The Big Easy
New Orleans! Arriving in New Orleans was really exciting as most of us have never been before. We had the afternoon to walk around and explore and then went to dinner in the French Quarter and spent the evening on Bourbon Street. Everyone has been looking forward to our weekend here and an anonymous staff member even got a tattoo within ours of our arrival! But has yet to tell his mother…
Going to the ACORN organization and talking with Beth was very insightful because we got a different perspective of the effects of Katrina. While we learned about the damage from the storm actually hitting in Bay St. Louis and all of the problems from wind and flooding, in New Orleans we heard about the damage in Ward 9 from levies breaking after the storm.
After hearing about the hardships and huge obstacles preventing rebuilding and renovation, we went on a bus tour to see Ward 9. Desolate is the perfect word to describe it. To ride through and see so much empty space that used to be homes and X’s spray painted on homes that indicate how many bodies of people or animals were found is shocking to see in person as opposed to on the news. Walking around what used to be a neighborhood and taking pictures, we were all shaken by what we read spray painted on the side of a house most of us had just stopped to take a picture of. It said “1600 people died so you could take this picture.” I felt really guilty and although we were all observing New Orleans compassionately, we did not come to volunteer or do any service. Learning about these dire situations and how much needs to be done but not actually doing any of it is tough. The past few days have been especially emotional because where as the first part of the trip we were dealing with racial issues and inequalities that our group reacted to differently based on our composition, but hearing about people losing everything they own and the face even further problems without hope of ever returning to a normal lifestyle is a situation where our entire group is in the privileged position.