felt some friction helping this guy out at the kitchen from other volunteers. Walking around with him, trying to get stuff for him to take, I felt that people were staring. One volunteer indirectly asked me to give him the canned water (he had a supply of filtered water that came in aluminum cans, but it sucked because it tasted like its container) instead of the bottled. The other reason is that I think that there are plenty of black people around the area that need help, but it's partially their fault that they aren't getting any because they aren't asking. I told Lorenzo to tell everyone he knew that we were there for whatever we could help them with. But I can see why he hesitates to ask for help... there is some impalpable friction. But it could just be me.

Sharing stories

Today there were a few noteworty events from my run. It was Good Ol' Mom's (the lady that baked us the pie) birthday, so we presented her with a potted flower and some cookies. She was flattered.

Mississsippi Baa gave me a gift to give to my India Baa... a little charm/ornament angel. I couldn't believe it. She said that she wanted to thank my grandmother for sending me out here to help her out. It turns out that MS Baa has a home in New Orleans that was badly damaged, and was going there tomorrow to check it out. She said she was going to bring me back some more stuff, related to Mardi Gras.

This was the last night for my Mercury coworkers who had also come to volunteer. They wanted to go out for dinner, so we drove into Gulf Port where the TGI Friday's had opened. During dinner we shared a lot of stories from our experience. Here are the ones I could remember:

1. Huy, one of my co-workers, is Asian. He had some rough experiences with racism while serving on the ERV. One client, a regular on his route, reffered to him as "Ugly", and would ask other volunteers things like, "you got Ugly servin' today?" He also said he got a lot of mean looks from people, adults and youngsters alike. He described them looking at him "as if he wasn't there". I was pretty shocked and asked him if it hurt his spirits at all. He said no, but I'm sure it would have affected me.
2. A lot of people were getting disgruntled with the ERV service, especially people who didn't need aid in the first place. Samantha described one lady who chewed her out for not having medical service packs. She had a nice SUV parked out front of her in-tact home. She also got belligerent when taking meals, etc. One other guy had a phone bill he never paid, and walked up to the ERV asking what he should do. Pay the bill, perhaps (he wasn't poor)?
3. Mike (not a coworker, just a friend who came along) had a nice story about a kid who was mowing lawns for his family to make ends meet. He told Mike that his mower had busted, so the next day Mike gets some volunteers to chip in and buys the kid a brand new one. He said the kid just wrapped his arms around him and was ecstatic.
4. Mike was saying a lot of people had unattended medical problems out in the field. One man had cancer but hadn't seen a doctor in months. Another man had Parkinsons and came up to the ERV shaking violently. Another hispanic worker had a huge hernea on his side and complained that his "jefe" wouldn't allow him to get it checked out. Red Cross has medical staff, so ERV drivers are supposed to note down any issues and have a nurse go out and treat people in need. Hopefully these guys will get taken care of.
5. Allen's ERV does a stationary feeding in front of a stadium during their run. One day a car pulled up along side the ERV window like it was a drive through (the window is only meant for people to walk up). Then another car gets behind, then another. Soon there's a line of 7 cars trying to get drive-thru Red Cross disaster relief. Then an old lady on a Rascal gets in line. Allan has this hilarious picture of the lady on her scooter in line with a bunch of cars. I'll try and get it.

Tidbits:

- I learned more men vs. women facts today that I thought were really interesting:

1. Did you know that it is universally true that women don't actually sit on public toilet seats? Instead, they "hover" (as my coworkers called it) over the seat as they go. A seat cover isn't enough protection. I was shocked and awed about this. What leg strength... what stubourness. I can't think of any guy who would do that. The next morning I tried to do it, but in the end I said screw it.
2. Women's clothing has buttons and zippers set opposite to men's clothing. This one blew me away, although I understand this is general knowledge. Is this really necessary?

Selfish vs. Selfless service

From this service experience I have discovered a real dichotomy between selfish and selfless service. What is selfish service? I define it as performing an act of service for others for selfish gain. Examples of gain include recognition (fame), power (authority over others), and material. It is clearly an inferior form of service to the selfless variety, where the giver of the service expects nothing. I have found that here at the Red Cross the majority of volunteers are engaged in selfish service. We are all doing a positive thing, but for a few wrong reasons.

