NOLA Return: Day 1 & 2

By Jill Ensley

Monday, June 16, 2008

Day 2: Today was much more productive and I wish I normally functioned on an early rise, work all day, exhausted by 5 pm schedule. I wish my daily exhaustion was always like this physical, emotional, not the usual lethargy of a relatively sedentary life.

We did construction today(drywall), on a house in the 9th Ward (corner of N. Roman and Piety). It was a handful of Common Ground people and a church group here from Virginia. They drove in for a week of volunteering too and we all chatted and sweat and listened to the R&B station while we worked. It seems like a lot of people are in the process of rebuilding over there. Musician's Village is strange. Good, but just a little weird. All the houses look the same, except for the brightly painted exteriors.

We had lunch at Stewart's Diner, which made me very happy since last year, it was the only functioning business in the vicinity and the owners were pretty remarkable people. The fried chicken was delicious and the company was even better. It was me, my friend, another Common Ground volunteer and the contractor working with the NOLA 100. He was from California, drove out last year to help, and drove out again to help with the 100 project. The best thing was, he knew what was going on, felt respect and love for the city, and wasn't out to make money. He could be back home, making more, but as he said, this is more important. At least half of this experience is talking to people, hearing their story.

It seems there's a bit of relief organization/celebrity attention backlash here. Someone from the neighborhood came in the house last night and was complaining about wanting Brad Pitt stopped, wanting him to stop making money off sympathy. I don't know. At least there's some attention being focused. I'm just not sure if it's focused on the right people or issues. Sitting on the porch, looking out on the desolation, I'm not sure if the Lower 9th will ever be the same. Where are the schools? Where is the infrastructure? Where is the city government? It wasn't until yesterday that Common Ground even got on the power grid. What about everyone else?

And also, what about this?

I'm tired and it's daquiri o'clock.

Day 1:We arrived around 9:45pm last night after a relatively painless drive through lackluster Missouri, even more lackluster Eastern Arkansas, and quite green and beautiful Mississippi. The route was somewhat different than last year's jaunt, taking us through smaller Missouri towns and state highways. This time, instead of counting Cracker Barrels, I took note of all the Wal-Marts and closed roadside businesses.

I'd hoped to make it into the city before night fell, to make navigating easier, and to give my fellow travelers their first glimpse of swampland and Lake Pontchartrain, but it wasn't to be. We entered Kenner, Metairie, then city proper under the cover of hazy darkness, a constellation of dead mosquitoes dotting the windshield, and off in the distance, explosions of lightning behind billowing clouds.

It wasn't until we got off the 610, in that now familiar territory, that I saw the first signs of lingering post-Katrina New Orleans. I don't know what I expected really. For it to be healed, for the water lines to have disappeared, the X's painted over, the rotting wood moved away. No, I didn't expect that. But I don't think I expected much of it to look the same, or worse, overgrown and bearing the signs of not only a catastrophic event, but of neglect. If you didn't know better, and you do, you might think this is just another run-down, shitty part of the city, not New Orleans at all. New Orleans is the Quarter of course, the CBD maybe, the Garden District and the cemeteries.

But we know I'm just being an asshole and we know that New Orleans is the people that live here. And the people still need help. As evidenced this morning when after waking up at 6:30, we hit the yards around the newly relocated Common Ground house in the Lower 9th and started clearing the overgrowth. Apparently the city has found new and interesting ways to keep fucking people over by declaring that yards must be less than 18" tall. While this may be practical in more densely populated areas, those bordering and in areas of higher incomes, it makes absolutely no sense in the Lower 9th. It's still nearly a fucking ghost town. And driving through the 9th Ward, you're amazed not only by the sheer tenacity of the residents, knowing it could happen again, but that they'd not be depressed every morning to wake up to neighborhoods where there are maybe 3 or 4 houses rebuilt, the rest standing stagnant for over 2 years now. That is the remarkable thing to me, to love this city so much, to know your roots are so deep that you cannot give up on it, even though the ax hovers and your block still looks like a war zone. Yes, New Orleans still needs hands and hearts and attention.

