new orleans and buras march 2007


contents:


arriving in new orleans

3-14-04

when i was in the airport in madison waiting for my plane to chicago, a plane came in and off comes francis halzen (the physics professor i made powerpoints about the ice cube neutrino telescope project for). we did a silly joke double take when we was each other. so we chatted a bit. he was back from a conference somewhere and i told him i was off to new orleans.

it was an uneventful plane flight. i wanted to get some pictures of snowy wisconsin from the air but the snow was already starting to melt. i got a few mediocre ones of illinois.

when i got to new orleans and got my duffle bag with the tent and everything, and looked around for juan each place i went, coming out of the plane, at the baggage area, and then i waited at median. i always get so frazzled traveling and think people will forget about me, so i waited with some anxiety. but after about 20 minutes, finally juan and turtle and andrea and kaitlin came to pick me up. i saw a car drive by with juan looking out expectantly, and was all happy. they pulled up and juan got out and hugged me a long hug. i was so glad to see him.

we put my stuff in the car and drove to common ground. it's a big chaotic school, an old grade school building that was wrecked in hurricane and flood, and was going to be bulldozed, but common ground cleaned it out fixed it up enough to be safe to enter, and volunteers stay there, and some local people. tons of people were coming and going, whole groups of people were arriving. in the front and side are entrances there are concrete steps and sort of stoop/porch area, and people sit and hang out there.

juan and i walked up and there was a guy with nice tattoos of skyscrapers sort of block stylized buildings with little windows on his arm and i said, "nice tattoo". we went to the front desk, folding tables set up in the main entry way, where a couple of people sit (with piles of papers). different people take shifts at the front desk. there was a mixup about whether we were staying there. juan and i were talking to people trying to straighten things out. i told one guy at the desk that i emailed amelia (the outreach person or some such) and he seemed incredulous, which seemed strange to me. it was all very confusing, but we finally got things settled and juan put my duffel bag upstairs and found us a mattress and cot.

juan went off to talk to people he knows there, and i was so tired (especially from dramamine) i went into the couchateria, a big room full of couches, church pews, a piano, a row of computers for internet, a set of weights, and took a nap, even though lots of people coming and going, talking, playing piano, lifting weights etc. i actually fell asleep and dreamed a little dream about a blue and white handkerchief. i told juan that and he said, "got some rem". the people playing piano played old time favorites like chopsticks.

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new orleans - going out on first night

i napped about an hour and then i heard drumming and it was juan outside on the steps. and andrea came back and picked us up and we went to the french quarter and met other people and had beignets and coffee at cafe du monde. the waiter was really funny, kind of old time comedian wiseguy fast talker. this one girl we were with whose name i forgot was talking about how she was a big baby but now a small adult. there was an unattended table nearby with a plate of beignets on it and we were wondering whose it was, and after a while juan went over to the table and asked the people nearby if anyone was sitting there -- it turned out yes, a lady took her kid to the bathroom ) and juan said something like, "oh i was going to steal them," about the beignets. but we had plenty at our table and chicory coffee. there was a very long line at the bathroom so juan and i went to a nearby bar and they said customers only and juan said, "if i give you a dollar can she use the bathroom?" and i guess that made them feel stupid because the lady said to me, "go ahead", (and didn't take a dollar) it was a kind of fancy bar connected to an expensive restaurant.

there was discussion about what to do and it was decided we should all stay at this guy mark's house that night, and in morning go to buras, after going out to hear a band, and so we dropped the two girls who met us off where they were staying (emergency communities' new kitchen in nola -- i never got over there, though) and drove back to common ground and juan got my duffel bag and we went back to the french quarter and met turtle and caitlin and had supper at a sort of fancy restaurant. but it wasn't expensive and they gave tons of food. i had a shrimp po boy i couldn't finish (so had nice breakfast the next day). there were all these neon sings and decorations so the light was just beautiful. juan was asking the waitress if he could have extra shrimp but it turned out they give you so much shrimp on the po boys anyway he didn't need any extra. the waitress was funny and joking with us. i had a martini and a cup of coffee. also turtle and andrea had these stuffed mushrooms and gave us some -- really good.

juan and i talked about some transgender stuff at the restaurant, just between us while the others were talking to each other -- we were lined up at the counter -- it is funny, juan still says funny things like he knows what gender he is, he just has to look down. but i keep saying it isn't always that easy. i said maybe if they have all these anti oppression workshops at common ground i could say something about transgender stuff.

i was kind of tipsy by then and thinking how great all the colors were, and took a few random street pictures. i had very nostalgic feeling coming up, being back in new orleans, having sights and sounds and smells coming up in my memories of childhood. seeing shells in the gravel, remembering the shell alley behind grandma and grandpa's house, having a strange but comforting distant half remembered childhood feeling in the humid sunset, seeing the pink sky in the still warm damp air.

when we were walking down the street we saw some weird object on the sidewalk and got closer and somebody said, "it's a fucking tampon", and i said it's a regular one not a fucking one.

later we went to the maple leaf (bar?) and saw rebirth brass band. i felt depressed and felt uneasy all day, and felt out of place hanging out with all these people i didn't know and they were joking and talking about other people i didn't know, and i was in my seasonal mood disorder spring depression anyway. [depression.html]) it was also loud at the bar. the band was good but i just can't take loud noise and have to wear earplugs or go to quieter areas. so i sat in the back patio and felt weird, even thought juan came out to see me now and then -- the rest of the people we were with were all up by the band. it was an old building with tin ceiling and all, and packed and loud up by the band. but the band was great all dixieland jazz sort of stuff and the guy playing the tuba i mean sousaphone was amazing, made it sound like all these other things and must have powerful lungs.

the bathroom was messy but painted dark red with a big mirror -- i got pictures of it another time. i met this crazy drunk lady in the bathroom and she was showing me how to do this dance to the music. she was all encouraging saying, "come on you can do it," but really, it was painful. kind of shuffling and shifting your weight and it made my hips hurt. later juan said, "come up to the band", so we went right up in front and everybody else was dancing and jumping around but i just stood there and swayed a bit since it hurt my legs and hips so much to try to dance, and later juan or somebody make a joke about old white people dance or something like that, but really it was too painful to go with how the music seemed to go. juan made a joke about how i was just swaying, and i said i have polish rhythm.

when the band ended, we went off to mark's house, only we drove all over the place and in circles and passed one place three times. partly because no one was sure how to get there, partly everybody was stoned and drunk, partly the streets in new orleans are just crazy, all these one way streets and you can't get over to the street you want without a convoluted path. these great songs were on the radio, sir mix a lot's "baby got back" and mims' "this is why i'm hot". juan was singing, "this is why i'm hot, i'm hot because i'm fly, you ain't because you're not", with a big smile on his face. we went under a big spooky looking railroad bridge that curved around, a elevated skeletal rusty metal thing, and there was a bit of fog collected right in that spot, and there was a big peeling billboard looming in the mist, where the road turned under it, and it was all grey and dark with wisps of streetlight on it. it reminded me of this funhouse-hell painting i saw once. we went past it three times. we said we went under the overpass.

we finally found mark's house and tiptoed in at 3am it must have been. mark and some other guy were asleep and we slept in the living room, and turtle and andrea in the study. i slept on the couch, and juan in a sleeping bag on the floor and caitlin in a big recliner chair. i was saying i don't mind sleeping on the floor, and juan said, "your'e 58, you sleep on the couch."

we all woke up around noon (mark & other guy got up early, whispered to turtle and andrea, one of them hugged juan. i didn't know either of them, and they left early in the morning). the apartment was part of a cut up house, so it had weird rooms, a big room with a chandelier and fireplace and high ceiling and some little chopped up rooms, and i looked out the front hall and it was a big long hallway divided by a wall -- two hallways right next to each other -- so maybe it had been two units, then cut up into more-? it was kind of old victorian sort of. they pay $1000/mo for a basically small two bedroom place. there were cracks in the living room floor and no basement (this is new orleans) and plants underneath and one vine was coming up through the floor.

i was all boggled by the spring greenery and took some pictures of the back yard there in the morning when we left. really it was around 1pm i think. andrea and kaitlin were going out to get coffee and i gave them some money for juan and me and to get a roll or something and they came back with all this stuff -- bagels and fresh fruit -- strawberries and kiwi and pineapple etc and cream cheese, and the coffee. so we had a nice breakfast. plus i had some leftover shrimp from last night i'd put in the refrigerator.