Why is driving the ERV the most popular job for Red Cross volunteers? Because it gives you the glory of handing that meal to the person in need. You are the face of all the hard work that went into delivering that meal to that location. It's like the relation between an actor on stage with all of the backstage crew. Many of the volunteers insist on just doing this work. They do not want to do Campbro washing, which is thankless. When Beverly and Deb, the two ladies who do my run in the morning, went out and bought extra blankets and lanterns to satisfy a special need for a client on the route, they wanted to be the ones to hand it over. It is not enough that the person gets it. They want to be front stage.

Contrast that to the work of the Souther Baptists, who stay at the kitchen and just cook the food. They live on the parking lot itself in tents. They prepare all of their own food in addition to the meals being served. They don't have access to a bunch of rental cars to get away, or laundry service that folds their stuff all nice, or a debit card for whatever personal expenditures they'd like to make. This is no vacation for them, which I believe many RC volunteers think it is. The kicker is that they never see the people whom they serve. In my book, that is selfless service. They do the work because they know that someone is being helped, that's it. They're not interested in glory. They just want to be of service.

I believe I am as guilty of selfish service as many of these volunteers. I wanted to be on the ERV to interface with the people. I wanted to get something from them as I gave. I think that in general giving to get back is fine, because it motivates you to give more. But I think too much of that sort of service perverts the service itself. Your heart eventually leaves the place it should be, which is focussing on the people in need. I hope that in my next service adventure and beyond I can have the courage to engage in pure selfless service.

Tidbits:
- living and sleeping with 500 other people has taught me two things:

1. at least 30% of people snore
2. at least 45% of people smoke cigarettes

- on the run today I met with the old lady again, who gave me a great big hug. She asked me if I had a grandmother, I said I did but now I have two. Then she started introducing me as her grandson. I told her I called my grandmother Baa, so I would do the same for her. So, yes friends, there is now a Baa in the backwoods of Kiln, MS. As soon as I pull up and she sees me behind the wheel, she throws up her hands smiling and her eyes get big. What a sweet old lady.

- The volunteer population is dropping fast. It's gotta be close to 400. I think less and less people are volunteering to be deployed. Coming out here, I, like a lot of people, assummed that 7 weeks after the hurricane, things would be a lot better. I was anxious to leave because I thought I would "miss the disaster". The thing is, though, that people aren't even rebuilding yet... they are still cleaning up debris. I talked to a construction worker on a street, and he said that it will take at least a year just to clean up. I pointed out that a year from now is hurricane season. Meanwhile, people will be living in tents with no power, no running water, etc. Serious third-world conditions, and it looks like it will be so for a while.

Day 6

Sorry, I couldn't think of a catchy title for this post. Now that I have a regular job in the afternoon making my run to Kiln, the mornings are random. I try and get to the kitchen early to come to the library and post to the blog, then try and make myself busy around the kitchen. Usually I help load and clean ERVs for the morning run.

Today I was able to go on a run with Paul to a local Baptist Church and elementary school. The Church was serving as a shelter for what seemed like 50 people or so. The school had apparently just started back up after being repaired from mostly water damage. On one of the walls I saw some drawings that some kids had made. Each drawing included a sentence beginning with "I didn't like ith when..." Needless to say, they all drew about something Katrina related. They said something like "I didn't like it when the tornado knocked my house over" or "... when my trees broke". It was sweet and sad at the same time. Talking to some of the people running the school, I got my first answer about why many people didn't leave the Gulf States when Katrina was approaching. Apparently many people had stayed during hurricane Camille, which I believe came last year. They figured that if they could make it through that one, where they recieved little damage, then they could handle Katrina as well. But apparently, Katrina proved them wrong, and left water in places most long-time residents never thought possible.

Not much to say about the run today, except that the old lady I had connected with the day before remembered me! I couldn't believe it, especially since she's like 86. She remembered my name and even that I came from California. I told her I liked her and walked her meals up to her house for her. That made my day.

Rumor around camp is that there are big changes coming. Wilma is set to rock Florida as you may have heard. Many of the people and resources are being re-routed there from here. Two ERVs from our kitchen will be taking off for there tomorrow morning. I wouldn't mind being sent there. The number of volunteers at camp has dropped from over 800 when I first got there to now under 500.