Today was about 2 hours of weed and overgrowth removal in the hot sun and high humidity. We successfully avoided the poison ivy, aren't too sunburned, but it's taking some adjustment. After, we went to a press event for the closure of the MRGO (Mississippi River Gulf Outlet) and handed out stickers and yard signs. If you don't know, the MRGO is one of the prime reasons for intense amount of flooding, since it connects to the Gulf and the Industrial Canal (bordering the 9th and Lower 9th) and simply acted as a funnel for the surge as well as destroyed the wetlands that were protecting New Orleans. It was built by the Corps in the 70's and is barely used, if at all. You can read more here. Please go there if you are one of those people who still think NOLA should be abandoned or moved. Katrina doesn't have to happen again.

After the event, we stopped by the first house I helped gut last time so I could take photos. I found the house, still like we left it, except mustier, rustier, much more a shell. I went inside to see if the photo we found (and left there for the owners) was still there. It was. I put it in my bag of "artifacts" and tried not to cry. It hasn't hit me as much this time, mainly because it's been too busy and I don't know what to do other than be amazed and sad that many of these homeowners really aren't coming back. I can't entirely blame them.

Went to lunch after that, saved Common Ground some dollars and went to Mother's for the best po' boy and sweet potato pie ever. Came back to see what we could do and all the crews seemed to be gone, so we went to Metairie to get some supplies to donate. Just got back and it's a fucking sauna in here. If I had balls, I would have sweat them off within the first hour of being here. But you get used to it, as well as the cockroaches so big they'll eat your face off. Luckily, that's what fans and Common Ground cats are for. All in all, the operation itself has improved. Not nearly as many volunteers as last time, but more organization, somewhat.

Tonight we're probably staying here, to relax with a going away part for one of the long-term volunteers and get enough rest for tomorrow. Hopefully, we'll get in a full day of work before sweating out all bodily fluids. YES, all of them.

This is where we're staying, the house "saved" by that infamous barge, the one on the upper right corner of the photo. Driving up to it in the dark, looking out the window last night, and just now, over at the levee, thinking about that water coming through, coming through, coming through...

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Posted by DOTDOT (anonymous) on June 17, 2008 at 3:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Posted by Joel (Joel Mathis) on June 18, 2008 at 6:49 a.m. (Suggest removal)

On a related note, Jill, you might be interested to note that KBR -- Dick Cheney's favorite war profiteers -- are now under suspicion of getting paid well to do substandard hurricane recovery work.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

Posted by lazz (anonymous) on June 18, 2008 at 11:25 a.m. (Suggest removal)

keep up the great work, jilla

Posted by smerdyakov (anonymous) on June 18, 2008 at 1:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I 2nd lazz.

>
It seems there's a bit of relief organization/celebrity attention backlash here.
<

What's up with that? If Brad Pitt and Co. were showing up just long enough for a photo op, then I could see how that might be more distracting than productive. But it seems to me—from here—he's using his celebrity to draw sustained, real interest to relief work.

Posted by godjilla (Jill Ensley) on June 18, 2008 at 7 p.m. (Suggest removal)

smerdy, I think the general feeling is, it's not a sustained effort, that it does lean more toward the photo op catagory. I'm looking at the Make It Right "offices" (read: trailers) right now and in the days that I've been here, no one has come by, to staff or get help. Meanwhile, on the next block, resides one resident still in a FEMA trailer and overgrown lots covering the foundations of houses that were washed away.

Thanks to everyone. I wish I could be here longer.
Maybe someday.

Posted by reeveso (John Reeves) on June 18, 2008 at 7:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Brad Pitt has a monkey's face.

Posted by godjilla (Jill Ensley) on June 18, 2008 at 7:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I hear he has a baboon's butt as well.
Keeps it in a jar on his mantel.

NOLA Return: Day 1 & 2

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