Katrina Writing Project

Announcement!!!

2006-08-07T13:47:00.001-07:00

Our student writers have decided to title their forthcoming book From the Second Line. At jazz funerals, a first line of mourners, which includes family members and close friends, lead a community wide street parade. A second line, comprised of musicians and dancers, follow behind. These performers, from the second line, both celebrate and sustain traditional New Orleans culture.

The Storm

2006-08-07T13:45:00.000-07:00

by: Sally-Rose

It was now our second week of school and a hurricane was already developed and heading our way. We were supposed to start dancing on August 31^st; I was really looking foreword to that. My parents talked about it for a little while and decided that we were going to try it here for this hurricane (this was while it was still a category 1 or 2 hurricane, and it was headed somewhat for Florida. The last real hurricane that we had was the last season and we evacuated for it, but it didn’t even rain, so I wasn’t really worried.

We got out of school that Thursday because of the hurricane. The next day I was supposed to go see my best friend, Alexandra, who lived in Baton Rouge, for a housewarming party. Thursday night, my dad got an e-mail from my uncle that show hurricane Katrina, which was now a powerful category 3 storm, and what it was expected to do. That night it was decided, we were evacuating to Lafayette, where my aunt lives.

Friday morning, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to see Alexandra because we were possibly evacuating that night. I was extremely disappointed. The rest of the day I spent at my friend Grace’s house playing on the computer and at my house playing ping-pong with my brother. In the middle of our game, my mom instructed us to pack for Lafayette. She said only a few pairs of clothes; we would be back on Tuesday.

Saturday night, I went to a fundraiser for boys hope and girls hope. Everyone there was talking about when they were evacuating the next morning. My grandparents told us to stay with them and stick it out. By the end of the party, my parents had convinced them to evacuate. That night, my dad made it clear that we were to leave on Sunday morning, really early at about 4(am) and drive to Baton Rouge to pick up my sister from LSU, and continue our journey to Lafayette.

As planned, we woke up early Sunday morning, which was Allison’s birthday, put the dog in the car and started on our way. Just before we left, my mom looked around and said,” I guess I shouldn’t do anything with the furniture. Maybe just this.” And picked up the wicker-set-tee and put it on top of the couch. Then she put the movies on the top shelf of the built in shelves.

We got in the car and of course, the dog was hyper. Everyone was trying to sleep and he was pacing in the little space that he had trying to look out of every window possible, even though he couldn’t see anything because it was still pitch black outside. I had two presents, one for Allison, which was a pillow, and one for Alexandra, which was her housewarming gift that I happened to still have in the car.

Somewhere along the way to Baton Rouge, our mayor, Ray Nagin, issued a mandatory evacuation, finally. Two hours later, we picked up Allison in Baton Rouge, and started towards Lafayette, our final destination. It took us about two hours to get there also. So, in all, it took us about 4 hours to get there. That wasn’t so bad, compared to my grandparents who drove 12 hours when the trip was only supposed to be two hours.

When we got there, I was actually excited. No school and awesome fun with the family. We stayed at my Aunt Susan’s house, where we stay every hurricane. She is always fun to be around, no matter what the occasion. Family by family, we got settled in our rooms. The house only had four bedrooms, so each family got one. Every hurricane, it was like this, so it was no big deal.

The smell of my Aunt’s house is now significant to my life, every time I smell it; it makes me think of hurricane Katrina, and the two months that my Aunt and her family graciously took us in without a question or complaint, except when we left the televisions on at night or forgot to put our drinks on coasters (my aunt and uncle have a certain way that they REALLY like there house to be in).

When Katrina actually hit, Lafayette was barely harmed. The electricity didn’t even go off. We kept hearing how bad New Orleans was hit, but no one had proof like videos or pictures. What every scientist said could happen to New Orleans, did happen to New Orleans. We heard that no one would be able to get back into New Orleans for months, so my mom enrolled Patrick in St. Thomas Moore and me in Sacred Heart Grand Coteau.

About three days after Katrina hit, the news people finally came out with Arial views of the city. I remember that there were news people talking as the camera moved all over New Orleans, but I blocked them out. The camera came to the University of New Orleans and went back to where it was before. UNO was on the other side of the canal from our house. Our family kept yelling at the TV to go this way or that. Finally, the camera focused on a rite aid about three blocks away from our house. All you could see was the top of the roof.

I had seen enough and looked towards my sister. No one moved, no one even cried, not yet at least. Everyone just stood still 3 inches away from the television. My sister had her hands on her cheeks and did not move them. I got up and walked to the back room. I wasn’t in shock anymore and I started to break down crying. My dad came in a few minutes later and tried to comfort me by telling me that I was better off than a lot of other people in the super dome and so on. My sister came in with tears down her cheeks. She started to walk back out when my dad put his hand on her shoulder to stop her. He hugged her and I walked out. My Aunt was in the kitchen, as usual, and she hugged me and talked to me for a little while. I saw my brother outside on the patio talking to someone on his phone and crying. I felt bad for him because it was his senior year at Jesuit high school and he was going to miss half of it. This was the worst day of my life and I think that it will always be.

The next day, I was tired of the news and so was everyone else. There were too many Ariel views and ten news stations showing the same ones at the same time. We went on the computer to see if there was something that could tell us an estimate about how much water was in our house. We looked and there was, it estimated 8 to 12 feet. I sat that day and wondered how much was 12 feet.

Later that day, my mom took me to Sacred Heart Grand Coteau to see if I could go to school there. We walked in and the first thing that the lady asked was where did you go to school before?

“Sacred Heart the Rosary,” I replied.

“Oh, ok well come to the back to get a uniform.”

Both my mom and I were thinking, “Wait that is it? I am in school?” Apparently, they were taking in every sacred heart student without question. I got my uniform and my mom decided that I would start school the next day, which was Thursday September first, the day before my birthday.

After that, we went to get my brother his uniform at the uniform store. As soon as my mom went up to buy the uniforms, the lady said that an anonymous women payed for all of the uniforms for STM bought by Katrina victims. My mom just broke down crying immediately.

The next day, I went to school at Sacred Heart Grand Coteau and it was ok. We were ahead in everything except for French, so if I had to stay there for a while, I would probably ace everything. When I walked out of school, I saw my favorite teacher of all time standing there, Mr. James. He was our music teacher at Sacred Heart the Rosary and he was an amazing teacher. He gave us opportunities that we would never have again. I ran up, hugged him, and talked for a little while. Then, my mom took me home. My Aunt had warm cookies waiting for me.

My Aunt Susan missed having her children with her all the time and loved having me to care for every once in a while. Her children were all in college or out of college.

That night my mom came up and told me that she couldn’t get my presents and I would have to get them when I got home from school on Friday. Ever since I remembered, I opened my presents early in the morning before school. This made me really sad and I started crying. My mom and I hugged for a little while, and I went to sleep. My mom and I slept in front of the TV in the front room on air mattresses, like we always did for the last two months.

It was very funny that my Aunt’s cat was so mad that we were staying there. He hissed at us all the time, and one time I thought that he was finally warming up to me because he was rubbing up against my leg, but seconds later, he turned around and bit me so hard that it left a scar for eight months on my leg.

Well, I woke up on my birthday and my family said happy birthday. While I was getting ready for school I was thinking about the invitations that I had sent out before I left for the hurricane. I went to school and no one knew it was my birthday, so it was a pretty bad day. Just as I thought that it couldn’t get any worse, during the last period of the day, Mr. James came in with a huge triple chocolate cake with candles on it. My class and I had cake, which helped me make some friends, and my mom took me home.

When we got home, I got my presents. It wasn’t much at all, but I was very grateful for what I got. That night I got to pick a restaurant for us to eat at. My family knew that my favorite food was sushi, and I was going to pick a Japanese restaurant. I chose a hibachi restaurant. By this time, my Aunt’s family had become my own.

The next Monday, everyone who was in Lafayette and went to Sacred Heart the Rosary, met in the gym at Sacred Heart Grand Coteau with all of our teachers who were in town or close to Lafayette. They talked to us and told us about this little school house type thing that Sacred Heart Grand Coteau owned. They normally held a little Sunday school in it. We were going to be starting school there on Thursday.

The first day at our new campus was sent unloading all of the supplies and getting a schedule going to last us until January, which was when they promised to go back to the Rosary, no sooner, no later. At this point, we were still at my Aunt’s house sleeping on air mattresses in the living room, while my uncle, judge Tommy Duplantier, was looking for a house for us, he has a lot of connections. He found us one that was brand new and needed a few finishing touches; that was being built by one of his friends.

A few days or weeks later, I convinced my dad to take me into Baton Rouge with him while he worked and drop me off at Alexandra’s house. I decided to bring her her housewarming gift because we still had it. I knocked on the door and saw my two friends sitting on the floor watching America’s funniest home videos. They saw me and went into the kitchen while Alexandra’s mom came to pen the door.

They jumped out from behind a wall and screamed, “Surprise! Happy birthday!” This was really ironic because I brought her a present during my surprise party. We had a lot of fun and that was really what I needed, to see Alexandra. On the way home I was sad but I knew we would keep in touch.

Things at Sacred Heart Grand Coteau were pretty messed up. My music teacher was teaching us religion and the eighth grade math teacher was teaching us science.

The biggest thing that I missed from New Orleans was dancing. My Aunt made some calls to my older cousin’s old dance school, Delarue dance center. My first night of dancing there, I came out crying. Dancing in Lafayette just made me miss dancing in New Orleans even more. It wasn’t even the city that I was dancing in, or the studio. It was my dance teacher.

Miss Jaune is the best dance teacher ever. She has the best attitude you could possibly have. Even when she gets mad at you, three seconds later she will say something that you can’t help laughing at, and on top of that, she can teach anyone how to dance. She has to be the funniest person I have ever met. And the best thing is that her whole family is like that, and they are always around. So, they make the atmosphere of the dance studio addicting. Once you dance with Jaune, you won’t want to dance with anyone else.

My brother continued his senior year at St. Thomas Moore, and my sister went back to college. One day after school, we moved into our new house. It was really small, my sister and I had to share a room, and we had a backyard the size of a toothpick.

As soon as we moved in completely, my dad and mom started to go into New Orleans to get some of our stuff that we could salvage from upstairs. Everything had the most horrible stench that I had ever smelled in my life. There was no way that you could even describe it. When everything got into the house, we coated it in fabreeze and hung it outside to air out. My family kept going back to our house and getting stuff. Everyone had been except for me. I refused to go. I had seen the pictures and that was enough.

Towards the end of October, Sacred Heart announced that they were going back to the New Orleans campus on November seventh. Obviously I didn’t have a house to live in so my parents and I were pretty upset, for they did promise to go back to New Orleans no sooner than January. Soon, my mom made some arrangements with some close family friends for me to stay with them until we find a place t live in New Orleans.

