This is my fourth trip to the New Orleans area post-Katrina, but my first since March 2007. Things have definitely improved in that time, although the pain of loss is still sharp.
My friend Steve (pictured above) picked me up at the airport Sunday morning. I met Steve the last time I was down here when we were both volunteering in the kitchen of Camp Hope, which houses the Habitat for Humanity volunteers. Steve and I spent several hours Sunday driving around town to visit the Musicians’ Village in the Upper Ninth Ward (pictured)…
… and the “Pink Project” — Brad Pitt’s energy-efficient housing development in the Lower Ninth Ward. Steve said they may be energy-efficient, “but they sure are ugly.”
You can judge for yourself, as I photographed a few of the dozen different designs by a dozen well-known architects from which property owners could choose to replace their washed-away homes. It’s true that the Musicians’ Village homes are more in keeping with the traditional New Orleans style.
Steve escaped his home in St. Bernard Parish (next to New Orleans) by sawing a hole in the roof and helping his disabled wife out. She died six months later from stress; the doctor ruled it a “Hurricane Katrina-related death.” You can read more about him from my earlier blog here. He still cries every time he tells the story.
He knows everyone in town — both returning residents and volunteers from elsewhere. He introduced me to R.M. “Iray” Nabatoff. Iray (pictured on the right) explained that he came down after Katrina to volunteer and then moved here “because I connected with the community and their struggles in such a way that I couldn’t walk away.” He co-founded the Community Center of St. Bernard with several local people. I asked him where he was from and he said, “New Hampshire, but I grew up in New Haven, Connecticut.” He graduated from Hillhouse High in 1970. “I was there for all the turbulent ’60s and ’70s. I remember skipping school and going to the Bobby Seale [Mayday] trial at the courthouse by the Green.” In the later 1970s he bought land in New Hampshire and built a house there.
I met Iray at a festival in honor of Los Islenos — folks from the Canary Islands who sailed to St. Bernard Parish between 1788 and 1793 — and have preserved their culture, as have all the various cultures that make up Louisiana. Every year a whole group of Canary Islanders fly over to play music and dance, in their traditional costumes (pictured) for the festival. Steve, whose last name is Gonzales, is a proud Isleno.
John Wilkes Booth (really) spent hours at the festival cooking oysters. He is one of the locals who often take their meals at Camp Hope, socializing with the thousands of (almost all) young volunteers who pass through.
The music featured guitars and a number of instruments I hadn’t seen before. The food was outstanding, but a vegetarian’s nightmare. I finally opted for grits and shrimp with the shrimp removed. It was cheating, because the grits, simmering in a delicious tomato-based sauce, certainly had the flavor of shrimp, but of course that made it more delicious!
Joyce Boudousquie and Tommy Bilich (pictured) are longtime friends who also spend time at Camp Hope, as well as the St. Bernard Parish Community Center. Joyce (pictured above) told the story of how a contractor tried to rip her off; she told him if he didn’t fix her house, she’d call her lawyer. That was apparently enough to convince him to do right by her, and she actually did have a lawyer to call — her nephew. But most folks don’t, and contractor fraud is one of the biggest reasons residents consult the attorneys from New Orleans Legal Aid who come to the community center every week. That, and family issues like domestic violence and divorce.
I was assigned a dorm room with a group of wonderful young women from the University of Missouri, which is renowned for its journalism school. Several of the kids are in fact journalism majors. We were comparing notes, and they were asking about the life of a professional journalist. They seemed upbeat, considering the state of journalism in this country. I told them about the New Haven Independent — the wave of the future!