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buras, louisiana

then we drove down to buras. it was a pleasant spring day and lots of wildflowers were in bloom along the roadside. as we went farther from new orleans there were more and more ruins. there are still signs of the flood and hurricane in new orleans but there are a lot of fixed up and under construction buildings already. but farther away was less construction and more ruins. there were still big hunks of rusty metal and long shreds of plastic stuck in the trees. i didn't see any spanish moss. i guess it all got killed or blown someplace else? there were still clumps of mistletoe in some of the oak trees. i remember when i was a kid everything had spanish moss, it even hung from the telephone wires. farther along you couldn't see any water (river or gulf) because we were inside the line of levees. it was bright spring green grass and ruins. there were pastures with sheep and cattle and we saw some emus. there were ruined houses with white fema trailers next to them scattered around. some places it was just a fema trailer and some concrete -- what used to be the foundation. buras was tumbledown ruins.

we came along the highway and turned in to this overgrown weedy parking lot and drove up a weedy cracked side road past a big pile of ruins and then andrea parked the car. somebody said, "here we are". emergency communities has a kitchen in the ruin of the ymca buildings. we got out and i was looking around at the ruins and puddles from the rain, and one of the first people i saw walking along was pat (who i mistakenly thought was named sue, back in arabi), the woman who was at arabi last year with her husband roger and they have greyhounds, are part of this greyhound rescue group. so we said hi all surprised, and hugged. also i saw maria and two guys whose names i forgot, who had been at arabi, were there. also later i saw isaac who had been at arabi.

i asked juan where can i put my tent and he said he was tired and let's do it later and i said, "no no, i'll do it all myself, just show me where", so he showed me where his tent was and there was a space nearby on a wood platform where i put my tent. his tent was a bit bigger and he had it fixed up nice with some odds and ends, like a rug, and we sat and talked a little. i was talking about this stupid song on the radio, some cooing woman singing to her "man" do you love my body" i was thinking what happens when she gets old and wrinkled.

there is a lot of kind of disturbing music on the radio these days, very explicit sex songs, but in a creepy way, like girls singing about how they'll do anything for you baby and boys singing about i get what i want when i want and i want it some specific way -- it's all dehumanizing degrading sex as a commodity, and just descriptions of fucking -- not having sex or making love, but fucking, like it's something low. just exploitation and power, not people interacting with other equal people. and such antiquated gender models, what next -- the girls singing "oh baby i'll gladly take half the pay you do for the same job"?

i was really wired from the coffee we had that morning and was just buzzing around. i whipped all the tent pieces out and put them together fast and set everything up, made my little bed of philip's sleeping bag and sheets and blankets and organized my stuff -- clothes & sketchbook and put the flashlight and water bottle by the pillow etc. then i went to "check in" with andrea -- she had a form with emergency contact and things like that for me to fill out. i asked what can i do right now and she said the dining area could be tidied up for dinner, so i just buzzed around, swept the floor, wiped off the tables and counters, arranged the salt and pepper shakers. i couldn't sit still. i help serve, and met another maria, from liverpool, england. she said she wanted to do something to help out and searched the web and found emergency communities and came here for vacation. i was thinking, it must be expensive to fly here from england, but if you plan ahead and get a cheaper rate, once you're here, it's a cheap vacation since you have free room and board and there isn't much to spend money one like shopping or going out.

they just had some problems with the local board of health and were shut down, for things like a hippie guy was making coffee while just wearing shorts, no shoes or shirt. so they were back open that day, dinner being the first meal again after several days i guess, and following the rules as exactly as possible. so that meant for serving you had to have a hat or a hair net. i had already put on gloves to serve the food, so this guy put the hair net on me and it was tight and it was like he was putting a balloon on my head, and juan was laughing and took pictures of me.

after supper maria and i went and washed dishes. they use paper plates and throwaway plastic forks and all the was to wash were the big pots and ladles and the serving things -- i can't remember what they are called? cambros? big plastic double wall insulated things with lids you can put hot or cold food in and it stays hot or cold. so it was easy but awkward sloshing around. they use propane burners and the bottoms of the big kettles get all black with soot that comes off on everything, rubs on your clothes and gets on your hands and you end up with your hands dirtier after washing dishes than before. it was kind of aggravating -- you'd get a platter all clean and put it on the rack to dry and see it has a big black fingerprint on it and have to wash it off again. also it takes a while to fill up the sinks and we had to check it with a thermometer for the correct dish washing temperature, and the last rinse you have bleach and i splattered some on my black shirt so now it has pale peach pink spots. but we had a good time joking around. maria is real nice. also we were alarmed because somebody was supposedly signed up to wash dishes and didn't show up and we just did them because we were there and civic minded and all.

there was a circle that night -- a meeting of everyone. it started raining and rained all night. the building had a front wall and partial side walls and was open in back, just the supports still there. when the first e. c. people got there, it was full of a couple feet of muck and debris and they cleared it all out. the roof is metal, so when it rains it makes a racket. so it was hard to talk at the circle. people would yell, and one guy "translated" for maria since her voice wasn't loud, he'd shout what she said so everybody could hear. when we first sat down this guy mark who is some sort of head/admin something said everyone say their name and favorite dinosaur. there were about 30 or 40 people there -- some long term volunteers, some americorps people, and odds and ends like me. a lot of people like stegosauruses it turns out. also t-rex. one guy said triceratops. i was going to say stegosaurus, or brontosaurus, or pterodactyl, but just said i love all dinosaurs. one business item was what mark called the "incessant drumming" and said no drumming after 10pm. juan and turtle and andrea and others all drum, and turtle had the drum juan made him. maria and i thought we should mention how whoever was supposed to do the dishes wasn't there, so that's what she had the guy translated.

after circle i went to take a shower. they had a cute little bath house with four showers, nice new clean ones. it was pouring rain by then and i was exhausted. i got some clean clothes and towel and put them in a plastic bag and went to take a shower, but right outside the tent building there were these boards across a big puddle, and they were slippery and i slipped, just surprise sudden wham, into the puddle with a big splash. somebody said, "are you ok?" and i said, "yes, my towel is still dry!" i scraped my hand though and it still hurts a bit now (in may) so maybe i chipped or bruised the bone-? it turned out they had clean towels and lots of little sample bottles of shampoo and body wash in the main building by the food to the bath house. but i used the stuff i brought. it was _so nice_ to take a warm shower. i was so tired and grubby. here i'd been traveling on the plane (and all weird from dramamine) and went out to the bar and slept fitfully waking often, in my clothes, and then did all that sweeping and washing etc, and then falling in the cold puddle i was all muddy and tired and grubby so the shower felt wonderful.

there was this cute kind of sardonic girl at circle who was wearing a knit hat and i thought she was neat, met her later and her name is katie, from california. later when i was going back to the tent building to go to bed, she said, "by the way there's a big puddle at the door and boards over it." she told me i can go on the boards to keep out of the puddle (hm but i already found that out ha ha. also the puddles there when it was raining were clear in pretty and nice to walk in.) then i went to bed at around 9pm.

there is a free laundromat in the main building and you can hear the dryers going, off in the distance, that clank of buttons hitting the drums, until late at night. my side had been hurting in wisc, some sort of muscle cramp, and that started up and kept me awake even though i was so tired. it rained all night and rattled and boomed on the metal roof and metal scraped and banged, and some thing, i don't know what, an old piece of machinery, maybe some part of ventilation system, was making this cranking and banging noise now and then when the wind got stronger, like it was trying to start up and run but couldn't. i had disturbing dreams i don't remember, i just work up feeling unsettled. i slept on and off and finally woke up and got dressed and went in to breakfast around 9am. juan was there having breakfast (i was late -- breakfast was almost over) and we had ham and eggs and biscuits.

every morning they have a short morning meeting to talk about what needs to be done and who will do it. i said i'll wash dishes. (i like washing dishes.) also later in the morning maria said she wanted to wash the dining room floor and i said i'd help, so we moved the tables out of the way and got mops and brooms and swept and poured water and pine sol and washed it. it was old chipped painted linoleum and concrete so you couldn't really tell we washed it, but we _knew_ we did. when we rinsed it, we didn't want to use the old grimy mops and someone found some new mop heads, (those string kinds like i remember janitors in grade school using) so we put those on to rinse the floor. we were all excited and happy about new off-white string mop heads. they turned gray by the time we were done. there were some places where the floor was chipped white, and you could see (if you were the one mopping it) that those parts were cleaner. at breakfast they had a little birthday party for this one girl and had balloons, and the next couple days there were balloons floating around. there is a huge fan in the kitchen and we borrowed it to blow on the floor to dry it faster, and some balloons were sucked over and stuck on the back (there were also some floor squeegees in use elsewhere, if we could have used them the floor would have dried quicker, too. i think it is fun to squeegee water across a concrete floor. i did that a lot in the kitchen because water sloshes from the sink and we put everything to air dry on racks so those drip and there is always a big puddle by the sink unless you squeegee it to the drain (a hole in the floor leading out to the grass outside). i had my rubber zorris and they kept slipping on the wet floor and so i took them off and was washing the floor barefoot and some girl came along and scolded me and said the health dept says you can't work in food service areas barefoot. luckily we were almost done then, so i put my zorris on and stepped gingerly around. if she had come along earlier i would have had to defy her since i could hardly walk on that wet floor without almost falling down.

