KATRINA: STORIES BEFORE AND AFTER
Stories, thoughts and reflections on this life-changing event from survivors, supporters
and
storytellers.
(excerpts
from posts)
To add to the parts below, please e-mail Jackie Baldwin at bubbul@vom.com
To return to the Home Page, go to:
http://www.story-lovers.com
This website is divided into five parts. To go to any particular section, click on the underlined part below.
Part 1: Stories from Survivors
Part 2: Stories from Supporters and General Comments
Part 3: Regional stories from Storytellers
Part 4: Links of interest ("before" and "after" stories of Katrina and similar disasters; stories of survival
from other disasters)
Part 5: Storytelling experiences in shelters and other venues in support of Katrina survivors
PART 1: STORIES FROM SURVIVORS:
From Dianne de Las Casas 8/29/05
Dear Friends:
No doubt you have seen the horrific footage on the news. We have several family members who had to stay
behind. My husband's Aunt Fefe is at the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office because her son is Sheriff Harry
Lee's right hand man. The roof of the Sheriff's office blew off and she told us that where we live, things are
very bad.
The street that leads to my house is a river. My neighborhood is completely flooded. We were told that we
would not be able to return home for three weeks to a month. There is no way into the city. The major
roadways are closed. Although New Orleans avoided a direct hit, the damage is nonetheless devastating.
My husband's Uncle Danny is with the New Orleans Police Department. He trains dogs and will be using
them to search for bodies trapped in houses. East New Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes have severe
flooding and we were told that bodies are floating and people who opted to stay had to bust through their
roofs to escape rising waters.
Antonio's other uncle, Sherwin, is with the New Orleans Fire Department. He is busy rescuing stranded
people. My brother's ex-wife (we have their four kids with us) has a house in St. Bernard Parish and it is
likely that her house is submerged.
My livelihood as a storyteller is threatened as most of my work comes from my region. I left all of my CDs
and books behind and now have no source of income. My husband and I are trying to decide what we are
going to do. Please pray for us and all the other families in similar and worse situations.
Thank you.
Warmly, Dianne
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From Angela Davis 9/4/05:
Dear Friends:
We have phone service again. Everyone in our group now has diarrhea and fever. Travel has to be
postponed for now. I checked on some friends this morning. Charlotte's son Greg had his home totatally
demolished. Charlie is not able to get into her home and returned to Paris , TX this morning. Luckily, my
friends fared well and are doing fine. I am not sure how we became sick. Here is the post I would have
posted yesterday if I had had power.
Sept. 2, 2005
I actually made it into Metairie today. The area is totally inaccessible to regular civilians. I accompanied
Bryson using the I-10 entrance from New Orleans. I was amazed to see the streets totally dry since news
report have claimed the area is severly flooded. Their was plenty of evidence of wind damage!
Even more amazing was the Causeway/I-10 area. There were literally 1000's of people lining the area in the
full blast of the sun and had been standing there for hours after being helicopetered from the superdome.
They were being guarded by the Jefferson Parish Police dept. like prisoners. I asked one woman what they
were doing out there. . Her name was Carol Brown and she looked like she was about to faint. She begged
for a ride anywhere and offered to pay. She climbed into the car and shared an incredible story. She said
she had been at Methodist Hospital located in New Orleans east with her husband just before the hurricane
struck. The nurses were very supportive. They lost power and had to be transported by helicopter. She was
told she could not ride with her husband because she was not a patient. The nurses gave her a robe and a
chart but she was not allowed to be wit hher husband. She was evacuted to this place on the interstate. She
said the guards told them they would be here for a while. They were given rations and water, but people
were suffereing from severe dehydration. Babies and others were dying in this heat. She called her daughter
on my cell phone and planned to meet her daughter coming from Houston in Lake Charles 2 hours away.
A woman called into the radio station we were listening to and begged for anyone to rescue her paraplegic
daughter from the same spot on the Causeway, Carol had just come from.
The radio announcer calmly got her off the phone and suggested that his personnel do a better job of
screening calls. I could not believe my ears. When we reached the LapLace exit. I saw a camera crew and
went down to talk to them. Bubba from Shreveport said to me Ms, this has been going on for three days,
we know and there is nothing we can do. He said this may sound callous, but people were urged to evacuate.
There was a mandatory evactuation in place. I was near tears by this time. What if my grandmother was in
that group, she could never survive that heat! He said, MS. let's just know that whereever she is she is at
peace. I walked by to the car to tell Carol his news. I couldn't wait to get home and ask for your prayers.
I managed to find Carol a couple at the gas station heading to Lake Charles who agreed to let her ride with
them. I saw Carol give them money for the favor. Carol said she had cancer during the ride and thanked
me profusely for rescuing her.
Later, I went to get gas for the generator and ran into my brother's family. Pam my oldest brother's ex-
wife was there in the gas station under the most unusaual circumstances. Her cousin had married a CIA
agent. Distressed, over the news in New Orleans, he had rented a huge van and driven into New Orleans to
rescue them from the Causeway holding area. While at the station, the CIA agent Bob (not his real name)
received a phone call about his wife's dad. I agreed to swicth cars with him so he could drive back into New
Orleans an hour away to rescue his father-in-law. The 17 people in the van came to my house for the night.
Now there were 24 of us in the house together along with a cat, a dog and a parrot called "Burd" They made
themselves comfortable and went through most of the food and drinks we had. Pam's mother said the food
was so heavy because they had very little to eat previously. I asked how they managed to get the dog and the
bird. They told me Bob brought them back to their house to get them.
Sept 3
About 3 am that morning Bob drove in and I got up to get him settled in. Morning and the usual busyness
of preparing breakfast began. The day started pretty challengingly because Pam's father wet the sofa. Good
thing we had running water. Oops the water pressure is getting low and not working properly. Toilets are
difficult to flush. Kids running and playing and 3 yr old Kaya has diarrhea and running a mild fever. Off
to find Pedialyte Yeah the K-Mart's is open and the Sav A Center grocery. No lights but grab what we need
including extra paper towels, paper plates, cups, and snacks for everyone. I get back home and discover a
massive clean up in place. They move my lawn furniture back and the awful smell is gone fro mthe garage
and the laundry room thanks to their help. The neighbor comes over bringing free ice from Wal Marts!
Yeah! Lynda a licensed hairdresser begins cutting the neighbor's hair and we learn the neighbor's also has a
house full of people from New Orleans. Surprise the two New Orleans families know each other! THen we
learn Pam's mother has not had her insulin for three days. Off to Walgreen's and when the y return another
neighbor comes over and offers prayers for the family's safe trip to Atlanta.
Somehow it all begins to sink in and I marvel at all the synchronicity and I start to cry. I am so grateful. I called my mom so they could connect and there is more good news. My brother Ricky is in San Antonio with his kids on a base. He is happy and jokingly relates "don;t worry about me, we're well taken care of! We have had all our shots and are eatting regular meals and shared how he helped to rescue people trapped in their homes while in New Orleans! The good news keeps rolling in. My daughter spoke to her father who had been worried sick. They were in Memphis. Pam had shared with my daughter she had seen her grandparents i nthe superdome and they were well. My daughter and her father were in tears as they shared news and reconnected.
Sept 4
Today I heard from my mom, my grandmother is in Pasadena, Texas in a hospital. She had a heart attack and heat exhaustion. My other grandmother is in Austin, TX with tubes coming from her nose. Don't know the exact nature of her illness yet. Only one missing now is an uncle and I expect we will have good news soon. Please continue to hold us in prayer. I can feel your prayers and love. I will be in touch again as soon as I feel better.
Angela
PS Please know we are not in trouble, just under the weather. I suspect I wil lbe better tomorrow.
Love you guys. Thnak you for caring and your concern.
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From Dianne de Las Casas 9/5/05:
Friends:
It's been yet another adventurous couple of days. It always seems like I'm reporting good news/bad news. First, all the good news...
Yesterday, the school that adopted us dropped off supplies. They showered us with clothing, toys for the kids, including Barbie dolls that the girls wished for. Much of the clothing was brand new, with the tags still on them. We received grocery gift cards, shoes, and my favorite item - wireless Internet! (The Internet has become our life line to the outside world and in a house with 16 people, you have to take a number to get on the only Internet line. That is why all my work is done in the wee hours of the morning.) Anyway, we were flabbergasted and, believe me, tears were gushing. We have been so overwhelmed by everyone's generosity.
The Filipino community has also been such a help. Everyone in my family received some funds to help us get through this crisis.
My brother received word that his 18 co-workers that were trapped at LSU Health Sciences Center were rescued and evacuated. Thank God! We also heard from my husband's uncle, Sherwin, who is a firefighter. He is okay, just busy rescuing people. Sherwin finally had a day off and went to see his wife and sister-in-law, who were both in a shelter in Lake Charles. Antonio's aunt, Lily Norman and her wheelchair-ound husband, Alex Norman, finally left Jefferson Parish, to stay with relatives in Marksville, Louisiana. Antonio's aunt, Donna Riley, who was treated badly in Baton Rouge, is now being helped by the Houston Police Department (she is the wife of NOPD Officer Danny Riley, who is still in New Orleans working). The HPD said that they would help her and her children find a home to live in, help enroll her children in school, and give her the assistance she so desperately needs. We have not heard from my brother's oldest son, Christian.
This morning, against our wishes- my husband, Antonio; my brother, Gary; and my stepdad, Clay - went back to the city. We live in Jefferson Parish on Westbank in Harvey. They wanted to survey the property and assess the extent of the damage. We heard so many conflicting reports. It took them nine hours to get there. Jefferson Parish is opening the parish to residents to survey the damage and salvage personal belongings for only one day, Monday, September 5. Because my brother is a police officer, he was able to get in early with his badge. He said that there is a huge line of cars on I-10, all residents waiting to get in tomorrow.
The guys first went to my mother-in-law's house. She lives in Marrero and her house fared well. Downed limbs and a few missing shingles is the extent of her damage. Her house is in tact and so was her new car except for a few scratches from the tree limbs. My husband took her car and followed Clay and Gary to my mom's house in Harvey.
Mom and Clay live in Stonebridge Subdivision, an upscale community. Clay saw one of his clients in Lake Charles earlier, who said that the neighborhood was fine. Unfortunately, that was not the case for my mom's house. Her roof caved in on the second story, and there was flooding on the first floor. Mold is growing everywhere. Trees are uprooted and we believe a hurricane-spawned tornado must have hit it. The houses on either side of my mom's house are unscathed. Clay's truck, which was parked in the driveway, was broken into. Someone tried to steal it, breaking the steering column. They also saw evidence that someone tried to break into the house, probably to loot it.
They then drove to my house. We had heard reports of widespread flooding in my neighborhood and we believed our house to be flooded. Though the house is not flooded, there is a big hole in the roof and water (from the Katrina's rains) got into the house. In addition, the water rose to the front step and seeped in the bottom of the window in my office. The carpet is wet and molding. Mold is growing in our house as well. He says the whole house smells musty. Our neighbor across the street told my husband that his house took in a lot of water. Unfortunately, because we cannot get in to repair the damage, we may end up losing our houses anyway to mold and water damage, especially if it rains.
The sad part about all this is that we still have to pay mortgage notes on our houses. We don't know how long it will be before our insurance adjustors and FEMA can get in to assess the damage (we can't get assistance from FEMA until our house is assessed by our insurance company). My mom's mortgage company gave her a 90 day "extension" on her note but told her that she has to have it paid in full by the end of the 90 days. That's not an extension! If you can't pay one month's worth of mortgage, how can you pay three? My stepdad has a landscape company and his business is, of course, devastated by this. Like me, he also has no income. It just astounds me that we have to pay mortgage notes for houses that are situated in an unliveable area!
Jefferson Parish issued a 6 p.m. curfew and the guys decided to stay overnight so that they could salvage as much as they could from our houses in the morning. There is no power or running water so they are miserable. My brother is keeping guard outside the house, armed. Antonio and Clay are sleeping inside. My brother said that helicopters fly over the house every two minutes (they live near Naval Air Station Belle Chasse). The National Guard does have a presence on the Westbank but the majority of them are in New Orleans. Gary said that driving around is difficult because of all the debris. There are also several checkpoints because even on the Westbank, there is looting. It was hard keeping in touch with them because cell towers are down but we talked a couple of times and, for some odd reason, are able to text messages through the cell phones. I pray for their safety.
More bad news came when we found out that my mom is being transferred to Dallas indefinitely. She works for the military, managing millions of dollars worth of supplies. She is needed to help coordinate supplies due to Hurricane Katrina. This creates a hardship on the family because she is a primary caretaker of my brother's 4 kids. My brother lives with my mom and, being a police officer, often has strange hours. He has joint custody with his ex-wife but my mom and brother have the kids more often. In fact, the kid's mother didn't want to evacuate with the kids and left them with my brother. My mom picks up the kids from school, feeds them, bathes them, etc. They are 3, 4, 6, and 7 years old.
My brother's kids are enrolled in school here in Houston. There is a possibility that brother may be called back to work in Baton Rouge. If so, I will be taking care of my own two children plus my brother's four kids (and they are a handful!). My mother said that she will come home on weekends but I will have to get them through the school week. We have 6 kids going to three different schools. The elementary school is in our neighborhood but it is too far for these little ones to walk so we have to drive them. Soleil's high school is 20 minutes away. The baby (who is 3) will be in day care. It's going to be a challenge to coordinate!
My husband was informed that he will be paid for the next 30 days but after that, it is uncertain. In the meantime, it looks like I will have to look for at least part-time work to put food on the table and pay bills and so that I can still build my storytelling business again. We are committed to staying in Houston at least a year because of the kids and school. I don't want to uproot them in the middle of the year (there is so much upheaval in their lives right now).
I hate the uncertaintly of everything. Our lives are in limbo. I am scared but still clinging to optimism, hope, and my faith in God that all will work out in the end.
Warmly, Dianne
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From Dianne de Las Casas 9/8/05
Friends:
Oops! Yesterday, my request was cut off! For those of you who still check out books the old-fashioned way, we request donations of check out cards. I want to put the check out cards inside the books for our home library. They are excited about building a library. I have shelves organized with books according to reading level. Thank you and MAJOR BIG HUGS to everyone who contributed to their library with books, activity and coloring books, tapes, CDs, and DVDs. They are blessed. They have also received clothes, toys, craft kits, and homemade instruments! You should see their faces light up when we open the mail!
We are a little late on sending out our thank you notes but we've been working on getting our life together. We will be working on thank yous this weekend.
The kids are in school and we attended open house. Their school believes in fitness and the arts! Woohoo! They have music and art as well as PE. They also open every morning with 15 minutes of school-wide exercise via morning announcements.
My kindergartener's teacher believes in the power of story. Every day, she transcribes a story from a student made up from their imagination. In addition, she enforces emergent literacy with read alouds from great books, creative dramatics, phonics, and required home reading every day. Each day, parents are asked to read with their children and write the title of the book in a log. It's so exciting!
Soleil, my 15 year old, gushed about her English class. Required Summer Reading was The Picture of Dorian Gray and they are studying Greek mythology as background for the book. She told me the story of Narcissus and Echo; and Adonis, Persephone, and Aprodite. She says, "I can't wait to go to class tomorrow! I've never been so excited about English!" She also told me that Zeus was a "pimp" ("That's what my teacher said!") because he made Persephone and Aphrodite share Adonis - each goddess took turns with him for half a year. She had me cracking up.
I am so happy that there is a semblance of "normalcy" in the house. Of course, I have never experienced so much chaos and drama in the morning. Getting five kids ready for school is quite a Herculean feat!
Thank you so much for being angels in the children's lives. Everyone who has contributed a gift to our family will receive an angel necklace made by kids and me. We dubbed our project "Operation Angel" because you have been angels in our lives. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!
Warmly, Dianne
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From Angela Davis 9/6/05:
I read what you wrote and it is so wonderful. Thank you! I started to cry all over again as I am packing up to leave. The uncertainty is hanging over me, butI remember the words--someone will be there to meet you every step of your journey. You will be cared for and just know that you are loved. I go forward. Everything has changed and nothing will ever be the same again.
I don't know if this is the place for it, but I will write it anyway. Many of us feel New Orleans will never be the same again. We feel the city will become a place for the people who migrated to the suburbs-first to Metairie, then the Westbank, next to Eastern New Orleans and finally to the Northshore. Property values will decline as families choose to stay displaced, allowing the more fortunate to swoop in and buy up real estate fairly inexpensively. Every one I talk to has moved on and in the midst of this transition we mourn for our city. We mourn for the people who are gone, the people who have left, the people still uncertain, and the people moving on to a better life. A chapter has ended. And it makes me very sad.
New Orleans as we knew it will never be the same. Gone are the New Orleans Indians, the Jazz Fest, the Great food, the great people and the fizz that made New Orleans pop. In its place, only the remnants of what was. Yep we are in for a very different New Orleans. The makeshift grave of the woman named Vera that has been posted in the newspaper and splashed across the news is a fitting picture indeed. In the weeks and months to come I will look for her in every city I visit, in every face I encounter. Pieces of New Orleans will live on in other places like treasure to be found. We love you New Orleans.
Angela
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From Barbara Hoffpauir 9/6/05
RIPPLES OF GOODNESS
This is such a difficult time for everyone here as we watch the accounts of devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina to our beloved Gulf Coast areas in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.
There are so many homeless, so many who have died, and so many who are still trapped on rooftops and in attics with floodwaters continuing to rise. How difficult it must be to wonder, "Is someone coming or will I be left here to die?"
There is no electricity, no water, and no food. The floodwaters are littered with debris, snakes, other reptiles, and dead bodies both from the recent tragedy and those unearthed by the storm. We have all heard the stories of looters ravaging unprotected businesses, and worse yet, some are shooting at the very people who are trying to rescue them and others.
But I hope you all keep in mind that there is another side to this story that is not making its way into the news or headlines. Good and brave people are risking their lives every day, and thousands more are helping to feed, clothe, house, and comfort those who were able to evacuate and those who braved the storm, lost the battle, and are finally being rescued.
That is the story I would like to tell you...
My husband, John, and I went to bed on Sunday night, after hearing the weather forecast. As natives of south Louisiana, we had survived many hurricanes and we knew just by the tight formation of the eye of the hurricane that Louisiana was in for mass destruction. New Orleans would be spared, or so we hoped.
Monday morning the sky here in Lafayette was dark and ominous, and there were only a few drops of rain as we made our way to work as usual -- John to Carencro, a small town about 10 miles to the north of Lafayette and myself to Abbeville, a small town about 20 miles southwest from Lafayette.
To our east, however, things were much different. In Baton Rouge, our state capital located 50 miles to the east of us, my brother and sister-in-law were housing relatives from the New Orleans area. At 8am they lost electricity. Electrical power lines and trees littered several neighborhood roads, but most of the damage was relatively minor. The story was a lot different as you made your way eastward towards New Orleans, a mere 70 miles away from Baton Rouge (about 120 miles east of where we are), and on to Mississippi.
Many residents had left their homes and headed west on I-10 either Saturday or Sunday. Others had gone to shelters in northern Louisiana.Thousands of people arrived in Lafayette expecting to find lodging at a major chain hotel. There were over three thousand confirmed reservations for a hotel that only has three hundred rooms. Hurricane Katrina had destroyed the computer system and hotels were full and there was no place to stay.
Since there were no shelters open in Lafayette at the time, many parked in local business parking lots and spent the night there. One evacuee said they had traveled three miles in five hours despite the contra flow. (Contra flow is when both sides of the interstate are flowing in only one direction.)
The evacuees were tired and in need of assistance. A local church was the first to open its doors to hundreds of people who had fled and were now stranded. The church pastor appeared on local television stations inviting those in need to find lodging and food at their facility. Local people donated cooked food and brought it to the church shelter the following morning to feed the evacuees.
Lafayette soon opened the Cajun Dome and thousands flocked to the shelter. At last count there are over 6,000 people living in the Cajun Dome. A special needs shelter was opened near one of the local hospitals at the Heymann Center. At present it houses 140 patients. In Crowley, a small city in Acadia parish west of Lafayette, firemen distributed flyers to local hotels where evacuees stayed inviting them to come to the fire station for free meals.
The local CBS television station reported that shelters were in need of supplies and local TV anchors stood on street corners collecting donations for the Red Cross. At last count, they had raised over $300,000. The ABC affiliate collecting for the United Way offered telephone numbers and email addresses for donations assuring viewers that all money would be used for victims of the hurricane.
As John and I watched the broadcasts, a family of ten was featured. They were living in a small truck with a camper on the back.They were told the shelters were full, but had received diapers and meals from one of the hospitals. Unable to reach family members who stayed behind in the flood-ravaged area, they were fearful for their safety. They kept saying how thankful they were for the help they had received. By the end of the broadcast, however, officials at the Cajun Dome shelter had called the newsroom to inform the family there was room.
In response to the call for supplies, John and I began to gather games left by our grown children and pulled books from our bookshelves. We stopped to buy supplies and then joined the caravan of vehicles delivering items to the shelter.
Pain was evident on the face of each person donating as they unpacked their cars and vans. I watched a young couple who had car seats and strollers in the back of the van unload cases of diapers and formula for the evacuees. Each person asked himself or herself, "What would I need if this had happened to me?"
The generosity of the community was overwhelming. Earlier in the day, Cajun Dome officials reported there had been only two small bags of supplies. By the time we reached the place to unload our car, they gladly accepted the bedding supplies, but they had so many books and toys they couldn't accept anymore. The sidewalks leading to the Cajun Dome were overflowing with donated items -- bedding, toys, and stuffed animals peered out of the boxes.
My husband looked at me and said, "How about the special needs shelter?" So off we drove to another shelter. Here again, people were dropping off supplies.
Shortly after we began gathering supplies, an old friend called. "Barb," she said as her voice broke, "I need a really huge favor. I need a place to live." I'd known Deb years before when she lived in our community.
"Absolutely! How are you, and where are you now?" She told me they were in Florida vacationing when they learned the hurricane was headed for New Orleans. They had just completed their dream home in Slidell, just off of Lake Ponchitrain and northeast of New Orleans.
I wish I could describe the look on their faces as I opened the door to let them in today. It was the desperate look of someone who feels they have lost everything. Even their dog seemed to sense something was wrong.
Evidence of the power of this massive hurricane was everywhere. She said, "We saw a row of pine trees that were chopped off at the trunks all at the same height. It looked like someone had deliberately cut them that way."
Louisiana is known as The Sportsman's Paradise. Many of its residents own boats for recreation. On Wednesday, a call for help went out to request assistance from owners of flat bottom boats to assist with rescue efforts. Over 300 people with more than 200 boats showed up at 4am at the Acadiana Mall in Lafayette to participate. Sadly, most of them were sent home having purchased supplies, gas, and traveling the distance to New Orleans on I-10. They were disappointed, but due to the size of the boats or the inability to safely manage that many rescuers they could not be used.
Relatives, Tim and Debbie Ann, live south of New Orleans in Belle Chase. She called today to say that they are all OK. They had escaped to Florida. Their daughter and grandchildren are with them and they have heard from neighbors who weathered the storm
in their area. But they can't go home because the roads leading there are impassable.
Tim's employer has decided to move the company to Houston and they'll probably be moving there soon. She and her sister, Jocelyn, work for the school board. She said, "We've lost three schools in our area which provided education to over a thousand children. No one knows if they'll have a job when we get back. I called the insurance carrier and told them I couldn't send the payment for the employees and wanted to know what I should do. They said not to worry about it."
She continued, "Barb, the gulf used to be about 90 miles from my house. Now it's only 20." Port Sulphur and Fort Jackson are completely underwater. People are just thankful to be alive and so grateful for all the help they are getting.
Debbie Ann told me her sister evacuated to Abbeville. She said everyone there had been so kind. "Jocelyn said that they have only had to buy one meal since they've been in Abbeville. Everyone has been so nice to them."
Alexandria, in central Louisiana, has opened its coliseum to evacuees. There are approximately 8,000 evacuees in Alexandria at last report. Many families initially rented hotel rooms to flee the storm, but they can no longer afford the cost. They are forced to check into the shelters. My nephew, Matthew, is in the process of setting up a database to be able to communicate with the other shelters. Families have been separated. So many have no idea where their relatives have been relocated.
The Jewish temple is housing displaced workers who stayed behind at area New Orleans hospitals to care for the patients. These employees were told by the hospitals that if they stayed they could bring their families to the hospitals to ride out the storm. Sleeping on the floor of the temple with nothing but the clothes on their backs, they are grateful to be alive.
My brother, Henry, and sister-in-law, Betty, along with other residents have furnished bedding. Betty says, "I went through and washed all the sheets to make sure they smelled nice. One lady said, 'This smells so good. It smells like home'."
Matthew's wife, Buffy, has taken the task of furnishing toys and coloring books to the children, many of whom are reported to be so traumatized that they continue to cling to their parents. Betty is participating in "story time" to entertain the kids. All parishes have opened their doors to school students displaced by the storm to make sure their lives continue as normally as possible.
In New Iberia, Beverly, my sister-in-law, reports a locally owned funeral home has been turned into a shelter. Prior to this people were sleeping in the parks and in their cars. As Beverly was buying items to bring to the shelter, the cashier whispered, "They need personal items." Beverly responded, "Oh, you mean soap and deodorant." "No ma'am," the cashier responded shyly, "feminine things." Beverly filled her cart with tampons and pads. When she arrived at the shelter, the ladies all gathered around her. They had been embarrassed to admit what they needed.
She emailed, "NOT ONCE did any of these evacuees demand anything. They had divided into groups. Men were the clean up unit, women were assigned cooking, cleaning and such. The older children were entertaining the younger. This was set up by a church and funeral home. Everyone had a job to do and everyone took care of each other. They pooled their money to buy things to cook. The pastor told me that he didn't believe in letting them just sit and become depressed. Before I left, the kids were handed garbage bags and were told that the one who picked up the most garbage would get a prize. They all ran out and, honey, there was practically no grass when they finished! They were all declared winners and each given a slice of gum. These kids were so excited and from that moment on they were on the lookout. Yes, I will be cleaning closets all night long. This pack rat is going to part with her 70s and 80s wardrobe and shoes and even some purses. I suddenly felt guilty for having so much and I realized today that I live with a bottle of water in my hand. I no longer drink carbonated drinks. I felt so guilty for having so much, so I will share."
Chris, my son and his wife, Amanda, have recently moved near Houston, Texas. They haven't sold their old home yet and called to offer it to anyone who might need a place to live. My daughter, Naomi, and Thom, her husband, live near Denver, Colorado. She said she has been inundated by calls from people wanting to know what they can do. An acquaintance offered one of his rental properties in Denver to someone in need "until they can get back on their feet again." Rachel, my daughter who is also an RN, has volunteered to work overtime due to the influx of patients being evacuated from New Orleans and the surrounding areas. On days off, she and friends are planning to volunteer, as am I, at local shelters in need of nurses. Her husband, Colin, will be doing the same in whatever capacity they allow.
My youngest daughter, Bridget, and her husband, Ian, report that Boise, Idaho has raised over $50,000, and plans to send supplies for those evacuated and rescued. Prayers are being said all over the world.
The overwhelming outpouring of goodness that is being displayed by people everywhere is overshadowed by the relatively small amount of bad. That spirit of neighbor helping neighbor is what Louisiana has always been about. It's what visitors here call
Southern Hospitality. For us, it's just called a way of life.
Despite the efforts of so many, there is always more to be done.
