My first and only trip to New Orleans. My former summer camp co-worker and friend was getting married in a fancy, very Southern Baptist Church on St. Charles Ave. The reception was held at the New Orleans Country Club, complete with a napkin-waving Second Line. Somewhere in the middle of dressing fancily, acting like I knew what I was doing, and rushing to the pillars of Southern aristocracy for wedding-related events, I began to breathe with the pulse of New Orleans.
Of course, it wasn't the church or the country club that got me. It was early mornings I spent strolling through the Garden District and absorbing what was left of the Ninth Ward, the afternoons at the aquarium and Mardi Gras storage hangars, and evenings of Preservation Hall jazz and Bourbon St. bacchanalia. To the untrained eye, New Orleans seemed to be fully recovered from Katrina's ire – the homes of the Garden District stood proudly in their spring grandeur; the St. Charles Streetcar, its tracks just recently fully repaired, happily transported tourists from one end of the city to the other; and the French Quarter brimmed with the energy emanating from tourists vying for a taste of Mardi Gras spirit.
If you opened your eyes and ears a little more, however, you noticed that the city was still reeling. Some restaurants were forced to close at 5pm for lack of employable people to run them any later. Many neighborhoods outside of the Central Business District were shells of their former selves – ghost towns of flood-ravaged homes sprinkled with FEMA trailers. Most chillingly, one was not hard-pressed to find houses with holes cut from their roofs – the escape routes for people who had found themselves trapped in their homes. I vaguely remembered the street we drove along to reach the Country Club Reception on my last night in the city. Chills shook my spine as I realized the reason for its familiarity: We'd stopped across the street on my Katrina bus tour just that morning. So that the bus driver could explain that the numbers written on houses represented those who hadn't made it through those holes in the roof in time. We were about to go celebrate a milestone in my friend's life across the street from someone else's unexpected gravesite. Katrina wasn't just a forgotten nightmare - she was still tangibly there.
Ever since that trip, I've searched for a way to return to New Orleans to do anything I could for the relief effort, and been afraid that I was never going to find the opportunity. I don't think anyone fathomed that the need would still be so acute 5 years down the road. People are still living in FEMA trailers, and under overpasses in makeshift tent cities. On a scale of 1 to Unacceptable, that's an 11.
The 2 months I spent rebuilding in post-tsunami India were replete with many of the most fulfilling moments of my life - aha! moments, as it were. I have no idea what this trip will be like, and I hesitate to construct any wild expectations. What I know is that we're headed to one of the coolest cities in the country to help people who couldn't finish their post-Katrina rebuilds for whatever reason (medical, financial, etc). I know that I can't wait to spend a week outside, detached from my office chair and computer, breathing bayou air and absorbing some natural sun-sent Vitamin D. I know that I can't wait to meet whoever I am going to meet on this trip - whoever might enlighten my world a little bit, in one aspect or another. Beyond that, I kind of revel in the unknown. Let's land at Louis Armstrong International and see what happens.
The purpose of this blog is (hopefully) to chronicle the next week, day by day, experience by experience. My goal? I'm not sure. Perhaps to capture the beautiful detail in each day in a sort of written snapshot, instead of vaguely trying to remember it as a whole in the weeks afterward. And perhaps to paint a picture, however brief, of the state of New Orleans 5 and a half years after the storm - her people, her promise, her triumphs, and her remaining challenges. She's had an array of voices - I humbly submit mine to the mix.
A dimanche, New Orleans...laissez les bon temps rouler...
On the blog title: I bought the T-shirt in a rush on Bourbon St. It's sparked more conversation than any other article of clothing I've ever worn. It's also become my overarching motto for politics everywhere.
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