Happy New Year! I am leaving New Orleans after three days of all emotions but indifference. Flying out of New Orleans, interestingly, Sky Magazine had their feature on visiting the city. In it, they said, “Don’t plan a lot when you visit New Orleans. This town survives on not doing much.” I have had several days of taking it easy in an intensely New Orleans way, and the emotions have been high.
I came to New Orleans for the first time in January 2006, four months after Katrina and Rita hit New Orleans. Two all-black Catholic schools, St. Mary’s and St. Augustine’s, had completely flooded in the storm and a third one, Xavier Prep, was in a less-hard-hit part of town. The three schools merged into one for the spring, and called themselves the MAX school. I came with a group that stayed on the gym floor of Xavier Prep and worked to re-open this school.
First, we gutted the houses of the teachers who were returning, pulling out refrigerators that hadn’t been opened in four months as we dodged fruit flies and the smell of rotted cheese. We pulled out drywall that felt like moldy cereal. We were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of damage in New Orleans East and the Ninth Ward—every single house had a collapsed roof, a pile of trash one story high, or a waterlogged wedding dress haphazardly washed up on an overturned bed. We worked in St. Augustine’s school detoxifying the kitchen, and in St. Mary’s school polishing and washing out the schools’ keepsakes—trophies, photos, and awards. (To us, this didn’t seem like the most pressing use of our time, but we found out that these memories were all that the school had. Preserving them was the most important thing. This is the spirit of New Orleans.)
We also worked in the MAX school, doing college counseling for the high school seniors that had returned from Atlanta, Houston, Baton Rouge, and more after a fall away. These kids had lost everything, and were trying their best to gain a foothold next year. By the end of our time, we had seen college applications starting, the MAX school band play together (with kids who were rivals just four months before), and an impressive re-start out of a depressing situation. I had hope for New Orleans.
And I hadn’t come back. This trip, I came with friends for New Years’. My first trip to New Orleans, I didn’t experience “New Orleans”—I never saw Bourbon Street, did not drink a Hurricane, and didn’t listen to any jazz or blues. So I was hoping to see a different side of the city coming in. Riding on I-10 from Slidell, I looked out the window into New Orleans East, one of the hardest-hit areas of the city, and a place where I had worked much before. I still saw the patchwork pattern of blue tarps on roofs throughout the district. There were many fewer than spring 2006, to be sure, but too many to be comfortable. I saw the “X’s” on the buildings—a haunting reminder of FEMA inspectors breaking down the door, looking for dead bodies and refugees. The poorest parts of the city were no better off.
Much of the city looked much better. Uptown, the Garden District, Magazine Street (where we stayed), and the French Quarter were back in business. I could hardly see any reminders of the devastation of January 2006. But you still don’t have to go far to see some horrible things.
I was, most of all, worried that New Orleans would die as a result of the devastation of the hurricanes. The city is remarkable as is. It has no industry, no real local production, an inefficient government, massive poverty, and no real opportunity for growth—it just exists because of the civic pride of people who live there. New Orleans exists because it is New Orleans—full of food, soul, music, and some of the best kooks in the world. The divide between races and rich and poor is its most raw and real there, too. People suffer crime and inefficiency every day and learn to live with it. And the rebuilding of the city—a city that is 85% below sea level—doesn’t make sense unless you know people from New Orleans. The city exists to entertain, be lived in, and be visited. Without that, it’s a dead city. Isn’t that enough?
I was worried that with no real incentive to rebuild, that “the storm” would kill New Orleans. But I noticed something remarkable on this trip. I talked to probably 50 New Orleans natives on the trip, and every one of them brought up “The Storm”—referring to it as exactly that. “I had tickets and programs of Yankees games in the fifties,” one lifelong New Orleans resident and Yankees fan told me when we were talking about sports, “but I lost them to that woman—the storm.” “The Storm” has become a binding civic experience that gives every citizen of New Orleans a reference point, and brings a city that exists for itself even closer. Go, and you will see the fleur-de-lis, the symbol of recovery, everywhere. The city has yet another reason to survive.
My only regret about my trip is that I did not plan better. I tried like crazy the week before going to find a place to work. I know I was only there for a short time, but every little bit helps. I was there the 31st and the 1st, and most every place I tried to find to work was closed. The trip was planned last-second, and with more foresight, I could have, and should have, done better. But I do know this—after visiting New Orleans, I already know I am going back. And I’ll do better this time.
When I was in the UAE, the Americans were stunned that everywhere we went we got top-of-the-line hospitality. Being a host is an important moral obligation in Arab culture, so we got drinks, food, and gifts everywhere we went. The Americans did not understand this. Clearly, I said, most of our party had never been to the South. While in New Orleans, my three Atlanta friends and I got top-of-the-line hospitality. I picked up my friend Hayley Crowell, who I only knew vaguely as my Oxford friend PG’s girlfriend, to go to lunch. Her family invited us in, and invited us back for dinner. The party didn’t leave the Crowell house until 11 PM. I stayed with my friend Davis (who has appeared in the blog before)—and his brother Austin, who has never met me or our friends, nevertheless gave us room to stay in his house. Everywhere we went, we were kings. Welcome to the South, faithful readers. I promise the same kind of treatment if you ever come visit me.
So I now sit in the airport, ready to leave New Orleans, and I can’t wait to come back. But I’ve got to move on to Iowa! Stay tuned to this space, because I will try to update as much as possible. Or at least keep a running diary and post it at the end. I am writing from Kansas City tonight, where Pat Casey and I are creating a battle plan. With luck, I will post a potential itinerary in this space before we set off.
Happy New Year, and may this be the best year ever for all of you.
ERB
