I guess it was a lot different than what I expected. New Orleans is cleaner and brighter, certainly, than when I saw it last, nearly a year ago. But it has been two years since Katrina, and houses still stand with boarded up windows and the telltale spray-painted X's that show FEMA has come to call.
We were working in the Ninth Ward. It's home to some of the lowest-lying real estate in the entire city, and before the hurricane it was (not coincidentally, as Phil pointed out) home to some of New Orleans' poorest residents as well. It has been two years since Katrina, and there are still houses that stand while they literally rot away, with stagnant water in the pipes and termites in the walls. Our 'gutting crew', as we were called, had to wear masks the whole time we were in the house, and sweated up a storm while we wrenched off doorways with crowbars, literally punched through dry wall so damp that it reminded me of cardboard, and carried out junk by the wheelbarrowful.
In that junk, I saw glimpses of how the house had been, before the hurricane rendered virtually everything useless and moldy. The man who owned the house wasn't sure whether or not he could even have kept working on it if it wasn't for our help. You see, he had been struggling on his own with gutting the house, and was engaged in a battle with the government, which has begun knocking down houses if they can't find proof that a person is really trying to rebuild. The meeting in court to decide this is tomorrow, Wednesday.
He declared our coming to work on his house the best birthday present he could have asked for, revealing that today was his birthday just before we packed up and left. Now, covered in sweat and first-rate New Orleans mud, I can see that our work is truly blessed.
Liz Powers
5 comments:
Thank you for the visual descriptions! I am so glad that you get to be with the homeowners and lift their spirits. God bless you all.
Thank you for the incredible descriptions of all that is going on! I am not one to believe in coincides... the fact that you all were working on this man's house on his birthday is truly God's design. God Bless all of you and stay safe.
You all inspire me and make me think of a favorite poem (and I hope I'm not abusing copyrights too badly by sharing):
To be of use
by Marge Piercy
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
"To be of use" by Marge Piercy © 1973, 1982.
From CIRCLES ON THE WATER © 1982 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. and Middlemarsh, Inc.
Your group is experiencing the fact that New Orleans is one of many place where Nature, Man, and Bureaucracy intersect. The gentleman's gratitude on his birthday illustrates a perfect reason to do this work, and to feel good about it.
Thank you for taking the time to describe what you have been doing. Obviously, there should be thousands of us down there helping out, but I am so grateful that you are there, and I know that everyone that you are helping feels the same way.
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