I'm starting to feel more exhausted by the day. I'm not sure what it is, but I suspect the change in diet combined with the air. I'm sleeping well, though.

Quote-of-the-day:
"Before you got here, one day we served barf for lunch"
- one lady from my kitchen commenting to me about the delicious spread we serve our clients. I'm hearing a lot of complaints from volunteers that the food we serve sucks. I also hear that the Baptists are scrambling with a lack of supplies to make food. I've yet to try a meal, since they're mostly meat dishes like hotdogs or beef ravioli or pork sandwiches. Yummy.

Tidbits:
-Today I had an interesting conversation about the shower lines at camp. There are two seperate shower stations, located on either end of camp out of sight from each other... one for men and the other for women. There is bunch of chairs set up for people waiting for one of 4 empty individual stalls to open up. The chairs are in no particular order. On the men's side, it's a "who's got last?" system. When you walk up you just ask out loud to the people sitting in the waiting area who the last person in line is. Asking this puts you at the end of the line behind the person who raised his hand. The women, on the other hand, set up a musical chairs system, where your place in line is determined by where you're sitting. So every time a person leaves to get in a shower, EVERY person in line has to get up and move to the next seat. What a horrible system. I have to say the dudes win on this one.

Making Connections

Today I felt more comfortable in my daily routine. I had a route to drive, and I was going to go out on my own for the first time. I wasn't too worried about being able to handle it, and in the end it went off without a hitch. A few highlights from the run:

• I made my first real connection with a client. An old lady on Camelia St. takes meals from us regularly. She gave me this real warm greeting and came over to the driver's side to squeeze my hand. She was all warmth. She asked me my name and where I am from. She was hard of hearing, and said she was 86. I doubt she was going to remember me every day, but I hoped she would.
• There are a bunch of kids on my route. They are mostly nice, but the teenagers give me weird looks from time to time. Although I try to fight it, I can't help but think they are looking at my color. I haven't felt that way about the adults or young children, but I feel it with the teens. One of them took interest in the fact that I was from California. "Do you surf?" He asked. I had a feeling I was going to get that question sooner or later.
• A lot of the houses we hit are more like compounds. There seems to be like 20 people living at one residence, though they don't necessarily seem to be families. For example, one house has like 15 people, with about an even mix of blacks and whites. Wierd. Anyway, one compound is inhabited by the "Good ol' Boys" as Chris calls them. The first time she drove the route, she didn't notice that they were flagging her down and instead drove by. The next thing she knows a car comes peeling out down the road and skids out in front of her. They were not happy. But anyway, the Good ol' Boys aren't bad. Today, Good ol' Mom even baked us an apple pie! I guessed they couldn't figure out what to do with the 3 apples/person we'd been pushing them over the last couple days (the kitchen had a glut of them, and we were instructed to get rid of them before they went bad). It was so nice of her. We'd never heard of such a thing happening to any ERV from our kitchen.
• I discovered that there are black people on our route after all. The mixed compound mentioned above, and one other family of three (one young girl) that lives further down Carnation St.

Again, I got a healthy dose of warm smiles, waves, and looks. My heart really took a turn today. I am starting to feel a responsibility to these people, and I am eager to connect with more of them personally. I noticed that some of them, especially the younger people, have trouble making eye contact. I think it's a huge shot in their pride to have to accept this charity. When I asked my dad about it tonight over the phone, he said he wouldn't bring himself to do it, and I wonder if I could either. It's tough.

In pursuit of questions about fair coverage, I found out that there is indeed an ERV that goes into Waveland, but the area is mostly deserted already anyway. That's true, because Chris and I checked the area out yesterday. But compared to Kiln, that area was way harder hit. I'm trying to find out where all those people went. At dinner I got into a conversation with a volunteer working as a building assessor. Basically, Red Cross has shut down all the service centers in this area like the one K.C. worked in that people can go to and get a check. Now, they have to call an 800 number, leave an address, and someone from Red Cross will come out and assess your need in person. The system is being used because the volume of requests is overwhelming the centers and also to curb fraud. This guy worked on behalf of FEMA to assess need. He went to residences with a set of questions that FEMA needs answered, and uploads the report. A few days later, FEMA sends a check, trailer, or whatever they feel is necessary to aid them. All this assistance is in addition to any insurance the family may have. But I'm hearing that insurers have already found a loophole to get out of processing claims in MS. It turns out that there are seperate coverages for water damage and wind damage. Most people only have wind damage. Which means that if your house was lost because it got flooded, then you can't claim the house. Now the subtlety they are trying to determine is in regards to water-induced wind damage, which would be covered under wind damage. I've talked to a few people who know about this stuff and they say that the re-insurers (companies that insure the insurance companies like AIG, State Farm, etc.) will all go under trying to pay off claims, but the mutli-billion dollar insurance companies will be just fine. Their assets are huge, and a disaster like this apparently costs them percentage points of their total worth.

