And so it begins...

Greetings from Bay St. Louis (BSL), MS! I'm glad to say that we've made it safely to Lagniappe where we will be staying for the week. Since our check-in wasn't until 5 tonight, we used the day to explore New Orleans a bit.

Our first stop was Mother's Restaurant, which boasts the "world's best baked ham" and has a plethora of delicious New Orleans cuisine. According to Ted (better known as Ed-T after a mishap with his name when he ordered), it is worth the trip alone just to get their food. I guess no one truly cooks the best food like Mother does.

Most of the group split up after lunch and meandered around the city with the fellow passengers in their car. I'd like to give a special shout-out to my car: Victor (our fearless driver/questionable human GPS system), Pete, Ted, the Dubliners--Tom and Dave, and EJ. We definitely made the most of our afternoon with some good laughs and interesting sights along the way.

Later, we made our way to BSL, but not before making a stop at the Wal-Mart supercenter. Then we continued to Lagniappe for dinner, set-up our sleeping spaces, and kicked back for a bit (see below) before making our way back to the main building for orientation.



Our orientation consisted of an intro from two case managers at Lagniappe, meeting the lucky recipient of the house--William, a brief video on the area, and some more background on Habitat (click for a link to the local group we are working with this week). It was incredible to learn that Bay St. Louis and the surrounding city of Waveland received the full impact of Katrina back in 2005. Recently, the area had some additional damage from Gustav that came through a few months back. They've definitely had a lot of hardships but the community here seems incredibly energized to fix the broken pieces and make themselves even stronger. Apparently SEI has become a favorite with the construction crew and with Lagniappe for all of our efforts, and they had been counting down the days until we returned.

Well, that's all for tonight. We definitely have our work cut out for us, but I'm excited to see how much we can help accomplish and also learn about this unique city. Feel free to comment if there's anything you'd like to see us post pictures of this week. I'm sure we'll have a lot more once the building starts tomorrow.