A Love StoryOctober 26, 2005
I didn’t even bother to write an entry this a.m. I woke up over and over again last night, thinking of all the things I would need to do or want to do before I leave, and of course hardly remembered any of it. Except that I woke up un-refreshed and a little burnt out. I did remember to call BTI to confirm my flight home, and wrote notes to both J. and D., the shelter manager till Saturday, that I had put in for a car and a day off Friday, needed to process out Saturday, and would be flying out of Baton Rouge on Sunday. As I was informed, this means I’ll have to move camp to B.R. and stay there Saturday night, which is a pain in the ass. Everybody else has been able to process out in Covington and fly out via the NOLA airport next door, but that would have been way too easy for me. I took another $200 out of my card, and left $133 in the bank. When we reconcile at Financial during outprocessing, I think I can justify it all. Some people, especially the kids who have been camping out in the French Quarter every night, have gone through their money like drunken sailors. Well, the drunken part fits.
J. just came in briefly and I told her I want to go into NOLA for my last run tomorrow. “Send me someplace good”, I told her. This way I’ll avoid being stuck on some pointless 2nd run on a Bravo ERV and risk possibly returning at an ungodly hour.
Earlier there was a birthday celebration for R., who came down with me. He was in tears. It was very sweet.
I’ve been trying to remember some of the things I’ve been seeing over the past few days. In Mid-City, angry graffiti on the side of a house:
“Screw you, Nagin. We made our own plan.”
“Katrina got PMS.”
The broken bodies of rotted and collapsed buildings have become billboards for the anger and pain of the people of NOLA and the towns surrounding it. Sprawled over 4 corners (of an intersection) and down half the city blocks beyond, piles of ruined stuffed animals 6 or 7 feet high, the ruins of a warehouse that held a man's entire livelihood. Delicate little houses with wrought ironwork and still-vibrant paint jobs, broken, rotting, and abandoned for miles. The fluorescent red or orange "X" painted on house after house, a sign left by those who entered searching for bodies or the still-living in need of rescue. At the top is the date of inspection--most are dated around 9/15 or later, some as late as early October. On the left, the initials of the inspecting group.
At the bottom, the number of dead found; usually that was a "0", meaning none. To see a number other than the struck through zero there always gave me a chill. The letters in the right side of the cross still remain a mystery. Sometimes they seemed to indicate a direction, as in "NE". Other times they made no sense at all. And often I'd see "TFW" written (inside a circle). I still don't know what it is. The SPCA would sometimes weigh in, as well. Their messages were easy to decipher: "K-9 moved to corner"; "1 dog alive"; "2 cats under house"; and sometimes "no dogs" or "1 dead cat".
Between these signs and messages, and the words written by the ones who had to leave in anger and bitterness, even the parts of NOLA that are still and lifeless vibrate with a thousand voices, reaching out to communicate with anyone who comes after. "Help! Help! Help!" reads the house on the street in the lower Ninth Ward. Places where not a living thing moves can make the tears come, when you read the stories that have been left there. Holes in roofs torn by the desperate, trapped inside their houses while trying to escape rising waters, still gape to remind us of their terror.
To imagine living here, constantly facing the massive deconstruction on every corner, in every yard, with your entire environment looking like one big landfill;
to live growing numb to the ugliness; to expect mud, cracked earth, endless dust, to always be hacking and coughing, living with low-level respiratory ailments; to wait without hope for salvation from the insurance company, the city, the federal government, to live with price gouging. To live in tents.
At home it has rained endlessly, and been cold. Here, the sun has shone everyday, and the earth is parched. Hurricane Wilma's hellacious winds sent water into the Ninth Ward again Tuesday, and what small progress made there was halted.
I wish I could say I'll miss NOLA, or Louisiana, but I won't. It's too flat for my soul, and I miss the seasons. Fall doesn't exist here, at least in a way that makes sense to a Yankee. The few Halloween decorations I've noticed look as out of place as a Christmas tree in the middle of a bandstand on a summer night. But most of all, I won't miss the constant low-level misery, the endless fighting back against despair that is the lot of every person here. I've come to love the strength, humor, and compassion of the local people. But I don't have enough of any of those qualities to bear their miseries.
Today my ERV got to come back early (3:30) because the kitchen ran out of food, so I had a very pleasant and relaxing day. J., next to me, went up with me to a local store and took money out of our Red Cross cards, then I came back, took a hot shower, enjoyed cake and ice cream and 2 more chicken sandwiches for dinner, and sat down to write in this journal.
Time for bed.
J. just came in briefly and I told her I want to go into NOLA for my last run tomorrow. “Send me someplace good”, I told her. This way I’ll avoid being stuck on some pointless 2nd run on a Bravo ERV and risk possibly returning at an ungodly hour.
Earlier there was a birthday celebration for R., who came down with me. He was in tears. It was very sweet.
I’ve been trying to remember some of the things I’ve been seeing over the past few days. In Mid-City, angry graffiti on the side of a house:
“Screw you, Nagin. We made our own plan.”
“Katrina got PMS.”