Today my highlight was in the library. The lady next to me was confused about contacting some contractors for her house, and needed to contact them by email. I set her up with an email address (yahoo, because their interface is outlook-like and I thought GMail is a little more confusing for simple users) and taught her simple login/logout and composition. A computer scientist's dream. She was really greatful, but I doubt she'll be surfing the web anytime soon. A lot of people are unsure about who to go to for basic needs, like finances or services like construction. Red Cross tries, but I don't think there is a clear enough channel of information to people around here, especially those that aren't technologically savvy.

Quote-of-the-day:

"If it was Georgia that got hit, you'd be there to help us too."

-James, the Souther Baptist volunteer who rode with us on our run today, to a client in Kiln.

Behind the wheel

Yesterday after my run Chris told me that she was going to train me to replace her as driver for ERV 3059, as she will be leaving for home on Thursday. I was pretty thrilled, although I still had mixed feelings about serving Kiln. I wanted to try and find out the coverage of all of the ERVs, and whether there were areas needing food that weren't being served, like Waveland. But whoever I asked said they didn't know any information about other routes, who was going where, etc. Most just knew their own job and concentrated on it. I wondered why I couldn't do the same.

The day started out with campbro cleaning. While I had been out yesterday on the ERV, Paul and Catherine had taken over that station, and were pretty good. The operation was sweet. Dirty Cambros out from ERVs, carted to the cleaning station. The station had a series of platforms set up where the dissasembled cambros would be laid out, about 8 at a time. They had this very powerful water hose, which looked more like a machine gun. It was gasoline powered and got the soapy water it dispensed to 170 degrees. They said it could take your hand right off. So while one person goes down the line soaping and rinsing the campbros, a partner is flipping and rotating the pieces. The process was soap, flip, soap, rinse, flip, rinse. Paul and Catherine had it down to a science, no time was wasted. The clean campbros were then carted to the Baptists cooking area, where they were refilled with food to be set out for ERVs on the other side waiting to take the food out for the next shift.

After helping Paul and Catherine for a while, Chris and I decided to take one of the many rental vehicles available for volunteers out to explore the surrounding area. I had given up my spot again on the morning ERV run so that Catherine could ride. So although I had left them in the dust yesterday, all of us had now gotten on the ERV, and we were now thinking about the possibility of taking over the route ourselves as the current crew for 3059 rolls off.

Chris and I took off towards the Bay St. Louis coast, which was only a few miles from the kitchen. It was quite a sight. The beach was littered with debris. The most astonishing sight were the two bridges that used to connect Bay St. Louis with Pass Christian. Basically, the eye of the storm had come right through this area and wiped out the bridge entirely. Now all that was left was concrete pillars barely sticking out of the water where the bridge once lay. Near the bridge was the beach community which was completely decimated. It was probably a 5 square mile area grided by homes. Now there was nothing but rubble. I really can't think of the words to describe the destruction. Houses were either reduced to just their foundation, or were completely gutted, leaving just the skeleton of the structure. Appliances and clothes and debris were all over the trees and ground.

After visiting the coast we made our way to old town Bay St. Louis. Next to the courthouse (which had been flooded along with most other buildings in the area) there was this WWII memorial for veterans who served from the community. I noticed that there were a few common names like "Ladner", "Cuevas", and "Favre". Those names kept popping up in street signs and businesses all over the area, so it seems like there are large long-standing families that have lived here for a while. I'm pretty sure that Bret Favre of the Packers is from Kiln, where I run my route.

