Mississippi
Here’s an email from Katrina relief trip to Mississippi, Nov, ’05:
The plan was to work at the Waveland Cafe for a few days before heading to a
different area to do deconstruction. I was expecting Southern culture, but
when I saw the giant “Organic Valley” bus and met Rainbow Gatherers named
“Flower” and “Soup” (was that Sue? no, “Soup”) I knew I was in for a surprise.
In fact Yamini was late at the airport as she was in a “sister circle.” We were
admonished to be careful and tent by the “security van” as there had been some
vaguely described sqirmishes over women — I thought these people are into free
love, what’s there to fight over? So drunk Julius provides unwanted help
setting up our tent virtually on top of his and we are up most of the night
with hippie music mingled with a TV blasting from the next tent, mixing with a
horse-voiced man shouting “como se dice shut the f**k up?”
These people were actually serving a lot of food to a lot of needy people, but
we were uneeded so we headed to waveland but not before getting some footage of
the destruction — totally gone, houses just rubble, abanded and destroyed. In
waveland we joinged the “Campus Crusaders for Christ” (this organization did
not, like one of the others, make us sign a form committing our faith). They
coordinate volunteers with individuals who request help. The frusterations of
this trip also show how necessary it was: driving around was like in a third
world country — it took us 90 minutes to go a few miles because of all the
roadblocks and detours (a cop also threatened to break my camera). This was
also a problem because we’d been rear ended and couldn’t fill up the gas, which
nearly ran out.
I did the following: fully suited in doughboy-esque paper suits, goggles masks
(lots of mold) we hacked through an elderly man’s collapsed house to find his
insurance papers and wife’s will (who had died one week earlier, though not in
the storm) he also wanted us to find a gun and homevideos which we couldn’t —
we had to climb through a window and did thruogh a fallen ceiling for the
papers. I was nearly crying as I thought about all this man had lost, but he
was remarkably chipper — he rightly told us that all this stuff that we work
for is essentially junk, he got out with his life and was remarkably
unesentamentle. Then, on top of it all he insisted we find a place for his $150
donation to help those in need!!!!!!!!
The next house was the opposite, in terms of salvaging. A woman owned a large
estate and though she too was remarkably resiliant (her husband had left her
after the storm) she was trying to save everything. I don’t know which attitude
I prefer — on the one hand this trip made me absolutely hate STUFF, it made me
mad that we as americans have so much of it and irrationally angry at these
people for helping them clear junk that in a self-righteous mode they don’t
even need. On the other hand, I admire that that woman was trying to recycle
what she could. (She had a horse and dogs but her donkey died and it’s hooves
were strewn around the yard and the dogs would bring back parts of it . . .)
We also worked at the school, which was three schools in one, based on
trailers,
hauling books to the make-shift library. The most impo rtant part of what we
did was showing that someone, unlike the federal goverment (no more funds) and
local government (the mayor just took off, and FEMA requires official requests
for aid, but there is no one to do that) cares about them –the personal
interactions were the most meaningful — especially great were two houses that
we gutted and worked with the owners to do the sad work of tearing up their
houses. They showed us pics of what it had been like before, and we played
games thier kids. They told us they would not know what to do without our help
as the insurance was very light. MOst live in FEMA trailers near their
property. The jobs in this town, many based on casinos, are destoyed. But, on
the actual level of impact I kept thinking “what am I doing down here, it’s too
far, too expensive, locals should be helping and they really don’t need us”.
The school for example has 40,000 donated books — in Mali, where Yamini worked
the kids make their own book, if that. Of course we acknowledged the relativity
of poverty and also that “need” is best considered and then forgotten about as
there is always someone “needier” and we should stop being judgemental and
serve.
Our work was primarily of a community service, rather than development
standpoint, although we worked with people who have started a distribution
center (the Salv army one sits empty) and will expand their operations from
giving out supplies to networking and helping the rebuilding efforts.
As some people in our group were sharing their life-changing interactions, I
was
feeling sort of apathetic and letting my mind wander to the mundane details (I
wonder if the showers in the camp we had been using will be out of hot water .
. .) a sobbing woman ran into the tent we’d been in at the distribution center
— she was shaking and sobbing — her husband was outside chasing her with a
knife. We hid her in the tent until the police came. I was shocked out of my
mundane stupor and suddenly felt all the emotions I hadn’t for the earlier part
of the trip.
Like most “service trips” I gained more in terms of experiences than
contributed
(had a great time with my friends, got a small sense of life in a refugee camp,
met great people, sang songs on the beach and the best part (yes this is
sarcastic) was the 19 hr ride from MS to NY and then then to VT (Everything
there took forever, including trying to catch my flight which somehow I missed . . .).
Tags: US travel
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