Lynn Meadows Journal Update
01/18/2006 18:00
United
Peace Relief
Slidell, Louisiana
Thursday Dec. 1
Today is my last day in the Louisiana, we fly back to Ukiah tomorrow. I woke up early and walked along the waters edge behind the house. There was a mist lying low over the bayou. It is cold here. It is a wilderness. I imagined what it was like when the 20 foot wall of water rose up from Lake Ponchartrain and flooded this whole area. Everything is so calm and still, it's hard to believe it happened. When I turn around and look down the lane, then I see the mountains of rubble and the reality of it all comes back.
We worked hard all day on a plan for the next year, a budget, it was hard to get through it but worth it. We have to get organized so we can do the most good. I heard that there are two kinds of disaster workers, first responders and planners. I am now a planner.
The young people from the Frida bus dressed up today in the Tyvex suits and respirators and cleaned out the house of the lady next door. Everything in the house is ruined, she is hoping to salvage some of her heirloom furniture. The solid wood bed frame in her tiny bedroom was tossed around, the whole place is a jumble. We have already cleaned her yard of debris and made room for her FEMA trailer that has been promised. Who knows when she will be able to get her place gutted and rebuilt. Deborah (Mead) says she is so amazed to see all of the hard working volunteers who come here out of sheer good will and work their butts off. The volunteers are so beautiful, young and alive.
Elaine from Plenty International took a group on a food run. The Waveland Cafe had extra food since it is closing down and moving to a new location in New Orleans. We know of hungary people in Biloxi and Pass Christian, so she distributed food there. She found pallets of dry milk, bulk rice and beans, pumpkin pies and chocolate sauce! There was enough to bring some bulk food back for our camp. That will surely help our budget for feeding the volunteers. It feels like the bible story about the fishes and the loaves.
I asked Elaine to help me write my journal she said, "We are talking care of these people who are not being taken care of. My heart was broken today at the same time that it was exhilarated. In Pass Christian there are people suffering, living in tents and devastation. Living his own personal truth, Lee is a guy living out of his truck since the hurricane hit, he took money out of his own pocket and has been feeding people. Now he basically got shoved out of there and did his last dinner on the 30th, he was serving the people and it was taken over and he was evicted. He moved to parking lot with his tents and has been distributing food. Today he had a sign on his van that said "Closed until we get more food". We drove up with food, vegetables, fruit and all of these people started coming up to the van. We go from feeling emotionally down hearted because of the atrocities, to elated because we were able to bring a van load of food to those hungary people."
We were contacted by a church today that has a family that needs help, by Richard from Burning Man he says he has two arctic tents that can sleep 20 for us to borrow.
That evening we had another feast, Leah from the Waveland Cafe/Rainbow family is a professional, she made us such tasty food in great quantities. She was wearing the most beautiful green hat and sweater, it looked like it was hand knit. She said she found it in a mountain of donated clothes. She told me that so many clothes were donated that they finally filled 38 dumpsters and hauled them away. It was in September when it was so hot, now it is freezing here. She said that organization was everything, there was so much waste without planning. Now we are working on getting warm jackets and blankets to the area. We huddled in the warm kitchen and felt like a family. We cleared the table and had pumpkin pie with chocolate sauce. Another amazing day for us all.
Lynn Meadows United Peace Relief Friday Dec 2 Slidell Louisiana to Ukiah California
Deborah and I flew out of the New Orleans Airport, with a lot less luggage than we came with. It was hard to leave and we promised to return. It warmed my heart to see the green hills of Mendocino County, so clean, void of mountains of trash everywhere. It seems like a different country here in California. People are going about their regular business and have little understanding of what is going on right here in our nation. I am so spoiled to be able to return to my beloved community and all of the support.
Slidell is the location where the eye of Katrina made land fall. The port region is completely devastated for miles. I took some pictures on my way out this morning. It is very hard to paint a picture of what it is really like. I decided that it reminds me of the bombed cities of World War II. Imagine our country has been bombed from Ukiah to San Francisco, everything leveled. Maybe then you will start to understand. Imagine you have lost everything, not just your material possessions, but your community, neighborhood, stores, post office, doctor, hospital, relatives, income, hope.
So now we regroup, keep going and make a difference. Our goal is to bring hope one person at a time.
Lynn Meadows United Peace Relief El Cardonal, Baja California Sur 1-18-06
Happy New Year to everyone. I hope that comes true. It has been over a month since I left Louisiana. Our work goes on and we have new incredible stories to tell. We continue to be given gifts to keep our camp running, and the volunteers are coming in a steady flow. We have sent many boxes of donated blankets and coats from Ukiah. Our team is still working gutting houses, feeding people and organizing. Niki told me that on December 23, a relief organization was passing out Christmas boxes in the town of Pass Christian and the line of people waiting to receive a box was 5 miles long! So many people are in need the situation is overwhelming, but there is always hope. Polly just returned from volunteering and found more work for us to do. They say the rebuilding will take three to five years. Bob and I are returning to volunteer in February. We have a success story too, Ronald Batiste was stranded on his roof when New Orleans flooded. He lost everything and has been living in his car. A group of Ukiah folks offered to sponsor someone and he made the decision to start a new life in Ukiah. He is here now, thanks to the loving support of many people and his willingness to take a chance.