Before we went back to New Orleans, we had a week off so the teachers could have time to set up before the students came. During this week, my mom and dad took me to California for a little vacation. This was really fun. Somewhere in the middle of it, my mom’s cousin called us while we were in a restaurant. My mom went outside to talk to her and when she came back in announced that we had a place to live in January in River ridge. My dad asked her how much it would be to rent it. My mom realized that she hadn’t even asked, she was so happy that we could go back.

I started to go to our friend’s house, the foxes, during the week. In the very beginning, I was ok but then I started to get homesick. Something about their house and their family just made me miss my own. My aunt came and picked me up a lot and I slept over at her house some nights.

School was ok, but we kept talking about what had happened to us, and I was tired of telling everyone that my house was under eight feet of water. As soon as one of my really good friends, Nicole, told me that Miss Jaune had opened Metropolitan back up at the country day dance studio, I knew that I immediately had to find a way to go. From then on, I spent Wednesday nights at my Aunt’s house so she could bring me to dancing.

My first night I was a little early and I peeked into the dance studio. As soon as Miss Jaune saw me, she ran and opened the door screaming, “SALLY-ROSE!!!!!!!!” I was happier than I had been since August 29^th. I stuck the rest of my time with the foxes out, knowing that I only had a few weeks left until Christmas by coordinating their house with my friend, and second cousin, Maddie’s house.

It was now January and we were starting to move into our new house. It had four bedrooms, and was still a little small but it was way past better than nothing, though we were a little short on closet space. I got most of my old furniture back because my room was upstairs, but no furniture from downstairs came home. It was bad that my parents’ room was downstairs because they had all of the papers on everything, for instance, right now we don’t have birth certificates because they were in my parents’ desk drawer.

School stayed the same, mostly except for the occasional new person, or old person who hadn’t come back yet. Towards the end of the year, I had made my decision that I was going to leave Sacred Heart to go to Dominican for High School. After that, it seemed like Sacred Heart started losing everyone. More and more students decided that they were leaving, and eventually the teachers started to drop out as well.

Mr. James finally told the middle school that he was not going to be at Sacred Heart the next year. That was the first time I had seen so many people sad at one time for the same person. Mr. James was amazing. He didn’t just teach us music, he taught us life long lessons. He had set up a Spring Concert that was so sad for every student in the middle school. Our special song was seasons of love from rent. At the concert, almost everyone was crying.

My class was 7-4 that year. We were an extremely special section. Everyone wanted to be in our section. We weren’t afraid to be ourselves in our section and we never made an important decision without everyone else’s opinion. The last day of school, tons and tons of tears were shed. That day, I got hugs from people that barely said a word to me in the two years I had been at school there.

Now, I am getting ready for high school and am still in touch with my friends from sacred heart. I have not yet been to my old house, and I don’t plan on doing so. We are starting to look for a house to buy. Hurricane Katrina’s anniversary is about 22 days away now. A hurricane has not hit New Orleans yet, and if the weather keeps this way, I believe NOLA will come back with effort from everyone in the city, but it will take time.

Introducing Our Workshop Participants

2006-07-29T17:23:00.000-07:00

Today we'd like to introduce the participants in the Katrina Writing Project Workshop. Actually, we will let them introduce themselves.

DUDLEY

Hey everybody, my name is Dudley. I am fifteen years old, and I’m currently living in Kenner, LA, which is about 15 minutes outside New Orleans. For fourteen years I resided in New Orleans East, but most of that area was destroyed by Katrina. Here’s a little more about myself. I am a very adventurous person. I enjoy doing things that people don’t normally do. In my spare I enjoy watching T.V., surfing the web, writing, but most of all, participating in anything that involves music. This past summer was the most productive for me. I became an intern for a program called “Rethink” where elementary and middle school students create ideas and make suggestions to make the New Orleans Public Schools better post-Katrina. During this summer I also got to travel. I am a member of a New Orleans neighborhood area planning team, and I was amongst four students chosen to go to New York City to present our plan. Also, this past week I traveled to Chicago for an essay I wrote about my Katrina experience.

As busy and exciting as my summer was, I’m anxious to get back to school. This year I will be a junior and I can’t wait. I plan to join just about activity my school has to offer this year. Later this year, my family and I plan on rebuilding in New Orleans East. So, you can kind of hence that my life is going in the direction I choose right? None of this would be possible without the landfall of Katrina on August 29, 2005. You’ve probably heard the phrase, “You can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been.” Now that you know about the present and what I’m planning for the future, read my story to learn about my past.

WILL

What's up everyone. My name is William Powell and I'd like to tell you about an experience that I had after Katrina. I am now a sophomore in high school. I enjoy playing football, rap music, producing (making beats), rapping, and talking on the phone. I guess you could call me an up-and-coming artist. I am fifteen years young and am making 16 on Dec. 18. This summer I took on an internship at the Loop (Louisiana Outdoor Outreach Program). Basically my job was to teach younger kids about different types of pollution and how and when to use conflict resolution. I am also a canoeing expert and I teach them how to canoe and put on a life jacket. My job is hard because of the heat and the physical work combined. But I made it through the whole program with help from my co-workers.

After Hurricane Katrina, my family and I evacuated to Ft. Worth, TX. I wound up going to the same school as my older cousins Jon and David who were like brothers to me. After about a week of school the three of us were working in the cafeteria at lunchtime and Jon noticed some kids looking at us. They were sort of scowling. Jon asked them what they were looking at and they all jumped up and we all ended up about to fight. Jon was suspended and brought home early by my uncle. When David and I got home, the police arrived at my uncle's house telling him that Jon was reported to have come back to school and pulled a gun on one of the kids. It was impossible because he was at home all day. It was all on the news and in the media. Jon never returned to that school and went back the N.O. where he attended school in the West Bank, which didn't flood as badly. This shortened the number of people who would have my back and the amount of entertainment between the three of us because Texas was really boring. After that experience, I never respected anyone at that school for a while because of what had happened to my cousin. But in the end I would say it definitely brought the three of us a lot closer than we were before Katrina.

JOSEF

I am fifteen years old. My race is black/white. I live in New Orleans, LA, in the Third Ward of uptown. I have two brothers, Girfio and Nicholas, and my mother's name is Jackie. My best friends are Will, Kenneth, Henry, and Vic. I like to play football and rap. My dream is to become an actor. What keeps me going are these words, "If you reach for the moon and don't get there, at least you are among stars."

Rapping has been my hobby/passion for years, since I was five. I fell in love with rap when I heard 2pac for the first time. Ever since then, I wanted to get in a studio and rap. Well, one day Will told me we were going in the studio casue he had met this producer in a store, and the guy heard Will making a beat. So he told Will to come over, and Will told him about me. So when I was in the studio I layed like ten tracks straight. The producer said I had skills. So from then on, he is giving us free booth time. So look out for me and Will's cd soon.

DONNANICE

Hi, my name is Donnanice Florence Anessessecito Stewart Newman. I am 15 years old and I attend New Orleans Charter Science and Math High School. I am currently in the 11th grade. I am from the Lower 9th Ward but I was raised in the Iberville Housing Projects. Some really cool facts about me are that I am a very cool down to earth person. I enjoy eating, cooking, and reading books. My favorite authors are Mary Monroe Tmar Tyresse, Sister Solja, and Zane. My summer internship is working at the Audobon Zoo. I am a junior counselor. I work in the Art department so basically I teach young kids how to do different things with recyclables. Every week we have a different theme so we try to do art projects related to that topic. Most people would think that my job is useless because they say all I do is sit in the AC all day. But my job is really hard work. Most JCs have like 30 kids in their group. I have to see all the kids at Zoo Camp and that's about 240 kids a week. So my job is very hard. But there are times where my job is just relaxing. I enjoy my job a whole lot and I just can't wait for next summer when I get to do it all over again.

Now I will tell you about an interesting day that took place in my life. The day was August 20, 2005 and it was my birthday. I was so excited because I was finally making 15. My mom had let me put together my own little party in our backyard. I had invited about 50-70 people so I knew it was going to be fun.

At about 10:00 I woke up to a birthday breakfast. I had scrambled eggs, bacon, french toast, cheese grits, sausage, pancakes, with a side of V8 Splash (Strawberry Kiwi). They had a big birthday banner up that said, "Happy B-day Pooh." My aunt and uncle had to go to work so I was left there with my sleeping sister and her boyfriend.

I took my mom's car and picked up my boyfriend and we went to get my birthday cake. I was so scared because it was my first time taking their car without permission. It was still fun. I picked my cake up and it was so beautiful. It was Winnie the Pooh with red grass. My boyfriend and I went back to my house and started to cook the food for my party. Later that night we got dressed and I had on my birthday shirt and rocalwear jeans. My party was so much fun I just wish it could have lasted forever. At the end of my party my boyfriend and I counted up my cash and that was it. So now you know a little about me. Let me know something about you.

SHANNON

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Shannon Taylor. I am sixteen years old and I am a junior in high school. I have a few things that I feel everyone should know about me. I love to achieve the most out of life. I think school is a place to learn the most you can and have fun at the same time. And for the past six weeks I have been working as an intern with an organization called Ya/Ya. So now that you know a few things that I love out of life I will tell you a story about how my life was altered after Hurricane Katrina.

After Katrina I evacuated to a city called Opelousas. I'll just say it was a learning experience. While going to school in Opelousas, I encountered many problems that I try to keep to myself. But I think there's one problem that I think is worth sharing.

Another challenging day of school is what I thought to myself that morning but hoping that I would be proven otherwise. I went to school with a feeling of hope. But I would soon realize that hopes would be shattered.

I went to my classes like I normally did, facing problems that I simply ignored, but it would be my 4th period class that would give me torture. There was this young man who decided that he wanted to aggravate me that day. It started with the normal New Orleans jokes. I would simply stay quiet. But it went overboard with one of his jokes, I thought. He asked me why I didn't act like the rest of New Orleans kids. At first I thought of it as a compliment. Then I realized he was joking on the slick side. I asked him in a very concerned voice, "And how do the other New Orleans kids act?" He looked at me amazed on how I would ask him that. By the look on his face was all the answer I would need. So I got up and asked the teacher to be excused, and not giving her the time to answer me I was gone out the room. I kind of felt as if I didn't need to act the way I did but he deserved someone to tell him something.

That experience showed me that you sometimes have to tell someone how you feel in a mature manner. I think that you are put in a situation always to learn. I think I was put in Opelousas to learn how to get along with people and how to ignore things sometimes to avoid arguments.

TRYNISHA

My name is Trynisha Trenee Wright. I am fifteen years old and lived in New Orleans all my life. I am sophomore and attend New Orleans Charter Science and Math High School. A few of my hobbies are cooking, baking, drawing, and playing basketball. My favorite professional basketball player is Jermaine O'Neal who plays for the Pacers, but the Pacers is not my favorite team. I really don't have a favorite team, I have three which are the 76ers, the Heat, and the Nuggets. This past summer I did a summer job which was for YaYa working at Capdau for a project called Rethink. What we do is try to improve New Orleans public schools.