The drive had a few interesting points. First, driving the ERV wasn't too bad. The route was pretty straightforward, and I had experience driving big vehicles. There were a few things I noticed that got to me: young kids talking on a cell phone while waiting for food, others riding around on nice bikes, one teenager telling us that they have power back at their house. Also, all the really messed up homes were completely abandoned already. On the other hand, I saw a lot of the kids who had the plain look of hunger on their face. These people may not have the best of intentions, but the bottom line was that they need help, hurricane or not.

Back at the kitchen there had been pizza for the volunteers, but there were a few whole pizzas left over afterwards. My highlight of the day was walking into the base with those pizzas and randomly handing them out to volunteers. I can't explain it, but it felt better than delivering food all day to needy people in Kiln.




Quote-of-the-day:
"I don't really like Donald Trump... he says 'you're fired' too much!"
- a lady on our route in Kiln, upon recieving one of the Donald Trump waters we had in our stock today.

Tidbits:
- Rumor at camp is that another hurricane, Wilma, is approaching and may be headed this way. That would be really bad.
- There have been a bunch of funny slogans written on abandoned houses and buildings, etc. Things like "Looters will be shot" and "beware of owner". But hands down, this is the most clever sign I've seen, from my route through Kiln:

ERV experience

Today I was determined to get on an ERV. I thus ditched Paul and Catherine (a young recent-graduate from Temple), my two main friends, and hopped on an early shuttle from the base to the kitchen, which is a good half hour away in Bay St. Louis, MS. I felt bad immediately afterwards, since they both wanted to do the same as me. But I quickly forgot about it when Atul uncle (the only other Indian guy in Mississippi), who was in Don's crew, led me to Chrissy at ERV 3059. They needed a third for their morning run through Kiln, MS. I was fired up. I helped load the food on and was soon strapped into the back seat as we sped out of the kitchen.

Chrissy is a veteran volunteer from San Diego. She's been around the world doing service, and is interestingly married to an Arab-American (she's white). Very nice lady. While Chris drives, I'm on serving duty in the back with Phyllis, an exhausted-looking black lady from Michigan. Both have been on this route for a couple weeks. Our lunch menu was hotdogs, chilli, and pears, with various snacks like Clifbars as well as fresh apples and juice drinks. In general not bad at all. The route is performed as follows: drive through the neighborhood slowly, occasionally sounding the horn. By now most people are used to the signal, and so they stand waiting out in their driveway. We ask how many meals they need, and make them up on the spot, scooping straight out of the campbros. We are never to question whether they are taking more than they need, etc. I think these people take that trust very seriously. From all the stories I've heard about victims in this area so far, I think the poor people with nothing to start out with are far more responsible than the more well-off people. They understand what being in need means, and thus have that compassion that makes them think of others in addition to themselves.

Kiln is litterally in the backwoods. The homes are surrounded by trees, deep in a foresty area. Paul, who I gave my spot to in the afternoon, later called the people "hillbillies," but he felt bad that he couldn't think of a better description. They were clearly very poor. All but one family on the route was white, and there were a lot of elderly. I saw at least 3 seperate confederate flags, although Catherine and I are still debating about what it symbolizes to the people flying them (I argued that it's just the symbol of the South, but she took the other position). Serving the people felt good, and I got a lot of friendly waves and smiles. Yet something was still on my mind....

One thing I noticed was that many of the houses didn't look too damaged from the outside, and only a few tents were up, meaning the houses were in livable condition. Do these people still need relief from Katrina, or just relief from poverty? I couldn't help but let this question enter my mind. I posed it indirectly to Phyllis, who seemed to think that it was pointless driving way out to Kiln to serve these relatively stable communities when there were other areas like Waveland with large minority populations that were getting little aid and were in desperate need. She also seemed to think that while we were going way out serving all these elderly people in very remote areas, there were kids in trailer parks not far from the kitchen who were going hungry. I was determined to see if Phyllis was right about all this.

I ran into K.C. at dinner and she began giving me her latest story of Red Cross inefficiencies. Apparently she and a group of 20 other financial service workers were ordered to relocate to Houston. There was an issue of transportation, but one volunteer in the group offered to take the team in a huge van he had access to. It would be the quickest way to get there. Instead, Red Cross insisted that they all book flights, which came to about $10K in expenses and almost 2 days of lost time. They made some lame excuse about needing to get the van back to MS, which would have been taken care of anyway. She also was talking about how she's now dealing with a lot of fraud claims, where "young 18-year-old black men" are coming in claiming 4 or 5 kids. All of a sudden they are model fathers, she said.