We had a tragedy on December 10. The Frida bus from Portland Maine, full of 12 young beautiful volunteers was in an accident, and Meg Perry, their leader, was killed. I wrote about her in past journals. She was an incredible intelligent woman who gave tirelessly in the gulf region. She came immediately after Katrina hit and then went back to Maine to recruit a bus load of volunteers. I have attached a copy of one of her e-mails. Her volunteers with the Frida bus were the ones who brought our camp in Slidell to life.
Written by Meg Perry Hello my dearly beloved fellow volunteers from the Gulf Coast! I've been organizing a trip since I got back to Maine. See, there's this big, green bus with a couch, bench, kid's area, free box, library, kitchen and rooftop stage. Her name's the Frida Bus and I hang out with her a lot at home in Portland, Maine. The People's Free Space (who own the bus) conspired with me on a plan to fill up our mobile community space with volunteers and supplies and come back home to Mobile and all of you. Now here comes the sad part of my tale. When I got a response from Mr. Lee, he was talking about the whole crew and spirit that I experienced down south in the past tense! I ain't seen no fat lady singin'! Ain't nothin' over. I came home to get a whole new big wonderful crew together... y'all can't all go and leave! I'm bringing
back some of my favorite people to meet my new family in Mobile and my favorite bus too. Please come back! I talked to a lot of people down south who said that they were coming back. I hope that you all do. There's gonna be no lack of love in Theodore. It's not like the work there is done, you know that. And it's one thing to just go and feed people when they're hungry and take away the most dire immediate need, but what about all the infrastructure that was destroyed? It'll be too easy for the dominant, corporate infrastructure to take back over stronger than before. These people need advocates and alternatives. It just doesn't seem fair to take someone who's lost everything, give them food, water, diapers and hope and then leave them as poor and forgotten as before. We're not done helping. Please come back. love, -Meg
United Peace Relief is having a benefit for Katrina Relief in Ukiah at the Saturday Afternoon Club, on January 27. Hope to see you there.
Slidell, Louisiana
Thursday Dec. 1
Today is my last day in the Louisiana, we fly back to Ukiah tomorrow. I woke up early and walked along the waters edge behind the house. There was a mist lying low over the bayou. It is cold here. It is a wilderness. I imagined what it was like when the 20 foot wall of water rose up from Lake Ponchartrain and flooded this whole area. Everything is so calm and still, it's hard to believe it happened. When I turn around and look down the lane, then I see the mountains of rubble and the reality of it all comes back.
We worked hard all day on a plan for the next year, a budget, it was hard to get through it but worth it. We have to get organized so we can do the most good. I heard that there are two kinds of disaster workers, first responders and planners. I am now a planner.
The young people from the Frida bus dressed up today in the Tyvex suits and respirators and cleaned out the house of the lady next door. Everything in the house is ruined, she is hoping to salvage some of her heirloom furniture. The solid wood bed frame in her tiny bedroom was tossed around, the whole place is a jumble. We have already cleaned her yard of debris and made room for her FEMA trailer that has been promised. Who knows when she will be able to get her place gutted and rebuilt. Deborah (Mead) says she is so amazed to see all of the hard working volunteers who come here out of sheer good will and work their butts off. The volunteers are so beautiful, young and alive.
Elaine from Plenty International took a group on a food run. The Waveland Cafe had extra food since it is closing down and moving to a new location in New Orleans. We know of hungary people in Biloxi and Pass Christian, so she distributed food there. She found pallets of dry milk, bulk rice and beans, pumpkin pies and chocolate sauce! There was enough to bring some bulk food back for our camp. That will surely help our budget for feeding the volunteers. It feels like the bible story about the fishes and the loaves.
I asked Elaine to help me write my journal she said, "We are talking care of these people who are not being taken care of. My heart was broken today at the same time that it was exhilarated. In Pass Christian there are people suffering, living in tents and devastation. Living his own personal truth, Lee is a guy living out of his truck since the hurricane hit, he took money out of his own pocket and has been feeding people. Now he basically got shoved out of there and did his last dinner on the 30th, he was serving the people and it was taken over and he was evicted. He moved to parking lot with his tents and has been distributing food. Today he had a sign on his van that said "Closed until we get more food". We drove up with food, vegetables, fruit and all of these people started coming up to the van. We go from feeling emotionally down hearted because of the atrocities, to elated because we were able to bring a van load of food to those hungary people."
