Posting from Sonja

Incomprehensible: That's probably the word that sums my Saturday experience up the very best. We left camp at 8am....drove by the shoreline through the towns of Ocean Springs, Biloxi and Gulfport. Continued our drive to New Orleans on the interstate, went to the help-organisation "Common Ground" (www.commongroundrelief.org) in the 9th ward (which got completly flooded)....started a 3 hour Grayline tour through the neighbourhoods of New Orleans and eventually visited with a Hamline alumni who's the director of a non-profit organisation in uptown New Orleans..... had dinner and got back to camp around 10pm.
I- isolation, energy, heating etc. is non-existent in a lot of parts of town and along the coast
N- new hope is what everyone here needs the most
C- churches seem to play a key-role at rebuilding not only New Orleans, but the whole Gulf Coast
O- our tourguide was a proud Lousianian, who survived Katrina in a tall building downtown New Orleans & hopes that the city will rise again
M- money, prayers, moral support, people, are need here
P- poverty - seen all along the Gulf Coast
R- rebuilding from scratch? rebuilding at all in certain spots? who's coming back to rebuild and live in New Orleans?
E- evacuation time was way too limited
H- housing in New Orleans is very, very expensive right now
E- elemination of possible future damages by placing new neighborhoods in safer locations
N- New Orleans has to show that it is running on
S- senior citizens were hit hard by the hurricane because they didn't want to evacuate & were surprised by the water
I- incomprehensible
B- Bourbon Street was fully operating....as well as the French Quater
L- levees are still being fixed - with the new hurricane season only being 4 months away
E- education: New Orleans public schools lost 48000 students to other cities and is downsized to 12000 students right now.