The 9th

I wish the 9th ward had a different name, one that was more than just a number. With what I had heard of the place on the news, it didn't sound worthy of a name. A rough place, a poor place, which never should have been built below sea level like that. Maybe. I know too little to enter an argument about engineering and city planning. But I know enough to say that there was a community there, once upon a time. There were some beautiful homes placed there that sit below the levees in the lower 9th and look up at the hulking ships that drift by in the Industrial Canal. The media has a way of dehumanizing tragedy. To go there and to see is to realize that people lived their lives there, people went to church and the library and school there. It is not just some governmental mistake, it is a home.
I ashamedly realize that I never considered this place to be a neighborhood someone might love and miss. I can't speak to the problems it had before the storm, but a lot of people counted it as home and there is no substitute for home. There are sections with homes and churches and large, wise oak trees. And now there are sections where just the trees are left. For some reason I had never imagined I would find any beauty there, but I did.
Maybe the beauty is what makes me angry. The water was only deemed safe to drink in the lower-9th ward in mid-October, 13 months after the storm. In late-November only a handful of FEMA trailers had been set up in the area. The people of that community deserved a faster response. Many have been placed in FEMA parks on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, over 45 minutes from their homes, and certainly many more are living in different cities.

Painfully aware that I would not have visited this neighborhood had tragedy not struck, I found no peace while I was there. But maybe if I can help others be aware of what happened there and what still needs to be done I can help in some small way to bring peace to those who lived there. New Orleans still needs help.

Here's a story in the Times-Picayune from 12/18/06: http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-7/1166423922163400.xml&coll=1

Stay connected with the past

Ms. Tina had a wonderful visit to New Orleans. She wore Megan and I out, taking us all over town and out to the bayou and even dancing at TWO places in ONE night. Wooeee, I still need some rest after that.
Among the many things we did was drive by the house pictured here. It is just 2 blocks from our place in the heart of Uptown, generally a very hip and vibrant neighborhood and among the least affected by Katrina. In complete disrepair since long before the storm, the place is a giant relic of an earlier time, set amongst houses that are well maintained and very much lived in. Tina saw it and offerred an idea that she had read about people in New Orleans and why so many structures seem to be left to become part of nature; people here like to stay connected with the past.
For me this connection with the past is one of many examples of the way that New Orleans vehemently resists homogeny. It will NOT in any way become just another American city. And its own neighborhoods refuse to become like the other neighborhoods. The fancy Garden District has pillars all the way to the roof on every house and a porch on two levels while the Uptown neighborhood has shotgun houses with tall windows on their long one-story front. The Marigny borders on the French quarter but is much less tourist friendly and with much better music.

There are many problems that arise in this city, maybe in part due to the resistance to form a government that operates like other governments. Maybe there should be less poverty, and in-turn less crime, and less corruption, and maybe the city shouldn't be built under sea-level, and the levees should actually work, and the river should be cleaner, and there shouldn't be so many damn pot-holes, and buildings should get cleaned and repaired once in a while, and the roads should make more sense, and the bars shouldn't serve alcohol 24 hours a day. But don't dare try to tell New Orleans to be more like any other city because it won't ever do that. It will always have better music, and better festivals, and mardi gras, and better stories, and better parties, and better ghosts, and better pot-holes, and the people will stay more connected with their past.