Daily Trojan USC.edu

Issue date: 3/21/07 Section: Lifestyle

Media Credit: Photos courtesy of Shana Rappaport and Deborah Herman From the ground up | Members of USC Hillel and USC's chapter of the NAACP joined up for a program of cultural dialogue and home building through Habitat for Humanity on their Alternative Spring Break trip to Covington, La. last week.

Catching a red-eye out of LAX with a bunch of complete strangers isn't exactly every student's ideal kickoff to spring break. Then again, you can't judge a trip by its departure.

Thirty-one students, garnered from USC Hillel and USC's NAACP chapter, embarked on a week-long Alternative Spring Break in the heart of the Bayou, working day and night on a Habitat for Humanity project in Covington, La.

Covington, located just above the jutting toes of this foot-shaped state, is like much of southern Louisiana: stiflingly hot, its vegetation clustering around low-slung houses like fingers of the wild grasping at remnants of civilization. Since Hurricane Katrina, the town has experienced a huge influx of the displaced, becoming a place of shelter for those still rebuilding their storm-wracked homes in New Orleans. Many of those homes are still devastated.

"I will never forget the Saturday that we visited the Lower Ninth Ward and St. Tammany Parish," said Njambi Gibson, a junior majoring in health promotion and disease prevention studies and French, after Deputy Police Chief Craig Taffaro showed the group around the area hardest hit. "It looked exactly as if the storm had hit last week. I could not believe that no one had taken efforts to clean out the homes of these families. It was very disheartening to see small children playing in the debris. One Katrina survivor shared with me that they are still finding bodies over a year later."

It seems that President George W. Bush's reassurances that Washington has not forgotten the victims of Katrina are, more than 18 months after the event, a bit off the mark.

Rabbi Jonathan Klein, who first organized the trip last year, was dismayed in particular by the poor progress made on rebuilding the levees, which have been constructed to Category Three status - unable to withstand another Katrina (Category Four) or Rita, from September 2005 (Category Five).

"We were all shocked to see just how little progress has been made, and how foolish the decision making is," he said. "If (the displaced citizens) are going to stay, the government needs to do more to protect them … the government is charging a hundred dollars a day (to) people who have abandoned their homes" and leaving impoverished families a terrible buildup of debt.

Beyond helping to rebuild a part of the country not long ago associated with the term (later condemned) "refugees," the trip attempted to bridge cultural gaps and create dialogue between Jewish and black students about the differences between their cultural and religious upbringings. Klein said he created the trip to foster "service learning."

"As a Jewish educator, it was important for me to have students reflect on what it means to be Jewish, and also to challenge any stereotypes of other groups they may have," he said.

On Friday night, the group, Jewish and black students alike, headed off to Shabbat at Touro Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in the U.S. outside of the original 13 colonies, dating back to 1828. The group then attended Sunday morning mass at Pentecost Baptist Church, basking in vibrant Southern gospel and listening to Rev. Lionel Davis, Sr., who described the vital role of the church in shoring up the community in troubled times.

"I found it incredibly interesting because (the service) was so much more spirited," said Dan Lange, a member of Hillel and senior majoring in cinema-television critical studies who found his firsthand experience with baptism interesting, to say the least. "Shabbat is very routine, very orderly. At the (Baptist) service, you can just speak out whenever you want."

In helping to debunk stereotypes and foster cross-cultural community, the trip succeeded not only in bringing to the forefront the Gulf Coast's continued suffering - and resilience - but also in creating tight bonds here in Los Angeles.

"One thing that I did not expect was the great connection that the black and Jewish students had with each other," said Amaka Okechukwu, president of USC NAACP and a junior majoring in creative writing and sociology. "I learned a lot from the Jewish students about Jewish culture, and this interaction made me look more critically at myself and 'black culture' and the black experience," she said.

The students milled around Bourbon Street - its regal Francophilia melding with jazz and Larry Flynt's Barely Legal Club to create a sense of history shaken and dropped, pell-mell, on swampland - and danced the night away with middle-aged Cajuns at one of the city's many clubs. But what they took away from their sojourn had little to do with Hustler magazine or spicy new steps; instead they gleaned the recognition, too often ignored in the media, that 18 months is not a long time when it comes to rebuilding a city that reached its pre-Katrina proportions over the course of 300 years.

"I did not just want to give monetary donations," said Ronald Lewis, a senior majoring business administration. "I wanted to leave my heart and soul down where the people needed it."

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