Let me tell you a story about my post-Katrina experience, which was when I first walked into my moldy, mildewed, falled down house. It was dark and depressing. The smell was horrible. As I walked through the living room to the hallway I see my lingerie chest. That's supposed to be in my room; it's not. My room is two steps away. Everything was out of place. After I walked through the whole house my eyes are full of tears as I see what was once my home is now a mess.

ANITRA

Hello, my name is Anitra. On October the eighteenth I will be making seventeen. I guess I'm a pretty laid-back kid, I skateboard, listen to any music available (no country), videogames are pretty much a necessity. I've never had a job before; I figured this summer would be the perfect opportunity for me to get a job. Canoeing was a class I was taking during school. The canoeing instructor became my boss. His name is Dan Foreman, he's a cool guy. In this job we taught kids how to canoe. First we would give them an introduction, basically telling the kids they're going to be canoeing. After that "the Loop group" as we were dubbed by the runts, would provide a leisurely second lesson on Bayou St. John. Once all of the kids had mastered their skills we would take them out to Cane Bayou to teach them about global warming, and so that they could enjoy the scenery.

Just so you can understand better I'll tell you a story. One day we had a group of kids out on Bayou St. John. They all knew what they were doing so we didn't have much teaching to do. They sky was hazy, on the brink of collapsing. The kids were singing and dancing in the canoes. And even though we were almost stormed out it was a beautiful day that day.

Katrina (My Story)

2006-07-11T13:14:00.000-07:00

by Ruth S. Idakula

At times I laugh at myself as I often times do struggle to put words that can in some way lend understanding at the sudden sweeping changes that blow through our lives. Who am I and how could I possibly try to put the dynamic and undulating forces of the universe into a capsule?

I had a dream in July that told me of this event. As I watched the news the days before the storm hit I remembered my dream and though I tried to talk myself out of it, I knew this was “the Big One”. I told two people so and asked them to leave the city. My four year-old sons and I stayed. Even at this moment, I know I made the right decision.

That day and evening before the rain started to pound and the wind blew through the region I spoke with friends who tried to convince me to leave. I told them we would be fine. We might have to live without electricity for a few days but we’d be fine. I lived on the second floor of a two story building in a relatively quiet neighborhood near Xavier University. I knew a couple of my neighbors. There was the elderly gentleman across the street who my son and I would speak to each morning as we left for work and school. There was the couple downstairs who had moved in just after I had. My son and I had only lived in the apartment a little over three months.

That evening I began to cry as I talked to my god sister over the phone. She was extremely worried and she berated me slightly for my decision. I felt her fear and it crept over me. It was too late to leave. What had I done? We both knew my decision was not logical, seemingly reckless and out of character for me. All I could tell her was, “I just know I’m supposed to be here.”

I fell asleep on the couch watching television. My son was soundly asleep. When I woke up in the middle of the night the electricity was out. I made it to the bedroom and promptly fell asleep again. What might have been a couple of hours later I heard my son calling for me. I felt my way to his room and carried him to bed with me. I woke to the hammering of the wind and rain on the window and my cell phone ringing. A good friend of mine who had vacated with his family was calling to check in. It was good to hear another human voice and have some contact with someone outside of the storm. He had been watching the news and gave me updates on what he had seen and heard. It didn’t appear that there would be too much damage. He planned on returning with his family a couple of days. I got three consecutive calls after that. I told everyone that I was fine and there was no damage to the apartment. I could still cook and we had food and water for a few days. The truth is I love storms but this one had me just a little nervous. My son awoke; we ate breakfast, played some games and then lay on the couch listening to the storms. I prayed that none of the windows would be blown out. The noise was horrendous. It almost sounded like someone groaning loudly in pain. The stories I’ve heard about hurricanes of this category sounding like trains is not far from the truth. We began to fall asleep then I heard the sound of water running. Where was it coming from? I got up from the couch and looked up at the ceiling. It had a crack in it about a foot long and water was pouring into the living room. I ran to grab a bucket but before I could get back and big chunk of the ceiling fell in. That happened again and again for the next couple of hours. By the time the storm was over half of my living room ceiling was on the floor. My son and I had retreated to his room and at about 2:00pm it was safe to actually look outside. The calm after the storm is so eerie.
I began to clean up the mess in my living room. As I dumped my ceiling on the landing outside my door I saw my neighbor, Joseph, downstairs. He was assessing the damage around the neighborhood. We inquired about each other and made sure we were both okay. He helped me clean up my living room. The elderly gentleman across the street, Mr. Ronald, who was renovating the two story building next to me, was assessing the damage to that building. All damage appeared minimal. By this time my cell phone had lost its charge but I wasn’t worried because I was sure we wouldn’t have to wait too long for electricity. There was just a little flooding but that would go down by nightfall I was sure. Tropical Storm Cindy just a few weeks earlier had done more damage. By the time the apartment had been cleaned up things almost seemed like normal except for the big gaping hole in the ceiling that exposed the roof. I cooked dinner and we listened to the radio. Apparently the Superdome had sustained some real damage and it appeared that there was excessive damage done around the city but there were also some areas where there was absolutely none except for some felled branches.
Tuesday morning I woke up hot and sticky. I looked out of my bedroom window and was dismayed to see the water hadn’t receded but had risen about three feet. What in the world was happening? Where is the water coming from? I turned on the radio. People called in complaining about the water not being pumped out of the city. Apparently that was because all of those workers were evacuated and there was nobody to work the pumps. People called about being trapped in there houses. As the day continued the water rose. People walked down the street in waist high water looking for higher ground. The couple downstairs had to move to the two story building that my neighbor across the street was renovating because their apartment was flooded. I remember the laugh we had the day before as the Joseph helped me clean out my apartment. “I would have thought it would be safer up here.” I shook my head. I guess I was safer. In just a couple days I knew neighbors I hadn’t met in three months. Mr. Ronald’s son, who lived with his father and Joseph brought by Ms. Lennon who apparently lived a couple of door down the street. Her house was flooding and she stayed with me the rest of our time there. We listened to the radio, chatted and my son was delighted to have more company. We discussed the rising water. According to the radio one of the canals was overflowing. We talked about Hurricane Betsy and the stories about how the floodgates were opened to save the CBD area by sacrificing lower lying neighborhoods where most Black people lived. I became enraged at the commentator on the radio. When people called in for help he was instead interrogate them about their decision to stay. In fact this was the attitude of most of the commentators on that station which was the only one in operation in the region. People called about being stuck on the roof, people called about not having food and water. By this time we were hearing about the looting in the city and I rolled my eyes as I listened to the debate on why people looted. In a city where a huge percentage of its people lived below the poverty line, including me, why else would people loot?
As I stood on the landing outside my apartment I could see smoke around the city. The water was causing gas leaks that in turn were causing fires. I heard cries for help and dogs howling. On the radio talks began about body counts. There were urging citizens to get out of their houses and at least get to the Superdome, which was the temporary shelter for the city. I still believed that the water would be down by the next day. I began to throw food out because it was starting to smell. It was extremely hot. I continually sprayed myself and my son with water to keep us cool. By this time there was a helicopter flying by every few seconds. By this time the real damage was started to occur because of the flooding. The commentators were saying it would take months for the city to be habitable again. I am a media skeptic but I wondered if what I was hearing could be true. Conditions around me began to look dire. When we woke up the next day and looked out the window, I knew it was time to get out. The water had risen a couple of feet below my apartment. I awoke to the sound of Mr. Ronald using his lumber and drills to build a boat. He moved along with the couple downstairs, their two teenage children and their grandparents to the building he had been renovating to rent out. We all knew it was time to get out. There was a small congregation at the small bridge that wasn’t engulfed by water just a couple of blocks from my building. You could no longer walk in the water. You had to swim. I saw a few families on their roofs. Ms. Lennon and I tried to wave down the helicopters that continually flew by but I never saw one rescue any one. I had just given my son a bath when the water stopped running. Yes, it was time to go. I wasn’t too sure about Mr. Ronald’s makeshift boat but at this point that looked like our only hope. We couldn’t count on the city. In the distance I could see little boats. The people came together to save themselves. I saw a family not too far from me get rescued from their roof by one of their neighbors. I saw a boat going back and forth to pick up the people on the bridge. Joseph and Mr. Ronald’s son swam to find a boat they had somehow heard about. They came back just in time with it because as soon as the makeshift boat was put on the water it began to leak. I threw what I could grab into a bag, said some prayers and looked around my apartment one last time as Ms. Lennon and I stepped out to wait for the boat to come around to us. It was an old boat with a motor that didn’t work so we had to use lumber to paddle. It also leaked so as four of us paddled at a time at least one person was bailing water. We went around picking up whomever we could that was still stranded. As we finally headed out to the Superdome we had sixteen people in the boat. Halfway there we picked up three more people who were on their mattresses. I looked at all these Black faces that had gone through extraordinary odds just to be on this boat. We were still laughing and cracking jokes. Out of nowhere a lady pulled out a bucket of barbecued chicken and passed it around. In the snap of a finger they had become my family.
At some point we came across a smaller boat that was just as packed as we were. As we got closer to it, it began to sink then it capsized. Half of the people in it were children. I remember a couple of elderly women. We all screamed in horror. Two men jumped off our boat to try and rescue who they could. They urged us to go on. We did. I don’t know what became of them. My son began to cry for the second time during this ordeal. The first time was when the ceiling fell in. As I paddled I looked back to try and comfort him. He was sitting on Ms. Lennon’s lap and she motioned for me to keep rowing. As she rocked him she sang to him. As we got closer to the Superdome I began to smell the sewage in the water. I began to open my mouth to make a joke about it I saw a man’s figure face down in the water floating towards us. Then another, then another. There was a body tied to a pole just a few yards to my left. People muttered prayers and others cried out to Jesus.
A few yards from the Superdome we could get out and walk. We walked by some policemen who motioned to us where to go to get on the buses evacuating people out of the city. We went up a long staircase packed with people. People looked dazed, confused, almost stunned into silence. We walked past bodies a couple that had been covered. At some point a paramedic, screaming for people to get out of the way, rushed past us with a baby of only a couple of months in his arms. Her little face was gray and she looked like she had gone into convulsions. There was a lot of confusion about what was happening. There were thousands and thousands of people around us. First we heard we needed ID to get on the buses, and then we heard we didn’t need ID, and then we heard the buses were loading immediately then we heard they were not, and then we heard we needed to wait to get into the Superdome and register before anyone was going anywhere. It was pandemonium. We were packed like sardines around the Superdome. People in their desperation pushing, shoving and fights broke out. Children were screaming because of dehydration. There was hardly any water around. Some policemen passed out some water once. Until we got into the Superdome some six or seven hours later I had one bottle of water between myself and my son.

