New Orleans Part 4

3/10/06
Our second house is in a better area…and by better I mean less damaged. 2619 Legend Ave. There is only three inches of mud instead of the traditional six that we are used to. This house has not been touched since Katrina either. It is a lot bigger. I had a terrible fever last night which broke around 2am. I cried because I was so uncomfortable on the cot. I can’t recall the last time I was sick like that. Even the feeling of having to pee was excruciating. Good stuff. I felt great when I woke up, all the way to the bus and driving to the site, I felt fine. I feel good now too, but I know it is probably not the best idea for me to work. It would be better for me to rest, but I feel a responsibility to work while I am here. I have so little time to make a difference. Plus, it feels so good at the end of the work day, so accomplished, so content, I don’t want to miss that even for a day. Shyla is staying home today. She’s had this bug for a day longer than I have. We are supposed to go to the city tonight to celebrate. She wants to feel good for that, so Heath told her to stay and rest.
It is extremely hot today. I went outside and the humidity hit me like a wall. The sun is intense too. We all will be tired today. Its so hard to breathe with it humid like that.
Off to work I go.
- - -

What a day! We finished the house. It only took us 2 days. It’s such a riot when the fire men pull up to check on us they always comment on the fact that we are an all female crew. Truth be told, we worked harder than any male crew I saw down here. We work so well together. Each of us has a place and our movements are almost choreographed. It’s really beautiful. We never argue or get in the way, we just work, each of us sensing the importance and the gravity of this work. Each of us have spoken to the locals, and heard the horror of it all. We have bear witness to the hugeness of this catastrophe and we all take great pride in being here and being a part of this process.
It still is strange to me to talk to someone who says, “Oh everything is great. I couldn’t be happier” and then find out later that they had lost everything just like everyone else. They are so strong, so brave. We all share a reverence for them.
- - -

We just had our nightly meeting. This was our last .We leave in the morning. Sister Sean facilitated, as always, and asked each of us to share one thing they would take with them and one thing they would leave behind. I said I would leave behind all of my prayers of strength for the people of St Bernard’s Parish and all of my anxiety that I had before the trip. And with me I would take the awe of human spirit and the bonds I had made with the people on my work team. We all felt a sense of wonder and mystery over the sheer power of Human Will here in Chalmette. It is sad, but sometimes it takes the biggest catastrophe to bring out the best in people. None of us want to leave. No ten page paper or speech will ever bring us the satisfaction or sense of peace that this place did. Each day was a gift, tired and hungry and sun burned, each day we got up smiling and ready to take on the world, because the palpable energy was invigorating! We wanted to be in it every day forever. All of us. I am sad to go back to school. Even being sick, I would rather stay and continue this fight. I have never done anything so rewarding, so necessary, so beautifully and essentially good. I don’t think college will feel the same now. How could it? College is all about selfishness and self-centeredness. It’s about what you want, what you need. And really, there is nothing better in the world than giving to others and the gift that we gave them, taking the burden of digging out their belongings, throwing out their memories, was the best gift we could have given. Each of us did it whole heartedly; we left a whole lot more than prayers in Chalmette. We left blood, sweat, tears, skin, and most importantly, a piece of our souls. Day after day we worked with all the might that we had…for them, for their families. We wanted to badly to be a part of their lives and their new beginnings. I think we succeeded in that. Meeting the woman whose daughter owned the house we cleaned on Monday and Tuesday energized us to work even harder the next day. She was so kind, so selfless. There was no way we couldn’t have been moved.