This is not a problem that will go away in a few days or a few months. Rebuilding of property, finances, and most of all, spirit, will take many years. I urge you to do anything that you can to help with relief efforts by donating money and supplies or volunteering at local shelters according to your ability.
Most importantly, remember to keep us all in your prayers. At times like these, it is the efforts of all of us that cause a ripple of goodness.
Thank you all, wherever you may be located, for all that you do and may God bless you for all your kindness.
Barbara Hoffpauir
barb@yahoo.com
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From Dianne de Las Casas 9/7/05
Running Around Like Crazy
Tuesday, September 6, 2006
(Posted from my blog)
Friends:
Hurricane Katrina is one of the most life-changing experiences I have ever had. When we recover, I will count my blessings every day.
I am blogging less frequently now because of all the daily errands we have to run. I am also severely lacking in sleep (less than my usual 4 hours for those of you who know me well). Last night, Mom and I waited up for the guys to return from New Orleans. They came in about 2:30 a.m. and, after viewing pictures of our property damage and hearing the tale of their ordeal in person, I was just so wired that I stayed up and didn't sleep.
Yesterday, Labor Day, was spent at the medical clinic. We are all without doctors and some of us needed medication and medical care. Everyone at the clinic was nice and gracious but because of the sheer numbers being served, we had a lot of waiting to do. All the doctors, nurses, nurse's aids, pharmacists, and administrative staff were so kind to us. They provided the kids with snacks, drinks, books and toys to keep them busy as we waited. We were also welcome to take whatever we needed.
The doctor I saw, Dr. Maya Patel, is an internist. I was wheezing with asthma (my asthma, allergies, and eczema have gone crazy in the past week - I wonder why!) and she issued all the prescriptions I needed. In addition, I received a steroid shot to help my asthma and allergies. The kids all received medical care and prescriptions as well.
We rushed home to cook dinner because we had company coming - another refugee family like us. Rick Camania, his wife Remy, and his daughters, Sarah and Rachel, were coming. Rick shared the most amazing rescue story with me, which I recorded and will be writing into a story in the next day or so. He was one of the residents who stayed behind and was rescued from the rooftop of his home in New Orleans East.
Carrie Sue Ayvar, my good friend and a fellow storyteller from Florida, put be in touch with her brother, Allen Silverblatt. Allen delivered six boxes of clothing, toys, books, and school supplies to the kids. Again, I was so moved. Everyone's generosity has been just amazing. I cry every day becaused I am overwhelmed by people's response to our plight. Mail call every day is like manna from heaven! I can't wait to be in the position of giving again.
Today, all the kids had their first day of school. Because of the conflicting school schedules, Antonio and I had to split up. He took Eliana to school while I took Soleil. Antonio and my brother took Jourdan (7), Camrynn (6), Eliana (5), and Ashlynn (4) to their new school in our neighborhood. I had to drive Soleil (15) to her new school approximately 30 minutes away in rush hour morning traffic.
As soon as Soleil stepped into the school, she was greeted with a big friendly, "Soleil!" by the girls she had made friends with at registration. I had to stay for a reception and parents' orientation. After receiving her schedule, Soleil was whisked away to classes by her "buddy." Later that day, Soleil told me she had a blast and made many more new friends. I am so glad because the transition to this new "life" has not been easy, especially for the kids.
After the two-hour parent orientation, I decided to lunch with Eliana since I didn't get to drop her off at school. She was surprised and delighted to see me. I told the kids sitting around her a short story and they cried, "More! More!" and began feeding me story requests. One boy wanted a story about headless robots (he must have seen Robots, the animated movie recently).
When I arrived home, Antonio and the rest of the family headed for the food stamp office and filed their applications. They have to return tomorrow to pick up the debit cards (that's how they handle food stamps now - they are just like prepaid grocery cards). I have never received public assistance before so all of this is new to me. Seems like one big "hurry up and wait" game. Of course, I don't mean to complain because we are grateful for everything that comes our way!
Meanwhile, I headed to Wal-Mart to pick up necessary supplies. After Wal-Mart, I picked up the four kids from school with my mini-van. We then headed to St. Agnes to pick up Soleil. All the kids seemed excited and adjusted to the idea of a new school. I treated them to a snack of Chick-Fil-A and we shared a box of 12 nuggets between 6 people.
I then hurried home because my brother and I had to attend the open house at the school that night. I am very impressed with the school, the teachers and staff, and the students. Their school has art, music, and P.E.
Needless to say, I am exhausted both physically and emotionally. Of course, I didn't mention the part where, sandwiched in between all the running around, I had to call one of my best friends, Karen Chace, for an emotional recharge.
Tension in our house is high and you can cut it with a knife. We love each other but we are not accustomed to being around each other so much. It will take some time to adjust to the situation.
So I am off to bed, friends, as more work beckons me later on...
Until next time....
Warmly, Dianne
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From Angela Davis 9/8/05
Dear Friends:
A flat tire delayed us for four hours before we were able to continue our journey. I spoke for five hours tonight to New Orleanians flung out all over the place en route to Dallas. I heard first hand how my grandmother, the one with Alzheimer's barely survived Katrina. She stayed with my aunt in an apartment for four days until the water began to rise up the stairwell. According to my Aunt Ann, she saw a boat passing by and was determined to get out of the rising waters. Two men in the boat helped to get my 86 year old grandmother into the boat. The men brought them to a church off Claiborne Ave. But my grandmother fainted at the church. A man driving a Barbe Dairy truck gave them a ride to downtown New Orleans near the superdome. Incidentally, many men are in jail in Jefferson Parish for driving stolen trucks to save people lives. These men risked their lives to help others and are being treated like common criminals. The rescued women and children were set free while the men were imprisoned. This is an outrage! Most of them have to find a way to post a $75,000 bond to free themselves. My aunt says they waited for two days on a street corner in the open elements because my grandmother could not walk. Eventually another man came in a boat and took them to a bus where they were placed on an air-conditioned bus. Because of the two extremes, my grandmother had a heart attack and suffered dehydration. She is at the Baytown Hospital in Clear Lake, TX in room 2088. My aunt says my grandmother will not be able to take the ride back to New Orleans and they plan to make a home in Houston. Each day she has to keep a journal to remember what has happened in her life because she wants to be able to thank the people who have helped her along the way.
I spoke to people in Memphis, Dallas, Abilene, Denver, California, Houston, and Florida. Charlotte, in Florida, was the principal of an inner city school in New Orleans making a difference in hundreds of little lives by her leadership. Today, the New Orleans school board announced all employees would be furloughed as of October 1st and teachers and principals should seek work wherever they are. Charlotte said, expect a class action suit. Employees should be able to use their sick leave if they desired. Charlotte is looking for all of her employees to make sure they are alright. She has heard from half. Her daughters are settled in school and her extended family has embraced her family. As she said goodbye, she resumed walking the dogs so she could get a breath of fresh air.
Dolores and Susan are in Memphis and Susan already has a job as a court reporter. Another court reporter invited her to her home and gave her clothing. They had already received their debit card from FEMA with about $100 on it and told they would receive more in the mail. She was excited and pleased with her new life. Dolores says her intuition told her to purchase flood insurance on her rental properties last month and received the policies in the mail two weeks before Katrina's landfall. She was grateful that her loved ones were already out of harm's way before the hurricane ever became a problem. She and Susan were planning to return to New Orleans this weekend to salvage what they could from their respective homes.
Dionne has relocated to Abilene with her family and found a job with her previous employer, Wal-Marts that included a raise. She says she loves it and is never coming back to Louisiana. The schools are great, her children are able to play outside without fear, and everyone is being so kind to her. She already has a furnished apartment and is settled in. Young Audiences plans to bring me in this fall and I will be able to connect with her then.
We are at storyteller Shelby's house in Dallas for the night. She prepared my favorite: Chicken salad with mandarines and grapes! (Yum) I almost didn't get any because I was typing too much. Tomorrow we take the last leg of the journey to OKC! Kaya is on the floor with Shelby talking up a storm. The guys are unpacking the car and the girls are preparing for bed. I am tying up ends on the internet and thinking how normal all of this seems to be. Shelby came over to hug me and I could feel myself relaxing and all of the events began to rise inside and I almost felt Iwould drown in the emotions. I quickly pushed it all back to where it was packed up nice and neat. Too much left to do still.
What you don't know, is how I had to resolve accepting from others when I feel I have so much already and there are folks who have so little. My son called my sister this morning because he couldn't get in touch with me with the crazy phones working only some of the time. She managed to get through saying my son needed money. How do I send him money when the phones are out, the banks aren't open, the mail isn't moving, and you feel helpless to do the things you used to take for granted? I reached out to friends, who came to the rescue and before the day was out my son had everything he needed.
I don't have the words to express the gratitude I feel for the many ways people have opened their hearts, their homes, their wallets, their souls to make our world a better place to live and this mom is so thankful that there are people who make our lives seem normal in this very chaotic time of upheaval and turmoil. And we find ourselves turned inside out and feeling extraordinarily blessed in spite of all the injustices suffered in our world.
Stories touch our hearts, Angela
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From Shelby Smith re Angela Davis 9/8/05
Dear Friends,
Angela and company just left my house. Yes, she's alive and well! I was so glad when I finally actually was able to put my arms around her. We've taped up the car window that looters broke and they are now on their way to OK City. The car's owner just said, "I don't blame them. They were just looking for a way out of NO."
Angela, her daughter and boyfriend and another couple with their 4 year old daughter arrived on my front steps at about 1 am this morning. (As incentive to hurry, I had Angela's favorite-chicken salad) They arrived hungry and tired from their 10 hour drive and the many trials of the hurricane. They inhaled the chicken salad and fresh fruit. They had been surviving on potato chips and anything they could nuke easily. (Occasionally Angela's electricity would come on) They had just the clothes on their back and some that Angela bought on Saturday. We talked until 3 or 4 am, trying to unwind. The two young men agreed they wanted out of NO. They are looking for a state the did NOT go Republican in the last election!
Their slates are clean and we KNOW opportunities abound. The men both have good skills and I know they will get good jobs in another state. I listened to stories of flooding, looting and compassion before finally turned in. We were crowded, but my little house did its best. They slept for a while and were up and fed by 10. It was truly gratifying to be able to DO something. We went over to a State Farm office to make sure that the claims Angela filed earlier were on their way , and to her delight, she received a check that should help lower her growing charge account debt. She continues to spend money on clothing and feeding anyone in need. She decided to register with FEMA when they get to OK City in order to spend a little quality time with me and my partner, Tsagoi. Tsagoi has trained hot line crisis counselors and was in really helpful in just helping all focus and feel at peace.
I fed them another hearty meal of beef curry and they packed up and left for OK City. Angela is grateful for all the help and support she has received from everyone and I'm hoping here she found a little peace and love in the time she spent with me. To all those who are facing a long recuperation period, I wish them peace, love and faith.
Shelby Smith 9/8/05
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From Dianne de Las Casas 9/9/05
Dear Friends:
I have been overwhelmed by the generosity of my storytelling community. As you know, my family and I have been adversely affected by Hurricane Katrina. Like so many others, we are displaced and living our lives in limbo. Fortunately, there are many angels hovering, doing miraculous work. My family and I are grateful for the support, encouragement, and gifts you have bestowed upon us.
I thought to myself, "How can I give back now?" So it occurred to me that I could offer one of my books as a gift to you. Through the generosity of Sean Buvala and Storyteller.net, my Wild About Marketing Handbook is available as a free .pdf download. Just visit
http://www.storyteller.net
and click on the link on the front page.
It's just my small way of saying "Thank You" for all you have done for me and my family. My love to all of you.
Warmly, Dianne
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From Dianne de Las Casas 9/11/05
STORY: ROOFTOP TO REUNION-A HURRICANE KATRINA RESCUE STORY
Collected by Dianne de Las Casas
September 8, 2005
NOTE: We had another evacuee family over for dinner at our host family’s house the other night. Rick Camania and his family shared their amazing story with me. It’s a testament to the strength of human spirit and how love truly binds families together.
Rick Camania, a man who had come from the third-world country of the Philippines, had seen his fair share of difficulties. He immigrated to the United States, having to build a brand new life. His training in the U.S. Coast Guard provided him with amazing survival instincts. But even a resourceful man like Rick could not expect the turmoil Hurricane Katrina would cause.
Rick and his wife, Remy, bought a beautiful two-story house in the Lake Bullard subdivision of New Orleans East. For this humble Filipino family, it was a dream come true. Together, Rick and his wife built a beautiful life. Their 26-year old daughter, Sarah, worked at Delgado Community College and their 21-year old daughter, Rachel, attended Louisiana State University School of Nursing. Both girls, extremely close to their parents, still called the house on 5532 Stillwater Drive their home.
Like everyone else, they anxiously watched T.V. for news about Hurricane Katrina, who was churning in the Gulf of Mexico at a strong Category 3. The family finally made the decision to evacuate. At the last minute, Rick decided that he would stay with the house. He had been through many floods in the Philippines and he was sure he could weather this storm. Remy and his daughters begged, “Please come with us!” But Rick was resolute and stayed behind. He assured his family that if things looked bad, he would take the important documents and head to Mobile, Alabama. He never got that chance.
Remy, Sarah, and Rachel hugged Rick and reluctantly left him behind, heading west on Sunday morning at 6:00, evacuating with thousands of others to Texas. As Remy and her daughters listened to the radio, the news worsened. Hurricane Katrina strengthened from a Category 3 to a 4 and finally to a 5, with winds wailing at a catastrophic 175 mph. Frantically, they called home and urged Rick to leave. He believed in the structural integrity of his house and reassured his wife and daughters that he was going to be okay.
Hurricane Katrina roared in at a strong Category 4 on Monday morning at 6:10. The storm, which took a last minute jog to the east, just missed a direct hit on downtown New Orleans, but devastated New Orleans East. By this time, Remy and the girls were in Houston. They lost phone contact with Rick and had no way of knowing how he was. Remy said, “I was nervous but trying to keep my cool. I prayed constantly.”
As the storm blew in, Remy watched the television, horrified. She saw her entire neighborhood under water. Remy and the girls kept trying to call Rick but could not get through.
Meanwhile, Rick’s Coast Guard training came in handy. His survival instincts kicked in and he remained calm. He weathered the storm and surveyed the damage to his home. Yes, the hurricane flooded his home knee-deep, but he had seen worse. He worked tirelessly, moving valuables, photo albums, and furniture he could salvage to the second floor. He believed that the waters would recede. It was nothing he couldn’t handle.
With the electricity out, he maneuvered around with old-fashioned candlelight. Rick said, “I was never scared. I knew the water would go down. I just wanted to talk to my wife and see how my family was doing.” He listened to his battery-powered radio and heard that the 17th Street Canal had “breached.” Rick said, “I didn’t know the meaning of that word so I didn’t worry about it.”
The water in the house began to rise, but only by about three inches. “I still wasn’t worried,” said Rick. He continued checking the flow of the water and it was very still. Though the heat was sweltering, he even managed to catch a few hours of sleep on Tuesday night, stretching out on a sofa on the second floor. “It felt like a 103 degrees with no breeze.”
At around 3 o’clock Wednesday morning, Rick began to feel hungry. He had not eaten since before the storm blew in. Rick didn't get up because it was pitch black in the house. He had to wait for light to break to be able to see. But he could not go back to sleep. As he was lying down, he heard splashing and he knew it was fish jumping. He surmised that the lake waters had come inland because hurricane winds pushed the water in from the lake. He didn’t know that Lake Pontchartrain’s levees had begun to breach, sending more water into the city and surrounding areas.
He waited until daybreak and he dipped his fingers in a can of corned beef. Rick said, “It was too salty and I decided that I needed some rice to go with it. So I went downstairs to the kitchen. That’s when I saw a big box floating. The water had risen to fifth step. I realized it was my refrigerator!” Rick, who is about 5 feet 7 inches tall, described the water as “belly-button high.” He waded barefoot through water and pried the heavy refrigerator door open. He retrieved the rice, which was still cold and unspoiled. Accompanied with bottled water, Rick ate a meal of corn beef and rice upstairs.
By 8:00 o’clock Wednesday morning, Rick heard the swishing of helicopter blades. He saw helicopters flying around but he said, “In my mind, I didn’t need to be rescued.” It wasn’t until he detected a funny odor that he felt alarmed; it was the smell of diesel and oil. Rick said, “I saw bubbles rising in the water in the house. I told myself, ‘This is not right anymore.’ So I began packing a school backpack with as many clothes as I could fit - two shirts, one pair of pants, and one pair of shoes.”
He climbed out of his daughter’s bedroom window onto the breezeway that connected the house and the garage. He climbed to the top of the garage and began waving a white towel overhead, signaling at helicopters flying by. When he was finally spotted, they dropped down a basket and Rick climbed in.
At her friend’s house in Houston, Remy paced the floors. She watched the news and jumped any time the phone rang. Remy said, “I not sleep. My muscles would shake and I thought that I might not ever see my husband again.”
After he was rescued from his roof, Rick was transported to Lakeland Hospital, where he was deposited on the hospital’s rooftop. He was ushered into the second floor with 170 other people. It was now 10:30 on Wednesday morning. Rescue workers were tested to their limits and the people in the hospital had to wait to be evacuated. Rick said, “It was a long night. It was hot and you could not escape the human stench. People were sick and dying and there was no where to go.”
Finally, at 5:00 o’clock on Thursday night, Rick was flown to the New Orleans International Airport. He said, “I saw about three thousand people in the lobby, shoulder to shoulder. We had to wait in line to use the restroom and to get food - MREs. There were emergency generators for electricity. The toilets flushed but they were overwhelmed.”
Again, Rick endured another night in the city that care forgot. He slept on the floor with his towel as a pillow, ignoring the noise. “Everybody was agitated and no information went out to people. We didn’t have any idea what was going on or where we were going to go next. The Texas Border Patrol and police from other states patrolled the airport in groups.”
At 3:00 o’clock on Friday morning, he had managed to charge his cell phone but could not reach his family. The airport telephone worked and he used his phone card to call Remy's friend, Lillian Chua, in Port Arthur, Texas. Because people were pushing and shoving to use the phone, he only managed to leave a short message.
When Lillian heard the message, she was ecstatic. She immediately called Joe and Virginia Atabay's house in Houston, where Remy and the girls were staying. It was 7:30 on Friday morning. The girls were sleeping but Remy ran to the kitchen when she heard the phone ring. Lillian said, "Remy, guess what? Rick called and left a message on the answering machine. Do you want to listen?" Remy listened and cried as she heard her husband say, “Lillian, this is Rick. I just want to know where my family is. I will call you back in an hour.”
Rick managed to call Lillian back and was put in touch with his family. It was 8:45 on Friday morning when Remy spoke to her husband. It had been five harrowing days since their last contact. Remy said, “I can't explain how I felt when I heard his voice.” Remy cried tears of joy and relief.
On phone at the airport, Rick broke the bad news to Remy, "We do not have a house anymore. We cannot go back. We lost everything." It was the very first time Remy ever heard Rick cry.
After Rick talked to Remy, he stood in line for two hours, waiting to board an evacuation plane. He was finally transported to San Antonio, arriving at Kellyfield Airforce Base on Friday night. Rick was taken to a shelter, where he relished his first shower in days.
Remy, Sarah, and Rachel drove an anxious three hours from Houston, elated at the thought of seeing Rick again. They met at the shelter and Rick held his family in a teary reunion embrace, saying, “Thank God I have my family.”
Warmly, Dianne
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From Dianne de Las Casas 9/12/05
Dear Friends:
Hurricane Katrina has forever changed our lives. For those of you who may not know, I live in Harvey, Louisiana, which is 15 minutes from downtown New Orleans. My family and I evacuated to Houston, Texas to escape Katrina’s wrath. Unfortunately, the effects of her rage will be felt for some time to come. We are staying with friends, who have graciously taken us in. There are 16 of us under one roof! We caravanned in three vehicles – me, my husband and our two daughters ages 5 and 15; my parents; my brother and his four children ages 3, 4, 6 and 7; and my in-laws. We decided to leave when our Parish President called for voluntary evacuation and left on Saturday night, August 27, 2005 at 10:00 pm, driving through the night to arrive in Houston on Sunday morning at 6:00 pm.
As we drove, the hurricane grew in strength, finally peaking at 175 mph. We breathed a slight sigh of relief as we watched her take a last minute jog to the east, thinking that New Orleans was spared the worst. We prayed for our friends in Mississippi and Alabama. But as the news unfolded day by day, New Orleans truly was not spared. The situation grew worse with the city flooding as breaches in the levee holding back Lake Ponchartrain occurred. Every day we watched news of our city, we cried. It went from bad to worse. The city flooded, people were trapped in attics and stuck on rooftops, bodies floated by, the situation in the Superdome became a human tragedy in epic proportions, and then the looting and other unspeakable crimes happened. Rescue efforts were slow and hampered and we wondered, and still do, if New Orleans will ever be the same.
Of course, my family has personally been affected by this national disaster. We can’t return home for months, maybe up to a year. I have to rebuild my business from scratch. My husband’s and brother’s work, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, at peak, had 20 feet of water around the medical center. My brother’s 18 police officer co-workers were recently rescued after spending several days without life’s basic necessities. Our children have been uprooted from their lives and hastily transplanted in new schools with new friends.
We have been denied FEMA disaster relief because we have homeowner’s insurance. They won’t give us aid until our insurance adjustor can assess the damage to our house. FEMA covers what the insurance company doesn’t. And adjustors are not being allowed in because of clean-up. In addition, our mortgage company “will see about what they can do” about deferring payments on our mortgage. Right now, the mortgage company is still deducting our monthly payment from our account. If we don’t pay, we default on our loan and lose our house. Worse case scenario could send us into bankruptcy! It’s hard to believe we still have to pay for a house we can’t even live in.
Every day has been a tangled mess of scurrying from agency to agency, trying to receive financial assistance and aid. We end up standing two to three hours in line only to be turned away at the last minute because they “ran out.” Still, our situation is better than most. We are not living in a shelter and we have transportation. We have many friends around the world who care about us. The kids, who had to leave all their toys behind save one stuffed animal, have been receiving care packages filled with books, school supplies, and toys. We have been blessed in many ways. Every day, I am reminded how much someone cares about us.
I am now looking for touring opportunities in other areas. I would appreciate it if you could pass my name and contact information along to schools and agencies who may be looking to hire children’s performers. My new contact information is:
Dianne de Las Casas
8722 Warrenford Drive
Houston, TX 77083
281-561-1977 ph
dianne@storyconnection.net
http://www.storyconnection.net
Thank you so much for your thoughts, prayers and many gifts. I look forward to facing the days and months ahead with courage and strength. Please continue to pray for us and for the thousands of families affected by this terrible tragedy. God Bless You!
Warmly, Dianne
ARTICLE ON OUR FAMILY IN MALAYA NEWSPAPER IN PHILIPPINES
Pinoy hurricane victims find footing with help of ‘kabayan’
September 5, 2005
________________________________________
BY JENNIE L. ILUSTRE
WASHINGTON – For evacuees of hurricane Katrina, the overwhelming feeling is uncertainty over their future.
But others like author and professional storyteller Dianne de Las Casas are finding their footing, step by step, with the help of the Filipino community in Texas, the Philippine diplomatic service, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"The Filipino community in Texas is just incredible!" Dianne said in a phone interview late Sunday night.
Dianne, 35, evacuated with her family from New Orleans to Houston, Texas, two days before Katrina wrecked her city, Mississippi and Alabama on Aug. 29.
She added, "Not only have they given us money, they have also opened their homes to us, given us medication, helped enroll kids in school, and helped us fill out forms for federal aid. Anything the evacuees need, the community is doing it."
The Embassy here led by Ambassador Albert del Rosario has directed Los Angeles Consul General Marciano Paynor and his staff of four people to help Filipino evacuees get new passports. During the three-day Labor Day weekend, the staff also authenticated documents required for federal emergency aid.
On Sunday, Paynor formed the Filipino Community Disaster Relief Task Force for better coordination between the diplomats and the community. "The task force will result in better efficiency, because this is an ongoing thing," Norma Benzon, task force chair and top community leader in Texas, said in a phone interview from the processing site in Lost Creek Park in Sugarland, Texas.
She said on Saturday there were 130 evacuees, 122 on Sunday, "and tomorrow, we’re expecting more from Beaumont," 60 miles from Houston.
Dianne expressed anxiety, relief, gratitude, humor, and pain and bewilderment that New Orleans, with its looters and snipers shooting at rescuers, "does not seem like the city I know and love." She also expressed confidence that one day, she and her family would return to New Orleans, to home.
One of the hardest things is worrying about her beloved children, displaced and separated from friends whose fate they do not know. She has two girls, Soleil, 15 and Eliana, 5, with husband Antonio.
"Their whole world has been ripped apart from under them. My 15-year-old worried about friends who stayed in the city; we haven’t heard from them yet. The youngest wants to return home."
Her husband, brother Gary James, and her stepfather drove back to New Orleans Sunday to check on their houses. The guys reported there was a big hole on the roof of the de Las Casas house, and flood had destroyed her office on the ground floor. Dianne is grateful the house is on the west side of the city. Katrina landed on the east, and wrecked less havoc on the west.
She is also grateful for her mom’s friend Erlinda Claire, who welcomed them to her home. "We could stay as long as we want," she said, laughing.
She is grateful her eldest would start school Sept. 6, Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila), and relieved the school would not charge for the first semester. Dianne said she heard it would take three to six months before they could go back to New Orleans. No matter how long it takes, she’s determined to go back. "I’ve lived there since I was18. I’m now 35. I love it; it’s home."
Dianne and her two kids were going home from the processing site. At the park, "where the kids could run around," evacuees sat and waited their turn to fill out forms, get new documents from Philippine consular officers, canned goods and checks ($50 per person) from community volunteers. Some were assigned to host families in the community.
Belle Quisel-Sibog said in an interview from the processing site, "We’re doing it for continuity, especially for the kids whose lives have been turned upside down."
Sibog is an officer of the Filipino American Council of South Texas, one of the task force groups along with People Caring for the Community and the Asia Pacific American Heritage Association.
Del Rosario said the embassy and the consulates are ready to receive donations by check payable to the American Red Cross from the members of the Filipino-American community for its fund-raising drive.
"In the true Filipino bayanihan spirit, the Filipino-American community’s participation in this fund-raising drive will concretely demonstrate its sense of civic duty, its humanitarianism and its commitment to be a positive force in American society," Del Rosario said.
For starters, Del Rosario said the Philippine foreign service officers and staff in the US are committed to donating a total amount equivalent to at least $10,000 which will be matched by another $10,000 in terms of personal donation from Loida Nicolas-Lewis, president of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations.
All donations by check received by the embassy and the consulates will be gathered and turned over to the American Red Cross as the collective donation of the Filipino-American community, he added.
FREE GIFT TO MY COMMUNITY OF ARTISTS
I have been overwhelmed by the generosity of my artist community. As you know, my family and I have been adversely affected by Hurricane Katrina. Like so many others, we are displaced and living our lives in limbo. Fortunately, there are many angels hovering, doing miraculous work. My family and I are grateful for the support, encouragement, and gifts you have bestowed upon us.
I thought to myself, "How can I give back now?" So it occurred to me that I could offer one of my books as a gift to you. Through the generosity of Sean Buvala and Storyteller.net, my Wild About Marketing Handbook is available as a free .pdf download. Just visit http://www.storyteller.net and click on the link on the front page.
It's just my small way of saying "Thank You" for all you have done for me and my family. My love to all of you.
