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Published: April 22nd 2006
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street signs
the streets are still piled high with toxin-infested trash and the remnants of people's belongings. FEMA trailers are now parked in front of the places where their homes once stood, but the close proximity to the waste that continues to sit there is potentially dangerous to the residents, especially the younger children. it's been 7 months, and it still looks like a war zone.
it's hard to believe that as one of the proudest first world nations, we can have the gall to force our own ideological itineraries on others, speak boldly about the importance of boosting the third world to the system of democracy, etc., and still allow this to continue. it's embarrassing, and it's sad.
over this past week, i have heard so many heartbreaking stories about the things you couldn't even see on the news. the politics, the struggle, the humanity. the supreme lack of responsibility on the part of both local and federal governments and the corruption. how could we have known that people who lost their homes are still waiting for help from FEMA even now? or that many of these people are being systematically driven out of their own rightful homes?
i watched 4 cop cars pull over one black man in a car, and he hadn't even been speeding. a few days later, i saw another 5 sheriff trucks pull over a garbage truck driver and arrest him because he was there illegally.
trash has been piled up in front of these
lower 9th ward
this is very close to where the levees broke. you can't really see it here, but the Xs on all the houses and the numbers around them indicate the date it was searched, animals found, if any, and the number of people found dead inside. homes for months, and there's almost no one to pick it up. young children are getting sick because they have to inhale the fumes of toxic flood water remnants every day. people can't even go into their homes to try to salvage their belongings.
bourbon street was cleaned up pretty quickly, as were the french quarters. better get ready for mardi gras, right? but travel 5 miles east and you'll realize that the reconstruction of new orleans you've seen on the news is only a facade.
new orleans is such a beautiful city, and it's devastating to know that the people who call it home can't even enjoy it half as well as a normal tourist can. sometimes while walking through vieux carre or down bourbon street it felt somewhat bittersweet to be there, especially knowing all the shit going down not a few blocks away. you can't simply slap a band-aid over the situation because the wounds are still there, and they run deep.
the first picture is from a street where several of us helped gut out a woman's house. it was especially tough because it was carpeted, so we had to first remove all
southern hospitality
since i was incumbent at HOPE, i was responsible for driving and picking people up. imagine my surprise when the family next door invited us to a home-cooked crab meal. for future reference, this was the best crab i've had in my life. listening to marvin gaye, dancing, cracking open shells and picking them apart with our hands, and hearing the story of this family and how the father rebuilt their home from the brick up was an experience i'll never forget. (thanks anna for the picture!) the fallen insulation and furniture, rake through the several inches of mud and shovel away all that remained of her belongings before ripping off the rug. also, she was present for the whole thing, so as we would cart away her stuff to the sidewalk she would try to look through it to see what she could salvage. all of her family photographs were nothing more than stacks of tie-dyed papers stuck together. i couldn't even look at her. her whole house smelt like death.
for the most part though, i worked at the food and supplies distribution center at HOPE. i was pretty stupid and stepped on a rusty nail on my first day cleaning someone's yard, so i had to get a tetanus shot and take it easy for a few days. i really got to interact with some of the people over in the saint bernard's parish area. it was so humbling to be able to hear these people's stories and have them open up to me so much about it all.
the common ground collective is run in the 9th ward, and has a steady growing number of volunteers working there. we were out
the message
pretty much sums it up at HOPE a few miles away in
saint bernard parish, but came to check out the work going on there every once in a while, and during one such trip, i saw this note, which pretty much summed up the whole situation we were dealing with.
i don't want to tell you this to blow my own horn or try to call attention to anything that we did over the break, but this shit has to be made known. i could not have ever realized all that was going on here had i not come down to witness it with my very own eyes. the communities here have really been trying to pull together to rebuild, but fucking bureacracy and politics have pretty much slowed the process rather than boosted it like they said they were going to. after one week i was pretty worn out, but there are people here my age who have been working tirelessly with the communities in the area for
months. who else is going to? it's so easy to donate money, but when you can't even see where your contribution goes, there is nothing more effective than actually being there, interacting, physically
bourbon street
it was an amazing mindtrip to visit bourbon, watching people party and get wasted when only 5 miles away people still wait for the right to a place to call home. giving yourself to the community and learning from each single moment.
this was such an eye-opening experience. i can't believe how open and caring the people there were, and just how beautiful the spirit of new orleans is, even in the wake of tragedy. i can't even express to you how much this trip meant. i'm still pretty speechless...
i've got way more pictures and way more stories. but this entry, written the day i returned, pretty much sums up the feeling of it all.
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