First week in New Iberia Jan, 2011

FIRST WEEK IN NEW IBERIA, LA

It is always exciting to look forward to working with new people on a site where you have never been before. Some friends we have met on various sites had been in New Iberia and they had enjoyed it. The work here is classified as “revitalization”. We expect it to be much like we did at Cheek, Texas.

There was some confusion as to exactly where we were supposed to park our RVs, but we managed to get it all straightened out and now we are situated in the very nice KOC RV Park just outside of the city. New Iberia is about the same population as Prince Albert, but we are told it is fairly difficult to drive around in if you are not familiar with the streets. We will see soon enough.

First of all we have to get to work. We have never before worked with Project Director, Nelson, and Office Manager, his wife Patty, although we had met them briefly. Norman and Carolyn are the “experts” on the New Iberia area, having worked here on many projects. It is great that they can share their knowledge with those of us who have not been here before. Bernie and Agnes were with us in Marble Falls and have signed up here for the month of January. The other couple, besides ourselves, is Art and Hilda from Michigan. This is their first time with MDS RV. They have been going south for the last 5 years, but wanted to “do something productive” this year besides tour and enjoy the warmth.

The first home we are to work on is in Jeanerette, a small town about 12 miles south of New Iberia. Most of our clients are elderly, and this couple is no exception. The lady, Miss Rosella, a real sweet black lady is already simply loving to have us around. Her husband is kind of a crusty old gent and she has her hands full looking after him. He is able to walk, but just barely. They have home care for his needs.

Their home is a grand old home with 9 foot ceilings and huge rooms. It is relatively clean and uncluttered but in bad need of repair. On the sidewalk there was an indication this house was built in 1946! That makes it one year older than me… John immediately set to work drywalling the spare bedroom . They just put new gyproc on the ceiling, as it would have been more work to repair it. The outside wall had to be forced back in, as there was a 2 inch gap at the floor. John said what they need is eavestrough to prevent the water damage to the walls! He taped all the corners and fixed any spots that needed fixing. Now that bedroom is ready for the ladies to paint. We also have to paint two sets of shuttered closet doors.

The ladies have been working on scraping and painting the two large porches. Then the guys put up spindles on each porch (it didn’t have railing before) and put new screen all around. Painting the porches made the whole house look 75% better already. They figured they’d get that done before the forecasted rains and cold came.

We attended the local Cowboy Church Sunday morning and found a very friendly congregation. Sunday night our group traveled to Lafayette and attended a Southern Baptist Gospel Concert featuring the Southern Plainsmen at a Baptist Church. The group is from this area and their concert was excellent – the harmony was absolutely fantastic and they added just enough comedy to make for a lovely evening!