VISIT DIANNE’S STORY CONNECTION BLOG FOR KATRINA AFTERMATH UPDATES
For updates on how my family is dealing with the Hurricane Katrina aftermath, please visit my blog at http://storyconnection.blogspot.com
TOGETHER TIME ACTIVITY: KIDS CARING FOR KIDS
Some of the sweetest packages we have received for the kids were from other kids. My 15 year old daughter, Soleil, received a little care package from a 12 year old girl named Molly. Molly gifted Soleil with a journal and on the first page, she wrote:
Hi, my name is Molly and I’m 12 years old and I’m in 6th grade. I’m really sorry about what your going thru. It is very sad because it destroyed a lot of homes. It always helps me feel better if can write about it so I’m giving you this journal. Luv, Molly
My 5 year old came home the other day with a new lunch pail. I asked her, “Where did you get this?” She said, “My classmate gave it to me.” When I opened it up, it had a Wal-Mart gift card made out to Eliana.
When kids give, they truly give from the heart.
Activity: With your children, create a “Kids Caring for Kids” package for Hurricane Katrina children victims. Visit a local shelter and present your gifts to needy children. If you don’t live near a shelter, ask around and see if anyone knows any children in need.
Ideas for gifts: handmade cards, decorated plastic storage containers with a few items but room for personal belongings; personalized tote bags, blankets, backpacks, and pillow cases; children’s music and story CDs (you may want to include a listening device and batteries); school and craft supplies; and stuffed animals. When kids give to kids, you can’t help but feel the world getting better.
Dianne
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From Angela Davis 9/13/05
Dear Friends:
I had given up on my very good friend Jeanne (oronounced Jeannie) Bose. Jeanne left my house the day before the storm hit to sit out the storm with a good friend of hers, Ann. Ann has 18 cats and two dogs and was unwilling to leave her home. She lives in Long Beach, MS two blocks from the Gulf of Mexico! I tried to get Jeanne to stay with me and she was to park my van at ther house in New ORleans on high ground. (We tried to get it in an elevated building but were unsuccessful prior to the storm.) She says she awakened Monday morning with water in the house and found herself floating along with all the pets in the storm! She grabbed hold of anything she could get her hands on floating in the water--the refrigerator, the stove, etc. She managed to get out of the house before it was blown away. She had to negotiate which tree would best survive the storm because they were snapping and coming up-roots and all. She managed to cling to a tree fror two days until the water receded. Her friend Ann survived also. No one was allowed in that area because rescue workers were told no one behind the tracks survived. When Ann's brother went looking for her he was told she had perished along with anyone who remained in the storm. Jeanne says the stench of death hangs over the air. She was finally rescued by a NAtional Guardsman two days after Hurrican KAtrina. Her family and I thought they had perished!
When I heard her voice, I started crying. I am so happy she is alive! Jeannie told me my van was totaled and she was very sorry. I told her I didn't care about the van. It just wasn't important. I was so happy to hear her voice. She is flying into OKC tonight and I will pick her up from the airport. Jeanne is like my sister we are so close. She doesn't know anything about her home in New Orleans yet. She has two deaf children, one is in Washington DC at Gaulledet University and the other, also autistic, is safe with her father. Jeanne is an awesome storyteller who uses sign language when she tells her stories! She has been through some stuff in her life! I just want to thank everyone who prayed for us. Your prayers even helped to save Jeanne's life! So far everyone I know, has been spared their life in this storm. Thank you again.
Angela Davis
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From Robert LeBlanc, Jr. 9/14/05
THE LAST BOAT OUT by Robert LeBlanc, Jr.
On Wednesday, August 31, my friend Jeff Rau and I rode a motorboat through New Orleans, pulling people out of the water.
We ferried people all day between Carrolton Avenue and the Causeway overpass, about a mile and a half each way.
Early on, we saw a black man in a boat with no motor. He rescued people and paddled them a mile and a half to safety -- with nothing but a piece of two by four lumber for a paddle. He then turned around and went back for more people. He refused our help, saying he didn't want to slow us down. At 5pm he headed on another trip, knowing he would finish after dark.
One group of 50 people we rescued that Wednesday afternoon was on the bridge that crosses over Airline Highway near Carrolton Avenue. Most had been there with no food, water, or anywhere to go since Monday morning, with 10 feet of water all around them.
One man had been there since the beginning, helping people reach the bridge and caring for them afterward. He didn't leave the bridge until everyone got off safely, even deferring to people who'd just arrived. This man waited on the bridge until dusk, leaving on one of the last boats out that night. He risked not making it at all.
In a really rough neighborhood, we came across five seemingly unsavory characters, one with scars from gunshot wounds. We found them at a recreational center, one of the few two-story buildings around. They broke into the center, not to do harm to anyone or anything, but to gather as many people as possible from the neighborhood and lead them to safety.
They stayed outside all day, helping people into rescue boats. We approached them at 6:30pm, obviously one of the last trips of the day. Yet instead of getting in our boat, they asked us to continue on and get more people out of homes and off rooftops.
These same five men were on the last boat out at sundown. They were incredibly grateful, repeating, "God is going to bless y'all for this." One even offered us his Allen Iverson jersey, perhaps the most valuable possession he had. We declined, but understood the depth of his gesture.
The looting and shooting you saw on television tells but a small part of the story.
By showing the worst effects of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding that followed, news reports discouraged volunteers from helping. But help was still needed and will be for a long time.
In case it matters, I'm politically conservative. I was impressed to see young and seemingly poor black people caring for sickly and seemingly well-to-do white people.
We can sort out political issues later. Anyone with a sense of compassion will agree that New Orleans needs help, people's lives need to be saved and families need to be put back together. They now need all of our help.
I want everyone to know how gracious these people were, despite being stranded and panicked. This transcends politics. It's about humanity.
-- Robert LeBlanc, Jr. <rlrenrec @ aol.com>
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Robert is a native of Houma, Louisiana, which is about 60 miles southwest of New Orleans. He operated his own entertainment promotion business in New Orleans when the Hurricane hit. His business was destroyed, though his apartment is in relatively good shape. He intends to rebuild his business and is now living in Houma with his parents, until he can get back to New Orleans.
Contributed by Patti Christensen 9/14/05
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From Lisa Earle McLeod 9/16/05
September 12, 2005
When we see men of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inward and examine ourselves. -Confucius
Today's Inspirational Story
Is Living Paycheck to Paycheck a Crime Punishable by Death in Floodwater?
The most resourceful woman in America, Mabel Brown, saves herself and 18 family members. This is their escape story.
By Lisa Earle McLeod
"It's their own fault, really. Why didn't those people just evacuate when they had the chance?" I overheard one woman saying to another in the line at the grocery store. I shielded my face with a box of frozen waffles and pretended to read the National Enquirer while I eavesdropped some more.
She, like many, was convinced that what we're seeing on the 6 o'clock news is merely Darwinism in action. And the unfit are not surviving.
Unfit people, like single mom Mabel Brown.
Mabel wanted to leave but couldn't get gas for her aging car, since all the stations were closed. A New Orleans newcomer who just moved there from Atlanta, Mabel's instincts told her to take the $20 dollars she had in cash and get out. But her sisters had lived in New Orleans for years. And they told her hurricanes were scary but if they had candles they would be okay.
But then the water started rising. Mabel checked every 20 minutes and counted how many of the outside steps were covered up. When the water was up to the 7th step, she knew they were in trouble. But it was dark, and they couldn't leave their apartment and walk through the water in the pitch-black city.
"We knew there were alligators and snakes in the water because we were next to the Bayou, so we were afraid to get in the water in the dark, we couldn't have seen where we were going."
So she and her sister went onto the porch and started fires with their furniture trying to flag down helicopters to rescue them and their six kids.
The next morning the water was up to step 14, Mabel told the kids "Get up, put on long sleeve pants and shirts, put on some shoes, and we're going to walk through the water."
At 5'6'' the water was up to Mabel's chin. Her two daughters age 8 and 13 could swim so she dragged them along beside her.
Her sister and her niece couldn't swim and they were too short to keep their heads above, so Mabel got her sister's two older boys to put them on their backs. In water up to their necks, Mabel told the group to feel for the sidewalk with their feet so they could keep their footing.
They made their way through the oozing trash filled muck for over two miles to get the still day bridge overlooking the Super Dome. They waited for five hours, watching bodies float by, trying desperately to get one of the police cars or buses to take them out of the city.
"We saw the buses, but they wouldn't let people on. One guy opened his door and we thought we were going to get on, but they went to take all the prisoners out of the jails."
She decided to leave on her own, "I'm seeing bodies tied to the pole so I said, if I have to walk all the way to Baton Rouge that was my plan." But then the water started rising on the other side of the bridge.
Mabel asked policeman after policeman what to do "But everybody told us something different. I kept seeing buses going toward the Super Dome, so I realized that was where I better go."
As the crowd around them on the bridge got wilder and wilder, Mabel gave up her spot on dry concrete, grabbed her sister, the six kids, and waded back down into knee high muck to get inside the Dome with the hopes that one of the buses would get her family to safety.
Mabel and the crew entered the Dome and found utter mayhem. With buses sitting right outside, the crowd grew crazier by the minute. Everyone was panicking that the other levee near the Dome was going to break and they would all be washed away. Bedlam broke out, guns were being fired inside the dome, there were no lights in the rest room.
"People were losing their kids, crazy men were snatching kids bringing them in the bathroom and raping them." A woman told Mabel a 2-year-old had died from rape. Mabel kept her two daughters beside her.
"We were stuck together like glue."
Finally they were told that the buses, still sitting right outside would be loading in the morning. Sitting in a chair, normally reserved for a screaming Saints fan, Mabel spent the night with her arms wrapped around her two kids wondering if the levee was going to break, the dome was going to catch fire, or worse, she might fall asleep and lose her grip on her kids.
At 4 o'clock the next afternoon, after 24 hours in hell, Mabel and her kids were loaded like cattle on buses headed for Houston.
Seven hours later Mabel's bus pulled into the Astro Dome parking lot. She was told to stay on the bus and wait until they could check her in.
"But I counted the number of buses and realized it would take forever for them to get to us, so I got my kids off and we walked into the Dome."
Mabel checked herself in. They were provided showers, clothes and food. "They were out of blankets so they gave us sweaters. We found boxes, broke them apart and laid the kids down." Mabel managed to find her mother, and her other three sisters with their kids, all had made it onto buses to escape the SuperDome.
Finally at 3 a.m. the whole family stretched out in a walkway and went to sleep. Mabel woke up at dawn. They had volunteers helping them, but aside from food and water, there didn't seem much anyone could do.
That's when Mabel decided she needed to figure a way out."I remembered seeing a Sprint store near the dome as bus came in." Mabel had a Sprint phone somewhere lost in the muck of New Orleans. "I left my kids with my sister and walked two blocks over there and bought a new phone. They said they would charge my account $55.00."
"Once I got back, me and my sister started getting numbers off the bulletin board and calling."
She made some calls, tracked down the manager of the hotel she used to work for in Atlanta and got herself a job. Now she just had to get here.
Mabel called the South West Unitarian church office. She left a message on their machine saying that she wanted to get back to Georgia. They picked up the message that morning and because they knew my suburban Atlanta congregation was trying to help people, they called me.
Mabel's sleeping in my guest room right now. Her kids are in my daughter's rooms, and her three sisters, her mother and her 12 nieces and nephews are asleep in houses up and down my block.
I wish I could say I swooped in like a white knight and saved Mabel, but I didn't. All I could do was use my Internet connection and my phone to run interference for the most resourceful woman in America as she saved herself--and 18 members of her family.
I listened on the other end of her cell while she unsuccessfully tried to get a FEMA person help her get on a bus to Atlanta, despite Mabel telling her that Greyhound had specifically told us to check in with FEMA before booking, and giving the woman the exact departure time of the Atlanta bus leaving the Greyhound station two miles away.
I waited while she asked the rest of her extended family if they wanted to take the word of a stranger on the phone and go to Atlanta where people they had never met were supposed to be waiting to take them into their homes.
After we gave up on FEMA and I bought the tickets myself, I talked to a desperate Red Cross worker who called everyone she could, but was finally forced to tell me they had no way to get Mabel's family from the Astro Dome to the Greyhound station.
I waited while the Houston Unitarian minister I found via Internet drove down to the Dome to search for Mabel and her family. I listened as he heartbreakingly told them that despite 20 phone calls to churches all over Houston, we couldn't corral a church bus to take 19 of them to Greyhound in time to make the Atlanta bus. So after 8 days of struggling they now had to get themselves organized to take the light rail across the street from the Dome to the bus station.
I agonized as the woman at the bus station ticket counter told Mabel that because all the tickets had been paid for over the phone via credit card, she couldn't hold tickets for the sister whose family hadn't gotten there yet- even though the tickets had open-ended dates.
I started to cry when I heard Mabel breaking down, because the woman refused to talk to me.
I about fell out of my chair when I heard Mabel sniff away her tears and ask to speak to a supervisor. Telling her politely but firmly, "I need you to put my sister's name on these tickets and hold them because I've got to get my kids on this bus."
I nervously sat by the phone for hours wondering if Mabel had made it on the bus. I finally heaved a sigh of relief when Mabel called from another number saying her phone had been cut off but she was on the bus and had borrowed a phone from a guy in the back row.
I seethed as I waited in line at the Sprint store.
I about committed bodily harm when I discovered that Mabel's phone had been cut off because all her minutes on the phone with me, had put her over her prepaid account limit. The phone she had bought only one day earlier outside the Astro Dome, wearing her hurricane refugee bracelet, explaining to the clerk that her other phone had been lost in the muck when she swam her kids out of New Orleans.
I scrambled to get together our cooler of food when Mabel called to tell me that because the bus didn't make any of the usual Louisiana stops, there were getting in three hours early.
I wept when my minivan-driving PTA mom friend and I finally wrapped our arms around Mabel and her children.
I groaned when coming out of the bus station, two white women who hadn't been in a bus station in 15 years, discovered their vans booted, because the guy who came up and told me to give him $5 dollars must not have been a parking attendant after all.
I rolled my eyes when the real parking guy--who waswatching the lot from across the street and must have booted our cars the second we went in the station--wouldn't take pity on two clueless suburban moms, and a crowd of hurricane-shocked kids clinging to their mothers.
By the time you read this, my church will have fed Mabel's family and all her sisters' families' breakfast. And my neighborhood will have delivered 19 duffel bags filled with clothes, toys and toiletries for each one. I suspect Mabel will probably still be asleep.
I've got a $1,400 American Express bill coming for the 19 Greyhound tickets from Houston to Atlanta. I paid Sprint 50 bucks for putting Mabel's phone back on. And my friend and I will both grimace when the ABS parking charge shows up on our Mastercard.
But if you'd have told me two weeks ago that $1,500 and a phone call from a single mom who worked as a maid in New Orleans would transform my neighborhood and church into the kind of people we've always wanted to be, I would have written you a check on the spot.
And if you'd have told me that the bravest smartest women I ever met was about to pay me a visit, I would have bought better sheets.
Before they all went to bed, Mabel's 8-year-old daughter asked me if the President was the one who finally got them out. I told her the truth, "Honey, the President didn't get you out, the Governor didn't get you out, the Mayor didn't get you out. Your mamma got you out of there."
And anybody tries to wake up Mabel in the next 24 hours, they're gonna have to go through me.
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Sent in From Houston by Lisa Earl McLeod
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From Angela Davis 9/17/05
Dear Friends:
To all of you who sent birthday cards and gifts to my daughter, I am so very grateful! For the past 4 years Elise has had to evacuate during her birthday for a hurricane! This year was a doozy for her, and your cards and gifts made her eyes tear, shine and sparkle. She received gifts totalling $750! She will be using the money to pay for her books. As for school, she received a full $14,000 scholarship from Marylhurst University in Oregon for 45 credit hours to be completed over three semesters time-all online that will begin September 23rd!!! She even has an online advisor. We arrived (all 7 of us) in OKC safe and sound and stayed with Rev Pat and Art in their lovely home on the 8th of September after stopping at Shelby's home in Dallas. Shelby was incredibly generous to the newly homeless couples. Thank you deeply Shelby!
On Sunday past their entire church sang Happy Birthday to Elise and gifted her with a birthday cake complete with two flavors of Braum's ice cream! In addition, Elise and her fiancee and Mayta, Jay and four year old KAya have been receiving gifts non-stop. JAy has secured a welding job in OKC just north of Edmunds and will probably have an apartment by the time I return. Everyone in OKC has been so wonderful and kind to us. Mostly we have found ourselves with mixed emotions and can't imagine not going home again. There is so much to say and not enough time to write it all. I am still operating on OKC time of 3am in the morning, but it is actually one am and I have to get going for 6am. Please know I am eternally grateful to everyone for making this time special and memorable for my daughter whether you simply held us in prayer, sent warm thoughts or a card. Thank you.
In the meantime, I am currently in Santa Barbara, CA performing and will be in San Francisco on Monday and Tuesday before heading to the Seattle Area for more engagements. Telephone reception is still sketchy and though I went to Cingular Wireless, they claim the equipment is working (NOT). Internet service is still a problem as well. We did manage to get our FEMA numbers and discovered that State Farm is charging a $14,000 hurricane deductible for my damages! Officials in our state are fighting this. Also for those affected by KAtrina, please note that State Farm will not cover any damages with mold. So be prepared to clean up the mold before inspection, otherwise, your claims will be flatly refused as were mine several years ago during another flood incident.
My friend Jeanne arrived in OKC one piece full of bug bites for being outside in the elements and sleeping on the concrete pavement for the past two weeks. She slept in a bed with clean sheets and was able to take a shower. We purchased clothes for her with part of our Red Cross money since she too came with nothing. She will be leaving OKC on Saturday morning and flying to Oregon where she will unite with her daughter attending Oregon Univ. before beginning a journey around the US to visit with friends. Jeanne says according to her ex-husband her home in New ORleans was not flooded! So she does have a home to return to. Incredibly, much of the uptown area near Audubon Zoo of New Orleans is not flooded though it is very close to the Mississippi River!!!
It has been an eventful couple of weeks and still I find myself remembering the words, "There will be someone waiting to help you all along your journey." Each step has been filled with many angels waiting to help us and guide us to the next point. I thank you all.
Warmly, Angela
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From Angela Davis 9/21/05
Dear Friends:
Below is Charmaine Neville's account of what happened in Hurricane Katrina. Her account substantitiates what I reported from my own experiences and what was told to me by family members and my daughter. All I can say is I hope the people in Texas where HUrricane Rita is headed are spared from harm. So please everyone be in prayer again. I will be flying into Houston on Tuesday provided the airport is open. While there, I will be able to check on my family. My heart is just wringing in angst for their wellbeing. Today I am being interviewed via national broadcast of the American Urban Radio Network out of Pittsburgh with Chris Moore for the Bev Smith show at 7 pm EST. AURN AM 860 Tune in if you can. Angela Davis 504 427-5625
In a democratic society some are guilty, but all are responsible.
~Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
Below is a transcription of a spontaneous [as in not staged] and emotional meeting between Alfred Hughes, Archbishop of New Orleans and Charmaine Neville, daughter of Charles Neville of the Neville brothers of New Orleans. Her first-hand account of surviving the hurricane and her desperate attempts to save others and herself afterward provide one of the most gripping first person accounts of the disaster. She tells it like it really was, not how it was reported. It's a story that really needs to be told and wasn't, so please please forward it to people who weren't there, who need to hear the truth and the reality of what happened here to us.
Below is a transcription of the interview, but please follow the link to view the video FIRST.
Here is the link to her five minute account of what she did and how she did it:
http://www.airamericaradio.com/node/896
[BEGINNING OF INTERVIEW]
Charmaine: I was in my house when everything first started. I was in my house. Yes, I live in the [unintelligible] area at the Ninth Ward in New Orleans. When, when, when, when the hurricane came, it blew over the left side of my house from the north side of [unintelligible], and I -- the water was coming in the house in torrents. I had my neighbor, an elderly man who's my neighbor and myself in the house, and with our dogs and cats, and we were trying to stay out of the water but the water was coming in too fast, so we ended up having to leave the house.
We left the house and we went up on the roof of a school. I took a crowbar and I burst the door open on the roof of the school to help people to get them up onto the roof of the school. Later on we found a flat boat and we went around in the neighborhood in the flat boat getting people out of their houses and bringing them to the school. We found all the food that we could and we cooked and we fed people. But then, things started getting really bad. By the second day, the people that were there that we were feeding and everything, we had no more food, no water. We had nothing, and other people were coming into our neighborhood. We were watching the helicopters go across the bridge and airlift other people out, but they would hover over us and tell us, "Hi," and that would be all. They wouldn't drop us any food, any water, nothing.
Alligators were eating people. They had all kind of stuff in the water. They had babies floating in the water. We had to walk over hundreds of bodies of dead people, people that we tried to save from the hospices, from the hospitals and from the old folks' homes. I tried to get the police to help us but I realized we rescued a lot of police officers in the flat boat from the district police station. The boat, the guy who was driving the boat, he rescued a lot of them and brought them to get to places where they could be saved. We understood that the police couldn't help us, but we couldn't understand why the National Guard and them couldn't help us, because we kept seeing them, but they never would stop and help us.
Finally, it got to be too much. I just took all of the people that I could. I had two old women in wheelchairs with no legs that I rolled them from down there at Ninth Ward to the French Quarters, and I went back and I got more people. There were groups of us, you know, there was about 24 of us, and we kept going back and forth and rescuing whoever we could get and bringing them to the French Quarters since we heard that there was phones in the French Quarters and that there wasn't any water. And they were right. There was phones but we couldn't get through. I found some police officers. I told them that a lot of us women had been raped down there by guys who had come [inaudible] the neighborhood where we were that were helping us to save people, but other men, and they came and they started raping women and [inaudible], and they started killing them. And I don't know who these people were. I'm not going to tell you I know who they were because I don't, but what I want people to understand is that if we had not been left down there like the animals that they were treating us like, all of those things wouldn't have happened.
People are trying to say that we stayed in the city because we wanted to be rioting and we wanted to do this. We didn't have resources to get out. We had NO WAY TO LEAVE. When they gave the evacuation order, if we could have left, we would have left. There are still thousands and thousands of people trapped in the homes down in the down, in the downtown area. When we finally did get to --
Priest [Archbishop of New Orleans, Alfred Hughes]: Downtown or the Ninth Ward?
Charmaine: The Ninth Ward. In the Ninth Ward, and not just in my neighborhood but in other neighborhoods in the Ninth Ward, there are a lot of people who are still trapped down there. Old people, young people, babies, pregnant women, I mean, nobody's helping them. And I want people to realize that we did not stay in the city so that we could steal and loot and, and commit crimes. A lot of those young men lost their minds because the helicopters would fly over us and they wouldn't stop. We'd do SOS on the flashlights. We took everything. And it came to a point, it really did come to a point where these young men were so frustrated that they did start shooting. They weren't trying to hit the helicopters. They figured maybe they weren't seeing. Maybe if they hear this gunfire, they would stop then, but that didn't help us. Nothing like that helped us.
Finally I got to Canal Street with all of my people that I had saved from back there. There was a whole group of us. I -- I don't want them arresting nobody else -- I broke the window in an RTA bus. I've never learned how to drive a bus in my life. I got in that bus. I loaded all of those people in wheelchairs and then everything else into that bus [rising hysteria, sobs] and we drove and we drove and we drove. And millions of people was trying to get me to help them to get on the bus with them
Priest [Archbishop of New Orleans, Alfred Hughes]:: [Inaudible].
Charmaine: All I did was what He gave me about the willpower to do.
[END OF INTERVIEW
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From Dianne de Las Casas 9/21/05
Professional Evacuees...
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
9:38 pm
I am writing this in haste as we are evacuating from Houston and heading for Ft. Worth. Hurricane Rita is the third strongest storm in history. She is a Category 5. Pray for us as we head for the bumper to bumper traffic. We estimate a 14-15 hour drive to Ft. Worth, which is normally a 5 hour drive. We are caravanning in three cars. My husband is driving my mother-in-law's car, I am driving our van, and my brother is driving his car. My in-laws evacuated to Louisiana with her sister. My stepdad is also in Louisiana. We're not all together. Gotta go. My brother is yelling for us to get on the road. I'll be in touch.
Love, Dianne
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From Angela Davis 9/22/05
Dear Friends:
I arrived in San Francisco yesterday after a very uplifting weekend that had me immersed in the love and caring concern of over 200 people at the Mystery School weekend in Santa Barbara. While some Katrina survivors were wallowing in Emmy awards festivities, I was so grateful that my consciousness brought me to Mystery School and had the wonderful opportunity of putting the entire Katrina episode into some kind of order that made sense to me. Mystery School is patterned after the old Mystery schools of ancient Greece and use the arts, especially story, to integrate life lessons and delve more deeply into one's purpose for being alive. I came as a guest of Elaine Larson and the Mystery School staff. Elaine flew me in and picked me up at the airport and drove the picturesque drive down the lovely coast to Santa Barbara to the Casa del Maria Pacifica Institute. I was asked by Jean Houston to share my Hurricane Katrina experiences with those present. I spoke about the devastation and the many day to day experiences that my family and I shared. The next morning, there was a new joke circulating: Did you hear President Bush's response when questioned about the verdict of Roe vs. Wade? He said he didn't care how those people got out of New Orleans.
Another Mystery School participant, Barbara Joe Brothers, of New Orleans had been present at the previous weekend of Mystery School in NEw York and lost everything. Jean took out a bag she'd received from the Dalai Lama and asked Mystery School attendees to share what they could for Hurricane evacuees. The next morning I attended Peggy Rubin's wonderful morning meditation which began with facing the East. I began to cry uncontrollable at the memory of my brother's death at the year's beginning. My partner for the exercise just held me and let me cry. By the time we turned to the next direction I felt better and realized the year had certainly had a tumultous beginning. When we got to the third direction, I was torn once again, for during Hurricane Katrina I also released my business manager and a dear long time friend and companion. The loss was enormous for me to have lost two people who were near and dear to my heart. It was then I recognized in my imagination a woman from a previous vision who helped me to understand the passing of the old and putting everything into proper perspective.
At breakfast, I convened a round table that helped me to articulate what being apart of the Katrina experience means to me. I had had a lifelong challenge of being alone and choosing to stay in relationships long past their breaking point because of the irrational fear of being alone. This past summer I faced that fear head on with the help of Pema Chodron's book of "The Places that Scare You: A guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times" in which she compassionately steers you through your fears with gentleness and unbending kindness for one's fear. I went to the place of aloneness and hung out there step by step a lot this summer. But it wasn't until Hurricane Katrina that I faced those fears with 1.5 million others and in the midst of facing my fear, was embraced by the world.
I mused that I thought I had actually taken the easy road, and didn't recommend any one else try this process. I knew what I wanted most was not money, (this spoken by a person who has a most difficult time receiving) but their prayers and love to continue to survive. I know with prayers everything falls into place naturally. It was through Hurricane Katrina I came face to face with my aloneness, but I also faced my humanity and the frailty of life and how much human suffering can be perpetrated upon others without regard for being human. When asked if I thought this was an issue about race, I exclaimed, absolutely not. It was more an issue of poverty. My friend Jeanne Bose is white and suffered in Mississippi suffered as much cruelty as those trapped in the New Orleans area and slept for two weeks on the concrete pavement along with many other homeless Mississippians. Kindness, resources such food, clothing and assistance were not present in the Hurricane's aftermath.