in mid morning i sat on the couch and rested a bit and then walked around and took some pictures. the couches are nice, in a big open space there are a couple of couches and you can see all around and there's a breeze which is nice when it's hot. there were a lot of gnats around the first day i was there, though, and off didn't help. i said i put some off on.

turtle came walking by and said, "hello miss wendy" -- he's sweet and cute. he does a lot of the cooking and runs the kitchen and wants to open his own restaurant, so was learning all the ins and outs of managing one. it was kind of half sun half overcast when i walked around a bit, and the grass and weeds were so green, and lots of flowers everywhere, weeds i don't know the name of, but all over the ruins are plants, green and flowers. there were huge white clovers and those orange pink and yellow little clumps of elderberry like flowers. there were white egrets in the ditches. juan said he didn't like seeing them in that mucky polluted water. we saw a big heron fly by one day. it seemed real open and empty, flat land on the delta between the levees. there weren't many houses around, just some wrecked looking ones across the highway.

different people come and go and hang out in the kitchen and talk or play drums while other people are cooking or washing dishes. i talked to a local guy (d. walker). he's a fisherman. he said there need to be sand islands again to protect the cost and that's more important than anything. he said he heard about some rich arab building sand islands in the red sea, made an island in a year of dredging and dumping, and this giant equipment they have and why doesn't the u.s. government get something like that and build sand islands here? he said rebuilding houses right by the shore is foolish, and replanting marshes won't help if they get wiped out because there are no sand islands. he has a website:

www.angelfire.com/la/dwalker/katrina.html

several local people there were fishermen. they had boats, and some kind of fish (i forgot what) was going to be in season or something in another couple weeks and they said they'd make some money then. one lady was the president of the school board, but they didn't have a school now. no school building. i don't know if the kids went someplace far away or were home schooled. also they didn't have a fire department any more. they used to . one guy said he pays $2000/yr homeowners insurance plus $700/yr flood insurance and his house was worth $90,000. (i pay $450/yr homeowners insurance for a $188,000 house) also some people still haven't gotten insurance money from after the storm.

after lunch i sat and listened as juan taught andrea some drumming. juan had me hit a cymbal with the rubber handle of a hammer for a bit. i feel self conscious about anything musical and so inadequate. juan tries to get me to drum sometimes, says here, do this, like tap tap tap and i do it a little and then stop. i didn't go online much -- they had computers but people were using them and it was also good to have a break from computers. but i send a message to everybody the 2nd day in buras, and later once from common ground.

one guy was named jack. from san diego, a bit older than me. he said he'd been there since the beginning, at arabi and then buras. we talked a bit about california. he said he used to hitchhike to san francisco and he saw hot tuna play here. he was drumming with andrea and juan and turtle and all.

at breakfast maria said she's from liverpool, so juan started talking in a fake british accent, and i said it sounds gangsta, so he talked more gangsta. he said he wants to see big ben and i said, it's the clock? and maria said it's the bell. the second day there was sunny, and i walked around and took a whole roll of infrared pictures of the ruins right where we were.

march 16, 2007 friday

that night was clear clear clear and you could see so many stars so bright. juan helped me wash dishes last night. people were drumming in the kitchen and somebody brought beer, so i had a beer. i went and took a shower but was so tired i went to bed. other people had a party at the fire circle out in back and had s'mores and beer and music until about 3am. i was depressed and lay there felling like a real loser because i didn't go to the party and could hear people laughing and wanted to get up and join them but was too tired. i got up around 2:30am to pee and i saw in the distance juan running between the buildings and later saw him running back with a pallet -- he was getting wood for the fire and didn't see me, and i didn't wave or call his name or anything. also from the portopotties i could see three people walking towards the back of the building little silhouettes in the streetlight like in some spy movie. just kind of eerie.

i woke up at 7:30 and had breakfast, and cleaned up the dining and coffee area and went to the distribution tent and helped stack cans on shelves. but then several other people came along and here wasn't enough to do, and i went out and saw andrea and asked her what needs to be done and she the showers need cleaning, so i went and did that. it wasn't bad, since they are brand new one piece shower bathtub units, and you can just spray spic and span on them to clean them. so i did that, swept the concrete floors, wiped down the showers, picked up dirty towels and trash, put stray clothes in the lost and found, emptied the wastebaskets, organized the soaps and shampoos etc. i don't think it took more than an hour to do all four. i was all buzzed with coffee again and moving too fast, doing things like it was a desperate race.

after the showers i went and lay on the couch for a bit to try to stop buzzing. it was clear and sunny and nice to just sit there and hear the distant sounds of people wind etc. maria, the one who has been at e.c. a long time wanted to make something easy for lunch so she made chicken salad, only some people thought it was tuna when they looked at it and then thought it didn't taste right until we said it's chicken then they said ohhh. i did the lunch dishes, and drank more coffee -- i get so tired and then so wired, up and down. juan was still asleep from partying so late. at breakfast some people who went to bed early were complaining about all the noise last night. it didn't bother me noise wise, it wasn't that loud, just feeling like a loser and missing out bothered me. i was still depressed and even suicidal thoughts floating around, i was like that in madison and still like that in buras and new orleans, my spring freak out, but it helped being away from my routine and loneliness and be busy doing things that were fun and helping people and it was so good to be with juan. it was funny in the night, people would come stand by my tent to talk on their cell phones -- step away from the party to somewhere quiet but forget people are in the tents, so i heard some "private" conversations.

juan was finally up around lunchtime. a bunch of americorps people were there and the party was their last night and they left the next day and it seemed really empty then. we sat at a table with a bunch of girls and juan was all silly jolly joking and told the girls that i'm a man and was in the gay movement in san francisco in the 70s and that i'm more perverted than he is. i don't know what they thought of that. he also said how he dreamed the other night he was a tyrannosaurus rex that could climb trees and jump around, and some other things happened, and it sounded like a dream version of the circle in the rain and driving to buras.

i sat a while on the couches and talked to katie and later caitlin came along. katie and i both take antidepressants. she also said to try this stuff provigil to stay awake -- for narcolepsy and all, i have to check it out, i don't have narcolepsy but i sure am tired all the time and don't sleep well at night. i felt ok when busy but got really down and out alone. i wanted to talk to juan (when he was still asleep) and wanted to paint and stay in buras longer than the plan -- juan wanted to go to new orleans the 17th for the st. patrick's day parade. i felt weird about common ground, just stopping in there, it wasn't very welcoming and it was so chaotic. buras as nice and relaxed, also out in the country and even when you are "inside" you are still "outside" i always feel better outside, with plants and trees and the wind and sky and rain and sun and stars. always have even as a little kid.

there were some chairs out in front of the building and one day these people were sitting there and this lady said, "is that your hair?" and i said yes and she said she thought it was a wig at first and that i looked cute like a baby doll, with my white braids.

i washed the lunch dishes, which weren't much. in buras maybe 30 or 40 people came in for meals -- local people and volunteers, and there were usually only 4 or 5 of those cambro things and 5 or 6 pots and some bowls and utensils. not like arabi where thousands of people came through for meals and dozens of cambros and pots for each meal plus there they had dishes and silverware to wash too. at buras they had paper plates and plastic forks that got thrown out. i didn't like that but i guess that's how they had to do it for then at least.

turtle made pizzas for supper, some meat and some vegetarian, and the vegetarian one was really good -- it had fresh thin sliced eggplant, green peppers and mushrooms, and topped with artichoke hummus, and on thin crispy edged crust. it was excellent and i am going to try making it.

juan showed me and some other people his drawings and they are really good. very detailed and kind of psychedelic. i scanned some pencil drawings of his this winter and printed them on heavy paper (somerset satin) and he drew over the printed lines and added a lot to them in india ink. we talked of scanning them again and then he could make color versions and i think they'd make good etchings or lithographs.

we washed dishes after supper and it was nice in the kitchen with juan. we had a good system down, too, and he was scraping the pots and i was washing them, and he said "i'm glad you're here". i said i'm glad to be there too, with him, and being at buras. it made me feel better he said that, too, since i was feeling so depressed and paranoid. i was distracted being busy but still had creepy feelings all the time.

that night it was really windy. i felt sick in the evening, and was looking and asking around for some baking soda, and this woman brought me some pepto bismol from the calm tent, and later i still felt ill and ran into her and another guy again and the guy said peppermint tea will help, so i asked juan if he'd make me some tea and he did, only the tea bag ripped and little chunks of mint leaves were floating in it and got stuck in my teeth, but it did make me feel better. juan and i did laundry and sat on the couch by the washing machines under a sleeping bag. first i was having hot flashes plus feeling sick so was sitting there in my sleeveless top and cotton skirt and juan was under the sleeping bag with his coat on saying how can you do that, but later i felt cold and got under the sleeping bag too. the wind was blowing inside as well as out, since the walls are open, and the lanterns hanging from the ceiling in the dining room were swinging crazily.

