Cat in New Orleans

It is easy when placed in a situation like what we all found ourselves in upon arriving in New Orleans, to focus only on the negative and what needs to be done to correct it. The incomprehensible lack of attention to the struggle of the residents in New Orleans on a National level and the unfortunate lack of adequate response on a city level makes it easy to leave with a bad taste in your mouth. Not for the city of course, but for the experience. In short, it is easy to focus on anger and sadness. Mostly because of the enormity of the work we had to complete and the general emotional and physical exhausted-ness of most of us on the trip, we had been virtually unable to actually see the city from a perspective that was anything but sad. It is important to see these things, to realize how the neighborhoods look and understand the struggle of the residents who live within them. But, as I realized within the last 24 hours of our stay, it is equally important to discover and realize the amazing soul that is so vibrant within the city. This is important because it provides context, a view into what the city was and what it could be. It also provides a frame of reference to those who may now look at New Orleans as a broken city, rather then realizing the beauty that is still there.

On Friday night, after having what was hands down one of the best meals of the trip at a restaurant owned by one of Steven Jackson’s friends, we went out on the town to experience the night life. It was at this moment that I fell in love with the city. At first I felt slightly guilty about having fun while there was so much work to be done. But I soon realized that my exploration of the music and culture of the city was just as valuable a discovery as my realization of how I could help. It is much easier to commit oneself to doing something when you realize why it is valuable. Beyond the obvious fact that these are people who have been handed a great injustice, helping New Orleans is worth any effort possible because it is a place of such amazing and diverse cultural experiences.

On Saturday morning, Megan, Patricia, Shawn and I met with Dan Etheridge, active member and coordinator of the Porch Project. We showed him the Porch’s new blog and spent time reviewing the software and teaching him how to use the platform’s various features. He will be traveling to New York in May to meet with us again to review the progress of the blog and to discuss further possibilities of collaboration on the project.

After the meeting, we went to the French Quarter for lunch. It was fun but it was also a very strange juxtaposition to the neighborhoods we had spent so much time in during the rest of the week. I myself ignored the girls gone wild posters and crazy St. Patrick’s Day invaded bars. But thats just me.

On the fourth day of our trip, I spent most of my time at the Xavier University Art Department working on various projects. I assisted Megan MacMurray in constructing the blog for the Porch project and began to work on the Lower 9th Ward Homeowner’s Association blog, including constructing the header and writing various static pages explaining the association’s goals. I also met with Ashley Thomas, an Xavier student, to discuss possibilities for the Voices of New Orleans project, a call-in freeformed open circle that the freeformed group created to facilitate easy means of conversation about various topics facing the citizens of New Orleans. Ashley provided some valuable input into the structure and purpose of the circle. She also offered to re-record the opening menu of the circle. This was a very necessary and important change to the project because it would provide those who called in with someone who sounds like them in accent, thus giving more familiarity to the project. Ashley also introduced the idea of specific topics for callers to discuss. She felt that three very important areas for discussion were the Road Home project, crime within the city and a space for teenagers to voice their specific concerns. Ashley also offered to be a local advocate for the project and plans to take business cards advertising the number to call to various places within the city including local high schools. She hopes that if the project takes off she will be able to present to the Mayor through an ongoing relationship that the radio station she works for maintains with him.

In the afternoon, Megan, Yonatan, Dan, Caleb. Paris and I went to the Lower 9th Ward with Mary Hill, a student at Xavier, and Ron Bechet, Director of Xavier’s Art Department. First, we went to have a meeting with Linda Jackson at NENA, the Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association, located in the heart of the Lower Ninth Ward. Linda also runs the Lower 9th Ward Homeowner’s Association, an organization dedicated to facilitating the return of neighborhood residents, especially senior citizens, and to preventing the land of the neighborhood from being sold to investors. Linda was an animated, intelligent and incredibly hard working personality and amazing individual. She has created a map which depicts the residents that she has been able to get in touch with since the storm. The green pins are those residents that have returned home, the yellow are those that are unsure whether they can return home (mostly due to financial concerns), the white are FEMA trailers and the red are those that will not be returning:

After meeting with Linda, I felt very strongly that I wanted to continue to work with her to a get a blog up for the Lower 9th Ward Homeowner’s Association and to facilitate donations to the organization, which is desperately needs.