Most of the group that I came with was still with me as we made it through the “line” an inch a minute. Mr. Ronald was still standing next to me. At one point he leaned over and he said to me.
“You know, I’m doing pretty well.” I looked up into his ebony face and gray eyes. I smiled. “How’s that?”
“I’m claustrophobic.”
As soon as those words left his mouth, his eyes closed and he fell over. Joseph caught him before he landed on me. Mr. Ronald’s body began to shiver and shake. We all yelled for a paramedic. A few men helped Joseph carry Mr. Ronald to find help. I haven’t seen Mr. Ronald since. Joseph came back and lost it. He couldn’t handle it anymore. He told his wife and teenage children that he was going back. The Superdome was worse than being trapped in our houses. The lady next to me, who was there with her young children, burst into tears.
Joseph left with his wife screaming after him, tears running down her face. All I could do was grab her hand. I lost her in the crowd not too long after that and haven’t seen any of my neighbors since.
I would shake my son every few minutes and ask him if he was okay. I had seen children all around me pass out from the heat and dehydration. Parents were struggling through the crowd with their children in their arms to find paramedics. If I could just keep his eyes open he’d be okay. A little after midnight we made it into the Superdome. There were letting in two or three people at a time which is why it took an eternity. My bag which had torn during the wait and only had half of what I left the apartment in was searched. The officer merely pointed in a direction and I grabbed my son and headed off in that direction. There were people laying everywhere. You pretty much sat down anywhere you could. The actual seating area was packed. I knew I wanted to be horizontal so I opted out on that choice. It stunk of waste. You could smell it and see it. I luckily had a towel and a sarong in bag that I was able to lay on the floor. My son fell on the towel and went to sleep immediately. I did too but woke up maybe a half an hour later.

When I awoke to the sights and smells I felt the revulsion rising up my throat. I grabbed head scarf out of what was left of our belongings and covered my mouth and nose. A woman ran past us screaming about how children don’t deserve to be dying. I stopped someone walking past me and he told me a child had been raped and killed in the bathroom. He went on to share that she wasn’t the only person killed within the past few days. I was speechless at how much danger my son and I were in and the scariest thing was there was nowhere to escape to. At some point I heard gun shots. I scooted closer to my sleeping son. A few minutes later I saw people streaming past me. I guessed they were escaping something. I felt to stay put. It didn’t take long for crowd to subside. A couple and their four teenage children appeared to occupy the space next to us. The family shared their water with us and the men in the family went to find more. They came back successful. We got acquainted by talking about our experiences over the past few days. We heard a rumor that the Superdome would be loading people onto the buses at five o’clock. At four we proceeded to the gate but we were shooed by national guardsmen. As we approached each gate the same happened until we reached the last gate. As we all walked outside I was amazed. There were already thousands of people outside. I quickly recalled pictures of war stricken “third world” cities. There were people in wheelchairs, stretchers, crying, shouting and screaming. Some looked like zombies, disassociated from their surroundings. We found a place to sit and wait. There seemed to be no one around to inform us of what was happening. The national guardsmen said they had no clue. Every few minutes a large army truck drove through the crowd. My son and I were certainly hungry. The youngest daughter of the family we were with shared her gum with us. We both chewed very hard on that gum. Finally as the sun came up we could see dozens and dozens of buses driving towards the Dome in the distance. People got up and cheered, some grabbed and hugged each other. I admit my feeling was one of relief but I knew that it would still be hours before we left there…if we left. A few minutes earlier we talked to a woman who informed us that a guard had been shot by an evacuee(s) and his gun had been confiscated. Someone else shared that quite a few people had died from disease or had been killed and their bodies were now being housed in the Convention Center.
At this point we were in a large court facing the New Orleans Center. National guardsmen patrolled without answering any questions. My son and I walked around the area a bit and found that dozens of people were lined up. After inquiring, I found that there in line for army rations. Very eager at this point for any morsel of food I joined the line. It took about an hour to get to the front but I it was well worth it. We ate those rations like they were gourmet. As I looked around I saw that there were very few white people in the crowd. Wryly I told myself what I knew was the truth. This was about race and socioeconomic status. The white people got out because they had more resources, simple as that.
What looked like a local army man got on a structure with a bull horn. People gathered anxiously around. Essentially what we were told that was that buses were here to take us to Houston. He said we would be loading up soon. After we got to Houston we would then be taken to various cities around the U.S. He also added that whoever wanted to leave could do so. He warned us about uninhabitable conditions around the city but nobody was going to be stopped but anyone who wanted to be evacuated would be in Houston that night. I looked around me and doubted what he said. It was going on noon and I doubted that every single person would be on a bus that night. Hundred were already waiting at the New Orleans Center doors so they could some of the first to leave. An hour later a national guardsman appeared and ordered that the people at the doors move 12 yards back so the process of loading could begin. It took another hour for that to happen then the barricades were put up. We then heard that women and children would be boarded first. The family I had been with was looking for two of their sons who disappeared a lot during those hours. The father disgustingly got up to look for his sons and my son and I headed towards the barricade. I was able to push through to the middle of the crowd and I immediately wanted to go back because it was the same feeling I had trying to get into the Superdome. It was blazing and the crowd in their desperation were pushing and shoving and it was hard to breathe. I looked down and told my son to grab my shirt and whatever he did not to let go. He nodded and I continued to push through the crowd. Interestingly enough all I saw at the very front of the crowd were black men and they refused to move out of the way. The guardsmen just stood there and watched the pandemonium. I heard black men say they were human to and they were standing by for anyone. Women screamed at them in frustration and other men pleaded for them to move aside or no one was getting out. I looked up and watched the several helicopters flying above us at any given minute. Why wasn’t this organized? There were better options that this. They could have streamlined the crowd before they got started but it seemed that they wanted to chaos. The next thing we heard from the guards were for us to all move back. Some of us tried but the people in the back crowd were not moving anywhere. It had come to the point that some were willing to die getting out than to possibly have to go back the hell of the Superdome.
Then a guard yelled, “We’re going to open fire!”
People fell over themselves trying to move back. Somehow I picked up my son and with our only belongings in my other arm I moved with the crowd. This same thing happened over and over again for the entirety our time at the Superdome. Instead of being treated as survivors of a traumatic event we were being treated like heathens, offenders, even criminals.

The call for women and children changed into “entire families”. Puzzled but relieved because I still fit the criteria, I wondered why the call was changed. We were continually ordered to move back a few yards every few minutes, then what looked like 2 or 3 people a time were allowed to pass through the barricades. At a certain point shots were fired through the crowd. I will never know where the shots came from but the guards at the barricades yelled for everyone to get down. Somehow we got on the floor without being shot. The shots stopped after a few minutes and luckily no one was hurt.
The heat was too much and the desperation got worse because the hours were going fast and a very minute percentage of people were on the buses. It dawned on a lot of people that they might have to spend one night or more in the hellhole. People fell from being crushed, people had seizures and passed out, and dead bodies were carried overhead to the front. I became afraid. I would shake my son every few minutes to make sure he was still coherent. At one point I looked down, I saw that his face was flushed and his head was nodding. I shook him and then picked him up and put him on my shoulders just so he could get some air. I prayed to the Creator that I didn’t suffocate. I became tired and thought I would collapse. I turned to go back to the edge of the crowd. I needed air. There were two men behind me, who God bless them stopped me.
“Where are you going?” one of them asked.
I started to cry, “I can’t do it.”
“You’ll regret it. You can do this, you gotta!”
“I can’t hold him anymore.”
He reached over, took my son and put him on his shoulders. More tears rolled down my face.
He and the man standing behind me took turns holding my son up for awhile.
In the aftermath, I was not surprised at how many children were separated from families. Parents got so afraid when they saw children passing out and going into seizures that they took the chance and passed their children to the front. They would rather separate than to watch them die. At one point the National Guard said they would not accept anymore children because they had dozens of children already who couldn’t identify who their parents were. I did consider that with my child and thank the Creator today that I didn’t. I had doubts but I guess more faith that we were getting out of there together. A couple next to us had two sons with asthma and felt what they felt. The father was so filled with rage. It was like being in a cage two square feet and there was nothing you could do to get out. Their mother kept them awake and conscious by feeding them candy and she handed me a whole bag for my son. After that he was fine. Every time I looked to check on him he actually had a smile on his face. My son loves candy. Adults poured water all over themselves and their loved ones to keep standing. My son and I had been perpetually wet since we escaped out apartment.
“Next time they let some folks out, what you do is push with all your might and you’ll get out”, one of the gentlemen said. I nodded while he handed me back my son. I only had to wait a few minutes.
“Push! Make it all the way to the front!”
I felt their hands on my back and shoulders as they helped me. Miraculously I made it the next two yards to the barricade.
The guard was saying that he was only letting out entire families. I worried that my son and I would not be considered an entire family. There was a man next to me with his and he began to point to members of his family that were around me. He looked at me and my eyes begged. He pointed to my son and me and just like that we were out. It was another hour before we finally made it on the bus but we made it to Houston in the wee hours of the morning. Interestingly enough we were all so eager to get on the bus that we didn’t ask where exactly we were going. We assumed we were going to Houston. I found later that buses went all over the country. People were confident when they got separated from family members that they were all ending up in the same place that it didn’t concern them too much. The Houston Astrodome was filled with people looking for family members, people walking around for hours holding up signs. People so confused, tired and overwhelmed that all they could do was cry constantly. The devastation was phenomenal. The Middle Passage had been re-created.
There are people who went through much worse that what my son and I did. We were unharmed physically and we stayed together. Our lives have had relative stability since Hurricane Katrina.
“Katrina” is a variant of the name “Catherine” which means “pure”. I’ve heard the question: What was purified or whom? At this point I don’t have any answers about that but I know the personal lessons in it for me as a woman and as a mother and I thank my Creator for them. I watched CNN for days after that trying to understand and to see all that I didn’t those last few days in New Orleans. The sound bite that sticks in my head because it brought me to tears was of an African-American woman looking out over the city. She captured all the fear, desperation, loneliness and the feeling of being at death’s door in a nutshell. She said, “There must be a heaven for us because we’ve just been through hell.”

Iwa Pwele (Yoruba word meaning “good character”)
Ruth Idakula

*Names have been changed to protect identity.

