New Orleans

I just returned from a week in New Orleans for my Alternative Spring Break trip entitled "Relief, Recovery, and Reconstruction in Post-Katrina New Orleans." It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. We spent the week rebuilding houses, painting schools, talking to residents, meeting awesome people, touring the city and its surroundings, and having a fun time while working hard.


On the first day we were there, we prepared a school for painting and put primer on it. The school was in a nicer neighborhood, but it was a charter school open to students anywhere in the city. After we spent the day scraping, priming, and caulking, we went to the French Quarter to have dinner. We ate on a balcony overlooking Bourbon Street, but because it was Monday night, there wasn't a lot of activity. After dinner, we walked around Bourbon Street and checked out the night life. We went back to the church we were staying in that night, and on the way we saw the tent city that was set up largely because people whose houses were destroyed during Hurricane Katrina didn't have anywhere to go.

The next day, we worked for ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which is a nonprofit organization that is working on rebuilding New Orleans. We worked at what the contractor said was the oldest house in New Orleans, built in the 1700s. It was easy to believe that it was that old because of the horrible condition of the house. It wasn't affected by flooding, but sustained wind damage as a result of the storm. The framing of the house was badly damaged by termites, which made it a bit scary when we went on top of the house to do some roofing. While I was cutting shingles to fit over the cap of the roof, I was watching the rest of our group digging the foundation of a garage and caulking the cracks around the windows in the front.
The woman who owns the house was very nice and generous. She ran an organization that trained young people who often didn't have other options because of their criminal record or other reasons to work in the hospitality business, which is very big in New Orleans. She was like a mother figure to many of the kids and dedicated her life to them, so we were glad we could help her in some way, even though it was just for a day. She made us lunch, which she does for all the volunteers that help her.
When we were taking our lunch break, a woman came up to us and told us how much we meant to her. She said, even though she had originally been down in the dumps after the Storm and hated to go to the soup line because she had always been able to support herself, the volunteers that showed they cared showed that the rest of the country hadn't forgotten New Orleans. She was just one of the people who expressed their gratitude at the volunteer effort. They were what made the trip worth it.

The next day, we toured the levees at the major breaks. It was hard to see neighborhoods demolished by the wall of water that hit after the levee breaks. In the Lower Ninth Ward, where we started, the houses had all been knocked down during the storm. Where houses once stood, all that was left were the foundations. Seeing the levees showed the extent of the damage which still hasn't been fixed, more than two and a half years after the storm.
After the levee tour, we met with FEMA in their New Orleans office. They showed us what they had been doing, which at times felt a little condescending. Though the individuals seemed to work very hard and want the best for New Orleans, the organization as a whole needs much better leadership in order to function.
That evening, we went to the Hilton to have dinner with the General Manager, who is a Stanford alum. He told us about his experience being in and running the Hilton during Katrina, where a couple thousand people relocated just before the storm. It is hard to explain how much people did to help other residents during the storm. Ordinary citizens turned into heroes.

The next morning, we woke up and headed to the Lower Ninth Ward to work on a house owned by a man named Smitty. He was one of the most inspirational people I met on the trip. His family had lived there since the days of slavery and he had grown up there. However, after receiving a degree in accounting, he had to leave New Orleans because African-American citizens couldn't get jobs at that time. He moved to Chicago, where he worked in the labor movement. From there, he moved to Hollywood, where he owned some businesses in which the underground poetry of the '60s thrived. After many years in Hollywood, he moved back to his home in New Orleans. During the storm, he stayed with relatives in the city, but afterwards, when he learned that his house was under 15 feet of water, he went to stay in the country at his cousin's place. He tried to live there, but he had lived in cities his whole life, and country life just wasn't for him. He came back in January of 2008, to find his house in pretty bad shape. While ACORN is working on his house, he is staying in a house a couple blocks away. He is working to make sure the residents of the lower part of the Lower Ninth Ward receive the same government assistance as the residents of the upper part.
After we had worked on his house for a while, Smitty took us for a tour of the neighborhood. He knew every one of the neighbors for blocks around. While we were walking, he pointed out one thing I might have walked right by. There was a house that, though still standing, was destroyed completely on the inside. Though they had to throw almost everything away, they kept their American flag, which was weathered by the storm, but hung on the fence. I got kind of emotional when I thought about how they still believed in a country that had completely let them down. It was hard to fathom, but they had to believe in something.
That evening, we went to see a panel at Tulane University from an organization called Young Urban Rebuilding Professionals, whose purpose is to try to bring young professionals to New Orleans.

On Friday, we volunteered for New Schools for New Orleans, which is an organization that is opening new charter schools in New Orleans. We were giving fliers to businesses for them to pass on to customers that might have children of school age. We got lost when we were driving, so we didn't get to spend much time doing that.
Next, we drove north of New Orleans for a wetlands tour. We drove around in a boat around a swamp/marsh. It was fun - we got off at one point and explored a bit. After getting back in the boat, we saw an alligator that was about six feet long, which was pretty exciting. Our boat got stuck when we were heading back. The man who took us on the tour threw an anchor out into the water and pulled us out, but while he was doing that, someone needed to man the boat. That someone turned out to be me, and I enjoyed bringing the boat down the little river.
That night, we went to the Louisiana Crawfish Festival, which was a ton of fun. It was a really big carnival that had a lot of food, mostly crawfish. We went on a lot of rides, ate some, and then went to dance in front of the stage, where a band was doing pretty good covers of popular songs. That was one of the highlights of the trip.

The next morning, we went back to the school where we worked the first day. We painted around the windows, but we weren't the best at doing that, so it didn't look that good. We tried, and it looked better than before, but we are not professionals.
That night, we went to the French Quarter for dinner and shopping. Afterwards, we went to Preservation Hall, where the jazz was awesome. It was some of the best live music I've ever heard.

We got on the plane and headed back the next morning, which was both good and bad. I wish we could have had more of an impact by staying longer, but it will be nice to get sleep again.