We were contacted by a church today that has a family that needs help, by Richard from Burning Man he says he has two arctic tents that can sleep 20 for us to borrow.
That evening we had another feast, Leah from the Waveland Cafe/Rainbow family is a professional, she made us such tasty food in great quantities. She was wearing the most beautiful green hat and sweater, it looked like it was hand knit. She said she found it in a mountain of donated clothes. She told me that so many clothes were donated that they finally filled 38 dumpsters and hauled them away. It was in September when it was so hot, now it is freezing here. She said that organization was everything, there was so much waste without planning. Now we are working on getting warm jackets and blankets to the area. We huddled in the warm kitchen and felt like a family. We cleared the table and had pumpkin pie with chocolate sauce. Another amazing day for us all.
Lynn Meadows United Peace Relief Friday Dec 2 Slidell Louisiana to Ukiah California
Deborah and I flew out of the New Orleans Airport, with a lot less luggage than we came with. It was hard to leave and we promised to return. It warmed my heart to see the green hills of Mendocino County, so clean, void of mountains of trash everywhere. It seems like a different country here in California. People are going about their regular business and have little understanding of what is going on right here in our nation. I am so spoiled to be able to return to my beloved community and all of the support.
Slidell is the location where the eye of Katrina made land fall. The port region is completely devastated for miles. I took some pictures on my way out this morning. It is very hard to paint a picture of what it is really like. I decided that it reminds me of the bombed cities of World War II. Imagine our country has been bombed from Ukiah to San Francisco, everything leveled. Maybe then you will start to understand. Imagine you have lost everything, not just your material possessions, but your community, neighborhood, stores, post office, doctor, hospital, relatives, income, hope.
So now we regroup, keep going and make a difference. Our goal is to bring hope one person at a time.
Lynn Meadows United Peace Relief El Cardonal, Baja California Sur 1-18-06
Happy New Year to everyone. I hope that comes true. It has been over a month since I left Louisiana. Our work goes on and we have new incredible stories to tell. We continue to be given gifts to keep our camp running, and the volunteers are coming in a steady flow. We have sent many boxes of donated blankets and coats from Ukiah. Our team is still working gutting houses, feeding people and organizing. Niki told me that on December 23, a relief organization was passing out Christmas boxes in the town of Pass Christian and the line of people waiting to receive a box was 5 miles long! So many people are in need the situation is overwhelming, but there is always hope. Polly just returned from volunteering and found more work for us to do. They say the rebuilding will take three to five years. Bob and I are returning to volunteer in February. We have a success story too, Ronald Batiste was stranded on his roof when New Orleans flooded. He lost everything and has been living in his car. A group of Ukiah folks offered to sponsor someone and he made the decision to start a new life in Ukiah. He is here now, thanks to the loving support of many people and his willingness to take a chance.
We had a tragedy on December 10. The Frida bus from Portland Maine, full of 12 young beautiful volunteers was in an accident, and Meg Perry, their leader, was killed. I wrote about her in past journals. She was an incredible intelligent woman who gave tirelessly in the gulf region. She came immediately after Katrina hit and then went back to Maine to recruit a bus load of volunteers. I have attached a copy of one of her e-mails. Her volunteers with the Frida bus were the ones who brought our camp in Slidell to life.
Written by Meg Perry Hello my dearly beloved fellow volunteers from the Gulf Coast! I've been organizing a trip since I got back to Maine. See, there's this big, green bus with a couch, bench, kid's area, free box, library, kitchen and rooftop stage. Her name's the Frida Bus and I hang out with her a lot at home in Portland, Maine. The People's Free Space (who own the bus) conspired with me on a plan to fill up our mobile community space with volunteers and supplies and come back home to Mobile and all of you. Now here comes the sad part of my tale. When I got a response from Mr. Lee, he was talking about the whole crew and spirit that I experienced down south in the past tense! I ain't seen no fat lady singin'! Ain't nothin' over. I came home to get a whole new big wonderful crew together... y'all can't all go and leave! I'm bringing
back some of my favorite people to meet my new family in Mobile and my favorite bus too. Please come back! I talked to a lot of people down south who said that they were coming back. I hope that you all do. There's gonna be no lack of love in Theodore. It's not like the work there is done, you know that. And it's one thing to just go and feed people when they're hungry and take away the most dire immediate need, but what about all the infrastructure that was destroyed? It'll be too easy for the dominant, corporate infrastructure to take back over stronger than before. These people need advocates and alternatives. It just doesn't seem fair to take someone who's lost everything, give them food, water, diapers and hope and then leave them as poor and forgotten as before. We're not done helping. Please come back. love, -Meg
United Peace Relief is having a benefit for Katrina Relief in Ukiah at the Saturday Afternoon Club, on January 27. Hope to see you there.