Red, White, and Blues by Nathan Rothstein

2006-07-11T13:02:00.000-07:00

Goapele, a young soul singer, enters the stage a little past ten. The mostly black crowd fills up half of the House of Blues smaller room. It is rainy outside, but still not cold, yet the central air has a way of preventing people from drying off. But this young woman from Oakland has radiated the crowd. They are quickly nodding their head, some even, waving their arms. She smiles confidently and stares into the crowd. Her first words come out with a powerful, yet sensual tone, "red, white, and blues...waving in the room, from the east to the west, north to the south, tears falling down endlessly, the news turn from sorrow, fear to anger....." The groove hits it stride, "Even though we are winning, we are losing, it is a state of emergency," then again, "red, white, and blues..." The licks of the guitar bombard off the large speakers. The static fills the air, and the guitarist moves his fingers rapidly and effortlessly around the instrument. New Orleans may be winning, but at the same time it is losing. On July 4th, our revolution day, it is a celebration of America winning, but in New Orleans, we may be losing quickly. In Central City, there were shootings on Independence Day. The fireworks planned for 9pm were set off in the afternoon and nobody seemed to be cheering. Instead, people see the red, slowly dripping off another victim, the white, of the ambulance slowly driving to the scene of crime, and feel the blues. The sorrow and anger turns into fear. People are scared and some don't even have time to fear. Late in the afternoon on July 4th, a middle-age black man walks into our office, wet from the rain, and tired, from being sick and tired. He is looking for a place to stay, and then, a place to work. After he knocks several times at the door, I open the door, and let him in, but it takes some encouragement to get him to walk through the door. When he finally enters, he looks around the office, never focusing on one subject for too long. The night before he had stayed at the Ozmann Inn, near the French Quarter. It is the only homeless shelter in New Orleans for men since the storm. The Covenant House is open to the younger, but at age 45, this man is too old. So he comes here on Independence Day, saying he can not go back to the Ozmann Inn. I ask, "Why?" His answer makes no sense, as words jumble, twist, and jump from one subject to the other. As he speaks to me, I surf the web trying to find an open homeless shelter. None of have opened up since the storm, only the Ozmann Inn. I get desperate. In the end, we give him 20 dollars and tell him to get a bed at Good News Camp and to come back to see about a job. Before he leaves, I look at his face, and see the color of his skin. What does it mean to be black in New Orleans? The next day, he does not arrive. A neighbor, mother of the blocks troublemaker, pushes me to come to Good News Camp to get food for the volunteer house. By the time we get there, she has smoked three cigarettes, and told me all about her son. He is bi-polar, and does not take his medicine. When I tell her a bar is opening up down the street from her Palmyra Street Home, she is not happy, "Shit, New Orleans doesn't need another place to drink at. It's going to be bad news." At the camp, more bad news arrives. There is a small line outside of the food tent. Having to first navigate through all the Jesus Saves signs, we get to the line. An older man with dreads and a cast on his left arm claims, "They aren't giving anybody food. The manager stubbed his toe, and hasn't been back since 2:30. I've waited here for an hour." I looked at the others shaking their heads. I was hungry, tired, and wanted to go back to the office. I had no desire to stay and wait. I lifted a part of the tent, and saw that a woman had gone in from around the other side. The people in line watched me as my sense of entitlement was drastically different than their own. I felt like I was doing nothing wrong by exploring and maybe touching and going places I should not. It was my right to get what I wanted, so I followed some of the people into the big supply tent. There was hundreds of disposable food and clothing, and a young, white woman, probably college educated, sat behind one of the tables. I smiled and looked her in the eye. "Hi, the people outside have been waiting for hours, do you think we can get them their food?" It all seemed very simple. She replied earnestly, "Yea, I'm sorry; we are having a staffing problem with the food, but yea, make sure they have their FEMA numbers and their Louisiana licenses." I walked through the tables filled with young whites and past the stage where a Christian Rock group had performed the night before. The groups of Katrina victims' were still waiting, talking softly among themselves. "Okay, you guys can come in." They looked at me perplexed, and a young black man asked almost rhetorically, "What'd you do, sweet talk her?" I laughed it off, and as I walked with them, I dropped, "I think the color had something to do with it." There was a second of awkward silence and then some laughter. The man with the dreads uttered, "I didn't want to say anything, but you know, that could have been it." It could have, or the woman had finally decided she couldn't say no anymore, but never less, they had waited too long for a very simple procedure. All she needed to do was write down their numbers and let them pick out their food, but for some reason she had insisted the manager needed to be there to do that simple task. There is something about people not being able to see past the clear wall ahead of them. When my driver and I finally left the place, we were happy to have the food, but there was a strange feeling between us, like things had not changed. That whites still got what they wanted, and blacks still had to wait in long lines. We were silent for most of the ride home until she said, "We would have been there forever if you hadn't done that." We both shook our heads, and I mentioned softly, then a little bit louder, "It's not alright."
Back at the House of Blues, Goapele is about to finish her set. It has been a rousing performance. She is vibrant and the room feeds off her electricity. Black and whites are smiling together, dancing a long each other\'s side, and enjoying the music of a very talented woman. Right after eleven, she stops, and speaks into the microphone, "I want to now play a song from one of my favorite artists-Stevie Wonder," and then, almost instantaneously, the band begins, and she proceeds, "As around the sun the earth knows she\'s revolving/And the rosebuds know to bloom in early may/Just as hate knows loves the cure….I\'ll be loving you always."
Back at the House of Blues, Goapele is about to finish her set. It has been a rousing performance. She is vibrant and the room feeds off her electricity. Black and whites are smiling together, dancing a long each other's side, and enjoying the music of a very talented woman. Right after eleven, she stops, and speaks into the microphone, "I want to now play a song from one of my favorite artists-Stevie Wonder," and then, almost instantaneously, the band begins, and she proceeds, "As around the sun the earth knows she's revolving/And the rosebuds know to bloom in early may/Just as hate knows loves the cure….I'll be loving you always."

The Katrina Story

2006-06-30T10:13:00.000-07:00

by Kendra Frank

Arlene asked me to tell you about her. First, she asked that I tell my mother, which I explained to her as being totally impossible, so we settled on “someone else, then.” Well, it was more like a promise because we shook on it. As Robert W. Service said, a promise made is a debt unpaid and the trail has its own stern code. I’m here to make a payment.

I spent some time last Sunday, Mother’s Day, at The Chart Room with a friend enjoying the weather. This is where we met Arlene. She presented as a well-dressed, good-humored, middle-aged black woman who offered to buy the lot of us a round. I nursed a Gin Gimlet and within two minutes the conversation turned to her story and how she lost everything but she’s doing alright. I smiled and listened, nodding or giggling as I saw it appropriate. There were moments when I wasn’t sure whether to nod or to giggle, because I wasn’t sure which response Arlene expected or wanted. After the past few days, this point of confusion wasn’t unfamiliar to me. Over the weekend, these conflicts continued to rear their identical heads in different situations.

Indeed, I had come to recognize and foresee this contention. In fact, even though I could be fairly sure we were on a first-name-basis, I had not become desensitized to it. It always evoked the same immediate reaction. My eyes became hot, my throat tightened, my heart raced. Not wanting to break down, I would repeat a mantra of sorts in my head, telling myself that I had to listen. I had to look. I had to for myself in order to remember it, and I had to for the others in order to revere it. It was important. Every second held enough gravitas to last all my lifetimes.

My head was a world away from Mother’s Day as I drove down the entire length of I-55 last Friday afternoon. I told my mother that I was not taking this trip, because when I originally spoke of my travels, she vehemently opposed the last leg of things, the part that would take me there. Consequently, to keep everyone happy, a week before I left, I informed her that I was not going at all and then proceeded to cement plans that only would take me there.

I noticed for the first time as I entered Louisiana on the grassy median between the divided four-lane were organized piles of brown vegetation debris. Tall, lush trees raced with me down the tattered pavement on either shoulder. The debris couldn’t have come from my roadside companions; they looked full-grown and healthy and those piles lay brown and old. On second thought, where else would they have come from—had they been cleared out of the way of the interstate from the original cleanup? And they’re still hanging out in the median eight months later?

That was the tune all the way to the I-10 bridge that extends thirteen miles over sporadically-inhabited swampland. I chased a few houses as they were towed into the city; I took them as a sign, that they somehow indicated a state of repair and hope and progression. At this point, I still had no idea what to expect. I didn’t even have an inclination to mentally prepare myself. After all, it’d been eight months: we don’t hear about it anymore on the local news daily or even weekly, the number of articles in our newspapers and magazines has waned dramatically, and we don’t even talk about it much. In fact, we may have at various moments even avoided talking about it. It’s being taken care of, it’s no longer of our concern, we’ve donated what we could and supported various benefits put on by our favorite local bands and artists and what else can we do or say that hasn’t been done or said already. Freud had his theories about rationalization, and this song and dance was one with which we’re all familiar.

Exit 231A off of I-10E sloped down into the depths of the city, and my first real problem surfaced at the intersection at the end of that ramp. Looking for City Park Avenue, I sat with my left-turn signal blinking as I searched for a sign telling me what road I would be turning onto. You know, like a road sign? Oh, the things I took for granted in Wisconsin. There was no road sign; it had not been replaced; this was the case all over. All things posted separated into three categories: crooked and barely standing, painted homemades on pieces of cardboard or wood that local residents displayed for their own convenience, or the gazillion and a half 12” by 18” white plastics put up by the numerous self-employed. In fact, those white plastics outnumbered the other road signs two-to-one and each asked different questions. “Not satisfied with your claim?” “Need gutting and sheet-rock for under $1200?” “Want to sell your home quickly?” Followed by 504 area-coded numbers, those inquiries were stapled or attached to every cooperating surface.

Less than a mile went by before I arrived at my destination on Banks Street. Being focused on following my directions and not missing turns, it took me a few moments to notice all of the garbage and debris that scattered, covered, and smothered the sides of the road. The sidewalks seemed unwalkable—concrete that sprawled out was in rough shape and glistened within the cracks from shards of glass. Earlier told to park next to the only watering hole open and available for blocks, Finn McCools, I received warning about driving around that my friends Mapquest, Yahoo!, Google, and Rand McNally failed to mention in their directions, beyond the inconvenience of missing street signs. If I wanted to make it through with my car still intact, I had to stick to main thoroughfares to avoid huge sinkholes and multitudes of nails lying about in the street, both of which posed a serious threat to the nether regions of my vehicle. I saddled the Saturn up to a spot just beyond a debris pile at what appeared to be a safe place. Getting out of my car to head to Finn McCools, my first step met with a large piece of glass, straight through the bottom of my flip-flop. Luckily, the first poke softly pressed against the pad of my foot and I was able to remove the sharp and salvage my shoe. Lesson learned. Always carefully survey the ground before I walk on it. And stop wearing flip-flops, for goodness’ sake. Looking across the boulevard or “neutral ground” to the other side of the street, I noticed a dusty, crashed Kia, facing the wrong direction, but seemingly parked along the roadside. Investigating further, I learned that it had been there for months.

Being that it was four in the afternoon, I felt it appropriate to start things out with a Bloody and a cigarette, something familiar to me in a strange world. I chatted with the bartender, Carolyn, and explained that I had just arrived from Wisconsin. She looked a little baffled.
“Are you here to help?” she asked.
“Not specifically. Just to visit.” I grinned and hoped that was an acceptable answer.
“Well, I hope you enjoy your stay, anyway. Things are a little different around here.” She returned the smile and went to serve another patron.

She was right. Things were a little different around here, as far as I could tell fifteen minutes into the heart of my venture. “A lot different” would have been more accurate, but it became more and more obvious as the hours passed that Carolyn wasn’t being trite and sarcastic. She just didn’t want to scare me. I still commend the gentle eloquence of that dialogue.