I shared story pictures I had taken of the devastating event and specualtion tinged with strong conviction that the levees were compromised unfairly by the Army Corp of Engineers to damage the lands of New Orleans. Most people do not realize that the majority of African American homeowners live in the areas where flooding was most prevalent. This simple mind cannot understand how if the city is a bowl as we have been told, why is it certain areas can and did escape flood waters entirely? It is also most curious where the levees were breached. Most discomforting, yet telling, is how the Audubon Zoo and its surrounding areas, which sits right on the river were able to avoid flood waters as was the majority of the French Quarters, the Central Business District, most of the West Bank. It would be infamous of me not to acknowledge that the entire Metairie and Kenner areas of Jefferson Parish did receive flooding, they suffered no where near the extent of flooding reported on National news. I know this because I was in those areas and took pictures to substantiate these facts.
Another interesting exception to all of this is there was no scanning of the supposedly flooded areas until the DAY AFTER the levees were breached! On national TV most prominent were repeated footage of the Lakefront area showing the yachts and a Country Club on fire. This area is on Lake Ponchartrain. Surely, it WOULD be susceptible to flooding. I could not understand why the entire city was not being shown on camera. Once the levees were breached we began to see more pictures of the area over national broadcast. Another curious thing was CNN took over for Channel 4 news locally and was doing an excellent job of asking questions immediately after Hurricane KAtrina on Monday and Tuesday. BY Wednesday, it was as if CNN had received superior orders to pull off the air and refrain from asking so many questions because they were curiously gone!
Everywhere, amid the chaos the standard answer given by those in charge: People should have evacuated, this was a mandatory evacuation and people are making the best of a bad situation. We are all trying to do what we can. I approached news cameraman with Channel 12 news out of Shreveport but stationed in LaPlace, LA and he said essentially the same words. On radio, a newscaster, repeated almost verbatim the above in response to a woman's impassioned plea to rescue her daughter from underneath a big water tower in New Orleans. After deftly getting her off the phone, he told these chilling words to his radio station staff: "You have to do a better job of screening these calls."
From my perspective, it appeared the single most important job of those in charge was to prevent looting in areas outside of the city, namely St. Tammany PArish and Jefferson Parish. THis is the reason people were not allowed to come into the area and get loved ones. This is the reason roads could not be accessed or opened. The 26 mile Causeway bridge was not opened supposedly because it suffered damage, yet "emergency" vehicles were allowed to cross and subsequently we were told the bridge suffered minor damage. This is the reason people were told on national news how badly areas were flooded even though they were not. THe area I live in was not severely flooded yet people were told not to come home because of the high flood waters in my parish. Lives were lost because the simple truth is that many people value property over life. As I drove down the streets in my neighborhood I saw crudely written signs on doors that read : "You loot, I will shoot and shoot you again" and I suspect they had the means to do so since there was a run on gun and ammunition stores prominently displayed on National TV like a bad scene taken from the Bowling for Columbine movie. The hysteria rose because people are basically afraid of losing property.
Now I have no idea what the political motivations are for all the lies told in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Yet it is not hard to imagine New Orleans property owners being given little alternatives in the coming weeks to abide my rules that will support the new legislation sure to come down the pike from those in authority while billions of dollars in funding go to those who need it least. I do not know what the solutions are, but I plan to ponder these so in the meantime I ask for prayers. Prayers for our leaders. Prayers for those who made choices that served no one not even self. Prayers that people will find what they need. Prayers that loved ones will be reunited. Prayers for people hurt and who will require years to rebuild and integrate their experiences. Prayers to heal the hatred in our country. Prayers to heal minds. Prayers to heal bodies. Prayers for babies newly orphaned. Prayers to heal the crises erupting in our world. Prayers to heal the greed in the hearts of those who sit at one end of the continuum and prayers to heal the poverty filled hearts at the other end. Prayer for those who gave and whose lives are forever changed as a result of giving. Prayers for people who opened their hearts and took in families or provided what they could. Prayers for a nation divided by miscommunication and misunderstanding and for the belief of thinking their true value is outside and not internal. Prayers for people who are still finger pointing and divisive. Prayers for those who are still so wounded that it appears no amount of love can penetrate. Prayers for the hardened young men who deepened into hatred for a country that appeared to turn its back. Prayers for the youth who cannot make sense of the endless and seeming tragedy adults continue to ask them to witness but no voice. Prayers that each person can find that no matter what God you serve or how you serve, we can all sit at the table of brother and sisterhood together and it is okay for you to serve your God in peace.
Peace, Angela Davis
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From Angela Davis 9/22/05
Thank you for your concern, but I am safe in San Francisco and headed to Seattle today. My family (mother, grandmother, brothers, etc) is in Houston and are planning to ride out the storm. Please be in prayer for them. I am planning to be in Houston on Tuesday, Sept. 27 (if the airport is open) and my OKC family is planning to meet me in Houston. IF that is not possible, I will be in OKC Tuesday evening. MY heart is wringing. As before, I am requesting prayers for everyone in the path of Hurricane Rita. I ask everyone to join me in prayer. During KAtrina, everyone I love managed to survive. Join me in sending rays of radiant love, protection and light to the region. I cannot sleep. THis is much too unnerving and I cannot be with them. My daughter called me today with fear in her voice. She just wanted me to be there. I am focusing on trusting that there is a higher plan at work in the lives of everyone in trauma over this storm. We are certainly understanding how the people of Florida felt last year in the wake of so many storms. THough Dianne cannot hear me I am praying for her family's safe return and knowing that God is not only everywhere, but all powerful and right this moment protecting our loved ones wherever they may be.
Angela
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From a librarian at St. Tammany Parish, north of New Orleans 9/17/05
Hello Friends and Colleagues,
I thought I would take a minute and send word out to my colleagues and let you all know what's happening at our library. We are St. Tammany Parish, a county system just 40 miles north of New Orleans, just across Lake Pontchartrain. We were hit pretty bad, but not as bad as our neighbors to the south. 99% of our staff are accounted for and most have returned to their homes, although only half of us have electricity (I'm one of the lucky ones.) Our towns on the eastern side got hit with the water surges from the lake and several staff members have lost their homes to flooding. The rest of the parish is suburban and rural and we have a LOT of trees. The hundreds of years old Live Oak trees did well, but the smaller oaks and many many of the pine trees snapped in half, many on peoples roofs. Several staff members have severe roof damage and many have some roof damage. I'm calling my husband Paul Bunyan with his trusty chain saw!
On the good side, our main library in the town of Slidell did not flood or receive any structural damage. On the very very sad side, the satellite branch in the south part of town was completely destroyed. Two exterior walls were ripped away. The stacks fell like dominoes. There were dvds found blocks away. We are all really sad about this because it was our newest branch, just opened a year ago and it was beautiful. Thankfully, the only other branch that received damage was a small branch in the town of Madisonville, on the lake. It is a two story building and got quite a bit of water inside, windows blown out. Thankfully the bulk of the collection is upstairs, with new fiction and reference (very small collection) downstairs. The other branches received minor damage and lots of trees down.
On Monday we opened up the Covington Branch, our headquarters, and then on Tuesday we opened up the Slidell, Causeway and Mandeville Branches. These all make up the "large branches" in the bigger towns. We've made every possible computer available to the public for filling out FEMA forms and connecting with friends and family and we are also allowing anyone to use the phone, including long distance. The phone service has been the hardest thing to deal with. All cell phone communication was very sketchy at first, and it is still spotty. Calling people is like playing roulette, you just have to keep trying. Anyway, back to library service. We hope to bring up the smaller rural branches over the next week as they get power and staff return.
The public schools here open on October 3 so for the next two weeks we will do a lot of programming for kids of all ages at the three larger branches. We are also showing daily matinees for families at two locations where we have movie licensing. There are not that many children in the shelters here, and I am going to a meeting at the Red Cross on Monday to talk about what we can do for the next two weeks. All of the children ages 2-5 in the shelters are going to Head Start during the day.
Everyone is tired, stressed, worried and occasionally we have some tears but we are also optimistic, happy to have survived, happy to have what we do have and happy to be helping the public. We are grieving for our friends and families that have lost their lives and homes. Some of us have homes in tact, but our spouses or children have to go out of town for an indefinite amount of time to work (I guess I'll get a taste of being a single mom of a two year old). But we are also so appreciative of all of the concern and care we are receiving from people around the country and the world. Thank you.
If you would like to see what our library is like, the web site is
http://www.sttammany.lib.la.us
Please continue to give to the Red Cross and to the Louisiana Library
Association Disaster Relief Fund
http://www.llaonline.org/
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From Dianne de Las Casas 9/23/05
Hello friends,
Dianne has asked that I post this for her. I cannot believe that she, and all of the other families have to weather yet another storm, both figuratively and literally. Prayers, prayers and more prayers to everyone in Rita's path. I am thankful that Dianne and her family are safe.
Karen
Friends:
My family and I (my brother, his four kids, my husband and I and our two children) evacuated safely to the Ft. Worth, Texas area. We caravanned in three cars. My stepdad is in Jefferson Parish. He went back a few days ago to work on his house ($80,000 worth of damage). There is a mandatory evacuation but he hasn't left yet. It's hard to get in touch with him because of the difficulties we are having with the cell phones.
My in-laws decided to evacuate with my mother-in-law's sister to Louisiana. They stayed overnight in Lake Charles and when they woke up, there was a mandatory evacuation of that area. They headed for Baton Rouge, to stay with my sister-in-law. Thank God they are safe now.
Evacuating was a nightmare. We left in the middle of the night so that the kids could sleep through the drive. We knew it would take a while. As soon as we heard about possible evacuations, we filled up our tanks. Once we left, we were stuck in gridlock traffic, just like what is pictured on the news. Fortunately, we are "professional evacuees" and we were armed with two-way motorola radios. They have a 12 mile range. We all had one and stayed on the same channel, communicating as we drove and keeping together.
Hearing that I-45 to Dallas was packed, we decided to take an alternate route. We took 290W headed for Auston to I-6N and then I-6 to I-35. The hardest part was getting out of Houston. It took us three hours just to get out of city limits. Once we were out, we found out about Business 290 and took that. It was a good move. We cruised at 50mph. It ran parallel to I-290 and we could see the ribbon of headlights standing still.
There was no gas to be found anywhere! Every gas station was out of gas. We were worried that we would get stranded. So we began driving without air-conditioning to save on fuel. Once we got to I-6, we found a small gas station that still had gas and we all filled up. Sigh of relief! I hadn't eaten all day (worked frantically to pack and ready for our second evacuation in less than a month) so we decided to stop at a 24 hour Jack in the Box. It was 2:00 a.m. and the line wrapped around the building. There were only 2 workers inside and we waited an hour to order. A burger never tasted so good.
After driving for another couple of hours, my brother was feeling tired. He needed a nap. We were passing through a small town and saw a 24 hour McDonalds. He wanted to park in the lot and take a 45 minute power nap. But the Pizza Hut parking lot next door was empty so I suggested we park there. It was darker and less noisy. So we parked and set our alarms. When we awoke 45 minutes later, the entire parking lot was full of evacuee nappers! I guess everyone else thought we had a good idea.
I wish I could describe how we feel at this point. We are beleaguered, frustrated, and relieved at the same time. We are now at the convention center getting disaster relief assistance. It's the hurry-up-and-wait game again. I am sending this from the Internet Station at the convention center.
We are, fortunately, in a beautiful nearly empty, 6 bedroom house. My mom was transferred here to Ft. Worth and rented a house with her former boss, Tracy. Tracy has two girls who are 7 and 13. So here we are again, a houseful of people. This time, there are 13 of us under one roof (15 if you count their cat and dog). We have three full bathrooms. We are equipped with air mattresses.
I tried to bring as much as I could with us but I had to leave some of what little we had accumulated back in Houston. Right now, it looks like Houston is going to get the western side of the hurricane, which is good for the city. We hope to be able to return. There will still be wind damage, some rain, and it is likely power will be out. But it's better than sustaining a direct hit. Unfortunately, Eastern Texas (Beaumont and Port Arthur) as well as Lake Charles are in trouble. We watch the storm with baited breath.
I just found out that three levees near the lower 9th ward in New Orleans have breached. The city is re-flooding. What a nightmare!
My cell phone again is not working. Cell towers are overloaded. I cannot call out and can receive some incoming calls. We do not have a land line at the house. I also don't have Internet access. I am thinking about getting Verizon Broadband Wireless Internet. It's frustrating to be incommunicado with the world. I will try to update you as much as I can.
Thank you all for praying and loving us through this ordeal. I will certainly have a hell of a story to tell when this is all over.
With love, Dianne
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From John Row about Trudy Terry 9/24/05
I spoke to Trudy Terry on her daughter's cell phone today and the whole family is safe. They made it fifty miles north of Orange before being driven off the highway so they got to a cousin's. Eleven of them are holed up there where the only damage was an oak tree going through the porch. Their home was in the eye of the hurricane so they don't expect it to be standing when they get back.
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From Angela Davis 9/24/05
My Dear, Dear Friends:
I am so very grateful for the loving, yet mixed responses of everyone on Storytell who are affected indirectly by all the ugliness about the levees that are coming up. I want you to know, one of the main statements Shelby shared with me in Dallas was some African AMericans remarked on National News after being welcomed with open arms to Houston that she didn't know white people could be so nice. Shelby's response was how sad that it took a disaster for them to find out that white people can be nice. Shelby also said, they should have left that hateful place a long time ago. And I wholeheartedly concurred.
Please know that since my childhood and all through out my life, I have been showered with warmth, understanding, love and compassion by both Blacks and Whites. I have also been shown ugliness by a few on both sides of that imaginary color line. What has held true for me, is when I have experienced that ugliness, always, always, there was something I didn't know about the other person from whence the ugliness came. I later crossed paths with some ofthe "Ugly" people and found them to be some of the most kind, loving and generous people I have ever known. Not all, but enough to know we all traverse down the path of being our best self and our "ugly" self. (And please God, I pray, let me always be my best self, but I am sad to say, I sometimes miss the mark and am thankful when others forgive me, but make the effort to let me know when I have acted less than my best self so I can make the effort of making amends. Not everyone accepts this path nor should they. You are not in this world to learn MY lessons, but your own life lessons.)
We cannot possibly expect people to be the high self all the time in the midst of life's situations. I am not my best self all the time. Some of us have incredibly complex lives and others have very simple lives and we each look through the lens of our own experiences and judge...And it is quite difficult at times to catch ourselves in that judging place.
Tomm was right, it is far too easy for me to point the finger of blame at others when I am not saddled with that responsibility of having to make a decision for a large majority of people. If I were wealthy, OF COURSE, I would make the decision to protect the property of people I value most--just seems like the sensible thing to do, doesn't it? ( Take the leap here, and understand, it is humanly possible to make these decisions when we are not conscious and just as panicked, not to mention human as everyone else) So the people in leadership positions deserve no less than our understanding for being human (not for being white). They also need the sight of elders with wisdom who can help them...no one person should make these ULTIMATE decisions. ANd we are responsible for the design of our government and what works and what doesn't though we don't all join in these efforts)
BEcause we live in a world that so often looks at color first, actions second, it is easy to blame without understanding. IT is also easy to blame just because others are in a leadership position. I am going out on a limb here, but ultimately we are all responsible for our leaders and the decisions they make. NOw I know I am going to get in trouble here, because these are MY opinions, yet we are each responsible for one another and the world we live in, no matter what the skin color. This is not an ideal world, so this is a wonderful, unique teaching opportunity to the extent that we all join together and say this kind of thinking will no longer be accepted as the status quo. THose in power cannot make decisions that will hurt some people and help others. Yet isn't this what is happening on the national level everyday? --even globally? I don't know about you, but I have been in quandary over this seeming dilemma for years now. How can decisions be made where both sides feel taken care of? Can it even be done? The answer is yes, when both sides are heard and acknowledged and forgiveness can be extended and a great deal of healing on both sides. (And I venture to add prayers, because sometimes it is the prayers that allow us to see exactly what needs to be done and to accept it) Whether we are at this place as a people is beyond me. Even in my own family, disagreements rise and we don't always meet eye to eye, sometimes we don't even get to the table of discussion and other times we can't even come together until the other person has finally (after years) said okay I am ready to talk about what happened. THis I do know. People love other people. People love other people. We don't always show it, because we're too hurt or too something that prevents us from showing our love to one another. But in disaster, we let all the hurt go and see each other as who we are, people who need each other. THat's why the world opened it hearts to Katrina's evacuees) It's what has always been. We love people whether we like it or not.
I don't know the solution. I do know we are all thinking people and together we can face the facts, forgive, rebuild, and live together as people who care about each other because we really really do. Thank you for all of your responses on both sides. I Really love each one of you and value what you contributed to my though process.
Peace.
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From Dianne de Las Casas 9/25/05
Hello friends,
Dianne may have come face to face with two hurricanes but she has her spirit intact. She asked that I post this for her. FYI to all.
warm wishes, Karen
The Spirit of Story, Sunday, September 25, 2005
This morning, we woke up early because I had a gig! Tom McDermott, a talented storyteller/musician, invited me to tell stories at the 11:11 service at the United Methodist Church in downtown Fort Worth. The service was incredible. Tom led the ten piece band and they opened the service with a jazz number. From there, they played a variety of music including music by Harry Chapin.
Charles Gaby was the minister and his sermon was on the dark side of authority and where to find truth. After Charles' sermon, I went on. Tom asked me to tell a participatory story so I shared "How Anansi Shared Wisdom with the World." It fit in perfectly with Charles' talking points. The crowd loved the story and eagerly participated in the singing chorus that repeated throughout the story. It was a lot of fun. Afterwards, members of the congregation shared how much they appreciated the story. Someone told me I should consider doing it "professionally." LOL
After the service, Tom took us out to eat at Billy Miner's, a burger joint. Soleil and Eliana sat at a separate table with Matthew, Tom's 12-year-old son. They had a blast. I sat with Tom, his wife Linda, and two friends at another table.
Now, here we are at Barnes & Noble once again. The wireless Internet connection here is free! What luck!
We will be headed back for Houston in the next couple of days, after we get the "all clear" and are sure that there is gas along the travel route. Once again, we will probably travel in the middle of the night to avoid the heat and take advantage of the kids sleeping. We hope that it won't be the same lengthy 12-hour trek we had evacuating to Fort Worth.
Everyone has been so good to us. We have been so blessed. Yes, we are tired of the hasty moving and shuffling from one temporary home to another but there is so much to be thankful for. God has been blessing us throughout our trying journey. I have a network of friends and people all over the world who care about us and have been helping us. I can't believe everyone's generosity.
I hope you never tire of hearing "Thank You" because I can't help but say it all the time. And although the words may roll off my tongue often, believe that every time I say it, it is heartfelt and full of love. So, thank you to my friends, family, clients, colleagues, and fellow performers around the world who care so much. We love you for it.
All my love, Dianne
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From Henri J. Roca, III, M.D. 9/26/05
Dear Friends,
This was sent to another list serve I belong to and thought why not share it with others. Even though it was done on September 21st as a group effort I figured anyone can do this whenever you feel moved. Heck ANYTIME you pour water out, why not bless it before sending it on? I have removed the date references and am passing it on to you. So please send it to your friends so that everyone is sending healing, loving energy towards New Orleans. "If we all do our small wonderful part, it will make such a big difference in our world!"
Angela Davis
IT IS ALL ABOUT WATER
Henri Roca, MD
Our lives float by on the whims of wishes and dreams yet we expect a degree of steadfastness, predictability, and constancy. We are over 80% water, each of us, yet we cover ourselves with form, live within structure, and gather around us material goods.
Here in New Orleans we left the land that supported a vibrant, diverse culture descended from the riverboat gamblers and sharecroppers, patriots and pirates, French and Spanish and Irish and German and Italian and African and Vietnamese. We were rich and poor. We were never owned by the English and so had a unique Lassiez Faire all our own. We lived and loved for the sake of the pure enjoyment of such things. When we left the constancy of the land, we took ourselves and our spirits with us. We left because of the water. Rather we ourselves became the flowing.
We are now a fluid population. We ebb and flow across the country. Our emotions, our stories, our tears, our joys flow from us. We are creatures of water. Water defines our City and ourselves. We have water in our air, water in our land, and with the heat of the sun, our water becomes steam. We became our water.
Water had hit us like a fist destroying our homes. Water smothered us like a glove. Water cleansed the City. Water, water, water
In its cleansing, it took on our collective refuse - not just the refuse of the City of New Orleans but also the refuse of the nation. We rediscovered poverty and need. We rediscovered our collective darkness for New Orleans served as the root chakra of a continent. All of your joys and tears flowed past us. All of your best attributes and darkest desires were ours to release.
And so in the thanking of water, I would ask that all of you participate in a ...ritual of gratitude to water. Matsui Emoto's work illustrated that intention can transform polluted water into water that crystallizes with beautiful and bountiful forms. Our intention can help heal the water that has taken on our impurities. Water is a unique entity that holds, transmits, and strengthens information. Water holds the healing in homeopathy. Water tracks the shifts in the Zero Point Field. Water responds to intention. Let our intention ttransform our water.
I ask you do three things:
1. Stand before the mirror and bless the water within yourself by saying three times: "I love you. I am grateful for you in your completeness." You may do this every day.
2. Place a jar of water with the words "Love" and "Gratitude" to charge overnight. ...then pour that water into the nearest body of flowing water. See that water purifying all the water it touches until it arrives at New Orleans and beyond.
3. ...Whenever you think about New Orleans and its inhabitants intend "Love and Gratitude"
I will be honored that so many (honest, loving, generous people> LIKE YOU) and energy workers, spiritual practitioners, shamans, and all other well intentioned beings support this direct action of healing upon the waters of ourselves, our continent, and The City of New Orleans.
In Blessing and Healing
Henri J Roca III, MD
Founder, Wholistic Wellness Network
Chief, LSU Section of Integrative Medicine
hroca@lsuhsc.edu
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From Dianne de Las Casas 9/28/05
Hi friends,
Posting at Dianne's request.
warm wishes,
Karen
Difficult Decisions, Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Friends:
We are now back in Houston, returning on Tuesday morning. I am so troubled by the decisions we have to make this week. My husband, Antonio, received a call from his boss. It looks like LSU Health Sciences Center will soon be operational. He is supposed to report to work by November 7. He will keep his job and return to work. While that may seem like good news, it puts us in a Catch 22 situation.
We are tied to New Orleans because of our house. Though it sustained some damage, it is reparable. We continue to pay a mortgage. Because I am self-employed and most of my work was in the region devastated by Katrina, there is no work in the area near my home. I have been networking like crazy and finding jobs in Houston and the surrounding areas. It looks like it will be a great market for me. I already have a bunch of gigs scheduled in the next few months in Houston and beyond. We are a two-income family and I have to work. My income actually pays Soleil's school tuition.
Both girls are enrolled in schools in Houston. While I do not wish to uproot them and have them start the school year over at home, Soleil is in quite an academic predicament. She is a top scholar at Immaculata High School in Marrero, Louisiana. She even won an academic scholarship to the school. On her current track, she is in line for Valedictorian of her class. Immaculata is beginning school on Monday, October 3. Immaculata needs to know this week if Soleil will be returning to school. If she doesn't return, she risks losing her scholarship and her academic standing. In addition, the school may not take her back if she wants to return next school year.
Here in Texas, Soleil only has one honors class (they wouldn't give her any more because they didn't want to overburden displaced students and cause them undue stress). If she stays here in Texas, her GPA will be jeopardized when she returns to Louisiana. Also, if she goes back to Louisiana now, she will have to start the school year over and attend summer school to make up the month of school lost. All the school she has had thus far will not count.
If I keep the girls in Houston, I have the problem of childcare. Who will care for the children when I have to travel out of town for gigs? In the past, it has been Antonio, my mom, or my mother-in-law. Antonio thinks it may be best if the girls go back home to school there while I stay in Houston until our area recovers more. His mom and dad will be there to help with the kids. I cannot bear the thought of living without my children! It tears my heart out. Yes, I travel but I always come home.
There are also so many questions. It is one of the few Catholic high schools in the New Orleans area able to reopen. They will be taking in students from other Catholic schools around the area. Will Immaculata be overcrowded? Will all the teachers return? What will the quality of life be like in the area?
We could send Soleil back with Antonio and keep Eliana here with me but I don't want to separate the girls. Antonio says there is no good solution. I can't stop crying.
I cannot ask Soleil to sacrifice her academic career (her goal is to graduate Valedictorian) to stay with me. At the same time, what kind of mother would I be to not stay with my children? Yet, I need to work to bring in income and there is work in Houston. What do we do?
My brother, Gary, is also in a tough situation. He works for LSU Health Sciences Center as a police officer. LSUHSC has a two-year work probation period for their officers. My brother's two years of probation ends November 10, 2005. Because he is on probation, he will receive his last paycheck on September 30. He is a single father with four children. What will happen to them?
In order for Gary to get on with any police department here in Texas, he needs Texas certification. He can't get hired here without it. It will take some time for him to test and receive his Texas certification. In the meantime, what will he do for income?
There is so much uncertainty swirling in the air. We are scared and hoping for miracles. Katrina has left so much destruction, devastation, and despair in her wake. Can we recover? Can we be whole again? Please pray for us.
Dianne
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From Angela Davis 9/28/05
Here are Angela's pictures of Katrina:
http://www.storynet.org/don/katrina/katrina_pictures.htm
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From Karen Chace re Dianne de Las Casas 9/28/05
Hi friends,
I had the chance to talk with Dianne for quite a while today. Her spirits are good, she is still trying to figure out what is best for everyone, not an easy solution, but they are happy to be back in Houston where there is some assemblance of home. I even had the chance to speak with her sweet daughter Eliana, her youngest. What a joy!
Dianne can get storytell messages but she can't seem to post. For the time being, until she figures it out, I will be the messenger. Things are looking up for her in the Houston market and beyond, she has put her networking skills to good use and has a number of venues booked, so thankfully their will be some income coming in.
She thanks everyone for their kindnesses and well wishes.
Warm wishes,
Karen
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From Sue Godsey re Trudy Terry 9/29/05
Dear All,
I spoke with Trudy Terry's daughter last night. They are in Denton waiting for to be allowed back into Orange County. Trudy's cousin did get close enough to see that Trudy's house is still standing but there is a pine tree on it. He couldn't get close enough to see how much damage there was. Trudy's mother's house in Vidor is also standing, and it looks to be free of trees, just no windows and debris all around it. They will go back as soon as it is deemed safe enough. Some people are going back today, but it is not advised. Since they live in a heavily wooded rural area, they have decided it's better to wait for power, etc.
I don't know about anyone else, as I think they are spread all over the place. Anyone else know any more?
Sue
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From Angela Davis 9/29/05
Dear Friends:
I arrived “home” in Oklahoma City tonight to find a host of cards, letters, photos and well wishes from all of my storytelling friends! I was overwhelmed! I can’t begin to express my gratitude to each of you, and I am so far behind with my thank you notes it’s going to take at least a month to respond to everyone who has opened their heart to me. I am indeed blessed with friendships and more. This is the eve of my birthday weekend and your gifts have made this “homecoming” all the more special. Those of you who called, emailed or wrote I am eternally grateful. Thank you so much for loving me.