we snuggled and talked and waited for the laundry. it was weird hearing the dryers hum and bang and the wind whistle past. for a while katie came by and chatted with us, and for a while this woman who i only see around at night came in and started doing her laundry, just as our stuff was almost done. the light was really nice on the washing machines and patchy peeling paint metal wall behind them, and i took a black and white picture and meant to take a color one later but didn't get to.

when we got our laundry done we went to bed. it was windy all night and scary. things were creaking and banging and it was hard to sleep with all the racket, plus thinking how i just have the cloth tent over my head and what if some piece of the ceiling comes off and hits me. a metal pole was rolling around in the wind on the concrete floor. in the morning everybody was talking about how it was so noisy and scary last night -- a lot of us couldn't sleep and were afraid something would hit us. one guy told me on a different windy night several of the tents on the platform over to the side of the tent building got pushed off the edge (not with people in them, but the people whose tents they were were quite dismayed when they saw that).

march 17

i cleaned the dining room in the morning after breakfast, swept, tidied, wiped off the tables etc. i was talking with katie as we sat on the chairs in the back, big open concrete space in the back of the building, with just a few chairs, where we have morning meeting, and it's nice sitting there, cool but some sun coming in, morning breeze, very pleasant. she said she's on zoloft and i said i'm on prozac. she's funny and kind odd sardonic and i like her. it was fairly cool that morning and i actually had to wear a shirt over my tank top. my stomach still was bothering me a bit.

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new orleans - st patrick's day parade

after lunch we drove up to new orleans. andrea had to go pick up pat and roger's daughter at the airport, and then katie and caitlin were going to the new emergency communities kitchen in the 9th ward (which i never got over to see) and juan and i were going to common ground. it was a nice sunny day and we saw all the greenery and wildflowers and levees, and sheep and emus and cattle in fields, and egrets in the ditches, ruins and fema trailers, and we had raucous rap and hip hop music on the radio (which i like except for the exploitative backwards gender stereotype sex lyrics).

we stopped at a store and got snacks and i gave juan some money and he came back with ice cream bars for us. we saw a hawk swoop down on something in the grass by the roadside. at one point these cars ahead were slowing down and stopping, and there was a dachshund puppy in the middle of the road running around in confusion and fear and we got all freaked out and andrea pulled over and stopped and some other people were stopped and getting out of their cars to help the puppy and a truck came roaring up and we all were afraid it would hit the puppy but it slowed and swerved in time, and the people from the house nearby came running out and a boy ran and picked up the puppy and carried it back to safety. we were all so relieved and glad it was safe, and so freaked that we might have seen it get killed. one house that had been fixed up had two giant pink flamingoes in the yard, like 8 feet tall. there were billboards for some hospital or something that said "now treating more tumors" which i thought was a bizarre slogan and made me think of the old punk version of the song you give me fever, only it was sung you give me tumor.

when we got to common ground, it was again much confusion and chaos, and people sort of giving me a hard time -- this guy asked if i registered using the web form and i said it wasn't working so i emailed and he acted like he didn't believe me. juan was wandering off and talking to people and i said, "please stay with me and help get things figured out and help me get settled in". this girl gave me the standard from to fill out about emergency contacts etc. but she said she "strongly recommended" me to get a watch so i can get to meals and anti-oppression workshops etc. on time. so that made me feel weird. very intimidated and uncomfortable. and they said lock up your valuables, so that mede me paranoid. plus i still felt depressed and frazzled. there were big signs on the walls about the schedule, what time meals are what time work crews went out and came back, etc.

juan took my stuff upstairs and i went up and we got a cot and a mattress, and set down our stuff, and juan said it's not as regimented as they say and don't worry about it, but i still did. when i had emailed several weeks ago, they told me there was "no place safe" to hang up laundry to dry and you can't just do hand wash, but when we went upstairs to the old classrooms were people stayed, i noticed some people had run string from nails or coat hooks or whatever and had some laundry hanging up. there were still construction paper cutout decorations on the bulletin boards. juan said there's not that much thievery, just don't be stupid -- like leave a camera or pile of money just sitting there. i still locked my camera and money in a locker (i brought a combination lock and there were little lockers in the halls) when i didn't have them with me. juan just put a blanket or his coat over his drum when he didn't take it with him. the rooms had beds, cots, sleeping bags lined up along the walls and the central area open so you could walk around, and somebody had a sort of tent made of sheets in one corner. there was maybe room for 16 people that way, and then there were suitcase, knapsacks, piles of clothes and blankets and stuff scattered all over.

i already had on a white skirt with green leaves and juan wanted to find something green. he took one of my other skirts with green leaves on it and had it through his belt loop like a kind of sash and wore his olive green scarf on his head. then we got a ride with some other people in to see the st patrick's day parade. it was a pick up truck with one of those weird flat metal covers on the back, so they had the cover propped up and about four guys crouched under it. juan rode in back. i rode in front with this perky chatty girl and this guy, duggers (?) whose truck it was.

we got to where the parade was and it had already passed and all these people were walking along laden with mardi gras beads, and street sweepers were raking up all the beads and vegetables and toys and trash on the street, big piles of it. someone told us the parade was looping around and so we went farther over and parked on a side street and got to a place on a nice tree lined street with older houses and things fixed up (not wrecked stuff all over) and waited for the parade and saw the whole thing. it was a warm sunny afternoon. we were with several other guys from common ground who were all kind of sleazy in a way. we stopped at a liquor store and i got a heineken in a can that they put in a bag so i can drink it on the street. the other guys got liquor plus stopped in at several bars and got really drunk. this one guy had the nastiest laugh, a growly hehh hehh hehh like you wouldn't want to hear alone late at night. there was lots of stuff in the street and piled up on the sidewalks where the parade had already gone by, and juan got a stuffed snake which he hooked on his belt loop. he also got a big green plastic cigar that i think was also useable as a squirt toy. i walked along picking up beads -- i was trying to find as many colors as possible. so we were already bedecked by the time we got to watch the parade.

juan and i stood under a big tree (i noticed there wasn't any spanish moss -- where did it all go?) and this lady and her young, maybe teenage daughter were standing near us and juan was talking to them a lot. we stood there looking down the street and finally the lady and i saw some squarish thing several blocks away that seemed to be moving slowly. then all these rows of guys in kilts with tons of beads came marching past, and finally the floats. the floats were big boxy things, double decked, with people on both levels, sometimes dressed up, like a batch of girls in evening gowns, and sometimes in everyday clothes, throwing beads, toys, cabbages, onions, carrots and potatoes. they also threw off shopping bags and a lot of people had their shopping bags brimming with mardi gras beads. i thought that was weird and wasteful to throw all this food in the street, but i did see a guy walking along with a cardboard box and picking up all the non-smashed vegetables, so i was glad some of it didn't go to waste. the floats all had similar decorations, like they were all designed by one person. each one had a kind of creepy statue thing in front -- one had a cupid, one a wonder woman sort of thing, one a leprechaun, one a cowboy sort of thing, all kind of caricaturish and slightly disturbing. each float was pulled by a tractor, and some of the tractor guys were just bored, plugging along at their job, while others were smiling and waving. one was a burly bald guy and he had a cabbage leaf on his head for a sun hat. one float went by and a lady was throwing little rubber dolphins, so juan ran alongside and tried to get me one, but didn't. i got hit right in the face with some beads. there was a balcony across the street and people on the floats were tossing stuff to the people on the balcony and they were good at catching it. juan yelled "over here" and held up a paper cup when a girl was throwing onions off a float, and caught the onion right in the cup. i had so many beads on i said i felt strangely weighed down. after the parade went by, we walked along the street and picked up even more beads, and odd toys, like these little plastic leprechauns with skoosh ball spikes sticking out of their middles, and juan got a green leprechaun pipe whistle that was piercing. the street was just covered with stuff, and it was kind of unsettling when the cars started driving through and crunching over beads and smashing cabbages.

