Biloxi Diary - Day 3
Another day began in Biloxi at 5 am when Philip and Mary went to help make breakfast. Wednesday was OSW's day to help around the camp, so as a group we completed chores like preparing some of breakfast, cleaning up after meals, sanitizing the showers, and serving dinner. After our morning chores, we departed for a small purple house where we met Stella, a wonderful single woman who has been living in a FEMA trailer in her backyard for two years. At Stella's, we worked through a hot, humid day (what else is new?) to put up drywall in almost the entire interior. Just to keep things interesting, we discovered quickly that not only was the house not square, making it difficult to place and cut sheets of drywall, but many of the studs were rotted and a strange white substance was in the ceiling. However, the day was made more enjoyable when the DeMiks produced a tape player and we could all jam to some tunes. Stella's inspiring stories about the four feet of water that flooded her house during Katrina also made our job seem more worthwhile.After finishing two ceilings and the walls of almost one entire room, we cut off work to go attend to our evening chores. Tom DeMik, Chrissy and Elizabeth served a meal of shrimp scampi and green beans, and everyone pitched in to clean up afterwards. Next, we went to the beach for an hour or so, where the teenagers waded in the surprisingly warm, shallow Gulf of Mexico water and the adults chatted on the sand. Then we went to a Winn-Dixie and Caroline treated the group to sundae fixings: strawberries, blueberries, bananas, chocolate sauce, and vanilla and butter pecan ice creams. We returned to camp and enjoyed our sundaes before hitting the sack in preparation of another hard day's work in Biloxi.
The Team