After the Storm

Sunday, Oct. 29. 5:30 a.m. Most students are still in the midst of sleep, dreaming of cotton candy and savoring the first weekend of Fall Break. I, on the other hand, am jolted awake by the siren of my alarm clock. Groggily peering at the time, I grunt and turn over, prepared to return to sleep. A few minutes pass before I realize, with the all the excitement of a sleep-deprived college student, that I'm supposed to be getting ready for my fall break service trip. Half an hour later, still not fully conscious, I lock my door and set off to meet the rest of the team members in front of Baker Rink.

When we arrived in Abbeville, Louisiana, most of us weren't sure what to expect, but many of us were hoping, above and beyond helping and making a difference, to experience new things and make new friends. Looking back, I think we met our expectations.

Our job on the trip was to help build an addition to the house of two elderly ladies, Ms. Bertha and Ms. Ernestine, on the island of Mouton Cove. Their house had been flooded in Hurricane Rita. Under the guidance of Elbert, who became our mentor over the next few days, we leveled the still soggy ground and prepared to make the roof, an activity that would take the majority of our time in Abbeville.

I had never picked up a hammer in my life, so for the first few days I raked the extra mud and clay flat. That was hard enough, but I watched with envy as the others hammered and sawed away, feeling with despair that I was inadequate for the trip.

Fortunately, those gloomy feelings slowly started to change. The others were kind enough to show me how to hammer and saw wood, and by the end, I posed only a minor threat to their fingers and toes. As insignificant as it sounds, I was proud that I, a city girl from South Africa, had finally learned what it was like to use my hands.

As satisfying as the manual labor was, our trip wasn't all work and no play. Our Halloween was a bit of a disaster — we arrived at the children's party "Scare on the Square" when all the kids had already left. But we took a more successful half-day off to go on a swamp tour, where we got to see a breathtaking swamp with the "Cajun Man" himself, Bayou Black.

One of the biggest things I gained from the trip was the ability to deal with being outside of my comfort zone. I definitely wasn't prepared to stay in a place that was still recuperating from such a large natural disaster. I had also never been exposed to such rigidly religious people, with whom we were in close contact at the church where we stayed. Having only been in America for two months, I had never before been to the South and was unsure of what to expect from anything that wasn't New Jersey.

And I'm glad that I pushed myself. I saw a new culture, was exposed to different world views and made a difference in the community of Abbeville. Yes, it's easy to say that all we did was work on one house, but as we all realized, it takes many small steps to lead to a large change. Any help really does count; I just hope that the community of Mouton Cove and Abbeville got as much from our stay there as we did.