Damaged

No longer piggybacking on Dan's username, here I am, alive and well and a fully functional human being.

Yesterday, woke up and starred in the Renegade That Overslept and headed out to work with three cool-as-Clyde teachers from New York City (while Dan and Paul went elsewhere). Later that afternoon, I tore into a bathroom wall with a hatchet for such a prolonged and intense period that I forgot where I was . . . the 9th Ward.

Therein, Boschian is an ideal and devastation is an understatement.

I have no photos here but imagine if your garage was on top of your car and your garage was your house but belonged to your neighbor. I was in nearly nuclear technician type garb while we gutted a home in the neighborhood--as Beanie Sigel (or Phil Collins) might say, "I can feel it in the air."

There were a lot of beautiful people and 'things' in the area too--an artist, a health clinic, a community center, and the former contractor Bruce that led our team. There are so many issues to contemplate here that I recommend everyone I know visit. Racism, politics, humanitarianism, class, development, religion, housing, economics. I won't color your perceptions with mine but one question I ask is if it is a social justice move to be here.

A passerby asked if we found any "floaters." He clarified by saying, "Well, I guess they used to be floating." Thankfully we didn't; New Orleans would recover before I would.

After finally using my French Canadian upperbody to do something useful (e.g. beat the sh*t out of a bathtub with a sledgehammer), was ready to go out. Bourbon Street is purgatorial but fun, like Barcelona without soul, or an outdoor mall with open alcohol and strippers. The latter's not so apt actually, as New Orleans is one of the least commercialized, most authentic places I've been or at least my experience is so far.

Some facts that may illuminate other posts:

1) Paul is Irish, coming to us by way of Britian. He has jogged after women at least twice this trip.
2) 50% of New Orleans is still absent from the city. Also, the French Quarter was barely touched by the hurricane.
3) FEMA set up Camp Algiers (our digs). Your tax dollars have subsidized my coffee all week.

"I dream that one day the children of slaves and slave owners will come together through the overweight shennanigans of Cedric the Entertainer." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

-Matt