>Good for you! It turned out that I couldn't get into the class as they already had 60 people enrolled. They put me on standby for the next class. Not sure when that will be though.
>

My trip got cancelled this afternoon (sigh). It turns out the group of 50 of us who were going down to Houston were going to be working in a shelter, and all the shelters are being shut down. Good news from the POV of the evacuees, of course, but I can't help feeling a bit disappointed, at least in the short term. Have been making preparations for days, including getting myself mentally prepared for the physical strain of reported 16-18 hour days and the emotional strain of being among so many devastated people. Oh well.

I have to say the local volunteer organization I arranged this with was a little slow in reacting. Not much better than FEMA, really. (Although the head of our organization has a better background than horse shows ;-) ). I volunteered on Sept. 1, when it was becoming clear just how bad things were along the Gulf coast. Got an email back saying great, we are putting a team together and will get back to you ASAP. On September 6, four days later, I got another email saying the focus had switched to Houston and we would be down there from the 18th to the 24th. IOW another 12 days hence. The 18th will be nearly three weeks after the hurricane. Even in a disaster of this magnitude, that is a long time after the fact in terms of humanitarian rescue efforts. We are into the rebuilding phase now. Not that it will be an easy phase -- very far from it -- but it isn't the time when you're thinking, "My god, I have to drop everything and go help those people."

Mike