I realize that so far my portrait of the Red Cross has been decidedly negative on this blog. That's a problem to me because I think the organization is doing really good things here. Our kitchen delivers close to 7000 meals a day. Those are real people in need being served. I saw it in their eyes during my run, they are truly greatful. And people are working hard. Some have rough personalities, but it's perfectly clear that everyone's heart is in the right place. When I look at any volunteer, I see someone who left their own lives simply to serve, just like me. That's a pretty unique bond. I would say 7 out of 10 volunteers I meet are first timers. And people have literally come from all over the country. New York, Penn, Maryland, Oregon, Alaska, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia, Florida, New Mexico to name a few off the top of my head.

Getting Oriented

Today was my first full day at camp. Lights on promptly at 6am. We are sleeping in a huge room, so the noise immediately wakes you up. This morning I felt a little disoriented, trying to organize my stuff, etc.

We head to HQ for registration. It is notorious for inefficiency, but I get through the process relatively quickly. I make it known that I'm interested in driving an ERV, but I'm not sure if I will be accomodated. It seems like ERV driving is the hot job, so everyone is asking for the same thing. The other interesting is that the HQ is in a Masonic temple (the Shriners). There are all these pictures of old white guys wearing elaborate fez's on the wall. They have titles like "potentate"I took a picture of the parking spot for the high priest/prophet, which is obviously right out front. Apparently the prophet drives a Mustang into work.

Soon I'm told that I will be assigned to mobile feeding (ERV driving) starting tomorrow, but for now a few of us are needed to takes some inventory at another kitchen. As it turns out, we never do that but instead 7 volunteers pile into a van to go on some guy's mail run. We do, however, get dropped off to kitchen 34. We are given no instructions, but it is an opportunity to help out so the 7 of us (Paul and I, some old people, a young parole officer from Canada named George) try and make ourselves useful. It was a complete progression in level of work. My very first job was picking up trash, which included old wood and dirty cardboard. Next, I helped reorganize the inventory of powdered drinks, seperating by flavor. It seemed pretty pointless since I doubt victims are going to care whether they get fruit punch or lemon drink, but at this point we are just following orders. The final job was probably the highlight of the day: one of the ERV's came back with a flat tire, which I replaced. It was good on several fronts. First it made me look slightly more useful than the other new people to the supervisors. It also allowed me to make friends with the driver, Don, who then went about trying to get me to go on a run with him on the ERV. For some reason this old man loved me, probably because he realized the tire wouldn't have gotten fixed if I hadn't helped him (it was a heavy duty tire). I was this close when John, the supervisor of the kitchen asked that another lady, who's last day was today, go instead. But I was encouraged that I got so close to my goal so quickly.

I ended the day with helping to load the ERVs. Food is served from Campbros, huge heavy-duty tubs that can keep temperature of the food it holds. They are pretty heavy, so again I came in handy with all the lifting my young body is capable of doing. I also went out and washed the supervisor's car, which was more of an ass-kissing errand. As of now I see myself continuing to gain brownie points with John and the other heads of the kitchen to eventually take over an ERV route. It looks promising so far.

The "kitchen" deserves description. It really is nothing more than a series of tented stations built around loading and unloading ERVs. It's located in an abandoned parking lot of a broken down "Winn Dixie" store, which seemed similar to a WalMart. On one side there are a series of semis where the raw food supplies come in. Those are then unloaded and piled for the cooking station, which is run by the Southern Baptists. After they place cooked food in campbros, they are brought over to another loading station where they are lifted into awaiting ERVs. It's all pretty chaotic at first glance, but somehow it works.

I was dead tired after the day. Fixing that tire ravaged my fingers and I bruised my back on an ERV door. But in general I'm fine. Before I go to bed I shower and try to meditate on my cot after lights out. It's pretty funny since I'm in the middle of a huge room with hundreds of other people, but my concentration wasn't too bad. I had a feeling it wouldn't be.

Quote-of-the-day:
"People see the Red Cross, and they expect miracles"
- John, the supervisor of Kitchen 34 during his orientation speech

Other tidbits:
- my hair is a HUGE nuissance. It constantly gets in my face and my hands are usually filthy when I try to get it out of the way. I have a hat, but I can't wear it comfortably for any long period of time. Maybe I'll chop it off before this trip is over. I am on a military base, after all.

