CHAPTER THREE
Packing
Written by Marti
Photos & captions by Marti
October 12, 2005
What I want right now is Jerri McD. The three boxes that came from her ten days ago were filled with wonderful, practical, well-thought-out provisions and they were packed with such care & organization that every item fit in the box with the precision of a Rubik's cube piece. I wish Jerri were here right now . . . she'd have this in hand in no time.
The three of us going to the Winn-Dixie site are now called The Dixie Chicks amongst ourselves . . . one of my other friends is calling me Our Lady of the Tent City.
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LOADING UP
It seemed unlikely we'd get the food, housing, gear
Joey & Rickie
Marti & Joey, with squeegies for crate cleaning
. . . we did, but you'll note it was dark
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In trying to plan for this I've been corresponding with several people who have spent a couple weeks at the Winn-Dixie site and have now returned. One of them told me to bring "lots of granny panties"; I almost fainted because I assumed she must be talking about Depends and was telling me there were no bathroom facilities. Turns out she meant cotton underwear. But the misunderstanding certainly made those Porta-Johns sound pretty attractive - everything is relative!
This is a new experience. I'll take off my wedding rings & other jewelry, I'll go from being reasonably well-groomed to not groomed at all, and we're going someplace where organization is loose, no one knows us, and we won't be walking in and saying, "Hello, you should have a reservation for the party." We don't know if any of our cell phones will work, there's no e-mail & no electricity. It's sort of like losing yourself or watching the self you generally live with lose all identifying marks; always being one who likes to get ahead of the curve, I think I'm experiencing a little PRE traumatic stress disorder.
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WEARING OUR COLORS
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We wore our "colors" proudly on our car and on our backs.
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In any case, whatever you call it, I'm certainly experiencing disorder. I've never been camping, and I'm trying to provision three people to sustain themselves for at least a week where there is no running water. Whatever we take down there will be welcomed with open arms by the next batch of volunteers, but 90% of it can't come back out with us due to the germs and possibly communicable diseases to our own dogs. We can't even in all fairness borrow tents because of what we might bring back, but there are plenty of volunteers who are sleeping on the sidewalks at the Winn-Dixie site and will be thrilled to have them when we leave. So, I've become a very familiar sight at Super WalMart & Target: we have tents & aire mattresses (must charge inflator batteries tomorrow or we'll be blowing those suckers up until St. Patrick's Day), and some $2 sheets & $4.50 pillows.
Today I bought a Solar Shower which is a large plastic four-gallon bag that you leave out in the sun to warm, then hang up and "shower" under. Whoever invented that has got to be laughing all the way to the bank. I have my dog show chairs that I think I can bring back if I spray them liberally with Lysol, and my huge cooler I can douse with bleach (must get Lysol . . . and bleach). We have flashlights & disposable cameras.
We have three cases of water and that's not nearly enough and we'll need Gatorade & Poweraid and lots of it. We'll need something to eat besides trail mix, but I haven't gotten that far. Jerri has us outfitted in gloves & disposable aprons & sponges. We need hand sanitizer & all sorts of first aid stuff. Power bars & paper towels & hard candy & gum because one's mouth gets so dry. Today I looked at two outdoors stores for water-holding backpacks called Camelbaks, but decided they were too expensive: hope I don't come to regret that.
Guess we'll need canteens & maybe toilet paper (do Porta-Johns come with toilet paper?). Wipes for face & body - even with our own solar shower we will have to get on a list and wait our turn to use the dog runs covered by tarps where we can hang it up.
A day has passed since I wrote the last paragraph. Rickie arrived yesterday and we did another sweep through Target & WalMart and still I woke up at 4 a.m. worrying about items we had missed.
Joey will arrive at noon today and we may do one more trip, at least to a grocery store. Needless to say, the expenses have already soared above anything we anticipated them to be when we first decided to go, and if it weren't for the fundraiser and the incredible, humbling generosity of all of you, our anxiety would be multiplying exponentially now.
One of the items needed by volunteers down there is changes of clothing. With no electricity or water, and having to change a couple times a day in order to stay just moderately filthy, they need clean t-shirts. My neighbors & friends have been incredible about cleaning closets and rounding up t-shirts; I bet we have well over a 100 in our family room already, and I know we have more coming. When I get stressed, I go sort them by size and fold them.
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DRESSING UP
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Some of the 200+ t-shirts
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I'm still packing my own stuff. Have the clothes done but the hard stuff remains . . . foot gear & personal stuff. We have a pretty good supply of band aids, gauze pads, tape, aspirin & alcohol wipes. etc., to share.
Getting all this stuff in one minivan with a roof rack is going to be like stuffing a pillow into a match box . . .
If I don't get back to the computer again before we leave in the wee small hours of tomorrow morning, let me say it once again: thank you from the bottom of our hearts and on behalf of a lot of animals in a lot of trouble.
CONTINUE WITH
IN THE EYE OF THE STORM:
KATRINA "A-TEAM" TRIP HERE