Our Oklahoma friends, Art and Pat, were kind enough to open their homes and hearts to me and my family are moving to St. Louis next month! Sniff, sniff! My daughter and her fiancee want to head north to St. Louis. I fear the clime to cool for me--especially after faring the cool temperatures of Washington. My voice is repairing itself as it is cracked and croakly from the northern exposure recently yet in Houston I was terribly warm with all the running I did with my family members and I sometimes longed for the cool Washington days! OKC has cool crisp nights and my body is quickly adjusting. After another engagement tomorrow night I head for New Orleans for a brief spell to meet with the insurance adjustor and then I will be like the storytellers of old--a travelling nomad. Mayta and Jay and their four year old daughter will be returning to New ORleans where jobs await. With my daughter and her fiancee settled in St. Louis, my extended family scatttered hither, thither and yon, I will be free to roam willy nilly as the stories call. I will let you know where my stories take me and hope our paths can cross.
I want each and every one of you to know, I do not know how we would have made it through this painfully, traumatic time without your well wishes, prayers and love guiding us every single step along the way. Please, continue to hold me in your prayersas this year continues to unfold.
Rosemary Vohs shared a delightful tale with me and I pass it on to you...
A couple was quite poor and found themselves in a desperate situation. The wife sent her husband with enough food for a three day journey to a clearing in the woods with instructions to climb the tree and remove the eggs. The husband found the tree, climbed it and discovering a nest with two eggs inside pushed it out of the tree. Inside one egg was a plain gold ring and inside the other an eagle who could talk. The eagle told the husband, the ring was magic and he could have anything he wished for but only one wish.
The husband carried the ring two days journey and came upon an inn. He stopped for the night where the crafty innkeeper learning the secret of the ring and switched rings with him. After the husband's departure, the innkeeper wished for a pile of gold, an amount so cumbersome and largesse it promptly fell on top of the innkeeper killing him dead. When the husband arrived home, he told his wife about the ring and they discussed what they should wish for. Finally the husband and wife agreed that if they worked really hard they could accumulate the very thing they desired and could save the wish for when they really needed it.
When spring came, the couple looked over the past year's work and to their joy realized they had indeed accomplished their goal. So they set another goal for the following year and once again managed to acquire more land and good fortune. Year after year, they would come together every spring to discuss what their wish would be, As fate would have it, each year the couple would have succeeded again and grew to be very wealthy owning surrounding lands and considerable success without actually using the wish. By the end of their lives the couple had amassed quite a fortune and both died the same day. the youngest son uncovered the ring and wanted to make the wish, but the oldest son mandated that the ring would be buried with their parents. ANd that is what was done.
Rosemary told this story with such relish that I thoroughly enjoyed the tale's message. That is --we already have everything inside of us to be very successful.
Storytellers, thank you for being such wonderful people!
Angela Davis
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From Dianne de Las Casas 10/1/05
Dear friends,
Dianne asked that I post this for her.warm wishes,
Karen
The Decision, Friday, September 30, 2005
After heart to heart talks with Soleil, we made our decision about Soleil and Eliana returning home. Soleil spoke to the dean at her school, who helped her clarify some issues and gave her an understanding shoulder to cry on. We also found out more about Soleil's old school - they lost their main building to mold. The main building houses the gym/auditorium, many classrooms, and administration. They have to move everything to their remaining buildings. As expected, there are also staff changes as some chose to relocate.
In addition, our house is not livable because of the mold. Also, the area is so vulnerable to further damage if a heavy rainstorm or, God forbid, another hurricane hits. Hurricane season doesn't officially end until November 30. Given all this, Soleil and Eliana are staying with me in Houston. I don't think her old school is environmentally safe and the area is still unstable. Yes, more businesses are opening but there are still problems. For instance, garbage has not been picked up so there are mounds of garbage piled up. Some of it is filled with rotten meat, from people cleaning out their refrigerators. There are still areas where debris has not been cleared so getting around is hazardous. I think the parish is rushing to get residents to return at any cost and pressuring the schools to reopen even though they are not ready.
Antonio agrees that the school's main building should be fixed or replaced before they reopen but they face financial ruin if they don't receive school tuitions. So, it is important for them to get students back in the classrooms. There are also people who stayed behind and kept their children out of school this entire time. Those students have to get back into school. My stepdad, who has returned home, said that although the parish has made great progress, the quality of life is different.
Soleil's new school has agreed to let her change her schedule and take on more honors courses so that she can raise her GPA. St. Agnes is working with Soleil so that her transition back to Immaculata will be a smoother one. When Soleil applies for college and is being considered for scholarships, I am certain they will consider her life experience and the fact that she is a Katrina survivor. If Soleil can maintain a straight A average throughout all this, she deserves a medal!
While my husband is in New Orleans with work, my brother, Gary, has agreed to help me with the girls when I travel. With Soleil around, he will be able to handle five small children. Eliana and his two children, Jourdan and Camrynn, attend the same elementary school. In addition, we have made some friends here who can also help.Gary's last day on the job was today. Today, he receives his last paycheck. He has filed for disaster unemployment assistance and extended his food stamps.
Gary and I wanted to find housing here but all the apartments are full so we are staying with our host family, the Claires, until we can find alternative housing.We received word that my mom has to stay in Fort Worth until June, 2006. The Naval base where she works by New Orleans is not reopening until then, when the infrastructure of the area is more stable. My mom is, of course, upset.
Clay, her husband, will remain in New Orleans to fix their house and rebuild his landscaping business. Now that people are starting to return, he is getting work, most of it as debris removal. My mom and Clay will be a two-city family for a while as well.
So I feel better now that we have made the decision. It was a difficult one but Soleil made it easier for us by telling us how she felt. In the end, I think she will be stronger and wiser after this experience. We all will.
Thank you to everyone who offered words of encouragement and advice. I appreciate it greatly.
Dianne
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From Darlene duFour about Neil and Mary Early 10/1/05
From Reverend Neil W. Early
130 Powell Drive (Home)
400 N. 4th – First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Leesville, LA 71446
337.238.1959 (Home)
337.239.3612 (Church)
1 October 2005
People have been asking how they can help and what our situation is – I am writing this in both specific and general terms so that one missive can cover multiple purposes. We send a deep thanks to “Week of Compassion” for the
generous assistance and to the Chaplain’s Tithes and Relief Fund – They have been seed money to help us help others. We have received wonderful gifts of many supplies and resources and money from all over the United States – We send our
deepest appreciation. We have received direct gifts from Iowa – including some new friends from Lennox -- , Virginia, Washington State, Ohio, Southern California – and many other places. The Trousdells, friends of ours in Virginia collected more than twenty boxes of things which were sent free by UPS (please help us thank the UPS) – Wal-Mart cards have been life-savers! BTW,
Wal-Mart has delivered more trucks than I’d have believed possible filled with food, paper products, clothing – Please help us say thanks to them! Even the Regal Theatres/UA have given evacuees free movie tickets and treats to help make the time easier while stranded.
To try to answer some of the specific questions we are asked – Yes, Red Cross seemed a little slow in getting here for real, but they also are trying to cover a large area and they have to do a sort of “triage”. We were not in the immediately desperate situation that many others were in until Rita hit us. We do have some situations where we question Red Cross decisions, but we have a different perspective than have they – FEMA has been difficult for many evacuees because of the detailed information one is expected to have even when one has not been able to get home to see what the actual damage may be – providing that is, that one has a home. I have a feeling that many people will fall between the cracks in the system, and that is another area where the “CHURCH” can continue to help. I keep hearing echoes of the Avery & Marsh song, “I am the Church, You are the Church, We are the Church together – all who follow Jesus – all around the world, We are the Church, together!” Some people will be relocating their lives in different places and the Church will be needing to offer levels of xenia, hospitality, that may have been under-anticipated. Brother and Sister Disciples, I believe strongly in the work of “Week of Compassion” – I have been in other communities in addition to this one during crises and have been on the receiving end of WOC funds before – It is a truly gratifying and I believe efficient way for the whole Church to work together! I hope people will continue to give assistance to Churches and Shelters which have
been directly caring for people. The Red Cross and certainly Habitat for Humanity and related programs have their special role Many have asked how they can send money that will be used directly for aid and varying assistance in our area, I invite you to consider the Leesville Area Ministerial Alliance (LAMA). We are a Louisiana not-for-profit corporation recognized by the United States Internal Revenue Service under its 501 (c ) (3) code. We are ecumenical, inter-racial, and I assure you, active. We will be looking after community needs as a Christian Service entity long after everyone else has completed their tasks and services. Any funds directed to LAMA can be mailed to me.
To bring people up to date:
As I write this, we are in our fourth week of looking after hurricane evacuees – over 3,400 from Katrina – now more than 5,000 from Rita. We can only approximate for several reasons: when Katrina hit, we had only three officially approved Red Cross Shelters, a fourth was opened during the first week – the largest shelter could only handle about 150 people – we had more than fifteen other churches and the Louisiana Lion’s Camp also sheltering people – plus over 1,300 people staying with families and friends at Ft. Polk, and another 2,300+ staying with families and friends around the Vernon Parish Community. Most of these folks were still with us when Hurricane Rita hit.
With the new groups of evacuees it became necessary to open up the schools to shelter people. In just the two gyms at the Leesville High School plus the one gym at the Jr. High, we had over 850 people. Every school in the entire Parish (County) had evacuees. When Rita hit, we were actually only about fifty miles from the eye – we had the experience of the eastern blow—water, power, telephones – and some homes -- ceased to exist. It was not until late Monday that the water pumps were able to be activated and water began to be restored – with the 48 hour “boil” notice, of course. Electricity slowly began to be restored in various areas of town and country as wires could be cleared, trees removed, poles reset-replaced-jerry rigged – you would not believe the looks of a “spliced” power pole. Because of the wind damage and the trees on the ground and nestled against each other and utility poles, it has been a slow process to keep helpers safe. The workers coming into our area to assist in putting us back together are in the thousands. Many house that appeared to escape other damage are having to be rewired because of the pulling of lines with the collapse of the poles. Power has not been restored at the Parsonage area yet, nor to over a third of Leesville – not to mention various areas outside of this area -- so some of us are still camping out at the Church – one of the ladies who lives near-by has been letting us shower at her house – but Mary is investing heavily in Fabreeze for pew cushions and sofa cushions and etc., for tomorrow’s Worship Service!
We had as many as fifteen camping out at church – plus people were bringing in their food by layers as their freezers thawed – so we had some wonderful impromptu fellowship meals to which we simply invited everyone who wanted to share – I think we may have had more than fifty one night. Sometimes older folks and some families with babies as well as some with other health and special needs have been cared for here as in many other Church buildings. Our Church building escaped any damage other than a few shingles – but members of the congregation have had unwelcome barky/leafy visitors who sought shelter inside homes – somehow trees that looked smaller loom much bigger when they are inside one’s bedroom! That’s not counting roof damage, water damage, etc. I am writing this from Church since we still cannot return to the Parsonage --- no damage, but no electricity. Even our cat, Clarence, has been learning “Church Manners”. We had cats, dogs, and a bird named Byrd at Church on the night of the hurricane. We tried to get everyone possible out of mobile homes and pre-fabricated houses for the hurricane night.
We did not have professional Red Cross Shelter Managers until just before the Hurricane Rita event, so we have been basically “winging” the first three weeks plus. We also finally have mental health professionals in the various shelters. Difficulties many people are facing are over having NOT been in “Official” Red Cross Shelters, this makes for some challenges with becoming recognized for aid from RC and from FEMA. I confess that I was beginning to believe that both FEMA and Red Cross were being misspelled, the proper spelling for most of this time should probably be “mystery”. Our local Red Cross workers/residents, were working their hearts out – somehow the levels of authority above them were a little out of reach – and above them?
FEMA is finally here with some basics available – MRE’s, water, ice, some baby supplies – The Sheriff’s department and the Police Jury (County Commission) worked with us to set up drop off points and pick up points for necessities –including paper products prior to the FEMA arrival. As President of the Ministerial Alliance (LAMA), I was meeting with various helping officials including the sheriff’s office and the OEP (Office of Emergency Preparedness) at 7am every morning for planning and strategy sessions – new problems, how to meet them – things to anticipate, needs that were cropping up, gaps in services, the search for FEMA and RC -- prayer and thanksgiving! LAMA Vice-President (Pastor Johnson) and I were able to call a conference of community leaders – including clergy – fairly early into the crisis, so we established collaboration and mutual awareness and assistance from the first week. Because of this, we may have been in a better situation than many. We established a rumor control board as well as a volunteer data base system from the first week on.
When it was clear that Rita was going to hit us in Louisiana, officials were going on radio and television urging people to stay with families and friends instead of adding to the shelter populations – so there are that many more people who are beyond any “official” count. In Vernon Parish we were going to have many additional evacuees – we have long been a standing evacuation point –
just not this long at a time nor with this many people! We really had to start hopping. Some of us Pastors who chose to stay home to tend to people’s needs have been everywhere we could as often as we could. Pastors Maurice Johnson and Harrison Fields have been to the various shelters daily. We have held Worship, shared Communion, anointed for healing and blessing, said prayers, held hands, searched the internet once we had power -- Mary and I have taken the bells-puppets—stories, creative drama, etc., everywhere we could.
We have been doing as much as possible to share with people outside our area about the need for funds to fill in the gaps and cover areas where there was no other assistance – or where other assistance might be “delayed.” This has been a particular concern since the Red Cross policy has been that they did not reimburse the official shelters until they were closed – most churches were not prepared for a month of running air conditioning 24/7 plus the water and gas usage – plus the plumbing problems which came up – plus gasoline, etc. Food and drinking water have been additional concerns. Not only were many stations running out of gasoline, but when the electricity is off – pumps do not pump. Many congregations in situations similar to ours where they were not able to be shelters have still made meals and served them at the various “official and unofficial” shelters – and volunteered time to give relief to the members of the host churches It has been a total community effort. Partnerships and friendships have developed beyond anyone’s imaginings. I think the women (and some of us men helped—at least a little) served about a dozen meals in the three weeks – sometimes more than one meal in a day in varying shelters
In total honesty, people behavior problems have been so minimal they aren’t even in consideration. Many of the evacuees were out looking for jobs within days of arriving. The schools enrolled the Katrina evacuees immediately. Of course, Rita has made things a little more difficult since schools were needed for housing people. School will take up in most facilities by next Wednesday. The Leesville Area Ministerial Alliance (LAMA), adopted the policy of using the funds we have for assisting the various sheltering churches with no-interest, undetermined length loans (to become gifts when and where FEMA and/or Red Cross do not make reimbursements). We have also taken care of all sorts of things from replacing lost teeth (a victim of the Super Dome experience), re-uniting separated families, purchasing medicines and medical supplies and equipment not covered by RC, transporting people, assisting with or paying medical bills and physicians visits – many physicians have been generous beyond description! Arranging for notaries, providing temporary mailing and contact addresses, all kinds of things needed by Churches to keep people helped, assistance through churches to people housing large numbers under their roofs – foods that are non-non-perishables (eggs, milk, fresh fruits and vegetables, etc.). My wife, Mary, had the opportunity to spend over $1,200 in one day! During the Katrina recovery period we were blessed with a refrigerator truck which kept frozen things frozen and cold things cold – many churches were limited in refrigerator space – this allowed them to have a special niche in the cold storage area – Gale Vukicevic (a member of our congregation) would contact the shelters, take their orders, she and Mary would “shop” and then the shelters could pick up the parts of their orders as needed from the cold wagon. We have had quite an operation going. A word of caution to all who receive this missive – make certain to hang on to one of the old-fashioned land-line phones. When power was off, the wonderful combination phones and wireless phones were out of commission. We had significant contact and communication problems locally and throughout the Parish (county).
Within a few days after Rita finished her whipping, the Southern Baptists came in with their Meals for the Community – they have been great. Many were able to have hot food who otherwise would not. No one expected it would be into the second week and not everyone would have water and electricity. Water is just about everywhere now, but electricity is still coming on house by house and part of a block by part of a block. Some transformers seem to have been doing French-fried imitations! The National Guard is here helping clean up streets and homes – Everything takes time. I understand better now why community leadership tries to keep everyone possible out of the area until clean-up is finished and systems are back in place – saw some real traffic back-ups and highly dangerous situations when people tried to get home when the big trucks and troops were trying to do their job --
Mary and I have joked that we are also “Problem Central” – whenever the Sheriff’s office, police department, mayors’ offices, churches, and anyone else has a situation they don’t know what to do with-- they refer them to us – Talk about right-brain creativity! Problem-solving 210, One of the biggest areas of need has been medication -- especially for diabetics and people with
pulmonary problems – close second: blood pressure. We have learned the need for planning ahead. The Lions Camp director, Ray Cecil, has been great! I am so proud of the Vernon Parish Community – We are on all the lists as an “economically impacted” area – I have seen people who could not afford it bringing what they couldn’t spare to look after our special visitors – and then staying to help cook, wash up, visit, serve, etc. -- brings to mind the account of the “Widow’s Mite” and “The Good Samaritan” in a spectacular way. We are so proud of our Church family and our many friends who have helped in so many wonderful ways – My cousin, Richard Drapeau, from Beaumont, Texas, was coming for our State Liar’s Contest (which has been postponed due to Hurricane) so he came up a day earlier than planned – He has mopped and run errands and consoled and blessed. He slipped home to check out his house and will be back here for Sunday Services.
When we learned of the potential dangers because of the Hurricane Rita being so close, Mary and I were discussing what needed to be saved and what we needed to take and how we would prepare things. Mary came up with the idea of bagging and taking the CPU’s from Church and from home – especially since the back-up discs were so numerous. We realized we could always add the peripherals wherever we wound up if we had to evacuate, but the brains would be with us. Thank you to whoever invented the big black trash bags! We also identified valuable papers which should be kept in large baggies and ready to grab, plus Mary double-bagged in big garbage bags church papers and documents as well as our own. We made checklists in case we had to evacuate in a hurry. Mary also came up with the idea of tying and taping filing cabinets, cupboards, etc., so they would have a better chance if watered and winded – We will be preparing things more carefully when we have a chance to relax and think things through. We are also asking everyone we are working with to keep notes/journals, etc., so that we can compile information on what worked, what did not, where we all could strengthen what we do and how we do it –
I confess that most of us are becoming a bit weary – but we will keep helping as long as there are people to help. We were one of the Churches that held Worship this past Sunday, had to go outside since electricity and water were non-existent – had people stopping by because they saw a Service happening – most of our congregation still home were here, too. So many of our people commented that when they heard all of the “Services Cancelled” notices on the radio, they were proud to know we would find a way -- It was a wonderful reunion for all of us. We are looking forward to tomorrow’s Worship – World Communion Sunday is always a special day – We generally fill the window shelves and other space with objects from around the world – our prayers and hymns and special music reflect the international theme – Mary has created a beautiful service – including a series of Communion and Cross meditation/hymn combinations – members of the congregation have been asked to bring Crosses which will be placed on tables during the celebration. We also have a baptism. It will be a beautiful day to worship and honor the Lord. We live in the midst of miracles and blessings. Thank You, Lord, for abounding, amazing grace!
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From Angela Davis 10/2/05
My Dear Friends:
I visited the city of New Orleans today. It looks like a bomb hit it. It is empty, lifeless and surreal. First I went to my home in New Orleans. The garage door was open. I couldn't believe my eyes. Everything was smelly, disheveled, wet and moldy. The mold went up the walls and all around like something diseased. From one end to the other throughout the carpet sloshed and squeaked under my steps. IN every apartment, water had overturned refrigerators, stoves, washers and dryers. Mattresses lay in awkward positions, blocking doorways. Stuff spilled from closet doors out into the nasty rooms. THe new chain saw and edger lay rusted amid assorted tools, ceiling fans and other stored parphernalia. This home was built in 1927 and withstood every major hurricane and flood without so much as a inch of water marring it was now forever and inescapably ruined. Outside a huge oak tree had split in half filling two driveways and pinning two cars underneath. Another part of the tree snagged the roof and damaged the upstairs rooms. Home after home was destroyed in almost every part of the city I visited. LAter the State Farm regional manager in my neighborhood cleaning up debris told me my home was totaled. I asked him about the mold inside and whether State Farm would cover the damages. He said no, but probably it would be totaled with the thousand's of others in the city that suffered similiar damage without looking at the mold.
We drove to my aunt's home in Eastern New ORleans. Half of her home was gone. The water had risen at least 12 feet in this area. Even though her home was on stilts and at least 5 feet off the ground, the water managed to find its way inside. We couldn't get the door more than half way open. The things jamming the entrance prevented us from going in further, nor did we want to. On to my sister's home further in the East where water barely covered an inch of her floor and little damage was spotted though several blocks away, homes had indescribable damage. Oddly enough. just about every church I saw suffered more damage. Many of them collapsed into the street and surrounding space. We drove across St. Bernard Parish to enter the Lower Ninth ward the "back way", an area that was doubly hit by flood waters. Damaged cars barring one of the two major entry ways prevented us from going forward. At the only other entrance to the area massive rail cars jammed the street with barely enough room for a vehicle to get through. Blocking this lone entrance were two patrol cars monitoring traffic allowed to enter. Draw bridges offered the only other entrance directly from New Orleans to this area were in the permanent up position leaving no choice to abandon our plan to see my mom's home.
NO matter, I had seen enough. As we were traveling back through the city reversing the way we had come, I went to my friend Adona's home. I called her to tell her the news. Water had gotten in. Workers were still removing debris from the street as we approached and we had to park a block away and walk. The worker warned me the ground was still toxic. So I donned the heavy black boots my FEMA employed brother had loaned me for just such a purpose. Adona's neighbor across the street didn't make it through because she was in a wheelchair and could not survive the water levels. She told me this bit of information as I walked up the nasty street that crackled like glass under my feet from the dried watery remains baked in the hot sun. She also told me State Farm called her this morning and told her home qualified for maximum policy benefits. Adona wanted to know if her home suffered wind damage. It had. Parts of the roof and building structures lay on the ground beneath my feet. I peered through a window and saw a refrigerator lying in the middle of the floor. Too much for me, I made a hasty retreat back to the car. It wasn't the smell of raw sewerage that sent me scampering for refuge. IT was everything combined. Every where the water had touched life ceased to be. The greenery looked as if someone had taken a huge gray paintbrush and painted everything a drab colorless grayish tone. IT looked odd to see the top part of the same tree green, while its base appeared lifeless. Down one street the animal rescue folks were there actively looking for abandoned live pets.
We drove back in silence. As when a loved one dies each person carries grief differently. I noted how the people who were experiencing loss responded in varying extremes. Some cried, others complained, some searched hard to find humor and others carried on in stony silence. It was obvious that we move in stages vacillating between acceptance, sheer denial and craving forms of contrived normalcy to starting nonsensical arguments and aggravations to avoid the obvious. I met some friends for a planned birthday gathering and was grateful for a glass of wine and I don't normally drink preferring something milder. In fact I had two glasses tonight and was glad to feel something prickling the numbness I felt. One of my friends, and fellow storyteller, Frank Levy shared Naomi Shihab Nye's poem on Kindness with me. I share it here with you:
Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever. Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. YOu must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive. Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. YOu must wake up with sorrow. YOu must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread, only kindness that raises its head fro nthe crowd of the world to say it is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend.
We spent the rest of the evening sharing stories of the incredible kindnesses that had been bestowed upon us. We tenderly unwrapped our gift of stories fingering the imaginary ribbons we unwound laying them before each other like gentle tokens of love. We laughed too. NOt one of us cared to talk about what hurt, or the insensitivity, or our own humaness. Tonight we bolstered each other with stories of kindness that ranged from sheltering pets to helping strangers. May each of you be blessed with so much kindness in your life.
Angela Davis who is in deep pain tonight and feels she cannot share why such things cause so much grief. She only knows that they do and yet she is filled with so much gratitude for the people she has met and those who have shared such incredible acts of kindness in the past weeks. They have helped her tremendously to make it through this incredibly tough day.
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From Kinberley King about Tom Burger 10/3/05
Tom Burger is okay. After making many many preparations and deciding to ride it out, his neighborhood was hit with - heavy wind and rain and brief power outage. They were among the lucky ones. No flooding, no damage.
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From Sue Godsey about Trudy Terry 10/4/05
Dear Friends,
Trudy Terry called and says they are settled in Denton for the next month or so. They are letting people back into the area, but they don't really want them to come back until things are safer, the power is back on, and clean water is available. Trudy's husband, Mike, will go back to look over damages, etc., but the family won't go back until power is restored to the area and they know they have a place to stay. Trudy's daughter, Marybeth, managed to take all the pictures from the house and loaded her car with them. They have been so thankful that she thought to do that in advance.
If anyone would like to write Trudy, I am adding an address that is in care of her brother-in-law. Her health is pretty good despite the circumstances.
Trudy Terry c/o Jerry Dalrymple
1220 Broadway
Denton, TX 76201-2712
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From John Row about Trudy Terry 10/4/05
Excited e mail from Trudy. The house survived and the electric is on so the clear up can start.
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From Angela Davis 10/10/05
Dear Friends:
I know I have been asking for a lot of prayers since Katrina introduced herself. Today, I received a call from the insurance adjustor. They are not going to pay for the extensive structural damages to my home because there is no evidence to support it was from Hurricane Katrina. (DUH!?) They did say, if I appealed it, they would send THEIR structural engineer out to make a professional determination about the damages. And because of the $14,000 Hurricane deductible added to my insurance policy this past year, they are not going to pay towards any of the damage the hurricane caused.
I spoke with my (FEMA) brother who is working in this area. His professional opinion is FEMA is not likely to cover damages when an insurance company is involved because it is the insurance company's responsibility. He also said, if I had no insurance, FEMA would have stepped in immediately to repair the damages. So what gives here? You do the right thing and you get screwed? I don't believe that is the way things work. Even though I have heard it with my own ears, I know there is something greater than this situation at work in my life. I know that prayer works when nothing else can. So I ask you to please join with me in prayer about this situation. I know that there is a Power that has a way of working things out one way or the other. It doesn't matter to me how it gets worked out, just that it does. I want to thank you for being with me throughout this saga. I have had many bright days because of your prayers. Thank you so much for your prayerful support on my behalf.
Warmly...
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From Angela Davis 10/11/05
Dear Friends:
The lower ninth ward was opened today. My mother's home, another aunt and several friends, and one of my rental properties ( my first home) is located in this region characterized "lower" because it is the area that is adjacent to St. Bernard Parish. The only way into the area was through St. Claude Ave. and over the St. Claude bridge. There was a long line when I arrived. On the neutral (median) ground were about twenty crosses with pictures of drowned victims from the storm attached and a pair of Mardi Gras beads hanging over them. Since we were stopped because the bridge was up. I got out and looked closely atthe pictures. Propped against the tree was a sign and several pictures indicating the death of the Ninth Ward. Next to the tree was a metal casket someone had crudely written "Here lies the soul of the Ninth Ward-It will never be the same again"
I got back into my car and drove over the bridge first to my old neighborhood two blocks from the bridge. Military personnel directed traffic and motioned each car across the bridge. Driving past Holy Cross ( a private catholic high school) I noticed the downed trees, homes in various conditions, writing on the walls: "2 dogs inside, Sick dog taken to the SPCA, dog under the porch, 0 bodies, DEA, and the like. I was afraid the renters hadn't made it out of the dwelling safely. This home is on higher land because it is so close to the levee and considered a no flood zone even though it is only two blocks from the Mississippi River. My children were in grade school when we lived here and the 3 bd/2ba house was only one year old. I always prided myself on the fact that I maintained flood insurance on all my properties.
