New Orleans 2012

It's time I made a post about something mostly unrelated to my stay in Germany.

Anyone who knows me has heard me talk about New Orleans, and the effort my youth group makes each year to make a difference in the area. We spend a week each Summer in New Orleans to rebuild after the destruction of hurricane Katrina. This year will mark the fifth annual trip. In addition to that, 2012 will mark the seventh anniversary of the storm. Although I have been anything but blind to the New Orleans area for the past five years, the amount of destruction still visible is a continual shock to me. It is true that we have seen major improvement throughout the years; each year we take a tour of the city, and we get the chance to see new homes and restored lives each time. However, there is still work to be done. To this day New Orleans residents are living with friends, family members and volunteers; waiting for the day when they can return home. There are empty fields in the Lower Ninth Ward where houses once stood. The government and the rest of the country alike have forgotten about New Orleans. Our attention has been diverted; disasters in Haiti and Japan have replaced what feelings we had for the victims of Katrina. To add to this, seven years is a long time. It is hard to imagine that anyone is still hurting from something that happened so long ago. I believe we have a responsibility to help the people of New Orleans, even to this day.
To this end, I will continue to work to heal the wounds left by the hurricane. For the moment this means donating my time and energy; a resource that is often in short supply. Volunteer groups like ours make a difference by donating labor, which is often the most expensive part of a job. Often the homeowners can afford the resources to rebuild their homes, but they don't have the means to pay a contractor. That is where we come in. In addition to that, groups like ours bring the gift of hope to a city that has been seemingly forgotten. We show the people of New Orleans that we care, and that we will never forget what happened to them.
We can't do this alone.
Today I ask for your support. My goal is to raise $1000 to cover my trip expenses (travel, lodging, and so on.) Anything you could give would be much appreciated, and will go to help people who truly need it. I have placed a widget on the right side of my blog with which donations can be made to our fundraising effort. Donations can be made either by using this widget or through contacting my parents directly.

I'd like to thank you for taking the time to read this post, as well as to thank in advance those who choose to donate.

PLEASE NOTE: when you follow my "DONATE" link above, you will see the following:

1.  You will first see the donation window, with "St. Raphael Church" at the top and "ReNew Orleans" below that.

2.  Enter your donation by typing the amount into the text box and clicking on "Update Total".

2.  After doing this you have TWO donation options:

            a. OPTION ONE: if you have a PayPal account you can log-in directly from this screen.

            b. OPTION TWO: if you don't have a PayPal account, you can donate via credit card by clicking "Continue" on the bottom    left, where it says, "Don't have a PayPal account?" with a strip of credit card icons.

3.  This will take you to the final donation review screen.  It should say "Please review your donation" and "ReNew Orleans".

3.  Just below that is a clickable link that reads: "+ Donating to a specific member?".  PLEASE click that link.

4.  A text box will open; please type "Nicole Thompson" to ensure that your donation is connected to me.

5.  If everything else is correct, click "Donate $xx.xx Now".

6.  Accept my heartfelt THANKS!!!  Feel good about helping another couple of families in NOLA...

A small group I was a part of in front of a house we helped to complete

Another small group, posing with a man who moved back home after they finished his house

Last year's group. Aren't we pretty?

Weimar

I wrote the last post about Karneval from my room in the youth hostel in Weimar, in East Germany. Now I can tell you what I was doing there.
The trip to Weimar lasted from Last Wednesday (one day after Karneval ended) until last Sunday, and was required for everyone affiliated with ASSE. This means that I was briefly reunited with everyone I met in Washington DC.
On Wednesday we took trains from our separate locations and met up at the youth hostel where we spent most of our time. We were introduced to a few program leaders who spoke entirely in German with us, which was both a blessing and a curse.
That afternoon we were given an exercise; to walk into downtown Weimar and find the answer to two questions. My small group was given questions that led us to the Market square, where we found a plaque dedicated to a famous painter (Lucas Cranach) as well as one dedicated to Bach. The exercise was meant to introduce us to the city, which turned out to be quite smaller than I had imagined. Weimar is actually quite beautiful, so I enjoyed running around and snapping pictures, while constantly making sure I did not trip on the loose cobblestone roads.

See? Pretty.

The next morning we walked into downtown to catch a bus that took our group to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Before going in we were given a basic history of the place, as well as warned multiple times to keep a reverential attitude while inside. The weather was cold, with gusts of biting wind that bit at our faces while tried to explore what remained of the camp. Our first view was of the entrance gate, with the camp's motto "Jedem Das Seine" (To each his own.) The motto was built into the gate in such a way that it was the right way around for the prisoners inside of the camp, and not for visitors or newcomers. 

We toured a group of cells and torture rooms together, then were sent on our own to look around. I and a small group of girls made a beeline for the nearest building, where we could stop shivering long enough to get a good luck around. We found ourselves in a small art gallery that was built in one of the old storage and cleaning facilities. The art was, for the most part, made by the inmates and was hauntingly beautiful overall. Some of the artists had already been professional, while some had learned their art during their lives in the concentration camp. The pieces ranged from still lives to portraits of other inmates to sketches of corpses, as well as abstract renditions of pain and sadness. (A small description can be found here.)

We stayed in the gallery for quite a while, then made our way for the crematorium, and then on to other buildings and memorials. I could speak for much longer about Buchenwald, but there are certain things I'd much rather convey directly, rather than through my blog. I can say that, overall, the visit to the concentration camp was interesting, eye-opening and  heartrendingly sad. 

The buildings in Buchenwald are all but gone, now memorials line the paths.

This is the Jewish memorial

We returned to the youth hostel and spent the rest of the day in meetings; talking about our lives as exchange students up to this point. The next day was the greatest test of boredom, however, as we were put in a "seminar" program that lasted from 9 in the morning until 7 at night. We discussed values for the entire day (I'm still not entirely sure why.) To this end we ranked our own morals and values, interviewed strangers, and held a mock debate. The entire day was in German and it was mind-numbing. We were told the next day that this sort of thing would never be attempted with our program again. 

The final full day was spent visiting the homes of Schiller and Goethe, which was interesting but relatively unremarkable (at least for the purpose of my blog.) We were given an extra hour before curfew that night (which allowed us to hang out together in Weimar until midnight,) then we hopped on trains the next morning and went our separate ways again.
All in all it was an interesting trip, and very fun for something that was required for participation in the program. We had to go to meetings, but it was all balanced by a good deal of interesting excursions and fun breaks. As I'm writing this I'm recovering from sickness and sleeplessness as a result of the Weimar trip, but that too will pass (although it might live on in my writing... I hope I did okay!)