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new orleans - common ground

we got back just in time for supper and came in and we dumped all our beads and toys on our beds and went down to the dark cavernous dining room. it used to be a gymnasium and auditorium -- there was a stage at one end, and a door to the little kitchen off one side, and doors to the showers on either side of the stage, and there was a door to outside too. there are long folding tables and chairs, and some racks full of mostly plastic dishes and cups (like the cheap kind you usually throw away) and a few china dishes, and a long row of tables where they serve the food, and near the racks, tables with washtubs to wash your dishes, two tubs of hot sudsy water, two of hot rinse water, two of cold bleach water. everybody washes their own dishes, and then the big pots etc are washed at the dish pit outside the kitchen door. it was kind of gross since some people didn't do a very good job, and you'd take a plastic bowl/cup (used for soup, coffee, whatever) and it might have a film of grease on it. it was a lot more lax sanitary-wise than emergency communities, too. sometimes you could spoon out your own food from the containers, and the people serving didn't have hair nets or their hair tied back and didn't always have plastic gloves. sometimes pigeons came into the dining room and flew around. there were a couple of open windows and a door. sometimes they'd be in there most of the day or all night, but then they'd find their out eventually.

the first dinner we had at common ground was chicken soup. just soup, nothing else. other nights there were more items than one. after supper a girl whose name i can't remember, but who was real nice, showed me around. she showed me the showers -- cold except a couple had hot water in the middle of the day, and there were chairs lined up outside the showers to wait if you got there and other people were already using them (sometimes it is almost an hour wait to get in and people even eat their supper while sitting there waiting, but i ended up going at odd times and didn't have to wait), and she showed me where the "med cave" was, where you could get band aids and antiseptic and all that, and these sinks and water filters on each floor. you couldn't drink the water from the sinks but could use it for washing, and the filtered water was safe to drink. there were three floors and on each floor there was somebody sitting in the hallway day and night -- sort of security guard. people took turns for a few hour's shifts and sometimes had friends along so you'd see several people sitting there chatting or playing cards, but sometimes just a lone person reading late at night. she told me you could ask questions at the front desk (there was a big table in the main entryway and two people always on duty to check people in etc), and showed me bulletin boards that had stuff about schedules but also things like talent shows.

juan went out to the french quarter with some people and i was so tired i stayed and tried to go to sleep. there was just bright overhead fluorescent lights for lighting, so it was either dark or glaring light. some people needed the lights on and were sorting their stuff etc, i was lying there and one guy asked if i minded having them on and i said its ok, but then it was hard to try to doze off -- i had a pillow over my eyes. also this one guy had a tv on and it was kind of blaring, how tvs do even when they aren't that loud. i took a tranquilizer but still felt all frazzled and had tears in my eyes and felt like i just wanted to be somewhere else. i asked the guy with the tv to please turn it down, and he did, he seemed all sheepish and embarrassed and i didn't mean to do that, just have it a bit quieter. this girl near me was talking to me a bit and i said something like nice to meet you, but she turned out to be the girl who had been with us at the parade that day, that was how confused and out of it i was -- i thought she seemed familiar. finally nobody needed the light on so someone turned it off and several people came in and went to bed and i tired to sleep but felt so creepy and not wanting to be there at all.

juan came back for a bit and got his drum and went outside to the front steps and drummed a bit. i liked it, but it was a bit after 10pm and somebody yelled "shut the fuck up!" out the window at juan, and i kind of giggled in the bed. juan came back later and i was glad he was there. i said, "your drumming didn't go over too well", and he said he wanted to blow the (ear piercing) whistle he got at the st patrick's day parade, but didn't, and i said that _really_ wouldn't go over very well.

march 18, 2007

i woke up early. well, they wake everybody up at 6:30am, either by people yelling "wake up!" or by people singing do wop sort of stuff or by some guy playing the saxophone in the echoing hallways. juan was still asleep, but some other people got up to go off to gut houses and other work. i got some coffee and some weird breakfast -- they had sort of icky scrambled eggs with a strong metallic taste and oatmeal i thought was some sort of coffee cake because it was so thick. but the oatmeal was good with pancake syrup on it. there was a table off to one side with water, syrup, and some other odds and ends on it, and the container of coffee. it turned out they just made one thing of coffee so you had to get there right on time. i went down shortly after they woke people up and some other girls were waiting for coffee, too, so we sat there quite silently, but then when we got the coffee we started talking and i really felt like i was gabbing away. stuff like where are you from, how long have you been here etc.

i went to the front desk and asked if it was ok to wash off the dining room tables (since they were kind of disgusting, sticky with stuff from dinner last night plus breakfast) and the girl at the desk said yes great idea go ahead, so i found some sponges and water and started wiping them off, but halfway through a man and woman came in, local people who hung around, i'm not sure if they lived there in the building but they came there for meals, and they said to me "thank you for doing so much for us", so i guess they meant common ground for "you" since i just got there, and they wanted to wipe off the tables to do something in return. so they finished up and i felt kind of stupid, like i took away somebody's job.

then, bishop, the guy who was kind of running the kitchen came by and said, "did you want to help in the kitchen?" (i had met him the day before and had said i wanted to do kitchen stuff) so i went with him to the kitchen and several other people were there and we made about 100 sandwiches for the house gutting crews. we had an assembly line of slathering mustard and mayonnaise on bread and plunking down sliced ham i think it was, from last night's dinner, and stacking them up in cambros. then we cut up onions and things for lunch and dinner there. they have really sharp knives and i accidentally just kind of brushed my had against one and cut the palm of my left hand, so i went to the med cave for a band aid. i was appalled at what a mess it was. nothing like the nice tidy pleasant, even pretty, calm tent at buras. there were bottles of alcohol open with no lid in sight, all kinds of crumpled paper and wrappers and q-tips etc on the floor, plus huge dust bunnies, and a bed with boxes and an old window fan and a lot of lint and grunge, and half tipped over boxes of stuff all over.

i found some bandaids and antiseptic and went back to the kitchen and bishop said, "you came back!" he said when people get cut they go for a bandaid and disappear. bishop was nice and we joked around. he's in his 30s and we were joking a bit about kids and their music. but i still felt really weird and creepy inside. like a fish out of water. i kept thinking, what am i doing here? i felt so ineffectual and like i'm under scrutiny, like the air stung, plus i was still depressed and suicidal anyway, from how i am in spring, how i was in wisc before i came down there. i also felt bad because i wanted to take pictures and juan said i shouldn't, that people don't want their pictures taken, that they'd think i was a narc. he was feeling paranoid about stuff like that and i shouldn't have listened, but i was so afraid of being offensive and so intimidated anyway. i wanted to take pictures of the people i met and of things like cutting onions in the kitchen but instead locked my camera in a locker upstairs and felt weird about that.

juan and i were talking and juan said he doesn't want me washing dishes with cuts on my hands; they'll get infected. we went over to the dish pit and i scraped a few pots in preparation to washing, but juan was saying again i shouldn't be washing them. i had a big scrape on one hand from falling in buras, and the knife cut on the other. i decide to try to clean and organize the med cave. i asked several people, juan and bishop and people at the front desk, and they all thought it was a great idea, since the med cave was such a shambles. so i went in and started to organize -- it was overwhelming. it was chaos with stuff strewn everywhere, stuff on the floor, the tables and counters covered with things, bottles, boxes, all mixed up. there were all these boxes of stuff and then the same things in drawers and on shelves, like huge batches of band aids in three places and plastic gloves all over the place, so i was trying to put like with like and consolidate, and i was going to wipe off the tables and sweep the floor. after about an hour though, juan came in and told me that some woman was "in charge" of the med cave and didn't want anyone else messing around in there, like it was her "turf". i felt real stupid and came out to the front desk and this woman (another person whose name i don't remember, but who was some sort of outreach or coordinator there, and real nice) said "i'm sorry..." kind of sheepishly. i don't know, it was all kinds of things like that, like the med cave, that made me feel uncomfortable there. the next morning, though, i went by and noticed someone had tidied up a bit more after my start, cleared off the table in the middle of the room, thrown out the empty boxes i had stacked up, and had swept the floor.

a bit later we went for a walk in a field a few blocks away. part of it was a dump i think, and part of it used to have houses -- there were still foundations and overgrown streets and broken lamp posts. there were some ruined houses scattered along the edges, and here and there, a fixed up rebuilt house. i took infrared pictures, arty ones, and juan took some, too. far off in the distance beyond some highway bridges you could see trains moving along, tiny things creeping along far away. there was tall grass and clumps of weeds and wildflowers in the field and beautiful later afternoon light. juan wanted me to take a picture of him standing on a foundation and then down on the ground inside it to show how deep it was. we saw some scaffolding, and a man came along on a bicycle and he told us it was his new "green" house habitat for humanity was building for him. he old house was a shack, he said, and he pointed to it, and it was a real shack, just a rickety box of old boards, like a makeshift shed. the new house will have solar water heating and skylights and a porch and looks like it will be really nice. he had mismatched shoes and juan said, "nice shoes". some kid across the street kept yelling for him to come over there and he'd just yell back something like "later". he said he helps gut houses and you are not supposed to pick through the trash that gets thrown out, but people do, and he said he does, and he said, "look what i found". he fumbled in a plastic bag of stuff he had and pulled out a small rusty metal box, ands inside it was old money, wrinkled rust stained dollar bills. he said he also found change now and then, and said the bank takes old water damaged money, and a lot of people have it around here.

