i spent the first night at my cousin's house. he inherited the house from his brother, who -although their house was livable as soon as 6 weeks after the storm- had to move out of the city because his kids were having psychological problems--his 5 year old, for instance was chronically afraid of germs and scrubbed her hands till they bled. anyway, the house is big and so they said they didn't mind if i came and went.
oh, wait- i already wrote about the jazz club, didn't i?
well, the next morning (after his girlfrien'ds kids made me breakfast)
i went to put a sign up at a house i'd like to paint in, so that they might give me permission to paint inside the house,
and i noticed a big group in a prayer circle accross the street and mosied over.
they were kind enough to let me watch and take pictures of them working to clean out someone's house so it can be demolished.
i never understood what exactly a bunch of random people could do to help in a situation like this. a situation where there is clearly shortage of resources, but where there are lots of people. the thing is it is just so much work.
to demolish a house.
hours and hours of hard physical work.
days. weeks.
and when people are trying to get themselves back on their feet they can't not go to work themselves, and even if they can take time off--for instance, my aunt and uncle where interested in this group, because they have been on a list since the hurricane hit to have their mother-in law's house demolished. still waiting.
they have cleaned out their own home and their sister's home and just don't have the time or energy to give to another house.
so-it really is incredible what need these volunteers are filling.
this house was also an elderly woman, who couldn't do it on her own. it'd just been sitting like this for a year. she probably never even went inside herself. for som eits too tragic, but for a lot of people, older and not as feeble, its simply too dangerous. you have to walk on piles of debree with furniture and rafters and eveyrthing else.
it is incredible still, today how many piles of debree are just making their way to the curb. in every neighborhood. my mom said the first 6 months the whole block was just a pile of debree 8 feet high in everyone's yard. still,
shit. i know how hard it is just to pack up and move. can't imagine havin gto move even the walls out too.
as i was walking away to my car a tour van drove by. tourism will be the only thing to save the city, and ironically, the katrina tour is the most popular thing to do in new orleans these days.
i also saw a car full of chinese men unload from a sedan next door. i had to ask if they were checking out property to buy, but they said (in trying english) that they were just here to see everything, because they have been selling a lot of material here. concrete and lumber and whatnot.
then i went back to my uncle's neighborhood.
a couple highlights.
i went down his street systematically, and took a picture of each house in order. i could have gone on for blocks and blocks, but i stopped at my uncle's house.
i picked my cousin up from school and we went back to her trailer. when we walked up to her trailer she noted that someone had com eby and worked on the trailer while they were away. i guess fema has the keys to all the trailers and this is pretty routine. she said it made her nervous. they had apparantly changed the locks too and she was calling her dad to tell him she was locked out when i noticed that the landmarks my mom had pointed out where missing--the bbq pit and tv antena. heh. i realized we were trying to get in to the wrong trailer. not such a hard thing to do when your neighborhood looks like this:
eh?
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