After taking a moment to get my sea legs after being in the car for the past sixteen hours, I met with the friend that I had made the trek to visit. He owned a house nearby which he was renovating. He asked how my drive panned out and the like. I wanted to participate in continuing the pleasant exchange, but felt quite stifled about asking questions and couldn’t pinpoint why. It reminded me of a conversation I had with a coworker a few weeks ago, shortly after her father passed away. Was I to ask how they were doing or was I to keep to normal, everyday subjects until they brought up the elephant in the conversation?

My first sight-seeing was done on the way to the paint shop to pick out colors for his newly redone living and dining rooms. Buying paint sounds easy enough, but then again that ease would come from living anywhere else. Being almost 5 o’clock, we rushed to get there before it closed. Fairly accessible store hours proved to be another Wisconsin luxury. Due to a nearly non-existent workforce, places could not be sufficiently staffed to operate with their normal schedule. Restaurants closed at 6pm. In that city, known for its abundant alcohol availability—the drive-through daiquiri stands and the legality of carrying around open plastic containers wherever your whim took you, the few bars that were operational actually closed at the end of the night. Not only had there been a shift from the “do whatever whenever” mentality I had experienced during my last visit in January 2004, it extremely limited the simple, normal accessibility that any person had to food, drink, paint, sundries, anything.

Next door to the paint shop stood a large, worn building, hardly identifiable being that some of the letters in Rock N’Bowl blew off in the storm. Later that evening, we would attend a show enjoyed by the other patrons of the venue, whether they bowled or not. Benny Grunch and the Bunch featured that night, playing fun, novelty music as a colloquialism in itself, similar to the group so popular amongst Wisconsinites, Da Yoopers. A fan stood in front of me who proudly wore a band T-shirt. The front and back displayed in big, bubble letters part of a title from one of Benny Grunch’s hits, “Temporarily Ain’t Dere No More.” Within the words, the t-shirt paid homage to a long list of local businesses that no longer were there anymore, if you will. As my friend purchased one for his own, I watched the line of loving fans around the stage, asking Benny’s bunch for autographs and pictures with them.

After the paint shop, a catnap, and a shower, but before the Benny Grunch show, we stopped in a local restaurant for seafood po-boys and High Life luckily just before 7pm, when the kitchen closed. Apparently, across the way from where we parked, a crashed-out helicopter had remained there for weeks a few months earlier. At dinner, we discussed our options for the evening. Easily agreeing upon the Rock N’Bowl and seeing as there were hours to kill before that, my friend asked me what I wanted to do. I told him that I was open; he asked if I wanted to go for a drive. It seemed an innocent enough question, and, actually, nothing sounded more pleasant. I left Madison, forty degrees and raining, and I now relaxed with a Crystal-sauce-covered, half-eaten and mangled catfish sandwich, the weather a little over eighty degrees, breezy and sunny. A late-day drive promised perfection.

Cruising out of the Mid-City area with both of the front windows completely rolled down, through the Bayou St. John neighborhood, the sweet, musky smell in the air reminded me of visits’ past. The odor seemed intensified by the wind rushing through the car; I swallowed mouthfuls trying to place that scent and watched as one of the more affluent and unaffected parts of town shimmied away from my view. The mayor lived over there, and the houses were large, well-built and maintained. Hand-painted street signs marked each block as we drove further away from that scene. The sloppy green rectangles, with their carefully marked white letters, mocked the originals as a poor and obvious substitution, but a substitute nonetheless.

Transitioning over to District 5, we first stopped in the Lakeview area near a marina on Lake Pontchartrain. Initially, it seemed important to me to not miss the sun as it set over the boats and the water, with wind peacefully chopping it into waves. This water was pretty, it was “one of the good ones,” as a favorite Madison comedian says. Pontchartrain sparkled in a way that Monona never could. We walked closer to the Lake; he lead and I followed, as it was for the rest of my stay. Beyond him, from left to right, displayed three things: what looked like the massive skeleton of a building with only portions of the top story still intact, the upper half of a small two-story structure lounging on a wrecked boat, and a yellowfire sunset closing in on its horizon. What were these buildings? Each piece of this view seemed unrecognizable, with the exception of the sun. Its glow highlighted a backdrop of the marina, which served as an exposed graveyard for hundreds of smashed vessels, all piled up and smushed together. As explained to me, the large structure on the left previously occupied a popular chain restaurant, Joe’s Crab Shack. The lazy and crooked object next to it on the boat was part of the marina’s lighthouse.

Fumbling with a borrowed digital camera, it felt rude or tactless to take pictures of this wreckage, but it seemed a bigger mistake to not physically document what I saw. A few moments after I came to terms with this fear of a possible faux pas, the camera’s batteries died. We decided to move along to the next sights. The nearby neighborhood of West End, which is a specific subset of Lakeview Proper, was one of the most affected parts of the city, second only to the devastation of the Lower 9th Ward. The first puzzle pieces of this grand disaster started to fit together here as we passed what seemed to be a huge rubble pile. Tourists picked up chunks of what looked like rock and took the souvenirs back to their cars. These portions formerly constructed part of a levee and were coveted because that was one of the first to fail, to crumble, to flood certain parts of this large community with fourteen feet of water. I followed from the stones as the crow flies across the street to a house. Eight months ago, it surely stood as a sturdy, two-story brick home. Now, the front which faced the levee looked as if dynamite had been ignited there, the face blown completely off.

I’ll admit--I felt wooed. This destruction romanced me. It came upon me slowly, gently, eloquently, just as Carolyn’s response earlier at Finn McCools. Debris in the median, nails in the street, piles of garbage and moldy furniture along the side of it, the shattered boats in the marina, all of them courted as a crescendo, an entrance into my understanding of the aftermath’s reality. Lakeview’s ghosttown couldn’t be adequately captured with pictures; my Canon was not missed. I didn’t want to capture it, either. To capture it would be to have it and to own it, and those abandoned and destroyed houses did not belong to me. Most of them really didn’t belong to anyone, as out of the blocks and blocks that I saw, perhaps ten homes were somewhat occupied, mostly just on the second level. Spray-painted with a grid and covered in letters and numbers either on the front window or front door, the houses that weren’t haunted the area, reminders of what was lost and symbols of what “losing everything” really meant.

On Saturday morning, the need for lumber and other house-repair accessories put us on a venture to the Lowe’s Hardware on Elysian Fields in a way that left the morning as an oyster ready to be plucked. The first thing I noticed pulling up was the massive amount of “independent vendors” who had set up shop along the outskirts of the parking lot. Trailers with painted signs advertising their goods lined up next to the store’s sign itself, which read, “Lowe’s- Now Hiring-Estamos Empleando.” This job availability showed up all around town at most operating businesses, but that was the first I’d seen which directly encouraged Spanish-speaking workers to apply. Inside, this small detail grew more prevalent. All of the signs within Lowe’s were bilingual. Large blue squares hanging over each department said it all. “Lawn and Garden/ Césped y Jardín” swung over my head as I looked around at the shoppers, many with darker complexions than I, with sunburned faces and brown skin.

Putting these notions together, I came to understand that a city, which did not carry a remarkable Mexican population in the past, now reacted to a dramatic increase of Spanish-speaking residents. Lowe’s went for the positive angle, knowing many of their customers could only communicate in their native language, and not only provided a way for these people to shop and therefore build and repair, but also offered an opportunity for employment to them, as well. This opportunity presented an option for the Mexican workers. During this rebuilding process, the most prevalent group to respond to the city’s need for help has been this population, but at times they’ve met hostility. Laborers come, rent apartments, some living ten people to a room, and subcontract themselves out in order to make good money. Others of the city are more than willing to hire these subcontractors because the waiting list and cost of hiring help through professional contractors would take months and months and much money. The work they do is tedious and strenuous— gutting houses, hanging sheet rock, priming and painting, rebuilding cabinetry and floors in hot and humid weather. It’s a job that many people would not do otherwise, even if presented the choice between that and taking on minimum-wage, entry-level employment.

Returning us to his Mid-City house, my friend went about completing the plumbing of his kitchen sink in order to eliminate the five-gallon bucket from beneath the drain. It’s the little things I saw appreciation for, like not having to empty out a heavy bucket of dirty water every day. The lumber purchased provided a means to construct trim for the back door. I left the measuring, cutting, that whole business in the backyard up to more capable hands, but did make a promise to help paint. In the interim, it gave me an opportunity to have my camera spend a little one-on-one time with the neighborhood. Here within the 3rd Ward, all of the houses are raised many feet above ground and are generally without basements. Still, flood levels here had reached seven feet and higher. Cars in the street were completely submerged. What’s worse was that the water stuck around for two weeks. Mold begins to grow after two days, so as I surveyed the area, I realized that all of the debris from gutting along the sidewalk wasn’t just harmless old furniture. Most of the garbage was fungi-infested toxic waste. No longer did the city have a regimented curb pick-up, either, meaning bags of household trash lay next to rotting houseguts for weeks.

Around a few blocks and back, I arrived in the backyard just in time to paint the newly-cut trim. Multi-tasking, I let sweat drip over my face, painted white onto wood, and all the while, my first kiss of sun, in the form of a burn, of the year came along quite nicely. I thought about my activity—I helped, specifically, though I didn’t think that slapping enamel on a few boards truly qualified as helping. Considering all the work that needed to be done on this house, and then that added to the repairs that are needed throughout the city, my efforts felt trivial, ineffectual. Hearing baritone chatter a few yards away, I looked up to find my friend and his friend, Andy, who had been assisting with this rebuilding process. Allow me to take this moment to commend Andy for not only his pleasant, generous demeanor but also his excellent moustache.

That afternoon, after my short time spent outdoors at peak sunshine hours created the sensation of both melting and burning simultaneously, I cleaned up a bit and sat down with my friend. Once again, he asked what I wanted to do; I said I was open; he suggested lunch and a drive. This time I had a better grasp as to what that would entail, but did not consider that any sight could be more dramatic than the ones seen the night before. We headed east first for food; in the past, this area existed as somewhat of a disappointment to the rest of the city. As the 1970’s flux of oil money in this neighborhood pledged prosperity and suburban growth, the unfortunate departure of the oil headquarters for Texas left this portion of the 9th ward with no real future, just plans for a future no longer possible.

The Southeast Asian community carries a strong presence here. For lunch, we stopped off of I-10 at a recommended Vietnamese restaurant, certainly something that I appreciated. As I attempted to be brave and adventurous in my ordering, I recalled the last things that I ate and really enjoyed in Madison. Actually, I couldn’t recall, which made the grilled shrimp and salty lemonade even better. Attached to the restaurant, a bakery offered various doughy items, all looking and smelling delicious. After browsing and not buying anything, I left, as I had mistakenly asked the woman behind the counter what she would recommend. She told me that she didn’t speak English, but called for another woman to speak with me, which caused a small scene but a great embarrassment for me. One of these days, I will learn to talk to people less.