Deployed

I got the word that I will be deployed to Biloxi, MS on Thursday. My initial reaction was nervousness and fear. But as the time to leave approached I become more comfortable. I also learned that 3 Mercury co-workers will be deployed to the same area, which set my mind at ease.Flying into the Gulf Port airport, I was able to see a few houses out of the window. A lot of them had blue roofs and I was wondering about why they had painted them that color. As I got closer I realized that it wasn't paint but tarp. At the airport I met Paul, a young filmmaking instructor from NYU. Being the only two young people waiting for the Red Cross shuttle, we naturally made a connection. My first new friend.

We arrived at the volunteer shelter around 6pm. It was on a huge naval base in Gulf Port, called the NCBC (Naval Construction Batallion something) base. But most people called it the "Seabee" base, and there was this monument of a angry looking bee holding a machine gun next to our compound. And this shelter is literally a compond. It's a huge hanger-like structure with 4 open rooms. It currently houses 800 volunteers and a total of 1300 people, but it has capacity for over 2000. Volunteers sleep side-by-side on cots. Pretty comfortable. In general the camp has everything you could ask for: running hot water, relatively clean port-o-potties, showers. The food is amazing. The Red Cross contracted a catering company from California to feed the volunteers. The company typically feed firefighters, and correspondingly prepared meals based on a 6000 calorie/day diet! Needless to say you get plenty of food. Best of all, they have a full vegetarian selection, so I was very happy.

The shelter has a lot of amenities. There is a TV area, phones, and huge fans and AC systems keeping it really comfortable. They have social events like square dancing, live bands, and plays. There is a drop-off laundry service, with a 24 hour turnaround time. They even fold your clothes for you. Amazing. I was really impressed with how well the Red Cross takes care of its volunteers. The demographic breakdown: mostly white, elderly people. Some number of blacks and hispanics, a handful of Asians. I found one other Indian, an uncle for Illinois. Everyone is super friendly and all smiles. I find myself randomly introducing myself to anyone, which I rarely do. But that's the spirit. The seniors are very interesting. Many of them are retirees that have made a second career of service. They travel around assiting in disasters like Katrina all the time. I met one really nice and intelligent old lady from Maryland name K.C. She described a lot of her experiences so far: seeing dead bodies on top of strip malls, 2 feet of maggots in stores from rotting flesh, etc.

K.C. works in financial services, and so she was talking about how Red Cross distributes financial aid to victims. She complained how there was no consistent audit trail to keep track of fraud which was a huge problem. I tried to give her a complicated computer scientist answer, but I told her all they really needed was Microsoft Excel. Distribution of money was based on family size. The payout was roughly $360 per family member, with a cap of $1575. And this was a one-time payout. She said it was a mystery how some of the families could survive on so little for all these weeks. She related some of the problems with FEMA's efforts. They had a precence, but they didn't come prepared. There is no leadership to handle practical problems of logistics. For example, they have a fleet of 800 vehicles for use in relief work, but nothing set up to maintain the vehicles, coordinate their use, etc. Some FEMA workers had stopped wearing identification around for fear of being shot at. She said that the problem with Red Cross was that it was "run by a bunch of old ladies" that couldn't move quick enough to keep up with the changing situation. There was a constant communication problem between the field and central command on such things as standardization. There was also in-fighting between chapters about who should work on what, and it was getting political. In general the situtation has become so hard because of the magnitude of the disaster.

Tomorrow I will see that with my own eyes

Training

I went to the San Jose chapter Red Cross for my orientation training. It ran from 8-3pm, headed by a veteran volunteer, Jim McGill. He spent the class going over procedures and watching videos about what do expect as a volunteer, but most of it were details no new person was going to remember. The class had about 50 people, mostly seniors but some youngsters.

I was interested in learning about the background of the organization, but he didn't spend much time talking about it. I did learn that the Red Cross is an international organization that started in Switzerland by a guy who just wanted to organize service around WWI. The American Red Cross is one of many "societies" that concentrate their work within the country they're located. Generally, one country's society does not assist another, unless explicitly invited.