in the evening we went out. lots of people were going out to this bar people from common ground hang out at. i think it is called kajuns? about 15 or 20 people were all milling around out in front of the school, saying who is going out? are we walking? does anybody have a ride? etc, and a few groups of 5 or 10 left. we had several false starts, are we walking with this bunch, are we waiting for someone else? juan brought out a bowl of black bean soup and chicken from supper and we were eating that and it was so good, i went back in to get more. they had the cambros full of food sitting out on the table, but when i came in they had just taken them into the kitchen to put away. i went in to get some soup and this white guy with long dreadlocks hanging in his face said i couldn't take any, and i said, it was just out on the table for anyone to take a few minutes ago and i just wanted a refill for my bowl here, and he grudgingly said, "did you wash your hands?" and finally let me take some soup with a long handled ladle. i thought, how ridiculous. has _he_ washed his hands? and he should tie his hair back.

juan was jumping off the steps, trying to do a 720 degree turn in the air. it was funny watching him jump and his coat flying. he'd turn around some, but not 720. a guy came along with this big shiny gold chain necklace on and told us it was gold and cost $200, so we said very nice, but when he left we were saying we couldn't imagine spending so much money on something like that.

finally juan and two guys juan knew and i just met, wes and ted, and i started walking to the bar. it was very quiet and peaceful but eerie, walking down the empty streets at night. we could see orion in the sky, but not many other stars. not as clear as at buras at all, city lights and pollution clouding the sky. we were walking down dark mostly deserted streets. there were maybe one house per block that had been rebuilt and people were living in and there were lights on, little cheery specks in the gloomy dark. the rest of the blocks were ruins, partly gutted houses or ruined houses that nothing had been done to since the flood. it must be really weird to live in one of those fixed up houses in an empty ruined neighborhood. there were streetlights and the streets were cleared of debris but full of potholes.

farther on near the bar we were headed for we came out of the ghost land and got to busier streets and occupied houses and businesses. ted and wes and juan all recited poems they had written and made up new ones, freestying, as we walked along. really good ones. i really liked hearing their poetry but felt so inadequate sine i didn't have any. we also talked and went on some interesting tangents -- philosophical things, ancient history, anthropology, it made me think of grad students having beers after a seminar sort of talk. i told them about that mathematical thing how we are all descendants of charlemagne, and how we are all (60th or something?) cousins.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A703199 - Mitochondrial Eve - An Explanation
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/mitoeve.html - What, if anything, is a Mitochondrial Eve?
http://itotd.com/articles/226/most-recent-common-ancestors/ - Most Recent Common Ancestors -- Eve, Charlemagne, and you
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-09/yu-rc092904.php - Most recent common ancestor of all living humans surprisingly recent
]

i took pictures of buildings and things all lurid and otherworldly under the street lights. we kept stopping and exclaiming about things along the way. we saw a big mass of white azaleas in one yard, and a knocked over fire hydrant.

we got to the bar and looked in the window and it looked kind of boring. we didn't go in, but just said hi to a few people we knew who were hanging out on the street outside. somebody said there was live reggae music at some place in the french quarter, so we decided to go there instead. in the french quarter we walked past a gate in a wall and i peeked over it and there was a little yard with a small swimming pool, all lit up glowing turquoise surrounded by red brick buildings. farther on we saw another fenced in garden and i took pictures of the bushes and walkway inside, through a space in the fence. we came across a nice old victorian house all lit up with xmas lights and a pretty white cat was on the porch and came down to the street and meowed and we petted it. ted or wes, i can't remember now, was saying, the little queen, the little princess.

the bar that supposedly had the live music didn't and was closing, and so we ended up going to another bar that had recorded reggae music, but good choices. it was a kind of fancy place. i felt very out of place as we walked along. for a while this girl they all knew came along and walked with us, and everybody was talking real jivey, saying "fuck" and "mothafuckas" etc a lot, like, every noun had to have "fuckin" in front of it; and in lower more growly voices. i felt like an outsider since i don't talk like that, and i was tired too from walking and it being way past my normal bedtime.

at the bar i felt better after having a gin and tonic. it is interesting, there in new orleans you can get plastic "to go" cups for drinks and walk down the street with alcohol. some people at the bar got martinis to go. juan and i sat at the bar for a while and then people left this booth in back so we sat there. it was nice. we went out to a courtyard in back that was quite pleasant, tables and plants in a walled yard in the dark, with the music from the bar sounding far away. later we left and went to an all night po-boy place and got really good chicken friend steak po-boys. i said i didn't feel like walking and i had some money, so we took a cab back. when we go to common ground, out on the front steps, juan was talking to some people hanging out and i wolfed down the rest of the po-boy. some people asked if i was juan's mom, and he hugged me and said i'm sort of a surrogate mother. we both take care of each other. later i went in to use the computer, but they were all down. this other guy and i were trying different things to see if any of them would work, but there wasn't any internet connection. i went up to bed and juan came up soon afterwards. we had two mattresses next to each other.

sunday march 19

juan got up before i did. when i went down to get some breakfast, there was no coffee. i went to take a shower (cold) and came back to the dining room and waited with juan in the long long line for brunch. practically everybody staying there came down by that time and the line snaked around the whole room. several other people were talking about wanting coffee and then somebody brought out a big container of coffee from the kitchen and several of us made a beeline for it and then took our plastic bowls of coffee back with us as we waited in line.

i was talking to matt from new jersey. he asked which i liked best, buras or there, and i said buras. i said common ground was more tense and uncomfortable while e.c. is more hippie love. he said he kind of freaked out the first week he was there and was intimidated felt like he didn't want to be there, but then he got used to it and he'd been there a month. ( i guess i would have gotten more settled in after a week or so--?).

brunch was crazy. one girl said, "this is the most random meal i've ever had." there was leftover black bean soup, hash browns, french toast, scrambled eggs, ham, hot dogs and buns, fruit salad. i had a bit of everything, and the french toast with the fruit salad and syrup on top was really good.

juan showed me another room where somebody had a computer set up with games, no internet, and we sat there a while, him playing some game and i took a few infrared pictures. but it was kind of boring for me, so i went a took a nap fro a while.

for a while we hung out on the front steps and juan was drumming and wes and i were listening and wes was kind of laughing when juan got very energetic drumming really maniacally. later miss margaret, a nice lady who worked there, some sort of administrative things? was in the parking lot across the street putting a girl's hair in dreadlocks, so juan took me over to meet her, and for a while malik's wife came by and several people were talking, and then later when we were alone, juan said it was good they met me, a nice older white woman who didn't look down on black people. i said what? i thought that was weird, and here mrs m and margaret were middle aged women and powerful ones at that and i can't imagine people looking down on them. but juan said it's like that in the south. later miss margaret lent us her photo albums and we looked through them as we sat on our beds. one was "before" and one was "after". the before ones had family and parties and her exhibits -- she collected all these old pictures and magazines and was at collectors shows. the after album was pictures of her ruined house and newspaper clippings she was in and even some snapshots of dead body lying on the street after the storm near her house.

i helped with supper preparations. we cut up cabbage and carrots for cole slaw. some girls and i were cutting things pretty small but then this older man came in and really chopped up the vegetables really fine and we were impressed. we also cut up sausages and bacon for a jambalaya like thing. i took some cutting boards out to the dish pit when we were done and sylvia (was that her name, who got the dreadlocks) came out too with a handful of knives and i said, "you look really dangerous."

two bus loads of students from howard university in washington d.c. came for their week of spring break, and they were packed into the school library and some other rooms. really packed -- they had rows of sleeping bags on the floor and all their suitcases and stuff out in the hall. they even had a big pile of their shoes in the hall. i was joking with some girls about how cozy their room was. i fell over a suitcase in the dark hall, making a big thud. some people came out and said, "are you ok?" and i just had bruises and my knees were sore the next day.