An Equals CD had been in the player during the drive yesterday, and joined us again for our journey today. Its music, discordant with the scenery, became a soundtrack to these memories. Heading further east, we sped past things that I still have not been able to process. It all came back to the Sunday comics for me, that small part buried somewhere in the middle section, the part you probably didn’t like, either. Usually entitled something like, “What’s Wrong With This Picture?,” it showed a cartoony yet normal scene where the looker needed to find ten things messed up with the picture. That dog’s wearing a sombrero? The door has no handle? Little Janey’s eating her soup with a fork? Driving past boats capsized over ten feet from the shore and ships seemingly pulled over on the side of the road evoked a similar reaction. I imagined what it would take in order to move a barge into the middle of a field. On the way home, we passed men fishing off rocks in the swamp, with their truck parked near the shore.

Arriving back near Banks Street, I took a moment on the porch and made my first phone call back home. It was to a good friend, Kitt. She’d never been here, and I had trouble explaining the things I saw. I still do. If a perfect, digital picture can’t do any justice, what good were my words to the situation? The most I managed to get out, with the exception of the simple chronology of what I’d done so far, was a clumsy, “there’s still stuff everywhere.” The word “still” echoed in my head for the rest of our conversation. Its definition and reality confused me, and I thought about the difference between still and forever. What really separates their implications? While hanging up with Kitt, a good-looking pick-up truck pulled into a parking spot across Telemachus, and then a good-looking man got out of it and walked up to the porch. Another of my friend’s friends, Jason shook hands with me and took a moment to talk. Some might call Jason one of the more fortunate survivors; he rented a third-story apartment Uptown, which didn’t receive the flooding that most of the rest of the city did. However, he also stayed through the storm, watching as the skylights were suctioned out through his roof from the wind, but saving his entire building from being destroyed. He was able to evacuate a few days after, and then return to the city again when it was safe.

Everyone had their own story to share; usually not less than a minute after I mentioned that I was visiting from Wisconsin did I hear about what happened from his or her perspective. This continued to be the way conversations with locals rolled out. After Andy finished for the day, the four of us went to Finn McCools for a drink. It was suggested that we visit Gary and Daisy, as they only lived a few blocks away. My Guinness came with me as we made the walk. Many of the houses laid out shotgun style, meaning that each room cascaded back, one right after the other, all connected by a long hallway running the length of the house. Gary and Daisy were quite far along with their renovations. Many times, the shotgun houses were split, with identical layouts on either side, creating two apartments. They had purchased one of the duo-apartments, but tore down walls to create one large house. Their gutting days were long over, the moldy belongings discarded, the floors ripped out and replaced, the sheet rock hung, most of the walls primed and painted vibrant colors that probably don’t exist on walls here in Madison—deep burgundies, rich and dark lilacs, pure turquoises. Surprisingly, some of the wooden furniture made it through weeks in water. The prized surviving piece in the master bedroom, a beautiful and intricate antique bed frame with a detailed headboard, stood triumphantly, with hardly but a watermark line four feet up on the footboard.

Daisy spoke with what was probably the strangest accent I’d ever heard. Later on, I’d asked the boys if that was the local, pure accent. They’d informed me, no, it was just Daisy’s accent. She told me about her home, that she’d decided to purchase both sides of the apartment after her son passed away years ago, and that she’s spent much time and money over the past years making it into her home. We walked to a large room off of the master bedroom that was still being worked on. Turns out, it wasn’t a room at all; it was her walk-in closet. Past the bedroom was the office, with high ceilings like the rest of the house. However, here in this room about seven feet up was a lofted area. The boys teased Daisy, telling her that the lofted area could be where the cats could go if this were to happen again. Obviously, that thought reminded Gary of what he had to go through last time, evacuating with pets. Putting six cats into a vehicle and leaving town with them could not have been easy, whether they were crated or not. I remembered some of the houses I walked by earlier that day, with dates, animals found or not found, and the word “SPCA” beneath it. Some weren’t able to bring their animals with them; in fact, many weren’t. I thought about my cat which been staying with my friend Jenny. Though at times, Phil was a nuisance, I couldn’t imagine being permanently parted from him, or much less, what it would be like to have to leave him behind in a storm.

Once again, trying to present the more adventurous side of myself, I casually mentioned/lied that I wanted to try boiled crawfish. Driving past a Rally’s on the way to our planned destination, the one that would include pull heads off crabs and then sucking out their brains, I realized that Bufords sounded much more appealing, and I’d never even tried one before. However, I lucked out. By the time we’d reached the restaurant, it was 6:45pm, and, naturally, already closed. Captain Sal’s it was then, and with a pound of boiled shrimp for each of us instead, more High Life was scared up for less than $8 for two sixers of bottles. We arrived at the Audubon Park for sunset on the Mississippi. I took a picture of it. Our dining room was the back of Jason’s pickup. We ate, and I took a picture of that, too.

Hours later, I got the chance to revisit a local favorite, one that I’d been to years before. At The Circle Bar , while enjoying too much whiskey for my own good, I met a few Tulane students. Not only had that weekend been Mother’s Day, but also Tulane’s graduation. This commencement proved to be particularly noteworthy because three of my really good friends happened to be in town, too. Have you heard of George H.W. Bush, William J. Clinton and Ellen DeGeneres? The four of us try to play doubles together whenever the opportunity presents itself. Those three also spoke at the University’s commencement ceremony. I wonder whose speech got the most laughs. Clinton’s a real cut-up.

All of this brings us to Mother’s day, again. After running errands, we cruised through City Park, which is one of the largest parks in the nation, but now lay in disrepair with some portions of the grass balding and others completely overgrown. The sky had been overcast all morning, but it didn’t feel as if it were going to rain, so we headed to the French Quarter for food, looking around, that whole business. The past two days showed me what the state of things really was, so a trip around Bourbon Street would be refreshing. Businesses would be open, cheesy t-shirts for sale, and proud parents and celebrated mothers would be able to enjoy the day as if their children attended school in a city that was actually functioning. The French Quarter posed for the camera with a goofy grin on its face. It allowed the media to have a “Smile Pretty!” moment with the city while the rest of it lay in ruin. On the way to that area, brass instrument noises clanged through the air and past a few police cars that blocked off a route. We quickly parked and joined the party— it was a parade! In the likes of a Super Sunday celebration, there were people dressed in elaborate costumes and a brass band playing music. An entire block’s worth of tagalongs joined them, as did the two of us. There were small children marching and pounding their feet, couples holding hands down the street, young adults enjoying their vice of choice, whether they be drinking or smoking, and groups of people celebrating as the herd shifted down the street together. We joined them for a little while, but then returned to the car to continue our day as planned.

Most of the rest of the day rolled out quite typically, allowing for Jambalaya atCoop’s, drinks at Molly’s, and taking pictures of Jackson Square and the river. The next stop was the Louisiana Music Factory, where my friend found something he’d been hunting forand I was introduced to a genre of music called Swamp Pop. It was love at first sight.

I don’t remember how many floors up the rooftop pool was, but it seemed pretty high looking over the edge. From this outside hotel floor looking down at the city, everything seemed safe and taken care of. I couldn’t see sidewalks or the trash or the boats or the abandoned cars. Spending so much time in the muck of things, I felt like I had finally really gotten to get to know it better. Though this would mark my fourth visit, it was as if it were the first time that I saw the place, but more genuine and intimate. I liked it more than I ever had before. We sat out on the patio furniture with expensive hotel screwdrivers made by a new hire with a foreign accent. She put a lime in mine. The heat melted the ice down quickly, but a breeze only available at this elevation kept things comfortable. Beyond comfortable, really—it was invigorating and relaxing all at once. I couldn’t have been more pleased.

I decided it was time to call my mother. Really, being the daredevil masochist that I am, it was the only appropriate thing to do. To make the situation more nerve-racking, I lit a cigarette, even though my mom hates that I smoke.

I wished her a Happy Mother’s Day.
“Oh, thank you, sweetie. Where are you?”
“I’m just hanging out. You know, outside.”
“Kendra! It’s freezing out! And raining! Why are you outside?”

I laughed and agreed that it was freezing. Not to say that it went downhill after that, but that exchange was really the best part of the conversation. I managed to convince her that I was on my porch near Willy Street, with a winter jacket on. We talked about her lunch with my siblings and niece and my father’s birthday a few days before. Everything seemed completely normal. I’m hoping.

Our last venture in the Quarter brought us to the Chart Room, where we met Arlene. After returning from the restroom, I took a seat with my friend and she started up our conversation. Her good nature was infectious; we continued to chat with her for a half-hour, even though she obviously had a screw loose. She had a lot to say, about what happened to her life, about the things she lost, about the upcoming mayoral election, about race issues. The conversation seemed to be the best way to bring together many of the arenas of debate that I had witnessed during my trip. Arlene left the bar shortly before we did, and upon arriving back at the car, we discovered a parking ticketfor illegally parking at an unmarked taxi stand. It was the first police interaction I’d seen anywhere around these parts since Friday.

It had been a pretty genius day, indeed. After a quick stop at the Sav-A-Center for red meat and potato chips, we returned to his home. While he grilled the steaks, I performed my normal routine of e-mail, myspacedotcom, and favorite blog checking. We ate dinner on the front porch with the mosquitoes and termites buzzing around. I looked at his view of the neighborhood for one of the last times. I still had a lot of questions, and I asked as many as I thought of, no longer stifled by any elephants. When something like this is an everyday reality, a constant, when you wouldn’t know what to do within a completely operational city, then I find it acceptable to ask, to talk about. Further, those realities and constants become all the more reason to discuss it. I learned that I could ask because people could answer; they wanted to answer and share their stories. This city was not finished talking and coping just because others may think they’re sick of hearing about it.

The evening ended with a screening of the instant classic, The Katrina Story, which acted as a grand finale in this great fireworks show of a vacation. And, yes, I considered this a vacation even while considering the circumstances. The DVD had everything you could hope for with a title like that: a special DVD menu song by the star, rapper 10th Ward Buck, actual footage of he and his fellow artists and friends in the NOLA hip-hop scene weathering the flood from New Orleans East, live footage from shows while displaced in Texas, and so much ass-shaking. It was truly amazing, and I mean that without any snooty tone, whatsoever.

My initial reaction was to laugh, to giggle, to enjoy the entertainment on the level it was presented on by 10th Ward Buck, but there’s always a tinge of sadness, of irony in any laughter. Theorist Walter Benjamin spoke of his ideas about it in the book The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Now, I’m no theorist or intellectualist myself, but the few interpretations about his thoughts that I was able to make are the ones that I found a way to directly relate to my life. As a stand-up comedienne, hearing laughter is one of my favorite things, but the duality of its nature is the part that excites me most, whether it arrives by the roomful or just one muffled chuckle. Laughter exists only as a replication of emotion, and it’s no specific emotion or pleasant emotion. While I watched 10th Ward Buck cooking on a makeshift grill on his balcony porch during the storm, floating on a raft as he “relaxed” in the flood waters, and as the fly girls did their booty-shaking business, I laughed. It was all I thought to do.