This past week however, I discovered the flood policy was bumped and it only had homeowners' insurance that paid for wind and hazard damages but not flood. I did my best to control the fear mounting in my voice as I spoke to the adjustor who was assigned to help with my claim. I told them, I contacted the insurance office in June to inquire about this particular property's flood policy and my agent looked it up and said, "Oh yes, Ms. Davis, you have flood insurance on that property, I am looking right at it." I thanked her profusely and hung up never doubting that she could have been wrong or that a grave disservice has just been done. In retrospect, I think about all the things I could have done, like: ask her to send me a copy of the policy to place with the others, or ask her to put it in writing. But I did neither of those two things. So today, I am very concerned about the tenants who who may not get their their property replaced. To their credit, they did suggest to find out if my agent is now working in another location and see if she remembers telling me that.
So when I drove up, I peered curiously first to see if their was a substantial amount of wind damage and to look at the writing on the wall to determine whether the elderly family who been there since 1996, have survived or not. The writing gave no clues. Only the letters DEA and a date 9-21. The door was open, while the iron grating remained intact. Not a good sign. I peered through the door. YUCK! The contents of the interior were capsized and everything was out of place. Mold and mildew grew up the wall, yet everything was recognizable. I made my way through the debris that cluttered the front yard over to the side path to check out the back of the house. The roof was in deplorable condition and the siding and gutters hung down. I didn't know it at the time, but I had stepped in something. I was too preoccupied with the iron railing leaning up against the back bedroom window! Some one had propped it against the wall so someone could either get in or out. Hopefully, it meant they were not perished inside as I had initially thought. After making a cursory perusal of the rest of the damage to the home, I made my way to my mother's home several blocks away. I tried not to notice all the damage, but it was far too prevalent to be ignored.
The fumes bore on me during the drive over and I held the cloth that I had brought to protect my delicate respiratory system over my nose and mouth. Mom's house had a tree over the car in the driveway that blocked the gate preventing me from entering. I went around to her neighbor's yard with the intention of jumping the fence. My mom was on the cell phone by now and I am giving her a blow by blow description of what I see. She is hollering into my ear, go and get my rings out of my bedroom. They are on the dresser blah, blah, blah. I tell her I can't even get into the yard yet, and I'll have to call her back. Phone jammed in my pocket with the car keys, I attempt to make the climb but am wary of getting stuck on the fence and since I am alone, I think I'd rather chance fighting the tree. Back to the front, I break a number of spindly limbs before I achieve my goal. I call her back and tell her the door is open but the iron security gate is locked. I dig the keys out of my pocket and try, but they won't fit. The lock is rusted. Then I noticed the door jam is rusted and I give it surperior yank and it comes free! I've got the door open, but there is no way, I am going in. Everything is black and nearly impossible to decipher what it is. The interior ceiling is gone throughout her home and I can see the things she had stored in the attic hanging through the exposed beams. It looks and smells like a garbage dump. I make my way to the side entrance and there, once more I am stopped. I am not going in there. Even if someone were to pay me, I would have to pass. I relate as much to my mom and she is on the line saying, well what about... I calmly speak into the phone, mom repeat after me--nothing I used to own in this home is worth saving. I have her say it twice, three times maybe four. I have walked all around by now and seen enough. I am overwhelmed again. I am leaving her property when my mom says, "what about ... I go through having her repeat after me again. I told her anytime she thought she ought to get something to say those words. Then she asked about her plants...MOM!
I get her off the phone and I know I am not going to check on anybody else's house. Nope. I make my way to the intersection and there is a team of FEMA personnel handing out helpful literature. I take two copies and she informs me they are serving food. I park the car, anxious for some human company; someone to talk about what I had just seen. I wasn't hungry, but I poured the Purrell hand cleanser over my hands and "washed" them three times! After crying because of the sheer devastation, everywhere I turn. The Red Cross lady from Minnesota, pats my back. I know it will be years before any of us recover from this madness that has entranched itself so fully in our lives. Not one family member or friend who lives here has been unaffected. Everyone has a story. Each story a relic like the crosses stuck in the median.
I am back in the car driving over the St. Claude bridge and once again we are stopped to allow the drawbridge to go up. The smell is unbearable! No amount of holding my nose will do. Finally I take off one tennis shoe to examine it. I notice the greenish mess on the side and out the window it goes. Whew! Now the air will smell better. Nope. The smell persists. Off comes the other shoe, and eyeing the same greenish tinge on the side, out the window it goes too --on the very same median with the crosses paying tribute to a community, to a people, to a city. The stories will go on though.
I return to my temporary shelter, shower, wash the clothing I was wearing and take medication to prevent getting ill again. I think about my morning meeting with the public insurance adjustor. He said, without actual tree damage, my claim is likely to go unpaid. He does give me some great pointers and I intend to follow his suggestions.
The car adjustor calls just as I am finished typing. He says, "I'm calling to settle with you on your vehicle. We found it and it is definitely totalled. It was flled with water and mud." (DUH!!!) The price he quotes is no where near enough to pay off the balance owed. In response, I reply, "What do want me to say?" For there are no words to describe what I feel. I am certain he hears the resignation in my voice. Like an abused wife, who has been abused too much, I barely respond. He says he has to have me sign some paper work. I tell him I don't have an address yet to send it to. Call me later this month, no call me next month and maybe I will be less numb and I can respond intelligently with an address. This I say in a very calm voice. My girl friend calls and she relates, Dr. Phil says we are all in shock! (DUH!)
Nope. I am not in shock. I am numb. Shock will come later. Besides, I am a performer. I have a show to do tomorrow. Performers don't show real emotions, they only perform. In fact, I have a show to do Friday morning too. And the arts council called, they would like me to tell stories to the children still in shelters because I know how to handle them. If I tell them stories, things will seem normal! I want to say, lady, atthis moment, I am not handling things very well. I want to say, those kids don;t need to be handled. They need five or six very attentive people with lots of energy to help them deal with all of their pent up emotions. What I really want to say, is we need Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which and Mrs. What (from Madeliene L'Engle's "Awrinkle in Time") to take us all to the beast on another planet so we can lay in her arms and feel the music soothing our souls and I smile just thinking about it and figuring she wouldn't understand. Then I soften and answer her the way I know I should.
So if you see my performance in the next few months, I am likely to still be numb. Pay no attention to the smiling face, the facade that stands before you is merely my act. And I have it down pat. I know how to wow you and make you feel good. I've been acting since my brother died. And I have discovered acting is really not so bad. It's much easier than answering real questions for the moment and pretending to be happy and normal when your life has fallen down all around you and every where you go, you have to be "up" because it's the right thing to do. If you're still with me after reading all of this...you are an angel. So Angel dear, send me some love so I can get up tomorrow and do a fabulous job telling stories! And don't forget to wish me sweet dreams. In fact, I would love a story. Please send me a story to read tonight if you're up to it. One that will help me remember what it's really like to be alive! One that I can share with adult children like me who need to remember it's only life. Or make it something funny, so I'll laugh my head off and at least feel again! Love you guys!
Peace.
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From Karen Chace about Dianne de Las Casas sent 10/17/05
Good morning/evening friends,
I spoke at length with Dianne yesterday. Great news for both her and her brother, they have found new apartments, in the same complex. That is key since they are the only family close by and will be able to help each other when needed. Her husband Antonio is back in LA but he did arrive this weekend for some family time.
They are moving in, buying furniture, setting up house. She is so happy to have her own place again, a lovely three bedroom apt. that is affordable, due to financial help from FEMA, and a gracious landlord. Her work is back on the upswing, due to some very gracious folks in Texas who have opened their hearts and shared their contact lists.
Her email account isn't set up yet but will be in the next day or so. Her phone should be ready today. She asked that I send along her contact info so here it is:
Dianne de Las Casas
747 Stafford Springs Avenue
Stafford, Texas 77477
Phone (281) 499-3101
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From Sue Godsey about Trudy Terry sent 10/17/05
Trudy is home. They have water & electricity, but no computer or phone. Sometimes the cell phones work, so I was able to speak with Marybeth, Trudy's older daughter. It was a breif conversation but she did tell me that although there were 60 trees down on the land, only two small ones landed on the roof so the damage was minimal. They are busy clearing the land at Trudy's house and at Trudy's mom's house, but are glad to be home and feeling very lucky. If you aren't familiar with that area, those are some tall old pine trees, so it's really a blessing that they didn't fall on the house.
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From Angela Davis 11/10/05
Dear Friends:
My mom had two blood transfusions on Monday because she has internal bleeding, but the doctors have not uncovered why or where yet with all the tests she's been given. She is in fine spirits and hopes to be out of the hospital soon. I appreciate all of you who wrote kind words and offered prayers on my mom's behalf! Thank you.
THis is my last day performing in NY and I will be leaving in the morning heading back to the New Orleans area to meet with insurance adjustors ( yet again :(). I've been offered a trailer through FEMA, and I am half way thinking about accepting one since I am in New Orleans so often. Though I shan't be there long, performances take me to Baton Rouge and Lafayette before heading to Dallas next week. After which I can have a nice respite over the Thanksgiving holidays before heading back to California for more shows.
Yesterday, the children at one school in Frankfort were planning a Veterans Day Salute on today and performed "I'm Proud to Be an American". Tears misted my eyes and threatened to overwhelm me. They had no idea that song in particular touches my heart so deeply remembering our many war veterans who died for our country. In particular, my dad was also a war veteran and died on Veterans Day in 96'. My brother, another Gulf War veteran, died this past February. It was all I could do to compose myself tell them how wonderful they were and then move into the performance.
Yesterday, the special needs teacher approached me after the performance with her young charge still in the wheelchair and said she had never in all of her years of working with this student heard her laugh. She told me she not only laughed throughout the program, but the child was actually smiling and flashed me a brilliant grin! I can only imagine what this poor child has suffered. Her right eye was bruised...and she seemed a bit forlorn as she sat in the front of the auditorium in her wheelchair. I was so happy to be a part of a significant event in her young life. As I left the building headed for the next school, I could only think of the hundreds of storytellers who are out there making a difference day after day in the lives of children everywhere. Thank GOd for storytellers!
There should be day to celebrate storytellers in our society! Stories are such an integral part of civilization. Not just a festival, or a concert but a day not only in which stories are told, but people (children and adults) could share what a difference storytelling has made in their lives! PErhaps NSN/librairies/schools/festival organizers could collaborate on such a day!
Warmly, Angela Davis
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From Angela Davis 12/9/05
Dear Friends:
I have waited with bated yet prayerful breath to find out what would happen as a result of Katrina's destruction. The good news is in! THe sun is shining and a dazzling rainbow of goodwill and startling possibilities presented themselves! First I want to thank you. Your prayers have certainly made the difference. My home in New Orleans will be rebuilt!!! The insurance company settled in full and the first phase of restoration has begun. In fact the bottom floor where the water nearly reached the ceiling has been gutted and the massive oak tree has been removed from roof and yard. It still smells horribly, but the contractor begins the disinfecting next week. Then comes the ardous task of refurbishing the 1927 structure to include a new third floor complements of FEMA. They want the building raised, but we figured it's easier to add a third floor given the substantial roof damage from the tree and leave the bottom floor for parking, wash area and storage! A structural engineer is coming next week to verify and give the all clear with the contractor. Once the building is complete, my mother, now living in Houston along with my daughter will both live in two of the apartments since their homes will not be rebuilt.
The rental property in the lower ninth ward, did not have flood insurance, but the family was able to receive a FEMA allowance to help them start over. According to the city this property will not be rebuilt and is slated to be razed to make way for an industrial area with the city making restitution to owners. And most exciting was the discovery that my properties were covered by a Loss of Use clause!
As for my home outside the city you may remember the insurance company would not pay. Well, it seems the original adjustor left some major items out of his overall estimate placing the repair costs well below the $14,000 Hurricane deductible! The new adjustor, totally redid the inspection and provided an adequate draw of funds to make a full restoration of the property! I can scarcely believe my good fortune. The roof is being replaced this week along with the chimney. As for the structural damage we reached a totally satisfactory agreement and both parties are happy! I could not imagine such a wonderful ending to all my troubles even if I had tried. I have met wth a steady flow of repair people receiving estimates and negotiating repairs. The tree removers also took out all the remaining dead trees from my property and I can actually see the yard. Now there is one tiny problem and since I have had so much success, I dare not complain even if the problem is I cannot find people to do the work fast enough! I am on a long backlog list and they will get to me as soon as they can. Thank you again my wonderful Storytell friends. Your prayers have made all the difference in the world and I am the better for it! My daughter finished her coursework online with MArylhurst University this semester and has registered to attend Baylor next semester.
Since we have had such success with me, I think someone else should volunteer to have their problems resolved with prayers by the Storytell group! Better yet, let's pray before the problem comes up, that way, we'll have rainbows all the time! You guys are awesome!
Warmly, Angela
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From Angela Davis 4/1/06
Dear Friends:
I have been wanting to give you a brief synopsis of life in New Orleans almost eight months later. Thanks to Mary's inquiry I felt now is the time to send it. As most of you know, I am very optimistic about life in general and tend to talk about what's good. I go around telling folks we are doing great! AND I AM! I look around our city and people are suffering and trying to get their lives back together. My friend Adona came over from Killeen, Texas to get eye surgery last week. Her retired teacher's health insurance would not cover the surgery in Texas without exhorbitant costs involved. We visited her former home and the shock of seeing the interior of her home for the first time nearly killed her. During the first visit, her kindly insurance adjustor thankfully forbade her to go inside. She was in tears when she returned to the car and was silent most of the ride home. But the damage had been done. Her conditioned worsened to the point of rushing her to the hospital after we were back in our apartment in Texas two days later.
As for my home in Mandeville, the roof and chimney have been replaced. The major work of having the foundation repaired was completed while we were away and today the plasterer came out to look at all the damage and to let me know he will start work two weeks from now! Yippee! Once he's done we can have the exterior painted, and renew the garden. Miraculously, Arjo started my backyard fountain to pumping again. It is lovely to look at when I have time. Arjo is repairing the sprinkler system and has helped me to plant some flowers in the front yard that won't be damage by the workers. After placing some new plants on the front porch, the place looks livable, but inside still needs to be tackled. Because painting is so expensive, Arjo and I will paint the interior in between engagements. Then we can have the carpet installed. One day at a time...so far we've gotten the bathrooms, the Tv room and the kitchen painted oer the past week.
As for New Orleans, the house sits awaiting a new roof that the insurance company has not paid for yet. So damage by the elements has continued to wreak havoc even though we thought the work would be completed while we were in Europe. Another part of the ceiling has fallen. Last week a more substantial temporary roof was put on until the insurance company follows through on its commitment. UPDATE: since I wrote this a week ago, the insurance company has concocted a most fabulous scheme to avoid paying for the rest of the damages. I went over the adjustor's head to complain to his manager. So far no one has contacted me about this matter. I may have to hire an attorney to make them pay the rest of the money. In the meantime, the roof still needs repair and the windows are still busted as the home is in various stages of disrepair. The downstairs is gutted and huge sunflowers (they brought a smile to my face) are blossoming all over the overgrown yard. I thought it a good idea to allow a young woman I befriended from a grass roots group concern helping out with the part of the city that received the most damages (The Lower Nine where my mom and other home is located) to occupy one of the upstairs apartments without electricity. It was my tiny contribution to the relief efforts since they were sleeping outside. When I did the walk through to see the additional damage, I discovered she wasn't the only person to take refuge. THere was bedding set up for about ten people. The electricity had been illegally jump started without following the proper channels or precautions and the meter has been rightly removed by the electric company. I found a certain illegal plant growing in a nice little pot in full view, and huge pumps of some bio substance toiling away in the garage. The worse part was seeing a collapsed section of the ceiling in the bedroom and worried about someone being hurt. When I finally contacted the head person I had given permission to stay there, she was in South America and things had gotten out of hand in her absence! It was one of those stories where the information continued to grow worse. Once she contacted me from Bogota, and we were able to iron out a plan for everyone to vacate the property. On the upside, this Sunday, this same person I befriended will bring a crew of twelve to my mother's home in the lower ninth ward to begin removing the rotten smelly mess inside. Of all the people I know applying for various forms of FEMA assistance, very few qualify for grants or loans. My mom is unable to get her home repaired and should qualify for some type of assistance based on her age and limited resources. Everything is up in the air as we wait to see what will happen with whole neighborhoods.
My lower nine house is still as it was when I first saw it, still I have the responsibiity of restoring it. One task at a time! My son and his friends came down from Howard University to help with the clean up campaign during Spring Break. He is doing great and has a new "girlfriend", but he declares she's only a friend! Yeah for friends! His friends complained that the work details they were on rationed them out to the better communities in neighboring St. Bernard Parish in communities that least needed help. I will spare you the political aspects of the conversations, but we do have a mayor's election in progress though much of the city is still uninhabitable.
After reading my friend's Kiini's post I decided to share it with you. I stayed overnight at Kiini's apartment in Brooklyn when she lived there several years back. She is an excellent writer and shares this intimate view of New Orleans six months later. In her writings she shares so much of the frustration and ironies of life in our city.
in the story...
Angela Davis
PS, My feuding sister (from Thanksgiving) and I talked for nearly four hours tonight! Finally communication and apologies and lots of love! Isn't life grand when you can get past the nonsense with people you love?
Kiini's Post:
his month I write about my trip home to New Orleans this past February. I have so much to say that I have broken the report up into two parts--please forgive the length. This month covers my general impressions of the city upon my return. Next month I write about the Lower 9th Ward (the neighborhood I grew up in) and Mardi Gras.
Going Home: Post Katrina
Before returning home to New Orleans in February, I had a marginal understanding of what it meant for New Orleanians who had been forced to evacuate due to Katrina to go home and rebuild. I understood it would be hard, but exactly what rebuilding entailed, I could not grasp the depth of the task. I had heard the city was not up to speed. Although excessive numbers of people were living in the inhabitable areas, many stores were not open and many services were not available. I read an email that said most of the white (refrigerators and other home appliances) trash had been recovered. I read comments about the state of affairs on my family’s email group. I heard about the process of de-molding the furniture my aunts and uncles salvaged from my grandmother’s apartment. A process that included cleaning with bleach, leaving out in the sun, and cleaning a second time. I heard about the arguments and emotional meltdowns between some family members; I heard about the amazing unity and teamwork of others.
I received notice that my childhood home on 1708 Tennessee Street in the Lower 9th Ward was on the Red Danger List. What that means is the old Salaam home is one of more than 5,000 properties deemed ‘in imminent danger of collapse’ and recommended for demolition. However: “No timeline has been set for removal.” What it would mean that my childhood home was to be demolished and that no timeline had been set for removal was unclear to me. I would not really understand what it meant until I returned home.
Returning home had a double thrust for me. I was not chased out of my home by Katrina, yet 90% of my immediate family had been. I felt coming home to see the city was something I HAD to do. I wanted to be as close as possible to this experience that had defined the last 6 months of my family’s life (and will continue to dominate their lives indefinitely). In addition, after a year in Mexico, I was coming home to my family. My grandmother was turning 80, we had festivities planned. Our annual cook-off was scheduled. All 4 of my siblings would be in town. I would see my father. My daughter would get to play with cousins she only sees once a year. All of this to say, although I was en-route to see a city in destruction, I was also bent on celebration. Joining with my family is the fuel that keeps me going. They are some of the most amazing and inspiring individuals I know. I was going to be among those with whom I belong.
Of course, once you start talking about Katrina, it’s something that gets stuck in the throat—like whatever airborne contagions are causing the Katrina cough. From the moment we were waiting to board the plane to New Orleans in Houston, everyone was talking about Katrina. In the streets of post-Katrina New Orleans, the stories of survival, befuddlement and exhaustion are thick and numerous like the missing residents. People in New Orleans love to talk and tell stories anyway. At the bus stop you’re liable to find out any random personal detail while waiting for the slow moving transportation. So we heard them, the stories. In the airport, at the grocery store, in our family’s living rooms. We heard about the would-be homeowners who can’t find an insurer to cover newly purchased New Orleans property. We heard about the Katrina survivor who was finally paid out by his insurers only to have his home hit by a tornado—a tornado! Everyone wanted to know how everyone else made out. Where’s your family? You coming back? You got money from your insurance? You got FEMA money? (In fact, my sister-in-law told me about a song that’s been playing on the radio called “What Is Your FEMA Number?” making light of the disturbing reality that the majority of New Orleanians are on some type of relief.)
The precarious state of the city was obvious immediately. First in odd little details—houses missing necessary roofing, trees oddly bereft of leaves, the double “s’s” on the ever popular “Double Happiness” restaurant on Carrolton Ave, stretched out and twisted at an odd angle. Then I noticed larger strokes. The dirt-brown, waist-high water-lines staining the sides of buildings where the water had soaked in. Stores with windows broken, posts tilted and knocked over, with hand-drawn banners that said “Now Open.” Blocks and blocks of business empty and closed to patronage.
Even with all this destruction, the thing that most deeply symbolized how hard the city had been hit (and how far the city is from full recovery) is the fact that streetlights at many major (and minor) intersections are not working. Drivers have to use their own discretion and treat the dead stoplights as 4-way stop signs. The city has gone to the trouble to place stop signs at some of the intersections. Many of the stop signs are simply propped at the base of the stoplights. I realize failed streetlights are the least of a returning New Orleanian’s troubles. With housing issues, employment complications, a ruptured community and a bedraggled city, there are many pressing problems New Orleanians are concerned about. However, the mute and dumb stoplights whispered that something sinister and irreparable had happened. The anomaly of inoperable streetlights haunted me throughout my visit.
My brother and my father spoke to me angrily, as though I were an outsider when I told them what I had seen. (Of course I am an outsider, I am not a Katrina survivor). “You haven’t seen anything,” they both told me gruffly. “What you saw has been cleaned up.” And they were right. I hadn’t seen anything. I hadn’t seen the piles of debris outside of homes. I hadn’t seen collapsed structures. I had not seen the destruction.
My father took me on a drive through the city. He took me down Carrolton pointing out that from Claiborne to Esplanade we saw perhaps two or three business open. We went around City Park through the neighborhoods that skirt Lakeview into Gentilly. And I began to see the destruction. Trees, giant trees uprooted. Balconies on the lakefront apartment buildings crumpled. Roofs, doors, and windows crushed. Fence posts wrenched out of the dirt. After we passed through 4 neighborhoods, my father asked, did you see one house that is inhabited? “No” I said. The area we covered easily included 2,000 houses. That’s a conservative guess. These were middle class homes, as well as upper class homes. Some medium sized family homes and some large family homes. Abandoned. There was nothing and no one stirring.
We rolled into Gentilly and headed to my brother’s house. My father paused at a corner and started mumbling to himself. “What?” I asked him. “I forgot to count,” he said. “Count what?” I asked. “Streets,” he said. “There are no signs.” The storm yanked the street signs down and they have not been replaced. We rolled right past my brother’s house. Why? The huge tree that identified their house had disappeared, changing the character of the property. We looked at their empty home quietly. I was thinking of the video my brother had shown me of the interior of the house the day he and his wife went to clean it out. The mold, the buckled floors, the unrecognizable soaked clothing, the split tv console and inoperable television. Everything had to go. The newly renovated kitchen, the couch, the beds, the books, the refrigerator. “Who helped y’all?” I asked. “Nobody,” my brother said. “Just us two,” my sister-in-law said.
Now, this is an odd occurrence. I have a big family, my sister-in-law has a big family, but this was my first moment of understanding what it means to come home and rebuild. It means you are on your own. You can’t call on your neighbors, they’re not in the city. You can’t call on your siblings, they’re spread across the nation. You can’t depend on the city, they’re still drawing up plans and concepts. They haven’t even decided which neighborhoods are going to be saved and which are going to be demolished. Six months later, everyone who goes home to rebuild is still going on their own.
We continued on to SUNO—Southern University of New Orleans. The water lines on the brick buildings and the empty campus said it all. This was a destroyed university complex. It appeared that no one had been back to start pulling things together. “That’s millions of dollars in damages,” my father said. I just nodded my head mutely. What was there to say? We continued on to the winding roads around the green neighborhood of Pontchartrain Park. That’s when I started to notice the insides of the homes. Some of them were full of damaged items and others of them—many of them—had been gutted. I could see the wood supports of the homes, the only thing left of the interior. Imagine all the house in your neighborhood abandoned and gutted.
Gutting is a now a major reality in New Orleans. In order to rebuild you have to clear all your personal effects out of your home. (Most of these personal items will be unsalvageable. They will go in a soggy heap in front of your home until it is removed. You will decorate your home with new things. You will attempt to forget your mementoes. You will buy new clothing for yourself and your children.) Then you will pay someone to gut your house—tear out the floor, the walls, the ceilings and do mold abatement. Then you have to rebuild. (When you rebuild you are now mandated to meet new elevation codes in flood areas—meaning the cost to rebuild may be more than what is approved by your insurance company based on the value of your original home.) As you can imagine, the complications are innumerable. Where are you going to live, for example, while you are going through this arduous process? In a city when everyone is rebuilding, who are you going to contract to work on your house? Depending on your insurance company’s response to your attempt to collect on your claim, how are you going to afford to do this work?
Six months after the storm, my sister-in-law tells me she just got a check from her insurance company to gut her house. The check is written out to the mortgage company and the homeowner and it’s only a fraction of the full amount owed them. The money is to be applied to the first step of rebuilding. Once the house is gutted, the insurance company must approve the work before releasing the next check. Some people—of course—are getting nothing at all from their insurance companies. My sister-in-law explains all this to me in the living room of their newly rented house. They are now living uptown (in one of the areas least impacted by the storm). As my brother notes on his blog (http://exceptionallynormal.blogspot.com/2006/01/why-i-havent-been-blogging-ii-rant.html), the rent on their new apartment is more than130% of their monthly mortgage payment—a payment they are still required to make despite the fact that their home is uninhabitable. Last word from home was that my brother was working 7 days a week. The overtime is helping to defray the exorbitant cost of being committed to rebuilding a city that is hesitant to invest in reconstructing the city.
Another reality of post-Katrina New Orleans is trailers. Lightweight trailers on wheels have been FEMA’s solution to the catch-22 situation of New Orleanians who want to rebuild but have nowhere to live while they work on their homes. In “Trailers, Vital After Hurricane, Now Pose Own Risks on Gulf,” journalist Eric Lipton states: “More than 87,100 families in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are living in the FEMA trailers, while only some 2,300 are in sturdier mobile homes.” Most people living in these FEMA trailers are living close to their damaged and “partially reconstructed homes.” With hurricane season less than three months away, concern is surfacing about the safety of the trailers. "’They're campers,’ Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi told a Senate committee this month. ‘They’re not designed to be used as housing for a family for months, much less years. The trailers don't provide even the most basic protection from high winds or severe thunderstorms, much less tornadoes or hurricanes.’" The debris that is an ever-present reality in post-Katrina New Orleans and the Gulf Coast “can turn into dangerous projectiles when the wind picks up.”
Eric Lipton explains why FEMA ordered these lightweight trailers. “FEMA ordered far more travel trailers than mobile homes after the hurricane because the trailers could be towed to a homeowner's property and quickly dropped into place. Being portable, they are not generally covered by building codes and not explicitly banned in flood zones.”
Not EXPLICITLY banned in flood zones. In other words, there are some sturdier mobile homes that are banned from flood zones. However, because these trailers are intended for recreational use, they aren’t even considered homes. If they aren’t homes, then they have no flood-related regulations. So you will live in a flimsy piece of metal while you build your home up to new flood-safe standards. How’s that for irony?