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new orleans - community garden

monday when i went down for breakfast there was no coffee. i asked if there was going to be more and someone told me, no that was it. but juan went to the kitchen and found me some cold coffee, so at least i had that. i have to have coffee in the morning. if i had known, i would have brought some instant with me. it's just at e.c. they have stuff like that. i didn't know how it would be at common ground but they said they had "breakfast" so i thought there'd be coffee. several people at common ground had their own coffee. like, that morning i saw rick walk by with a cup of coffee and i said. "where'd you get that?" and he said he kept some for himself in his room. (a lot of people there had supplemental food and things they got on their own.)

juan and i went out in front where everyone was milling around, crews going out to gut houses or work on other things, and we went and joined the gardeners. a whole bus full of people went to one of the community gardens. it was really nice and juan and i both cheered up and had a jolly day. i told juan i still have suicidal thoughts but it is much better to think about mulch and sand. he said it tears him up that i think such bad things and i said, but i'm so much better now.

on the bus were mostly howard students and then a few other random people like me and juan. there were a couple of community gardens, and the one we went to was mainly this one lady's who lived nearby. she had a garden there for years and it got trashed in the flood. she stopped by in the mid afternoon and was all happy we were working there. there were vegetables in back, and near the street we helped set up a big flower garden. we cleared off old mulch and turned over the dirt and pulled out the weeds and mixed in sand because it as clayey. there were some cute nice hippie kids, college kids, etc there. one girl, adria, turned out to be from my neighborhood, from knickerbocker street! some of the howard guys were talking about all kinds of interesting things. one of them was named perez and one was francisco and i can't remember the other names. perez really made an impression on me. first of all he's really cute, plus really intelligent. he is kind of quiet and seems serious but then says really funny things in a deadpan way. i really liked him and wished somehow we could be friends and keep in touch. he seemed to have a spark, like he could go on and do some great things. i only see that in a very few people. i joined in and juan and adria did too. we talked about islam vs christianity, racism, capitalism vs communism, history, all kinds of things. it was nice having a very intelligent thought provoking interesting conversation as we picked out weeds and raked sand. we agreed that _ideally_, communism is better, but in practicality, it hasn't really happened. totalitarian governments and starvation and war and things like that got in the way of actually having a real communist society.

the howard guys were talking about some other people in their group who were all upset when they got to common ground -- what, no starbucks? no big screen tv? a couple of them went home early. i was wondering what they knew beforehand -- were they told they'd be camping out on the floor and competing for space at a sink to brush their teeth in the morning with a whole bunch of other people, and no fancy restaurants etc anywhere nearby?

an ice cream truck came by and juan got me and him ice cream bars and popscicles and we sat under a tree and rested and ate them. i told juan i felt bad i wasn't working enough and he said i am working enough and it's ok to rest and i'm older so people understand if i'm resting and don't think i'm lazy.

also we were talking about cars vs walking, how people drive too much, and i said how i used to walk everywhere but have had trouble with my legs and foot lately. i told perez and juan and another guy that they should take advantage of being young and spry while they can and treasure their youth. they were telling us about washington d.c. and we said some things about wisconsin. all these people i met there, when they heard i was from wisconsin, said, oh, cheese. that is what it's famous for elsewhere. i didn't realize it was that strong a fame, for cheese. in washington they have mambo sauce. i asked, what is mambo sauce and they looked incredulous and told me it's on everything, like fries and chicken and all, as opposed to ketchup or some such. they also played us some go go music, which i actually have heard of before.

there were beautiful sweet smelling blossoms on a tree nearby that were wonderful. i think it was a grapefruit tree? that is where we sat in the shade to rest and i kept smelling the flowers and took some pictures of them. there were bees in the flowers, too. there was a temporary shed made of plastic over a frame, with supplies like rakes and pots etc inside, and we saw anoles running around on the framework. i told some other people (not from those parts) how the anoles changed colors, and one obligingly changed from green to brown as we looked at it. we also found two ladybugs, well, probably japanese harlequin beetles, mating. we watched them and said awww how cute, how romantic. the soil was very clayey there, so much so that a couple of girls rolled some up and made little bowls out of it. they also watered some down and made paint, and several of them had stripes and dots on their faces and arms. they drew stripes on juan, too.

when we first got to the garden some people went off to get coffee, so i gave them some money to get some for me and something starchy like donuts or whatever for me and juan. they came back later with a big thing of biscuits from popeye chicken, so juan and i had some and i put the box on a bench and told people to help themselves. they hit the spot though.

juan told some people i was an activist, so i told these girls about united students against sweatshops and things we did in madison in slac and told them to check out the usas website.

[http://slac.rso.wisc.edu/ - Student Labor Action Coalition
http://www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org/ - United Students Against Sweatshops
]

at lunchtime, a man came in a car loaded with sandwiches and fruit and sodas and chips, and people lined up to get lunch. we thought it was some common ground thing, and all got in line, the howard kids plus the hippies and the few old people like me. the guy at the car handed out stuff to all the young people, but when i got up to the car he said the lunches were "for the students only". it turned out it was something arranged for the howard kids and i guess arrangements for the 20 or so non-howard people had fallen by the wayside. but juan got a lunch, being young and all, and shared his with me. the howard students we talked to said that was "fucked up", that everyone should get a lunch. there did end up being some extra lunches, so everybody got something in the end.

around 3pm or so the bus came back and everybody piled on. we had finished all we set out to do and the flower beds were ready to be planted the next day, it was funny, in the last hour or so, since we were almost done, people were jokingly racing to finish. some howard guys were trundling wheelbarrows full of sand real fast and other people were raking fast. in the bus juan and some girls and perez and i all high fived each other. a job well done.

in the evening we went out to see rebirth brass band again. juan was trying to find us a ride and when he came back, we went to the couchateria and some people were fooling around rolling a hula hoop and taking turns jumping through it as it rolled by. i was envious, i would have liked to do that too but didn't trust my body at all. juan and adria and some others jumped through, with much laughing and merriment.

then we went out in front and people were milling around on the front steps an trying to figure out rides. one guy had a car and about 9 or 10 people were trying to ride with him. some people from howard were sitting on the steps and perez and another nice cute guy whose name i didn't get were sitting there. perez waved at me and the other guy asked where we were going and i told him and he said, "can i come?" and i said, "yes, if you can find a ride". i felt kind of bad. i wished they could have come along too. we were trying to fit everybody in, maybe 10 people, it was like playing sardines, like clowns in a circus car, with people on people's laps and still more trying to fit in. juan said i should sit in front and i said i like sitting in back and he said, "you're 58 and should sit in front". juan and i and others were saying this is too dangerous, so we all got out, and said the people who came over for a ride last couldn't go, there's not room. we got back in, 6 people and the driver, and that worked better. two small girls sat on laps. one sat on my lap. her name was siobhan and she was from (puerto rico or costa rica? now i can't remember) and the other girl was her friend sarah. they were both real cute and nice and i think went to school in new york? i am so confused with all the people i met and don't have all the facts straight.

we were telling dumb jokes in the car, like "how did the soldier get a tank in his house? it was a fish tank". we got lost going to the bar, though, and zig zagged around and stopped at a gas station for directions. it is hard to find your way around because a lot of street signs are still missing from after the storm. also new orleans has a lot of one way streets and it is hard to get from one spot to another.

we (us gals) wanted to go to cafe du monde for coffee first, but after all the rigmarole we left late and so everybody else said we didn't have time. we stopped for coffee at a place across the street from the bar instead, called zotz. it was good though, but no beignets. i got milk and a cookie along with the coffee and it was expensive. we sat outside at sidewalk tables and talked to these other people who were there. there were three students who said they had exams the next day and had to go home and study soon. they were friends but from three different schools, tulane, loyola and xavier.

we went over to the bar and all these people from buras showed up, so we were all exclaiming and hugging. i thought it was funny, here i am about a thousand miles from home and i go out and run into about twenty people i know. turtle, andrea, christine, aaron, isaac were all there, plus other common ground people who got different rides. isaac was real stoned and just kind of giggled when you talked to him. jeremy said we were at arabi last year, and i vaguely remembered. also at common ground one day jeremy was running around with a t-shirt on the said, "high five me" and a jacket over it, and he'd run up and open the jacket and high five people.

as we walked up, ruth, the lady who tried to show m how to dance last time, came up and said, "you're here again!" and hugged me, and we were doing her walk dance shuffle in front of the bar. later she and i went in and sat in back in the patio and she said she comes here all the time and lives nearby. she was pretty tipsy and said everything six times.

when the band took a break, everybody went outside and some people were drumming, juan and isaac and others, and we all milled around and talked. i was kissing everybody and told turtle and isaac and siobhan and sarah they were so cute. there were some people with a grill on the back of a truck set up in the street in front and they were selling grilled stuff like pork chops, so i bought a barbecued pork chop and got one for this guy juan knew from e.c. i think, too. it sure was good. also i kissed the cook, and later juan told me he was so proud of me for doing that, especially there, an older white lady kissing a black man on the street, it shows i'm not racist, and i said, "it's just _people_". if people are nice to me then they're ok. if they are jerks, then they are not ok. i had a little bottle of gin in my bag and just had swigs and was all silly and juan said i was so funny.

we had a packed ride back, and around 4am i think, juan and i got all settled in bed. i was just dozing off when i heard water and thought wha-- and it turned out sonic was drunk and peeing on the floor. he flopped back on his bed and was passed out, and juan and i got up. i got out my flashlight and juan got a mop and mopped the floor. we went downstairs to get the mop and were talking to the people at the desk. somebody said sonic was going to get kicked out because of that.

