nola 8

So I’m leaving in a week. I’m really excited. I’m excited to spend a few days on the beach in Tampa with my family as well as be a part of burying Grandpa’s ashes where he wants them to be, next to his wife.

This summer I’ve definitely learned a lot. I’ve learned what I like about being home, how I can actualize potential there, what it means and why people make money. I’ve learned to value my safety, security, and basic needs, because I’ve had to struggle to find them down here. I’ve learned what I want to do – to help people get what they want to better their own community. I want to be able to help people empower themselves.

I need to be more humble. I need to not interrupt people. I need to remember that I value highly what others are saying and that I don’t want to interject my own thoughts into theirs.

I need to learn how to create and engage dialogue. Or remember how to do so. I need to know and learn what it takes to create an atmosphere for such to occur – within myself and within the other person, as well as within the situation.

I need to be aware of cultural differences and become sensitive to what affects others.

I failed to do these things this summer, largely because I was unable to feel safe and secure in my surroundings, but I want to learn how to do them in the future.

I want to learn from Common Ground’s mistakes. Here are some of them:
- not being open and honest about the workings of the organization – if it’s grassroots, people should be able to understand it
- not a clear enough organizational framework – this should be easily understood and easily expandable
- not working directly with the community
- not sharing resources
- not building accountability / responsibility
- lack of clear communication – with volunteers, with community
- volunteers doubt a lot, we don’t know whether or not our efforts are put to good use
- not enough reflection upon efforts

I kind of feel stuck here a lot of the time.

Here are some of the unanswered questions Noah and I came up with on June 23, 2006:

- what groups are involved in gutting NOLA schools and how do they interact? (Common Ground, A & M, RSD, NO School District, BCG, Federal government)
- how is common ground funded?
- Why are we gutting houses now? Why don’t we focus on preparing communities for hurricantes?
- Why do we work with people / groups that lead us away from achieving our goals?
- What are our goals? How do individuals fit into this?
- Why do individuals fall short of this – i.e. lack of community involvement, environmental sustainability?
- Do we live in a safe neighborhood? Is mingling daily with cocaine dealers safe?
- Why are people so reluctant to answer these questions? Why do they seem / are they threatening?
- What other volunteer groups are there in the city and how are we working with them? If we aren’t, why not?
- Is our progress slow? Do we have a lack of organization and efficiency? Is this related to the fact that we’re (unpaid) volunteers?
- What other efforts is CG working on? What is St. Mary’s focusing on?
- Experience / knowledge of disaster preparedness
- Pre-hurricane state corruption
- What’s FEMA’s real response? Their timeline?
- Hurricane and global warming
- Why not more publicity?
- How could we work with colleges here?
- What’s been done / what hasn’t / what are plans?
- What does FEMA do?
- Why Iberville not St. Mary’s?

I used to think that volunteers would be more motivated than people who get paid. Now I’m not so sure

How many wars for peace have we had? And how many will it take to show us that war is not the way to peace?