I found a sort of religion in St Bernard. I keep talking about God, but it’s not your typical God. Not the bible, Jesus and Mary sort of God. It is a God that is life. Religion is a celebration of life. I found a beauty that I had never seen before. I looked around every day and found things to be thankful for. I found out what the human spirit is made of and I found out what is truly important. I think I knew that part all along. I mean, I consider myself petty minimalist to begin with. I don’t care about material things and I don’t give a shit about money. I have always been poor and yet somehow I have never gone without. Now, some might say that’s the power of positive thinking, but I say it’s Karma. If you do good things, good things gravitate to you. Period. I’ve always found happiness in giving back, but something is different here. It’s a whole new level of giving. It is very personal. I found myself so respectful of every piece of furniture that I threw out, each picture that I wiped the mud off of. I felt as if I were an advocate for the owners of those houses.
I found God buried under the mold; a will to survive that I didn’t truly believe in before now. The residents of Chalmette come out each day and help their neighbors unbury their house. They look you in the face when they speak to you. They have more concern for everyone around them than themselves. They inspired me to be a better person, a more compassionate, loving person.
This is what Courtney and I have been talking about all along, but now I see it more clearly than I even knew I could before.
God is the human spirit and it is life. It is the flower that grew in an empty, dusty lot. It is the crawfish that survived six months in a moldy house. It is the fireman who broke into the Quickie Mart and stole Slim Jims and Coke to feed the homeless of his town. It is the signs that say “We’re coming back” and “We will rebuild.” It is the 1300 college students who have up their spring break to give a little slice of reprieve to the citizens of Chalmette.

- - -


I am outside. It is 5:30 in the morning. I still have a fever. I am shivering and it is 80 degrees. We went to the city last night and celebrated our victory. We had finished two houses on our own. Ten women and one man finished two entire houses from start to finish. We are beside ourselves. We ate at a local favorite called Café Maspero.
The food was cheap and delicious. I was feeling nauseous, so I didn’t eat a lot, but it was great. A group of Sister’s from New Orleans came to show us around. They paid for dinner. They were such a treat. They told us about their experiences during and after the hurricane. They brought us maps of the area and took us to all the local favorite spots. What a beautiful city. I want to live here. Everything was lit up and there were flowers and palm trees everywhere. We saw St Louis Cathedral, which looks like a Disney castle. Out front on the street people take rides in horse drawn carriages all night and then there is the trolley, with its wooden seats and little bell. There are street performers everywhere and they are all so talented. This one man played wine glasses filled with water. Tim asked him to play Mozart and he did! He was very funny. He told stories while he played. We walked down a series of streets behind the cathedral and all the shops had beautiful art in the windows and the sidewalks were cobblestone. There is music everywhere. Heath and Amy danced in the street as the rest of us clapped along. We were all so full of joy. It was amazing. I fell in love. Later we took a walk to the Mississippi River to watch the ferries go by. The sun was setting on the water and there was a wedding going on in the building behind us. Everyone was laughing and smiling and the music floated out onto the water and the rhythm matched the waves on the shore. I have never felt so alive and so at peace all at once. None of us were prepared to leave. We wanted it to last forever.

Right now I am staring at a flower that I found growing on the camp site. There is not a living thing for miles. All the trees and shrubs have drowned here. Chalmette was submerged in twenty feet of water for two weeks. There is barely any grass, but these flowers are growing next to the fence. They are light purple and I can’t help but stare at it. Each petal is perfectly symmetrical, the same number of petals to pollen makers. It really is art. How can anyone deny the math behind nature? For me it is completely undeniable that something, someone did this on purpose. To me that is God. It’s not a person, as I said, it’s things like this. It is a perfect sixty-five degrees right now. The sun is coming up for the last time on me in New Orleans. I have to get back on a plane today and go back to college, back to my dorm and my residents and classes and work. I would rather stay here. I’d rather perform this physical labor every day. It’s so much more important. I will feel silly in my classroom, typing on a computer. I haven’t watched TV, used a computer or flushed a toilet in over a week. What a concept.
I no longer identify myself with any sort of entitlement to my possessions. I feel like I belong in this tent, on that cot, eating in that mess hall, under this sky. How did all that change in a week? I don’t even feel like the same person. I feel like some higher version of myself, like I mutated from a larva to a butterfly. Will I be able to go back to the way things were? Because it is going to feel strange…I guess I have to. Maybe I can come back. I feel more home here than anywhere I have ever been in my life. Maybe I was meant to find this place…