The broken bodies of rotted and collapsed buildings have become billboards for the anger and pain of the people of NOLA and the towns surrounding it. Sprawled over 4 corners (of an intersection) and down half the city blocks beyond, piles of ruined stuffed animals 6 or 7 feet high, the ruins of a warehouse that held a man's entire livelihood. Delicate little houses with wrought ironwork and still-vibrant paint jobs, broken, rotting, and abandoned for miles. The fluorescent red or orange "X" painted on house after house, a sign left by those who entered searching for bodies or the still-living in need of rescue. At the top is the date of inspection--most are dated around 9/15 or later, some as late as early October. On the left, the initials of the inspecting group.
At the bottom, the number of dead found; usually that was a "0", meaning none. To see a number other than the struck through zero there always gave me a chill. The letters in the right side of the cross still remain a mystery. Sometimes they seemed to indicate a direction, as in "NE". Other times they made no sense at all. And often I'd see "TFW" written (inside a circle). I still don't know what it is. The SPCA would sometimes weigh in, as well. Their messages were easy to decipher: "K-9 moved to corner"; "1 dog alive"; "2 cats under house"; and sometimes "no dogs" or "1 dead cat".
Between these signs and messages, and the words written by the ones who had to leave in anger and bitterness, even the parts of NOLA that are still and lifeless vibrate with a thousand voices, reaching out to communicate with anyone who comes after. "Help! Help! Help!" reads the house on the street in the lower Ninth Ward. Places where not a living thing moves can make the tears come, when you read the stories that have been left there. Holes in roofs torn by the desperate, trapped inside their houses while trying to escape rising waters, still gape to remind us of their terror.
To imagine living here, constantly facing the massive deconstruction on every corner, in every yard, with your entire environment looking like one big landfill;
to live growing numb to the ugliness; to expect mud, cracked earth, endless dust, to always be hacking and coughing, living with low-level respiratory ailments; to wait without hope for salvation from the insurance company, the city, the federal government, to live with price gouging. To live in tents.
At home it has rained endlessly, and been cold. Here, the sun has shone everyday, and the earth is parched. Hurricane Wilma's hellacious winds sent water into the Ninth Ward again Tuesday, and what small progress made there was halted.
I wish I could say I'll miss NOLA, or Louisiana, but I won't. It's too flat for my soul, and I miss the seasons. Fall doesn't exist here, at least in a way that makes sense to a Yankee. The few Halloween decorations I've noticed look as out of place as a Christmas tree in the middle of a bandstand on a summer night. But most of all, I won't miss the constant low-level misery, the endless fighting back against despair that is the lot of every person here. I've come to love the strength, humor, and compassion of the local people. But I don't have enough of any of those qualities to bear their miseries.
Today my ERV got to come back early (3:30) because the kitchen ran out of food, so I had a very pleasant and relaxing day. J., next to me, went up with me to a local store and took money out of our Red Cross cards, then I came back, took a hot shower, enjoyed cake and ice cream and 2 more chicken sandwiches for dinner, and sat down to write in this journal.
Time for bed.
posted by Riggsveda at 2:13 PM
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My first day back on the ERVs. I lost my wonderful laminated map of NOLA, and despite a search of the trucks, can’t turn it up. Went to mention it to J. and she said, “Good luck”. And it’s a good thing, because she said, “Oh, I forgot to put you on the list” for an assignment. Christ. She sleeps right next to me, you’d think she could remember me.
LATER (9:20 p.m.): Got in at 7:40 p.m. Had a real problem with my driver, M., who was so over-controlling and obsessive-compulsive, while trying to act as if he wasn’t. Scatter-brained while trying to run everything. A driver is an organizer, someone who oversees the operation, keeps it moving, and pitches in to help when and where needed. The crew should be left to handle the way the back is run. He jumped in, trying to do everything, and not trusting us to do any of it right. We were supposed to have 3 in the back, but lost 1 along the way, so it was me and C., a young Americorps volunteer, and M. It was a difficult day between us. I hope I don’t ride with him again. When we came back to clean the ERV he became really weird, and compulsively clean-freakish about it. When I tried to explain that we (the crew) had already cleaned the shelf on which the cambros sat, as he was about to clean them again, he actually ran his hand over the shelf repeatedly, looking for proof. The whole thing, which usually takes just 10 or 15 minutes, probably stretched out to a half hour. As a result, and with the new unproved protocol (clean the ERV and go back to the yard in the dark to load up on water and snacks) we got back much later than necessary---we unloaded our food at 5:00 p.m.) No matter what I said or did, it rubbed him the wrong way, and he kept saying he didn’t want to step on my toes. C. and I got along wonderfully. She learned fast and knew just what to do though it was only her first day. My conversation with her later made me sure the problem hadn’t been with me. And the more I tried to get him to tell me what he wanted me to do (so he could get his way) the worse things got.
On another note, the area we went into today, Lakeview, was truly a moonscape. Cars lying rear end up against trees, or across fences. People coming back to their houses to see them for the first time. It was a pretty well-to-do neighborhood, and it must have been pretty once. A man cleaning out his house and crying came up to the window of our ERV and spoke to me while sobbing about the ruination of the house. It was heartbreaking. I held his hand, put my hand on his shoulder, and cried with him. We were all in tears. I still can see him.