But there’s more. These FEMA trailers may not be placed in the street, so if you have no space on your property, you can’t camp near your house. Because people are living (not camping) in these trailers, each trailer needs to be hooked up to a sewage line and a water line. It’s good to have electricity too. So if you need a trailer to rebuild your home and your neighborhood hasn’t had restored utilities, you won’t be able to live close to your home. Two friends of the family from the Mid-City area of New Orleans don’t have space on their property and, until February did not have water or electricity on their street. As a consequence, they have settled their trailer on my uncle’s property in the Faubourg Marigny area, about half an hour away. They have a good sense of humor about the situation, as do my aunt and uncle. My aunt and uncle’s home did not flood given my uncle’s habit of checking the elevation of all the property he buys. As such they have opened their doors to a revolving parade of relatives and friends. They consider themselves a safe house.
The friends living in a trailer gave my brother and I a tour describing the lengths they had to go through to get a hole in the sewage line fixed and a burning smell connected to the electricity examined. They have outfitted the trailer with decorations and fabric. It is their only home while they reconstruct their property in Mid-City. This claustrophobia-inducing box is barely big enough for one person, yet it is said to sleep six. Two in the bedroom, two on the table that converts into a bed, and two on bunks in an area that looks like a closet with absolutely NO headroom. Pointing out all the child-safety hazards, they assured us the trailers were no place for children. In an effort to make the trailer their own, they got a friend to decorate the exterior of their trailer. This act of spirit is, however, a felony. It is strictly against the law to decorate the exterior of FEMA trailers.
My father continued our tour by taking me out to New Orleans East—home of numerous apartment complexes and big houses of the black middle class. Also the home of Village de l’Est, a Vietnamese neighborhood. There the destruction was worse. I began to see completely collapsed roofs. I saw abandoned cars and streets blocked off by debris. Apparently some people can’t get to their homes due to debris and blockage. We drove by my uncle’s house, where the water was shoulder high on the first floor. The apartment complexes were completely destroyed. My brother had his home in one of those complexes. When he returned to the city, his belongings were intact because he was on the second floor, but he found evidence of people squatting in his apartment. Among the strange personal effects, there were diapers leading to the conclusion that the people who sought refuge in his apartment had an infant.
By this point we had driven uncountable miles. My father bitterly commenting on the impossibility of rebuilding the wide expanse of destroyed residences. Seeing all those homes made me think of all the families that lived in the thousands and thousands of structures. Each home, each apartment represented a displaced family and an individual family’s burden. Any homeowner deciding to recover and/or rebuild their property would have to deal with their own drama. It felt as if the city had done nothing to encourage the rebuilding. This isn’t true—of course. All major thoroughfares had been cleared of debris and blockage. We saw very few abandoned cars on the street and virtually no refrigerators or dishwashers. I suppose the city just hasn’t had the opportunity to address the piles of debris, collapsed houses, some of the felled trees, and the dead streetlights.
My father kept stressing to me that the New Orleans I was seeing was much improved. The fact that we could drive smoothly and tour these neighborhoods was a testament to the clean up that had been done. The city’s clean up had allowed, and possibly encouraged, residents to return. The city, which was empty for months, is now considerably more active. There are many reasons for people’s return. My brother and his family returned because the elementary school his children attend reopened and inferred that they would give away the spots of any children who weren’t back by January. Two aunts, an uncle, and my grandmother settled in Baton Rouge, about an hour and a half away. As the city regains more and more vibrance, my aunt and my uncle have separate business concerns that bring them into the city more and more frequently. With more returning residents, there are more businesses open or looking to open. The return of jobs means the return of residents. My father and his wife are making plans to return based on a forthcoming work opportunity.
My mother spent a few months in Oaxaca with me and is now restarting her life in New Orleans. One of her first orders of business was restocking the house and registering the title of a new car. Running those brief errands turned out to be something of a wild goose chase. We had to go out to Metairie to shop because the big grocery store near my sister-in-law’s (who was shuttling us around) had not yet opened. Then we went to the Department of Motor Vehicles. There was a huge iron tower fallen on its side and dominating the parking lot. The building was fenced in, structurally damaged and obviously not open for business. We drove to Kenner looking for another DMV office. When we got there, there were people spilling out the door. Someone had a chair and was sitting outside. My mother went in intending to ask a question. She came out dismayed, I have to stand in line to get a number, she said. This is post-Katrina New Orleans.
Having chauffeured me through the about half of the city’s residential neighborhoods my father turned his car toward the Lower 9th Ward. I was getting a fuller understanding of why he’s said repeatedly that the city will not recover. The scale of the destruction is unimaginable. The painful pace of progress suggests a government that is overwhelmed, inept, or unconcerned. Driving through the multiple abandoned neighborhoods, it is easy to see how some New Orleanians feel abandoned. Abandonment is the sensation that that repeatedly echoed through me as my father wheeled his car through neighborhood after neighborhood after neighborhood. These people are on their own. And yet, for many New Orleans is still the only place for them to be. It’s home. It’s family history. It’s the roots of their existence.
The stores you remember may or may not be there. The services you used to rely on may or may not be available. Your loved ones—friends and family—may or may not have the interest, resources, or energy to rebuild. But the weather is still beautiful. The accents are still the same. People are still open and talkative. And the city still has so much flavor. For those who live and breathe New Orleans, nothing will make them quit the city. Not even the fact that 75% of the residences stand empty. For those that have returned or are orchestrating their return, the shell of the city is still sweeter than a fully functioning new town. It is a fact of growing up steeped in the cultures and traditions of a unique, contradictory, passionate, celebratory place: if you’re not home, you’re in a foreign land. And for most New Orleanians, not being home, is the worst fate they can imagine.
Be well. Be love(d).
Kiini Ibura Salaam
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PART 2: STORIES, THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS FROM SUPPORTERS:
From David Joe Miller 9/6/05:
I'm sure, by now, most of you have read about Snowball... the tiny dog that the police snatched away from a young boy as he boarded the bus in the New Orleans Superdome evacuation. The story has made headlines all across the country.
My heart goes out, like it has so many times this past week, to this little boy...
Most of us had a "Snowball" in our lives... our very first pet. Dog, cat, fish, bird, turtle... what have you. We were small, this was our first living responsiblity... someone that we could love and care for... our best friend.
My memory goes back to Blackie... my first dog. I was 3, Blackie was a pup.... we grew up together in those early years. Making mistakes, falling down and then getting back up and getting over it again. Learning early life side by side.
I remember the time I thought Blackie was lost... he had ran away but not as far as a little 3-year-old would think. He was in the neighbor's backyard, exploring. The neighbor's backyard was miles away as far as I was concerned. I remember the feeling of the lump in my throat... the tears streaming down my face.... not able to stop crying. I thought I had lost my best friend, that I would never see him again.
Our neighbor, knowing Blackie was just a pup and "hearing" my plight from next door.... rushed Blackie back to our own yard. Blackie was as happy to see me as I was to see him. Both of our tails were just "a-waggin'."
To be reunited with Blackie... even after such a short time and distance... was a feeling I will never forget. Losing Blackie was a feeling I wish I could forget.
My heart is with Snowball and his young owner. May they soon be reunited.
May all the lost and weary find thier loved ones and may our hearts and minds open and grow from this tragic experience.
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From Rose the Story Lady (Rose Owens) 9/6/05:
I came across a thought in a book by Nora Roberts. It seems to fit Katrina.
"Sometimes a wind comes up, blows you off course. You're not ready for it, but if you're lucky, you end up in a more interesting place than you'd planned."
Beyond luck, it also takes a positive attitude, a willingness to bend with the wind and a faith in God and others.
Just posting this thought reminded me of a story.
There was a big tree by the Church. It stood straight and tall. One night there was a wind storm and in the morning, it was discovered that this tree had blown over. Everyone was wondering how it happened, why this strong tree blew over.
One old man said, "It had it too easy. The Church lawn is watered regularly and it didn't send its roots down deep and so when the wind came, it blew over."
I see Dianne and Angela and the other survivors of Katrina as strong trees with roots that go deep. They bend with the wind, but it can't blow them over because they are rooted deep. Like the branches and tree canopy of that strong tree, their arms reach out to shelter and help others. They are survivors.
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From Elloise Schoettler 9/6/05:
I feel very much a part of all the response to "Snowball" - here is why!
Sunday I was overwhelmed by the image of the little boy losing his dog. I guess it takes one image like this to make everything else unbearably real. That evening I posted the following to my blog.
9/4/2005
Beyond Words
Today I read this on a blog from New Orleans.
2:11 A.M. - ATLANTA (AP) -- As Valerie Bennett was evacuated from a New Orleans hospital, rescuers told her there was no room in the boat for her dogs. She pleaded. "I offered him my wedding ring and my mom's wedding ring," the 34-year-old nurse recalled Saturday. They wouldn't budge. She and her husband could bring only one item, and they already had a plastic tub containing the medicines her husband, a liver transplant recipient, needed to survive. Such emotional scenes were repeated perhaps thousands of times along the Gulf Coast last week as pet owners were forced to abandon their animals in the midst of evacuation.
In one example reported last week by The Associated Press, a police officer took a dog from one little boy waiting to get on a bus in New Orleans.
"Snowball! Snowball!" the boy screamed.
He cried until he vomited.
The policeman told a reporter he didn't know what would happen to the dog.
I sighed and hurt for the little boy.
Later as I sat in Mass tears began to stream down my cheeks and I heard that child screaming inside my head,
"Snowball. Snowball."
This image of the loss and pain of the innocent cut through all the defenses I had held so tightly in place since last Monday.
Feelings beyond words overwhelmed me as I wept.
"Snowball. Snowball."
9/6/2005
Hoping for a Small Miracle
This morning my son sent me an article from CNN which tells of efforts to reunite pets found in New Orleans with their owners. One effort in Florida was started by a woman who read about Snowball and could not bear the image of the little boy whose dog was wrenched from his arms. He cried until he vomited.
Some say they have found the dog.
Now they are looking for the boy.
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From Mary K. Clark 9/6/05
I simply don't know when I have felt so impotent in a national crisis before. This, at times, feels overwhelming.
Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of light and hope out there.
There's just so little I can do where I am.
I suppose it's a little like survivor's guilt but I, clearly, am not a survivor. I live too far away in my home with electricity, water and food: for which I am grateful.
The issues involved in this disaster are far-reaching.
I heard today that at the New Orleans Airport they had to (still have to?) put people who are too far gone in the make shift morgue to die.
One of the things that troubles me the most is the blaming. All the looking at what went wrong. AND tons of stuff went wrong. The losses, the confusion, the death .... the unevacuated and what they and their children endured / endure.
There will be and should be a debate on many things. How do we separate out easily what damage the hurricane did and what damage was caused by our own inactions as a community, as a nation, as individuals. Would it be easier if we were NOT so quick to blame - I'm not talking about denying - I'm not talking about not holding people responsible for their actions/inactions.
I wonder at the effects of the trauma and how it affected directly the 1 million folks currently displaced (not sure if that number is accurate) AND I wonder at the pain many felt as they watched this play out over TV, radio and other media outlets. I wonder about the children who watched this from afar. I wonder about all the emergency personnel, volunteers, etc. ... even the media folks who covered this event directly ... they saw and understood more than I.
I have heard so many outrageous things: are they true or not - I don't know. I've heard people (media) spout out a plain bare bones story that fits the truth, but then when you add in the details (if true) one gets a different story.
It's natural, I suppose, for us to compare this tragedy to 9/11 - but is it helpful right now? Some of the comparisons seem hurtful and superfluous and unproductive.
AND there are the many, many things that went "right" and are getting better. There are many caring compassionate people in this country, in the world whose thoughts, prayers, right actions have helped and are helping this situation.
May we all grow from this.
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From Shelby Smith 9/6/05:
My daughter from LA, CA left yesterday to go back home. She had come to spend Labor Day weekend with me and introduce the family to the "fiancée to be" . She found herself right in the midst of a crisis here in Dallas. Her reaction as she left to go back home was one of frustration too, that she could not go down to the convention center and help feed and/or house the victims of the hurricane. I reminded her of something that Faye Hanson mentioned earlier. She may not be able to help now, but her time will come. We should all get Red Cross training so that we are allowed into those disaster areas to help when the time comes- and it will. Being prepared to help is probably the best thing we can do. Right now they are overwhelmed with volunteers and donations. Maybe the best thing that some of us can do is sit tight, remember to give six months from now and be ready for the next crisis, be it big or small.
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From Elaine Larson 9/21/05
Subject: Katrina Survivor First Hand Story Wednesday Night Only
Dear Friends,
Through my Mystery School network, I reconnected with an old friend whose family was devastated by Katrina and the hideous aftermath. She is a remarkable woman and rebounded quickly, rushing to the aid of others and praying that someone would help the loved ones she could not reach.
Angela Davis is a master storyteller, and all of her engagements for the next six months, save one in Seattle this coming weekend, were canceled due to the massive destruction in the South. She was part of creating an amazing three days at Jean Houston's Mystery School in Santa Barbara this past weekend, and she will be here in San Rafael to show and tell her personal story (and perhaps spin some yarns too!) for one night only.
Please join us to hear Angela's first hand account of what happened in New Orleans and to become part of the magic spell she creates with her stories. To help Angela rebuild her life, I am requesting a voluntary donation of $20, but please know all are welcome. Refreshments will be served.
Please circulate this widely to your friends. And *JOIN US WEDNESDAY NIGHT!*
Namaste,
Elaine Larson
*Angela Davis*
*Wednesday, September 21 at 7:00PM*
At the home of Elaine and Lars Larson
10 Don Timoteo Ct
San Rafael, CA 94903
415-492-2089
elainelars@gmail.com
We are in the Terra Linda section of San Rafael. Don Timoteo is a small cul de sac off Nova Albion between Golden Hinde and Terra Linda High School.
elainelars@gmail.com
415-492-2089
831-622-9715
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From Angela Davis 9/22/05
Dear Friends:
It is my contention and most of the African American community that the levees of New Orleans were not inundated as a result of Hurricane Katrina, but the result of unfair hanky-panky by certain officials to divert the floods from destroying wealthy neighborhoods. Finally there is corroboration and agreement by scientists! However, criminal activities by the wealthy in our country are rarely punished. Last summer a poor man was jailed in Florida for price gouging- charging $10 for a bag of ice. Yet many of our corporate companies participate in price gouging at the national level on a regular basis. NOthing ever happens to those companies. THey don't even loose contracts as a result. They just receive more contracts and money from the federal government. Angela Davis
Experts Say Faulty Levees Caused Much of Flooding (September 20, 2005)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/20/AR2005092001894_pf.html
NEW ORLEANS -- Louisiana's top hurricane experts have rejected the official explanations for the floodwall collapses that inundated much of New Orleans, concluding that Hurricane Katrina's storm surges were much smaller than authorities have suggested and that the city's flood- protection system should have kept most of the city dry. The Army Corps of Engineers has said that Katrina was just too massive for a system that was not intended to protect the city from a storm greater than a Category 3 hurricane, and that the floodwall failures near Lake Pontchartrain were caused by extraordinary surges that overtopped the walls. But with the help of complex computer models and stark visual evidence, scientists and engineers at Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center have concluded that Katrina's surges did not come close to overtopping those barriers. That would make faulty design, inadequate construction or some combination of the two the likely cause of the breaching of the floodwalls along the 17th Street and London Avenue canals -- and the flooding of most of New Orleans.In the weeks since Katrina drowned this low-lying city, there has been an intense focus on the chaotic government response to the flood. But Ivor van Heerden, the Hurricane Center's deputy director, said the real scandal of Katrina is the "catastrophic structural failure" of barriers that should have handled the hurricane with relative ease. "We are absolutely convinced that those floodwalls were never overtopped," said van Heerden, who also runs LSU's Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes. CLIP
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From Mary K. Clark 9/22/05
Thanks for the article. There is so much more I would like to know.
I believe New Orleans needs protection for a hurricane 5 not a hurricane 3. Further, the structures need to be soundly built for all who live there.
Why the structures failed though still seemed to be in question. The article unfortunately didn't give us an answer. Was it ignorance? Was it a poor contractor or a contractor(s) or others trying to take short cuts? Or was it ????? I don't think I can yet conclude that it was because of officials who desired to divert the floods from destroying wealthy neighborhoods. I certainly hope it wasn't and your conclusion may be very much on target. Obviously, greed has caused some folks to do some horrendous things (I think about cigarette manufacturers, etc.) That would be a tragedy. I look forward to reading more.
My brother has chosen to stay in Houston to ride out the storm. His children and my husband's relatives hopefully have evacuated. My husband's relatives live west of Houston and Houston and my brother's children live in Beaumont (in the current path of the storm). My brother lives in a motel - the motel is full - full of evacuees from Hurricane Katrina. I guess they will all ride it together. I called him yesterday - truth is I called in case I didn't see him again. Strange to make a call like that - to feel you need to let someone know you care about them "just in case". His birthday is next week, I mentioned this in the call and he told me that he might not live to see it (referring to the hurricane). I'm sure there have been lots of calls like that over these past weeks. People know you love love them, care about them, but you want to say it one more time.
- Mary
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From Ruthanne Edward 9/22/05
Hi everyone,
I just got off the phone with Dianne from the telecourse. She hasn't got internet right now and her phone has been out all day. They all made it safely to Ft. Worth after about 12 hours in the cars. She said the traffic was a nightmare, but they didn't run out of gas or get stuck anywhere.
She is such a little trooper. They had just arrived at the place they are staying (about 7:15 Texas time) and she immediately got a hold of Sean to check in about the course. So, we all had a little chat and she was laughing about the whole thing. I keep thinking about the King Solomon story, "This too shall pass." Eventually......
They will wait and see what happens in Houston, but she is hoping they can go back there. In the meantime, for anyone in the Dallas - Ft. Worth area, Dianne needs work. Again.
Our thoughts and prayers to everyone who is once again evacuating.
Ruthanne
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From Lois Sprengnether Keel 9/23/05
It's been a hectic week since Dianne de Las Casas was here at the Detroit Storytelling Festival. Ruthanne captured Dianne completely when she tells about " I just got off the phone with Dianne from the telecourse. She hasn't got internet right now and her phone has been out all day." & then adds, "She is such a little trooper. They had just arrived at the place they are staying (about 7:15 Texas time) and she immediately got a hold of Sean to check in about the course. So, we all had a little chat and she was laughing about the whole thing."
Dianne has more pressure going on right now than any of us ever hope to juggle while keeping our storytelling going & she's still doing a great job. Yes, it's tough &, yes, she's concerned about her family in all this, but she's still giving her work an enormous dynamo effort. She's still the same, complete with a dash of cayenne pepper. Hope everybody gets a chance to see "Hurricane Dianne" in action.
Lois
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From Karen Chace 9/23/05
You are so right. I came across this quote the other day and it reminded me of Dianne, Angela, and all those folks who are living and surviving these disasters.
"What is important is not what happens to us, but how we respond to what happens to us."
Jean-Paul Sarte
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From Angela Davis 9/23/05
The Great New Orleans Land Grab
The 17th Street Canal levee was breached on purpose by Ernesto Cienfuegos, La Voz de Aztlan
Los Angeles, Alta California - September 7, 2005 - (ACN) There were numerous incidents that occurred during and immediately after Katrina struck that point to the "unthinkable". It now appears that a sophisticated plan was implemented that utilized the "cover of a hurricane" to first destroy and than take over the City of New Orleans? As the world watched the events unfolding, one could not help think that something was terribly afoot concerning the rescue by FEMA of the city's poor and predominate Black population. It seems that a well laid out plan was put into effect to grab valuable real estate from well established but poverty stricken Black families of New Orleans? What is being implemented now is nothing less than a sophisticated scheme to purge and ethnically cleanse what Whites have termed "Black and 'welfare bloated' New Orleans".
Among the most telling anomalies pointing to something terribly afoot is the gun battle, killing 5, that occurred at the breached levee between the New Orleans Police Department and, what have now been identified as US military agents. An Associated Press report, which has now disappeared, stated that at least five USA Defense Department personnel where shot dead by New Orleans police officers in the proximity of the breached levee. (Please Note: The original media reports concerning the shootout are now being changed or "cleansed" in a cover-up. We found one original report at http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5256023,00.html La Voz de Aztlan has a mirror page of this report at http://www.aztlan.net/police_kill_five_contractors.htm in case this report gets changed or deleted as well) A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers said later that those killed were "federal contractors" on their way to "repair" a canal. The "contractors" were on their way to launch barges into Lake Pontchartrain, in an operation to "fix" the 17th Street Canal, according to the Army Corps of Engineers spokesman. Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley of New Orleans later reported that his policemen had shot at eight suspicious people near the breached levee, killing five or six.
Who were these "military agents" that were killed by the police near the 17th Street Canal breached levee and what were they doing there? Why did the New Orleans police find it necessary to shoot and kill 5 or 6 of them? No one is saying anything and it appears that the news story has now been swept under the rug. Were these US Department of Defense personnel a Special Forces group or Navy Seals with top secret orders to sabotaged the levee? There are verifiable reports that at least 100 New Orleans police officers have disappeared from the face of the earth and that two have committed suicide. Could these be policemen that died defending the levee against sabotage by "federal contractors"?
Another telling incident that points to a "nefarious plan" is what New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said at the height of the crisis. He said publicly, "I fear the CIA may take me out!" Mayor Nagin, a Black, said this twice. He told a reporter for the Associated Press: "If the CIA slips me something and next week you don't see me, you'll all know what happened." Later he told interviewers for CNN on a live broadcast that he feared the "CIA might take me out." What does Mayor Ray Nagin know and why does he fear the CIA?
In an interview by WWL TV, Mayor Nagin complained vociferously that Louisiana National Guard Blackhawk helicopters were being stopped from dropping sandbags to plug the levee soon after it breached. There is evidence that no repairs were allowed on the levee until after New Orleans was totally flooded!
Many civilian groups who were attempting to aid people trapped in their attics, on their roofs and at the Superdome are reporting that FEMA, other federal agents and the US military essentially "stopped" them from doing so. Convoys that were organized by truckers and carrying "food and water" were blocked by agents of the federal government on the highways and roads leading to New Orleans. The American Red Cross, in addition, encountered numerous incidents and has made formal complaints.
A private ham radio network that deployed throughout the hurricane ravished region reported that the airwaves were being "jammed" making it impossible to communicate emergency information. Churches, hospitals and other essential community groups reported that the first thing that the US military did, when they arrived, was to cut their telephone lines and confiscate communications devices. We all witnessed news reports and heard statements by flood victims concerning the behavior of the US military. Many Black families complained that military vehicles did not stop to assist them but just drove by. One news report showed military personnel playing cards inside a barrack while Black citizens were dying of thirst and hunger.
Today, it is very revealing how the federal government is handling the disaster. They want every Black out of New Orleans and those who insist on staying in their homes will be removed by force. The government, through some media, is utilizing scare tactics to cleanse New Orleans of all Blacks. They want no witnesses and this will make the "land grab" a lot easier to undertake. One scare tactic is calling the flood water "a horrid toxic soup of feces a rotting flesh of corpses". The military thugs are now getting tough with Black families that have owned their old but beloved homes for many generations. Mr. Rufus Johnson, a family patriarch who lives in the French Quarter, said in an interview, "The army has given me an ultimatum to leave or suffer the consequences of a forced eviction. I do not understand . My entire family and I survived Katrina and now they want to throw me out of the home we have had for generations". Mr. Johnson lives in a neighborhood where the flood has subsided and his home is not heavily damaged yet FEMA wants him out!
The fact that Vice President Dick Cheney is heavily involved in the FEMA operations from behind the scenes is very troublesome. Cheney and his cronies at Halliburton are in line for the lucrative contracts to "reconstruct a New Orleans". Deals are already being made with a Las Vegas business group to construct multi-million dollar casinos in the Big Easy on prime real estate that was owned by Black families. Whites throughout history have been notorious "land grabbers". In the USA they first confiscated land that belonged to American Indians. Most of the Indians ended up in worthless tracts of land called "reservations". The largest "land grab", however, was the theft of Aztlan. This occurred soon after the Mexican-American War. In Alta California , vast "Ranchos" were stolen from the Californios through a variety of scams. A favorite ploy was to impose extremely heavy land taxes on the Mexicans and then foreclosing on the properties. The land was then given or sold at very low prices to the Forty Niners who came in large hordes to Alta California during the so called "Gold Rush" of 1849.
Angela
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From Bob Shimer 9/24/05
We have to be very careful with reports like this. The Guardian, the UK version of the National Enquirer, likes shock "journalism". There will be many "conspiracy" articles published in the wake of Katrina and Rita just as there were after 9-11. These people come out of the woodwork just as do the scammers. Remember the French author that had "proof" that it wasn't terrorists but a government plot that knocked down the Trade Towers on 9-11? We need to keep open minds but still not taken in by the conspiracy advocates. The truth may lie somewhere in-between.
Bob
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From Mary K. Clark 9/24/05
Angela and all,
Thanks so much for the article. This one was painful to read. The authors use of White and Black made me ponder his use, my use, our collective use of generalizations.
For example, he talks about Whites and what they think, what they conspire to. This terms "Whites" encompasses all supposedly white looking folks. What white people is he talking about ... ? I know it is not all of us ...
Maybe this is an issue ... generalizations ... labeling all Whites the same, all the Blacks the same ... all "X" the same. We are not. We are human beings.
Is he talking about rich white people? The rich are not all the same either, neither are the poor.
But the author of the article is not the only person who speaks using generalizations. I was at dinner last night with a few folks and some of the comments that were made questioned what happened at the convention center. All of the folks in this discussion had some resources, none would be considered monetarily poor. Some questioned why people would treat themselves and the convention center in that manner. Others questioned why people felt entitled to this or that ... and was it a matter of entitlement. They questioned the story they heard / saw. Some said if people wanted to work they wouldn't be in some of these situations - these are NOT MY words, but words I heard in the discussion. Some wondered why those folks didn't have enough water? Why they didn't bring it with them? This too, was a difficult discussion.
I am concerned about have / promoting discussion. Is discussion helped by generalizations?
Mary
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From Mary K. Clarik 9/30/05
Stories and how we interpret them and take them into are minds and bodies can have lasting impact. People who believe they lived in the chaos of murder, rape, etc. (including all the many things that did/didn't) happen - whether or not true .... this was how they interpreted the stories, saw the stories, lived the stories. This must be very difficult.
What comes to mind is the case I know of a very young child who was told she was molested by her father. Later the story changed that she wasn't ... whether true or not true she lived with the story that she was for some time. In either case, was she not molested ... in a way?
I mean supposing at the convention center/superdome ... a person believes (say they do have water and food but haven't been rescued yet) they are in an out of control situations where murder and mayhem prevails .... whether murder or mayhem occurred ... didn't they have the experience of being in such a place? And how does this affect them?
At the same time, this passing the rumors type behavior has effects in our nation ... the world at large. The truth is difficult to perceive. I remember telling a few others of the rapes, etc. that were said to have occurred ... I need to be more cognizant of the nature of group dynamics and careful of what I repeat ... what I take in as "truth". We can so easily accept the "truth" when it is only assumption or innuendo and this may have an affect on our own actions.
Mary
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From Fran Stallings 9/30/05
I think it's one of Andersen's fables that tells of chickens gossiping. The playful suggestion that one young hen was so desperate for the rooster's attention that she might pull out an unruly feather, escalates into rumors of her dying plucked bald and bleeding (as I recall the story).
Nothing had happened, but the gossip mirrored nervous hens' fears of just how bad things might get. Plausible, under those conditions.
