Our Third and Last Day in New Orleans 6/18/08

Today when we returned to the Rethink Camp, we helped the campers personalize each of their profiles. We tried teaching them basic HTML—embedding images, changing font colors and faces, changing background colors, and even embedding Word documents into their profiles. It was quite gratifying to see that after a while, some of the kids who did not know the day before what Wikis were, were Googling images and embedding them in their profiles. It was also great to see many of the campers’ faces light up as they saw the pictures they had embedded themselves show up on their pages. All of this, of course, came after we uploaded all of the stills we had taken the two days prior and that same day to the myhlife.org file gallery. We also uploaded the footage we had taken for the past two days and that same day to edit in iMovie. After some editing of both the footage and the Wikis—including tweaking on some of the existing profiles and starting few profiles for some of the Rethink staff—we were able to both sit in on one of the camp activities. The kids were asked to create one to two minute commercials that would advertise their ideas for Rethink. One group advertised the new levels of security they hoped Rethink would bring, the other for healthier foods in the cafeterias, and the last for the new innovative cafeterias Rethink would hopefully bring—the last group even made up their very own catchy jingle. Like the day before, the group was asked to summarize in one word what they felt about the day and the future. There was a definite feeling of positivity, hopefulness, and cooperation circulating throughout the room and the campers and it was made obvious through the words chosen to be said.

It was also great to see one of the younger Rethinkers, Ronaldo, mimicking Noa and I. I caught him starting to document the Rethink experience on his own—he sat in the peanut gallery recording some of the commercials on his digital camera!

After saying goodbye to the school and the Rethink camp, we toured some of the more devastated parts of New Orleans affected by hurricane Katrina. It seemed impossible that after three years, some parts were still completely uninhabitable and ruined and even more impossible that we had spent time with kids just a few hours earlier who lived in places like these. To see the shattered homes, high water line markings, and sometimes only remaining foundations and floors or sometimes only front porches with no proprietary house was shocking. Our tour guide/cab driver explained to us how the vast difference between the houses torn to shreds, formerly inhabited by families now living in FEMA trailers, and the completely renewed houses built to better withstand any future hurricanes was because of the fact that some families had insurance for their houses, protecting them against these kinds of troubles, while others, those living in the trailers next to their former houses, didn’t. But there was also a dissonant feeling of optimism as we passed by the vast amount of construction projects on most every street.

And with that, we concluded our three day visit to New Orleans.