Camp Hope: Home Sweet Home

Sunday night I settled into a new home for the next two months: Camp Hope. Where words fail, I think pictures will succeed:



Camp Hope is a very hopeful name indeed as it is an elementary school that was flooded to the second floor during Katrina and now lacks, um, certain ammenities. Now, Habitat for Humanity uses it to house Katrina rebuild volunteers - the classrooms are bedrooms, the front office a camp store, the gym supply room a laundry and so on.

And so in short order I found myself bedded in with 14 of my new best friends - the "Blue Hens for Christ" of Delaware. I couldn't help but overhear them discuss the fact that when they wear makeup they "like, totally, like look 21 or 22."

The bemusement continued when I donned my flip flops and made my way to the shower room (15 showers, 2 sinks, 4 toilets and no operating outlets) where I again listened to conversations that soon transported me back 13 years to dear Helaman Halls.

And so I now find myself eating cafeteria food, carrying all my bathroom stuff in baskets and using my trunk as a chest of drawers. A change of pace from last year's "home sweet home" (do allow yourself to weep at the contrast).



But it's a welcome change. New Orleans, gladly I'll sleep on a bad mattress with snoring neighbors to don jeans, lose the laptop and work up an honestly come-by lunchtime hunger sanding drywall.