[wednesday] we finally got back to sleep and then at 6:30 am it was wake up call, this time somebody playing the saxophone. this other guy who sleeps in our room (the one who was apologetic the first night i was there about having to turn on the overhead lights) got up and as he walked past me he made a meaningful glance at sonic passed out and a funny disgusted look. later he talked with me and juan about sonic and we figured he _would_ get kicked out. several other people were up by then and discussing it -- one girl said she heard the water sound and was half asleep and thought it was somebody doing laundry until she fully woke up and realized there's no sink or washing machine in the room.

i rushed downstairs and got some coffee and brought it back up and put it by my bed and went to sleep for a bit more. we had to leave around 10am i think it was, for the plane. later i got up and had my coffee and went down and had that weird oatmeal that was left in a cambro -- i thought it was some sort of coffee cake, it was so thick, but it was good with syrup on it. i took a cold shower and got my stuff all together was was ready to go and still had time to go take a few pictures (at long last and also late). i took some of the stairwell and lee (or leigh?) a pretty girl from toronto, who said she sleeps in the vegetarian kitchen bus (i wondered where, it seemed full of pots and pans. the vegetarian food was cooked separatly, near the bus, and the meat was cooked in the kitchen) came along and we talked about photography and she asked me if she could take a pictures, so she did, of the stairs, and she said i should "take pictures of everything". i wish i could have. but i didn't because i was so paranoid. i regret not getting pictures of the kitchen and dish pit and couchateria and people i met.

this middle aged guy called duggers gave us a ride to the airport. he was talking about capitalism and the military industrial complex and pollution and global warming and the fallacy of continued growth -- it's not sustainable -- you can't have growth forever in a finite place like the earth, and how the u.s. has bases all over the world and other countries don't, how we're worse than the romans. when i was sitting there with my bags out in front of the school, several people said, "are you leaving?" and i said yes, and two guys who i think were local people, i don't remember their names and only got to say hi to, hugged me bye. i was so touched by that, that people who hardly knew me would think kindly of me and all.

at the airport juan helped me with my bags and he kissed me on the cheek and we hugged bye. we both told the other you are wonderful, and thank you (for being my friend, the good times together). i felt so sad when he left. i went to the security screening. this time i was ready, and i had put duct tape over the openings of the infrared film cans so that when the security people insisted on opening the cans the film might not get fogged. the plane was two hours late and i ended up having to buy some food at the airport -- i got a disgusting expensive hot dog, since everything else was even more ungodly expensive. when i got to chicago around 4pm, i was all frazzled, and the flight to madison was cancelled and the next flight to madison was at 9:40pm. i went to call philip and had a hard time, first _finding_ a pay phone, then finding one that worked. one had no dial tone, another i couldn't enter the calling card number and on the third the calling card didn't work either but at least i could get an operator and ended up having to use my credit card (and pay more). it was so frustrating. i guess nowadays "everybody" has cell phones so they don't keep pay phones in working condition or even around. i decided to take the van galder bus to madison instead of waiting for the plane. the bus left chicago at 5pm and got to madison around 8pm. it was a wistful rainy evening, blue gray dusk dark, flat sad empty early spring landscape in fitful rain, and i slept uncomfortably leaning against the window. practically everyone on the bus was on it because their flights had been cancelled or ridiculously delayed. there had been thunderstorms and lightning in chicago earlier in the day so they delayed planes coming in from other cities. philip met me at the memorial union, where the bus stopped. i got there a bit before he did and was so hungry and wanted to get a hamburger or something, but everything was closed except the deli so i got potato salad. and then philip took me home and i just flopped into bed i was so tired, and i had to go to work in the morning so i didn't unpack until later.

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emails:

Wed, Mar 14, 2007 at 4:29 PM
made it to new orleans

hi everybody,
  i made it to new orleans ok.  juan and friends, including one i know from 
emergency communitiesin arabi, la last year, turtle, came and picked me up 
at the airport.  we went to common ground at st mary's school in the 9th ward 
for an hour or so and it is very busy.  lots of people coming and going. 
i guess tons of college kids are here for habitat for humanity and 
others, americorps, church groups, etc. and a lot of people stay at
the school building and have meals there. 
then we went out on the town -- to the french quarter and had beignets at 
cafe du monde, it has been there forever, and later we went to some 
fancy kind of restaurant and had shrimp po boys.  and then we went and heard 
a really great jazz band, the rebirth brass band, 
the tuba player especially was amazing.  we stayed overnight at a friends house 
and then drove to buras this morning, well, afternoon.
things are starting to be rebuilt, compared to last time i was here april 06. 
on the road to buras though there were still ragged hunks of metal and plastic 
up in the trees and lots of ruins with fema trailers scattered around.
here at buras we are camping in the shell of the ruined ymca buildings.  
there is a kitchen which was shut down by the health dept because of things 
like hippie guys with no shirts on making coffee, but we got the ok today 
to start serving meals again.  i had this very strong coffee this morning and
have been just jumping out of my skin. i set up my tent on some pallets in record time
and then swept the dining area and front entrance of the ymca bldg where meals 
are served.  it is concrete floors, kind of like a garage
i am just quick sending you all a note now to say hi,
and if any of you are around the area, buras or 9th ward, drop in --
they can use people even for a few hours. 
they are on the web-- i don't have the address handy but google
emergency communities and
common ground collective. 
also there a lots of gnats here and i am twitching as i type,
but things are great for me in general and i hope i can do as much as i can
to help a bit. 
there still is a monumental task to be done here, all along the gulf coast. 
um i wont start ranting about the government.
love
wendy

---
Sat, Mar 17, 2007 at 9:57 AM
[i was very depressed before i left wisconsin, 
my seasonal mood disorder makes me suicidal in early spring, 
and being in buras helped but i still had residue.  
plus i still am very nervous about trusting friends after the divorce]

dear gaby,
i am real depressed today. 
it is great here and all,
and juan and i had a wonderful conversation last night about
how we are in each other's lives, and he said this morning
i shouldn't be so paranoid, he won't ever dump me.
but last night it was really really windy too, and we sleep in tents
in a ruined building with concrete blocks hanging on rebar and loose
galvanized metal roof
 and all this junk hanging  and everything was rattling and creaking and
i heard crashes nearby and a metal pole was rolling around on
 the concrete in the wind.  it kept me awake. 
plus i do just feel like krap even though it has been fun and i'm
doing lots of work and being with juan and all. 
 its biochemical.  juan doesn't quite believe it, i think, 
he says think positive. 
 oh well. 
i took lots of good pix.  
today we are going to nola after lunch.
love
wendy

---
Tue, Mar 20, 2007 at 7:15 PM
back to madison tomorrow (wed)

hi everybody,
  i am at common ground, at st mary's school, in new orleans right now,
and coming back to madison tomorrow afternoon.
things have been crazy and hectic and emotional and exhausting.
i will have to write a lot more when i get back.  the internet keeps going down here.
st mary's is a big chaotic place.  but today juan and i and about 50 other
people went to a community garden that common ground collective helps
with. there are vegetables there, and some grapefruit trees,
and lots if spring flowers--well, weeds--blooming but really nice.
 it was fun, we prepared beds for a flower garden, and talked a lot
of political/sociological stuff.  there are a bunch of students from howard univ
 now, plus random people and some other schools. anyway it was good
to be outside.  the past couple days i was just in the building, 
mostly cutting vegetables etc, and
it is kind of depressing inside-dark and run down and just a weird feeling.
  tonight juan and i and i'm not sure who else
are going out tonight to the french quarter for my last night here.
we came up from buras on the 17th and went to a st patrick's day parade
and there was so much waste--they were throwing cabbages, potatoes,
onions, carrots, plus tons of beads and toys etc from the floats.
well i love mardi gras beads and got tons.  but it bothered me to see
all the food on the street.  some guy was going around with a box
picking up cabbages and all. so i was glad to see that.
the other night juan and two other guys, one very rastafarian,
walked to the french quarter and it was interesting, spooky, walking
down dark streets with one house on the  block lit up and all the other houses
ruins, but nice with them all reciting their poetry, and juan freestyling
and the rasta guy talking about biblical and anthropological things
and herodotus (so now i want to read a book i
have at home, herodotus' travels-- i'm probably spelling the name wrong)
we could see orion in the sky overhead, faint... in buras the stars were
huge and bright.
i will have to write more later, and develop my pictures.
anyway, just wanted to say hi :-)
love
wendy

---
Sat March 24
pictures from new orleans in  couple weeks

hi everybody,
i'm back in madison, as some of you have already ascertained in person ;-) .
i got back late wednesday.  the plane left new orleans two hours late 
because of thunderstorms in chicago, i missed my connecting flight, 
ended up taking the bus to madison from chicago, etc. but all is well.
i have about 20 rolls of film to develop and i will have some pictures
online for you to see in a couple weeks.
anyway, i highly recommend this kind of vacation to everybody.  
not just going to emergency communities or common ground, but anything
similar in the world.   it isn't grueling work, it is fun work and 
nobody is making you do it, and you get to rest when you want to, 
and it is very gratifying to do something to help out, and you meet 
a lot of really nice interesting people from all over. 
love
wendy

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