I Made It: First Few Days In New Orleans

Well, I have completed my three day road trip and have finally made it down to New Orleans. I had no problems throughout the rest of the country but once I got to New Orleans I was lost for almost an hour due to lack of road signs, stop lights or any organized traffic patterns. It was amazing on the way down to see the growing frequency of snapped trees and garbage on the side of the road as I approached the hurricane affected area; I could not believe that there was so much that had still not been cleaned up. I knew to expect some devastation but mental preparation does nothing for the shock when you actually see crushed houses and neighborhoods; no newspaper picture does it justice. I finally arrived at the Common Ground community center in the 9th ward and was surprised at what a large operation it is. There are more than a dozen tents and about 70-100 people coming in and out. They have crews that gut houses, a distribution center, health care clinics and a media center. At the moment I am living in the sanctuary of a church because the past couple of days have been too windy to set up a tent and I was told that a few days before I arrived there was even a tornado that came through. The people here are amazing, a mix of young and old people of many races coming together to put their values and human responsibility into actions. I really like the fact that the motto of Common Ground is solidarity and not charity and they really live by that. We work everyday with community members and they have been some of the greatest people I have met so far. I will give a run-through of what I have been doing the past two days.

Day One:
Today I went out on a work crew to gut one of the houses in the lower ninth ward (the place with the worst flooding). There were four of us for this one house and we got a ride from the owner, Emanuel. Emanuel was a great guy and amazing tour guide of the ninth ward because it was where he grew up and where his entire extended family had lived. The closer we got to his house the worse the devastation; there were houses that were completely rubble, cars that had been carried blocks and just unimaginable destruction (Emanuel's brother's house had been carried two blocks by the 25 feet of water and landed in one piece on the other side of the street). On the way I was told an interesting version of the levee break: Emanuel said that part of the levee had broken a few decades ago and the money allocated to fix it had landed in the pockets of the politicians because if they fixed it and there was a heavy rain, the canals would flood destroying the downtown area and the decision was made that the lower ninth was the expendable area. I don't know what I think about it but I think it is important because that is the way the people of the ninth ward feel valued by their government (sidenote: the ninth ward has a greater population of people who own their own homes than most neighborhoods in the United States, they may not be fancy homes but there is a pride in ownership and a great pride in community which stems from that; the sense of community is something I have never seen before).
We arrived at Emanuel's house and a lot of work had already been done and there was a mountainous pile of debris in the yard. We pulled out nails and removed insulation all day. It was laborious work in our tyvek suits, masks, gloves, goggles, and boots but it felt good to be helping out. It really brought it all home when I came across one of his grandmother's church shoes, an old rocking chair or stuffed animal in the rubble. While we were breaking for lunch we met two neighbors who pulled up to their twisted and caved in house across the street. They came across and chatted with us about what we were doing and where we were from. It turns out he was a local community leader and had not realized that Common Ground was an organization of people from around the country (and internationally) volunteering our time to help out (he thought it was just a bunch of lazy New Orleans hippies in tents). He apologized for his misconception and kept telling us how heroic and giving he thought we were which really meant a lot. He talked to us about how the organization works and we realized that as a community leader he has access to donations from home depot and other places but lacks the man power and Common Ground is rich in volunteers but not resources. We are setting up a meeting for next week to bring the groups together. It felt really good to feel like we were making a connection and step forward for common ground in my first day on the job. They were so impressed with us that they stayed and helped all afternoon, dropping whatever else they had to do.
Emanuel picked us up at 5 and we went over to see the place where the levee had broken (5 or 6 blocks from where we were). As we neared it began to look like another world, an average of one house on each block was standing and many of the ones near the levee had just floated away. There was still part of a huge barge on top of a few houses and a schoolbus. It was jawdropping and seemed as if katrina had just hit yesterday; I couldn't imagine coming home and finding what we saw. We stopped at our outpost near the levee and a CNN crew who had just covered the Prince of Jordan coming by wanted to interview Emanuel (which will be on in the next week, I will post the time). We went back to the community center and I felt exhausted both physically and emotionally. The day left me with so much to think about, there are just no easy answers or solutions and no justice for these people who have lost everything (most organizations are nowhere near the lower ninth which is where help is needed most).

Days Two and Three:
I spent my second and third days at the distribution center which was really busy because it was a weekend. I really enjoyed the interaction with the people who come in and out all day but it is amazing how little so many of them have. The desirable items are things like mops, bleach, water and hygiene products and many people say they don't have the space for things like toys or anything bulky in their apartment, tent or trailer. We have limited supplies of a lot of these things and it is so hard to tell somebody that they can only take eight bottles of water or two cartons of milk but we try to serve as many people as possible. This afternoon after work I headed down to downtown New Orleans which really put the devastation of the ninth ward into perspective. Everything was pristine and clean and newly painted and it was all bustling with tourists. We walked through the gardens in the middle of town which were all neatly trimmed with newly planted flowers. This shocked me since there hasn't even been a trash pick up in the lower ninth ward since the hurricane hit. The city's distribution of resources shocks me and it makes me so mad that the part of town I am living in is all but forgotten about.

I really want to illustrate the devastation to everyone and although nothing is the same as being here and turning in every direction and seeing the remains of so many homes and neighborhoods I hope that my pictures will give you an idea. I will try to load them onto the website next week and/or provide a link to similar pictures since the computers that I have access too are ancient and slow. I hope you all are doing well, please keep me updated on what y'all are up to.