The main aim of the Red Cross is to provide immediate relief from a disaster. They made it clear that it was not a welfare organization, and that they only help people directly affected by the disaster. Thus, volunteers are instructed not to provide assistance to poor people in the Gulf States that didn't lose their home, which is redundant since those people probably didn't have much of a home anyway. In general there was a lot of rules and standards that this instructor tried to impress on us. I remember hearing "Generally, this is not the purpose of..." and "We're not into doing ..." a lot. One story was of a registered EMT who tried to give medical care to a client (what the Red Cross calls the people they are trying to help), but was reprimanded because his assignment was to serve food. It wasn't wrong, just not encouraged.

I also learned that the Red Cross is different than other "holistic" aid organizations like the Salvation Army because they only do a speficic set of things, which includes mostly setting up shelters and performing mobile feeding. They do a lot of collaboration with other orgs to fill in the gaps, such as actually preparing food which is the specialty of church orgs like the Southern Baptists. They also rely on MOV's (memos of understanding), arrangements with local businesses and restaurants to provide services/donations in the event of an emergency. Which means that the organization is helpless where it doesn't have pre-arrangements. All this seems to make the Red Cross rather inflexible.

I have painted a pretty sour picture of the Red Cross in general, but that's because it seems like a clunky organization. Leaving training, I was told to expect a call when I was needed. There was no confirmation of it being tomorrow, a week, month, etc. from today. In addition the words "patience" and "flexibility" kept coming up when discussing the organization, and the instructors were already preparing us to expect a lot of waiting around before and during deployment. Personally, it has caused my initial spirit of enthusiasm to wane. But I reasoned that the trip will be a learning experience in the worst case, which I am satisfied with.

A few days after orientation I went back to recieve specialized training to be an ERV (Emergency Response Vehicle) driver. ERV's participate in mobile feeding, where these U-Haul type vehicles drive out to affected areas and deliver hot meals to people who are in need. To get the certification I had to go through another class and took a road test in a huge rental truck. I'm definitely excited to drive an ERV, and the word is that Katrina relief is in huge need of drivers. It would be great to visit people and help them out while getting a chance to go out and see exactly what the devastated area looks like. I'm hoping I will get called up soon.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog. I have been meaning to start one for some time, but I've never really had anything interesting to say. But as I write this from Gulf Port, Mississippi, working as a relief volunteer for Hurrican Katrina, I think I now have something to share. But before I get into that, there are a few administrative things I wanted to get out of the way.

1. What's the name mean?

"The Home and the World" is a novel by Rabindranath Tagore. For some reason I decided to re-read it on the plane to Mississippi. The book is great, although you may get impatient with it if you are into books like "Da Vinci Code" and "Kite Runner," where the narratives have this great self-propelling momentum. This book will make you pause and think about what's going on a lot. You can tell it was written by a poet; the character sketches are deep and the dialogue subte. I decided to name my blog handle after it mainly because I couldn't think of a better name (rejections included variations of my own name and "Braveheart"). But the name is also fitting because the character Bimala in the novel was struggling to break free of life in a sheltered environment, where she wasn't sure of her true self, what she was capable of, etc. I'm now trying to do something like that, and this trip to Gulf Port is the first installment in that journey.

2. What's the purpose of the blog?

I want to record the events along the way for my own personal reflection. I also think that the experiences may be of interest to others who are like-minded to me. But I intend to stick with the events themselves and limit my personal thoughts and feelings. Preaching to you is pointess, especially since you are thoutghtful enough to reflect on the events in your own way. Besides, experience is life's most effective teacher. But I will be adding my reflections where appropriate to remind myself of what I was thinking/feeling at the time of the event.

3. How did I get to Gulf Port, Mississippi?

I am mostly here because of my company, Mercury Interactive. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse: get full paid time off to come as a Red Cross volunteer for two weeks. What a great gesture. Several people have told me how lucky I am to work for a company like that, and they are right. I also wouldn't be here without the support of my managers, Chee and Helen, who have shown nothing but enthusiasm for my decision. My good friend/coworker/roommate Joachim also made a large sacrifice for me to be here. In addition to giving up his own spot, he is assuming my workload while I'm gone. What a baller.

That about covers the background that you need. I've actually been here since Saturday, so I will be spending the next few days catching up with everything that's happened, starting with my first training session back in California. I have taken a bunch of notes, and I will post them as if they were presently happening. Hope you like it.