Out of all those I’d met and visited with, the only two actually from the city, much less the state, were Arlene and Daisy. Everyone else originally came from somewhere else—Florida, Virginia, New Jersey, California, New York, Wisconsin. This wasn’t their hometown, but they came back anyway to understand the enigma that most of the country has turned a blind eye. Upon my visit, the August 2005 travesty unlocked its mystery for me, too, and I was just a pedestrian. NOLA was the place of dirty luxury and secret, fuelled gratification. In honor of these attributes, I shall make one request of you. Each time over the next week that either you watch the season finale of that favorite TV show that you don’t tell anyone you follow or any of your hidden stash of pornography, think of New Orleans. Leave the talking about it or visiting for when you’re ready. I’ll be doing enough telling for the both of us; since my departure early Monday morning, I find myself speaking of my visit and of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina at any given opportunity. I have to, though. Arlene asked me to.

Just don’t tell my mom.

Seriously.

Tolerating the Storm

2006-06-30T10:08:00.000-07:00

by Nathan Rothstein

The trash piles up on Palmyra Street. There is broken glass. Actually, there is a lot of it. The southern skies are cloudy; sometimes dropping large pellets of rain. Everywhere is shady except there is nothing blocking the sun except for a few clouds that act as a weak buffer-at times. At other times, the sun seeps into your skin, my white skin, punishing me for being light because everything else in this city makes you feel like the punisher. The people in the neighborhood are skeptical. Often, in large, gas-guzzling SUV’s white men drive slowly on small, forgotten streets. What they want, I do not know, but their faces are similar to the ones that you see on the news and don’t trust. Sooner, but much later, they are gone. Palmyra Street had been a drug haven before the storm, but people are hoping that the wrath and ferociousness of Katrina drove them away, but not all the junkies are gone, and if they are still willing, the crack/heroin/syrup is still able. The picture is grim yet people are coming back. The homes that are being re-newed look elegant, and very comfortable. Today, Keith, a mid-thirties black man, walks in and out of his large “shot gun house.” He is on South Tonti Street, which is off Palmyra. He is a big, sturdy man, with a soft, sensitive demeanor. He understands the pain, has endured the wrath of the storm and years of neglect, but is still happy to laugh amongst the young volunteers. Early Sunday, August 28th, Keith evacuated to Mississippi with his family. A few weeks later, he returned to the home on Tonti Street that he had just bought several months earlier. It had been completely devastated. The waters had run through the house tearing everything in sight. On that day, in mid-September, he had turned off what was left of his electricity and went away again. A month later, the city allowed residents to move back in, and he collected what remained of his home. Before Katrina, he had worked maitnence at Dillard University. A historically Black college, with most of its students from Louisiana, but some from Texas. Luckily, the school had kept its records in the attic. It was all safe on August 30th, after Katrina had decided it was done for the day, but the other school buildings were not. In addition to helping his family, he continued to work at the school. Now, almost nine months later, he was using his work skills for personal reasons. It was just after eight in the morning, but the New Orleans suns was already beating down, yet Keith was walking in an out of his house, taking out the debris. The house had been gutted, and with the help of Phoenix of New Orleans volunteers, the remains of his interior were being brought to the exterior. Wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow full of debris was brought in and out, not seeming to run out. If it had been gold, Keith would have been a very rich man, because the amount was endless. Since we had provided him with a lot of manpower, he bought us lunch, and at noon we sat together to take a break. With fried chicken being stuffed in our faces, Keith and I got a chance to speak. The recent murder spree was fresh on everybody’s mind, and it came up in conversation quickly. Keith leaned back in his plastic chair, and then moved it closer to me,
“ One of the biggest problems now is nobody is willing to report a crime. I could shoot you right here, and nobody would do a thing, if it didn’t affect them.”
Somebody was being shot in front of you, and it didn’t affect you? I imagined somebody running around naked in a campus quad, and nobody realizing what they were doing, or taking notice. I think if my neighbor was shot, it would affect me. Just a little bit.
“It wasn’t always like that. When I was kid, if we did something wrong, everybody in the neighborhood knew it, and told on you, but now…nobody is stepping up and saying this won’t be tolerated.”
But today was an example of people not tolerating a disaster assistance program that has not provided relief. Today was another day, and another house was one step closer to its residents moving in. And Keith and I could tolerate that.

What is happening to my neighborhood?

2006-06-30T09:35:00.000-07:00

by Nathan Rothstein

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Nine months ago, the entire City Park of New Orleans was under a foot of water, but not now. The flowers are out, the band is playing, and dozens of neighborhood groups and non profit organizations are in attendance to promote and inform people about their cause. As you enter the Botanical Gardens, there is an air conditioned room, set to a chilling temperature. Inside, are the neighborhood architectural plans designed by different universities around the country. Roger Williams College has made a well designed plan for the ninth ward, while students from CCNY have tracked and surveyed the Tulane/Gravier neighborhood. Walking out of the small gallery, there is a magnificent view of the entire Arts Festival. It is June 24th, 2006 and the artists of New Orleans are selling their goods, and people are talking about how to rebuild this city. Inside the large tent are people from many of the neighborhood organizations, and they have maps of their plans. The maps have different shades of green, or brown, yellow- but they all mean the same thing-people are moving back. And what are they moving back to? Do they want hurricane proof apartments that are shaped like a “z” and have grass on the ceiling or do they want to live in, as one college called them, “bungalettes,” –the new, and sustainable bungaloos? Everything is up in the air, but with a direction. It took Boston thirty years to finish (that can be debated) the big dig, and New Orleans is trying to reconstruct its city in one year. Can it be done? Everybody thinks the city will change. Everybody says, "yes, there is progress," but the city wants to move quickly on the development plans. Can all of the environmentally sound projects be implemented before the subcontractors and city architects build the quickest fix? That is the question many people are asking. A few days earlier, members of the Tulane/Gravier community gathered at the St. Joseph’s church with Byron Stewart to discuss what the people wanted for their neighborhood. He had been commissioned by the city to survey the area, and ask the people what they want. But the “people of the community” only included the forty that showed up to the old church on a Thursday in June. In grueling and painful heat, under the roof of a church built over a hundred years ago, a small, middle-aged black man stood in front of the congregation. The man with the plan, or the man who had to come up with the plan, was Byron Stewart, and he was here to answer questions. Earlier in the week, the Times Picayune had run a front page story, stating that LSU planned on building a massive health center in Planning District 4 or as others know it, Tulane/Gravier. The following is an excerpt from the article-
“The news conference took place beneath a cloudless sky as the temperature hit the 90-degree mark. Speakers in coats and ties occasionally wiped sweat from their brows as they stood on cracked asphalt in a parking lot across Tulane Avenue from two motels that do not appear to have been touched since the hurricane hit.” (John Pope, 6/20/06)
The people who held the news conference, including members of LSU, must have assumed they could influence the public by setting the announcement in an abandoned lot with a very destitute background. People watching from home, or reading in their St. Charles palace may say, “Oh, it is just leftovers, and ruins, they are not destroying anybody’s home.” But a closer look at the plan, suggests otherwise. Many of the city blocks that PNOLA have been working hard to rebuild will be in jeopardy of being destroyed in the next couple years. This was not made clear, and now the people desperately want answers. But who has them? Not Byron Stewart. Every time a question is asked about the project, he has no answer. Despite saying on his website, “Although Stewart steadily built a reputation as one of New Orleans' most innovative architects and businesspeople, his joint venture partnership with Perez, Ernst & Farnet on the mammoth Harrah's New Orleans Casino project catapulted him from a widely respected "promising young architect" to a major player in the regional architectural design community,” He does not seem to know anything about the plan or does not have any interest in sharing it with the people of the community, which raises further questions. What is he holding back? Stewart may have been a major player in the architectural design community, but he was not a facilitator, and that was very evident from the beginning. The people who attended were all vital members of the community, and every time they came up with an idea, he referred them to a piece of paper in the back where they could write their suggestions. It was as if we were at a wedding or bar mitzvah, and the dj had a blank piece of paper by his equipment for people to write suggestions so they would not bother him, but still give them the impression that their opinion mattered. The people felt bamboozled and at the end of the meeting, nothing felt accomplished.
But just a few days later, at the City Park Festival, there was a sense of passion and commitment to rebuilding New Orleans. The process of a city trying to re-invent itself will not always be an easy or smooth process, but people are trying, and sometimes when the music is playing and the sun is out, people can rejuvenate their energy. And energy is something people will need by the dozens.

My Katrina Experiences and Thoughts

2006-06-28T09:06:00.000-07:00

by Ellen, a 7th grader in Louisiana

I personally think that the policeman shouldn't have arrested the looters. Most of them were taking food to not only them but also others in the area they were in hiding. Maybe if a higher social status rank provided some sort of transportation for them to be at a safer place, then they wouldn't have to take the food to survive. When I was in Natchitoches, I watched refugees stuck in Louisiana crying about their homes that were wrecked very badly. All I could do was hope that someone would help them repair. After about a month, I came back home to live with a change. Once the roads were opened to the Lower 9th Ward and other areas, my parents and I drove around and saw mattresses on rooves, cars propped against leafless tress, flood lines along the walls, words like "2 dogs found and 1 cat dead" spray painted on many of the houses. I was very grateful that the 9 trees around my house didn't fall over and break through the roof. I was also very grateful for not having floods, just a few leakings and a very bad odor in the refrigerators. Now, I can only wish that the upcoming hurricanes won't have any damage to Louisiana, or any other areas.

2006-06-23T17:15:00.000-07:00

The Katrina Writing Project is founded on the idea that everyone has a say in how history is remembered and recorded. The project seeks to amplify the voices of those affected by Hurricane Katrina, in their own words.

The KTP website accepts essays from anyone who wants to submit his or her story. Please email us at katrinawritingproject@gmail.com. We are particularly interested in vivid narratives that will give readers a glimpse of post-Katrina life. Details tend to say more than general statements.

During summer 2006, the Katrina Writing Project (KWP) is compiling a collection of essays by New Orleans high school students. KWP is also offering free writing workshops, in order to help students develop their writing. Schools across the country will receive a collection of the essays. Initially, KWP will publish two hundred books. If just one twenty-five person class reads the essays at each school, then five thousand students, at least, will become familiar with the stories of their peers from New Orleans. Thus, not only will the New Orleans students be able to develop their writing, but students in schools across the country will benefit, as well. Importantly, KWP will also help any students that are planning to apply for college to write essays that could be used for applications. Encouraging students to think about college is KWP’s primary goals. Again, everyone has a say in how history is remembered and recorded – and the future is riding on it.

Educators who are interested in receiving a copy of the essay collection for their schools may also email katrinawritingproject@gmail.com

The Katrina Writing Project has been made possible by an Envision Grant from Rice University.