The relevant reality was the fears and bad conditions. Facts about what actually happened were not available until much later, if at all, and didn't much affect the emotional suffering which had occurred.
Fran
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PART 3: REGIONAL STORIES FROM THE STORYTELLERS
1) DEAD MEN WORKING IN A CANE FIELD
[For older kids and adults, this story can be made very gruesome or toned down depending on your audience. I've included a little more than bones, but to make it understood I had to tell you more! An aunt once told me that there were zombies working in the cane fields and this is the story that came from that.]
Bones: Around the turn of the century after the Civil War, it became difficult for plantation owners in and around New Orleans to find workers to bring in their crops. A man and his wife are caretakers for a wealthy plantation owner. They hire workers to bring in the crops and in exchange are given a place to live and money for themselves and to pay the workers. The man thinks the workers are lazy. He is vicious in his treatment of them and pays them very little. The woman does not spend any money on food for them. Just feeds them gruel. But still the two of them don't feel they make enough money.
The man hears that a voodoo woman in New Orleans can help him. He goes to Marie Labou, the voodoo queen, and asks for a spell to make them work harder. She tells him you cannot change the nature of a living soul, but that she can help him find workers. She gives him an Ouanga, a black bag Ouanga, full of animal parts (chicken feet and bat wings—whatever you want) and dried blood, and tells him to shake it over fresh graves and the zombies will rise and follow him. But she warns him never to let salt pass through zombies' mouths or they will know themselves for what they are and return to their graves. He must never let their relatives see the zombies, either. She says she will not help him if he is found out.
So in the dead of night he goes deep into bayou country and robs graves. He takes the poor soulless creatures home and puts them to work. Nothing he does will make them work harder or faster. He beats them, but they do not bleed. His wife starves them, giving them nothing but water to drink. She begins to get very creeped out by their eyes. The couple is finally making money because they don't have to pay workers, but someone must stay with them at all times.
The man decides that it is Mardi Gras in New Orleans and he deserves a treat. He leaves his wife with the zombies and goes to Mardi Gras. She does okay for a while but really begins to feel sorry for herself, then sorry for the zombies. She decides that she could take them to Mardi Gras to see one parade. At the parade she buys some pistache (pistachio cookies) and gives some to the zombies. They have salt in them. As soon as the salt passes their lips, they stand up and begin marching the parade route through town heading back to their graves. Friends and relatives see them. They are outraged. The man is watching the parade and sees the zombies. He heads for home. Meets up with his wife and before they can get home, they are ambushed and killed by the relatives of the zombies. They are buried near their home, but when the plantation owner goes there the next day, he finds empty graves with a small black bag beside each. Perhaps they are now working in those same fields.
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Contributed by Dianna Waite
diannawaite@yahoo.com
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2) THE GHOST OF JEAN LAFITTE
[This is an original story based on a Louisiana legend. J.J. Reneaux said that a soldier returning home from the Civil War came across this house and this treasure. I tell this story to all ages with good response. When I tell this in schools I talk about the pirate Jean Lafitte and give some history of the battle of New Orleans and the war of 1812. I also talk a bit about the Cajuns and their superstitions.
NOTES ON TELLING: There can be a bit of a jump moment when the ghost disappears. At the end of the story, I include a loud eerie ghostly laugh.]
Bones: A trapper lived in the bayou his whole life. He knew the bayou better than anyone. He also knew he was going to be the one to find the buried treasure of the pirate Jean Lafitte. He had heard stories about this from his parents and grandparents his whole life. Many people thought that the treasure was just a legend, but not the trapper. He was determined to find it. While out in the bayou one day he came across a mysterious house he had never seen before. Inside the house he met the ghost of Lafitte. The ghost took him through the house, each room more spectacular than the one before.
At the back of the house was a small room with a trap door. Under this door was the treasure, but Lafitte told him he couldn't tell anyone else, then disappeared. The trap door slammed shut and the handle broke off in his hands. The trapper couldn't get to the treasure. He goes and gets his friends and returns. He took friends through house which is now old and run down. Each room more run down and decrepit than the one before. They work and work until finally they spring open the trap door and all they find are bones and all they hear is the eerie laughter of the ghost of Jean Lafitte.
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Contributed by Dianna Waite 9/5/05
diannawaite@yahoo.com
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3) This is a list of the story collections from Lousiana and New Orleans that I know about.
Contributed by Norman Perrin, Four Winds Storyteller
Collections:
Louisiana Folk Tales by Alcee Fortier.
COMPAIR LAPIN AND PITI BONHOMME GODRON (The Tar Baby), Louisiana Folk Tales
Fortier, Alcee, as Written By in 1894, Edited By Sand Warren Marmillion
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Two stories:Compair Taureau and Jean Malin and Compair Lapin and Madame Carencro may be found in American Folk And Fairy Tales by Rachel Field.
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Gumbo Ya-Ya [Lyle Saxon]
This is more folk history with no traditional folk tales given fully.
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Single Stories
With a Wig and a Wag [Cothran] p. 34-39
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Folk Stories of the South p. 123-148 [Jagendorf]
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Noodles and Numbskulls p. 26-27 [Leach]
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Celebrate the World p.32-42 [MacDonald]
Celebrate the World: Twenty Tellable Folktales for Multicultural Festivals (ISBN:0824208625)
Margaret Read MacDonald, Roxane M. Smith (Illustrator)
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More Short and Shivery p.134-138 [San Souci]
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Terrifying Taste of Short and Shivery p. 109-113 [San Souci]
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With a Whoop and a Holler
Nancy Van Laan
Part one has 3 stories 1, 2 and 3 of Compe Lapin [Brer Rabbit] and his friends from Louisiana.The rest are from N. Carolina to Mississippi. A lively collection well told.
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Folk Tales from French Louisiana
Corinne Saucier
A good source of 33 folktales including Cinderella, the Seven Headed Animal and animal tales. The language is that of the original teller and will require reworking by the teller. With motif index and notes.
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Folk Stories of the South
M.A Jagendorf
Traditional and historical tales from the Confederate states with 9 from Louisiana.
A Treasury of Afo-American Folklore Harold Courlander
Creole tales p. 549-556
With notes and index.
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The People Could Fly and Her Stories
Virginia Hamilton
Tales of courage in the face of adversity.
The People Could Fly (hardcover, paperback and special holiday edition)
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Her Stories
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African-American Folktales
Collected by Richard and Judy Young
August House
Black tales from the south, by Black storytellers.
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Uncle Remus: The Complete Tales
Retold by Julius Lester
The Tales of Uncle Remus, More Tales of Uncle Remus, Further Tales of Uncle Remus, Final Tales of Uncle Remus combined in one volume.
All published by Phyllis Fogelman Books,
Julius Lester brings new life and language to the tales of Brer Rabbit and his companians that he loved as a child. With an excellent Intrduction that explains why he undertook to retell the stories
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Black Folktales
Julius Lester
Various Black folktales well retold, with sources given.
A Kid's Review from amazon.com
The book I am reviewing is called Black Folktales, it is by Julius Lester and illustrated by Tom Feelings. This book falls under the category folktales and fairytales. Before I tell you more about the book let me say that the illustrations were amazing. Anyways, the book consisted of short stories about blacks in the south. There were stories about blacks on plantations and about god and how he created the world. Most of the stories were very good and interesting and most of them I enjoyed reading although there were a few mediocre stories mixed in too. The writers writing style I thought was very good. It definitely kept me entertained through out the whole book. There were some very funny stories in the book. there was one about a black man that was feared through out the land, and was supposed to die a couple of times but he kept escaping death, until St. Peter told god that this black man was supposed to have died thirty years ago. God immediately called the grim reaper who started complaining cause he hadn't gotten more the five minutes of sleep in the last two days. He started telling god that he needed some assistants, or else. Anyways I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.
A reader
This book is great for the imagination! I have read this several times and have never been bored. The characters are amazing and the stories are wonderful.
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Afro-American Folktales: Stories from Black traditions in the New World
Editor Roger D. Abrahams
A good source of lesser known tales, with notes. My favorite is no. 53, The Cunning Cockroach.
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From My People: 400 Years of African American Folklore
Editor, Daryl Cumber Dance
With tales, lore of the South, information about musical instruments, etc, 'From My People' covers a lot of useful territory.
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A Treasury of American Anecdotes
Editor, B.A Botkin
Some short, funny stories, some from Louisiana, [see index], on a lot of topics.
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Cajun tales from Cape Breton, Canada
The Seven Headed Beast and other Acadian Tales from Cape Breton Island
Anselme Chiasson
This collection is from the Cajuns who escaped the forced expulsion of from Nova Scotia to Louisiana. 23 traditional tales of fools and trickster told in a simple forceful style. Anselme Chiasson is a well known collector of Acadian folklore and history.
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Note from Norman: I do not have the books below so I have no information on them.
Note from Jackie: I add information when I can find it.
Cajun and Creole Folk Tales
Barry Jean Ancelet
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Creole Folk Tales, Stories of Louisiana Marsh Country
Hewitt Ballowe
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Louisiana Creole Poems
Calvin Claudel
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Swapping Stories, Folktales from Louisiana
Carl Lindhowe
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The Lawd Sayin' Negro Folk Tales
Hewitt Ballowe
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Cajun Folktales
Cajun Fairy Tales
J.J. Reneaux
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Some stories from the listed books can be found in North American Folk Tales, Editor Catherine Peck.
Dog who walked on water p. 59
Fido is Dead p. 269
Jeane Sotte and the Riddle p.268
Jean sot and Bull's Milk p. 273
Killer Mosquitoes p. 287
Tio Conejo and the Hurricane p. 210
Ghost of Jean Lafitte p.363
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A Treasury of Mississippi River Folklore. Editor, B.A Botkin
Stories, Ballads and traditions of the Mississippi. A great source of tales tall and true.
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The Mississippi River of Song
Music Along the River
A 4-part television series produced by KCTS, Seattle for PBS
Includes:
Americans Old and New: Northern Minnesita to Douds, Iowa
http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/episode-1.html
Midwestern Crossroads: Galena, Illinois to Ste. Genevieve, Missouri
http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/episode-2.html
Southern Fusion, LA Center, KY to Jackson, Mississsippi
nnnnn With this section, the Mississippi flows into the deep South, the heartland of the blues and prime breeding ground for rock 'n' roll and soul music. This is by far the most culturally cohesive area of the river. It is farmland, home to cotton plantations that have in recent years turned more and more of their acreage over to rice and catfish farming. Memphis, the regional metropolis, is far less distinct from its rural surroundings than Minneapolis, St. Louis, or New Orleans. Much of its population retains strong country roots, and its musical history has been made less by locals than by folks from the surrounding small towns who came into the city to record and sell their music, just as the cotton plantation owners came in to sell their has been made less by locals than by folks from the surrounding small towns who came into the city to record and sell their music, just as the cotton plantation owners came in to sell their bales to national brokers.
Read more at:
http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/episode-3.html
Louisiana: Where Music is King: Natchez, Mississippi to Delacroix Island
NNNNNLouisiana is a world unto itself, and music is a big part of what makes it unique. Or, more accurately, Louisiana is several worlds, each distinct from the others. North Louisiana is part of the deep South; New Orleans is part of the Caribbean; the Cajun country is a sort of Southern Quebec with bayous and a rich African-American heritage; as for the even more isolated pocket of Spanish-speaking Isleños at the Mississippi's mouth, it remains unknown to most Louisianans even today. Each of these regions has its own music and food, two things that tend to go together in Louisiana, and that are valued here as in no other part of the country....
Read more at:
http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/episode-4.html
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Contributed by Norman Perrin
Four Winds Storytellers Library
talewind@web.ca
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MISC. BIBLIOGRAPHIES
Swapping Stories Bibliography
The following bibliography lists sources in which readers can find information on Louisiana storytellers and their stories. A more detailed bibliography on related stories and traditions from throughout the United States and the world can be found in Swapping Stories: Folktales from Louisiana, published by University Press of Mississippi.
Extensive online bibliography at:
http://www.lpb.org/programs/swappingstories/
Bibliography of Louisiana works:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.louisiana.culture.fr/en/res/res_biblio_c.html&prev=/
search%3Fq%3Dfolktales%2Bfrom%2Bfrench%2Blouisiana%252Bsaucier%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8
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4) ANNIE CHRISTMAS
[Dan Kedding shared with me a brief tale of Annie Christmas and Red at the roulette table, which inspired me to find out more about her. Three of the main sources I used in creating this story were: Hurricanes Children by C. Carmer, Cut from the same cloth: American Women of Myth Legend and Tall Tales by San Souci, and the Internet which yielded several versions of her story on various sites. DW]
Story:
Annie Christmas was as big and tough as any man. She was 6 foot 8 in her bare feet and weighed 300 pounds, with black curly hair and a mustache to match. She made her living hauling goods on her keelboat up the Mississippi river.
Now she made a lot of money doing this because most of the keel boats traveled down the Mississippi to New Orleans, but once there they were broken up and sold for firewood. The river’s current was so strong, no one could pole them back up the river, no one but Annie. She was strong enough to pole her boat right back up that river through the roughest currents.
Even Old Mike Fink was afraid to tussle with Annie. “Why I’d rather wrestle an alligator than that Gal”, he told his friends. Many a man had learned a hard lesson when going up against Annie Christmas. She bit off the ears or noses of those who crossed her.
Now some people say she had a necklace made out of those offending features, but that’s just not so. Annie was a lady. For each of those pieces she bought a pearl and added it to a strand. I heard that that strand was 30 feet long when Annie died.
Annie loved her keel boat. She named it Big River’s Daughter, because she said that both she and that boat were daughter’s of the river. Annie won that boat in a card game.
If Annie had one weakness it was gambling, or more to the point, one particular gambling man. Charlie was a gambler who traveled up and down the river on the Natchez Belle, making his living playing cards. He never took much notice of Annie, but she sure noticed him. Whenever Annie and Charlie were in the same port, she would change out of her usual rough clothes and put on a dress and her pearls. Any man who dared to laugh had better be prepared to add a pearl to that necklace.
One night as Annie poled Big River’s Daughter up the river she noticed a change in the wind. She could tell that a powerful storm was getting ready to cut loose. Annie started to put to shore and tie up her boat when she saw the lights of the Natchez Bell steaming toward her and the fury of the storm. Heaving her big arms forward as fast as she could, Annie poled up river until she met the steamer. She tied Big River’s Daughter to the Natchez and hurried to the pilothouse to warn the captain. He was a prideful and stubborn man. When Annie tried to warn him of the dangerous storm he laughed at her. “ Captain, I know every inch of this river, if you let me pilot her through, I can save your ship and all your passengers.” “ No woman is gonna take over my wheel,” the captain replied.
Well normally Annie might have taken offense, and an ear or a nose, but on this night she knew she had to act quickly. The storm had begun to toss the boat closer and closer to the shore. Annie rushed to the deck and let out a holler, calling all the passengers to the deck. She said, “Follow me and I will take you to safety.” She jumped over the side of the steamer onto Big River’s daughter. The passengers stood frozen in fear until Charlie jumped over the side too and called, “ I’m with Annie.” The other passengers quickly followed.
The two boats crashed against each other and Annie had to untie Big River’s Daughter and pole her away from the Natchez, which was out of control in the swift current. She tried to get the captain and crew to jump to safety but they stayed with their boat as it crashed into a sand bar and tipping to one side and then was swept sideways into another sand bar breaking the boat into pieces before sinking into the depths of the mighty raging river.
Big River’s daughter was loaded to the point of sinking itself. Annie tied the boat's guide rope around her waist and jumped to shore and began running, pulling it all the way to New Orleans. Some say that she was running so fast the boat never touched the water.
Charlie’s heart belonged to Annie Christmas from that day on. The passengers on The Natchez rewarded Annie so handsomely she and Charlie had the biggest wedding New Orleans had ever seen. A year later Annie rewarded Charlie with 12 sons all born on the same day! Those boys were their mama’s pride and joy. Why, they were 7 feet tall by the time they were 4.
Annie Christmas never had to work another day in her life. Those boys took such good care of her she didn’t have to walk anywhere, they just carried her on their shoulders. Annie gave up rough clothes and started wearing fancy dresses as she traveled the steamboats with Charlie. Charlie pretended not to notice if Annie added a pearl or two to her necklace after someone snickered at her at dinner.
One night Charlie and Annie were trying their luck at the roulette wheel. Annie was wearing a bright red dress made of a fine silk Charlie had admired in a shop in New Orleans. He said, “ Annie you’d be as pretty as a Christmas poinsettia in a dress made out of that. “ Charlie placed his money on red in honor of Annie’s dress. As the wheel began to spin and he leaned over the table and stared as the ball fell in to red. “ Charlie, we won!" Annie cried.
Charlie didn’t move a muscle; he just let it ride. Again the ball spun around and bounced into red. Over and over Charlie let it ride, 10 times he let it ride. Annie begged him to take the money, but Charlie didn’t move a muscle, he just let it ride. $3000, $5000, $7000. His friends tried to stop him, but he just let it ride. And each time the ball spun and bounced into red. 16 times that wheel spun 16 times it bounced into red. The owner of the steamer saw Charlie was making a run on his vault and said, “That’s it, $10,000 is all you’ll get from me.” And he shut down the wheel.
Annie cried in relief. “ Come on Charlie let’s go,” she said . When she reached out and touched him he fell over dead. He had died long before that and his body had been propped on that table while that ball spun red. Annie had enough money to give Charlie a fine burial. She never got over his death.
A year later, Annie’s health failed her. Lying on her deathbed she gathered her sons around her 6 to a side and as they cried and wailed she told them how she wanted to be buried. The next night in the darkest hour a black coach pulled by six black horses with six boys in front and six boys in back made its way to the docks. They placed Annie’s black coffin on the deck of Big River’s Daughter and then let the river carry her away.
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Contributed by Dianna Waite 9/6/05
diannawaite@yahoo.com
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5)
THE BLACK POT REBELLION
[This story was written after researching the Urseline's of New Orleans and Madam Langlois. I found all that I could on the internet to help me develop it. The young women in the story are a composit of a woman of that time. Madam Langlois was a real person and the black pot rebellion did happen. Here are two sites that were most helpful in my research:
For info on the Ursulines.
http://hnoc.org/ursulines.html
Madam Langlois and Creole Cooking by Buddy stall
http://clarionherald.org/20050406/stall.htm ]
Story:
Amalee was the second daughter of the third son four times removed from the French royal family. Her chances of being matched with an acceptable husband were slim, especially since all of the eligible young men in France were off fighting Napoleon’s war.
“She’s 12 years old, we’ll never find a match for her if we don’t do something,” she heard her father say one night when she should have been sleeping soundly. “Oh, Jacques, I can’t bear the thought of sending her so far from home,” her mother said. Amalee’s father had heard that there were young officers in the colonies, a place called New Orleans, who were looking for suitable brides. “The sister’s will make sure that she is safe in their school, and make sure she finds a suitable match,” her father insisted, “This may be our last hope for a good future for her.”
The next day her mother sat with her and explained that she was to travel to New Orleans with a group of young ladies where she would board with the Ursuline Sister’s. The sister’s would continue the girl’s education, instruct them in their religious studies and introduce the girls to New Orleans society. The sisters would help guide the girls in choosing husbands from the young French officers stationed there. “Amalee, I have taught you all that you need to know to make a good home. It is the greatest gift a person can give to create a home, a place of quiet refuge. You know how to read, cook, clean, and sew. You sing like a nightingale. The young man who marries you will be the luckiest man in New Orleans.”
So with much trepidation Amalee and 13 other young girls were put on a ship bound to New Orleans to meet their future husbands. The girls were frightened but also excited. To pass the time on the voyage they embroidered kerchiefs and amused themselves talking of what their lives would be like. “I shall have a beautiful flower garden surrounding my home,” one of the girls said. My mother taught me how to prune roses so they grow through the seasons.” “And I shall make us all lovely hats, from the fine silks my mother will send” said another. “Oh, and we will all gather at my house once a week and I will sing for you and read from my father’s books” Amalee said.
They were not disappointed when they arrived in New Orleans. The Urseline’s boarding school had girls who were orphans, slaves, Indians and refugees. They were all taught side by side. The sister’s taught them to respect all of the different cultures that had come together in New Orleans. In addition to teaching, the sisters arranged cotillions, coming out parties, which introduced the girls to society in New Orleans. It was not long before the girls met, were courted by and married young French officers.
It was then that their troubles began. The quarters they were to live in were small and cramped. The gardens, drawing rooms and libraries from their parents’ homes were lost. Amalee did what she could to make her home a place of quiet refuge, as her mother had taught her. They soon learned that the fine silks that their mothers wore had to be reserved for special occasions in the New Orleans heat. They learned to make clothing from the local cotton fabric. They decorated their homes modestly but tastefully. They did gather once a week in each other’s homes to share news from home. They would have been content, but for the food. They were given small rations each month of sugar, salt and bleached flour. They were expected to purchase the rest of their food at the local markets.
The foods there were unrecognizable to Amalee. Wild game, fish, crabs, shrimp corn and rice were plentiful, but she did not know how to prepare them. The soldiers had lived on a rice and corn mush that they had dubbed peas porridge, after the old nursery rhyme: peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old. The girls learned to prepare this and it became a staple of their diets. They tried stewing the fish and roasting the game, but the meat was tough and stringy and the fish was mushy and bland.
They had none of the spices they were familiar with for cooking. They petitioned the commander of the troops asking for better rations but were told, “ This is war time, we have no place for frivolities now.” They complained bitterly to their parents when they sent letters home. Finally, Amalee’s parents were able to put together a shipment of fine spices, smoked meats, dried fruits and vegetables and were sending them on the next ship. The girls were so excited, on the morning the ship arrived they braved going to the docks themselves to gather the supplies. Peas porridge would soon be a thing of the past they told their husbands. However, when the ship began to unload the supplies, they found that weapons had replaced the foods their families had tried to send. “It’s war time you foolish girls, the captain of the ship told them. We can’t waste what precious little space we have for non-essential things like spices and fruit.
Amalee was furious. How could she make a home, a quiet refuge, when she couldn’t even prepare a decent meal? She and the other girls returned to their homes. But that night as Amalee fixed yet another meal of corn mush and rice that horrid song kept going through her head, Peas porridge hot peas porridge cold, Pease porridge in the pot nine days old. She couldn’t stand it. She grabbed her black pot and threw the contents out the window. Then an idea came to her. With the black pot still in her hand she ran to the other girls quarters and each of them followed her, their black pots in their hands. They marched down the street to Governor Bienville’s house chanting, “peas porridge hot peas porridge cold peas porridge in the pot nine days old, NO MORE.” They rallied around the gates to the governor’s mansion and banged their pots on the metal grill. They shouted PPH PPC PPITP9DO over and over until the governor had no choice but to address them. Hearing their complaints the governor was at a loss until his housekeeper, Madam Langlois made a suggestion. “I’ve had my own troubles cooking meals for you, cousin. I propose that I learn to cook from the natives of this region. Then I can teach these girls how to cook for their husbands.”
The next day Madam Langlois and a small unit of soldiers were sent to live with the Houmas Indians who had a village near New Orleans. From them Madam Laglois learned to cook using the foods of the region. The Houmas taught her how to make succotash, a vegetable dish made of lima beans and corn. They showed her how to cut and prepare the wild game for tenderness and flavor, how to smoke meat to preserve it, how to cook rice so it was tender, not mushy, and how to grind corn into a fine meal for coating meats or making corn cakes. The Indians showed her how to prepare the shellfish that was so plentiful and use the root of the sassafras plant to make a fine powder called file’ powder to thicken stews and gravies. They showed her how to gather the bay leaves from the laurel tree to season their foods. When Madam Langlois returned to New Orleans after 6 weeks with the Houmas she began to meet with the girls each week. Madam Langlois combined her skills in French cooking with the knowledge of the natives to begin the first cooking school in New Orleans’s. Today Madam Langlois is known as the Mother of Creole Cuisine and PPH PPC PPITP9DO is once again just a nursery rhyme.
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Contributed by Dianna Waite 9/6/05
diannawaite@yahoo.com
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6) ALLIGATOR SUE by Sharon Arms Doucet
Louisiana Young Readers’ Choice Award Nominee 2006 Grades 3-5
Submitted by Martha Jordan, Children's Services Coordinator Ouachita Parish Public Library, Monroe
Title: Alligator Sue
Author: Sharon Arms Doucet
Illustrator: Anne Wilsdorf
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003 Pages: 40
Summary This rollicking tall tale explores a theme of self-identity and, as the starred review in Publisher's Weekly notes, it is "a triumphant tale of finding one's way in the world." When hurricane winds swoop down on Suzanne Marie Sabine Chicot Thibodeaux (or Sue as everyone calls her) and carry her away into the swamp, she is adopted by Mama Coco, an alligator, who raises Sue right along with her little gator babies. Sue comes to love Mama Coco and all of her brothers and sisters. Memories of her real family fade, until one day after her brother Chomp teases her unmercifully about her puny bellow, she starts out on her own through the swamp. Mama Coco follows her and breaks the news that she is really a girl. Mama Coco offers some sage advice: "All you can do is be who you is." But Sue knows it is up to her to decide what to do with the rest of her life. She finds her family's old houseboat and learns to cook and to play on her daddy's accordion. But she misses her alligator family and wonders if she's really a girl or a gator. She sets out for the swamp and soon finds herself caught up in another hurricane. Making her way to Chomp's den, she is safe and sound when she remembers that Mama Coco is guarding a nest of new eggs. She and Chomp head for the nesting area, pack the eggs carefully in Spanish moss and place them into Sue's pirogue, taking off just as the hurricane washes away Mama Coco's nest. They hurry to the safety of Sue's houseboat and sit out the storm while listening to Sue's accordion music. When the babies are safely hatched soon afterwards, Sue is asked to be their godmother. Later, Chomp tows her houseboat to a spot halfway between his den and Mama Coco's den. There, Sue can keep a close eye on her godchildren as they grow up. The move also brings about a name change as Sue finally decides who she is – half gator and half girl – and from now on, she will be known as Alligator Sue.
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Source:
http://www.state.lib.la.us/empowerlibrary/ 2006%203-5%20Alligator%20Sue.pdf
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7) THE CUT-OFF as retold by S. E. Schlosser
Found at:
http://www.americanfolklore.net/folktales/la.html
Story:
The devil was in the Mississippi River that night. You could feel it with every eddy swirling against the helm of the boat. You could hear it in every jangle of the bell. You could see it in the dim light of the lantern as it tried to pierce the swirling fog. You could sense it in the sound of the chugging engine. The devil was in the river. It was a bad night to be out in a paddleboat. But he had sworn when he set out that nothing could make him turn back.
No other pilot dared brave the Mississippi that night. They were all huddled in the tavern, gossiping. After an evening of listening to their empty boasts, he had made one himself. He knew the Mississippi River so well that he could guide his paddleboat on his run even through the thickness of the night's fog. When the other pilots heard his boast, they laughed and told him he would be back before midnight. He had grown angry at their jeers, and had sworn in front of them all that he would not turn back this night for any reason, should the Devil bar the way!
The paddle wheeler was rocking oddly under the strange eddies of the river. But he knew every turn and guided her along despite the fog. He was almost to Raccourci when he saw shore where no shore had ever been before.
He turned the boat this way and that. It could not be! The river ran straight through on this branch. He had guided his paddleboat through this place a hundred times.
But the devil must have been listening at the tavern and had heard his boast, for the Mississippi had shifted! He swore every curse he knew, and kept searching for a way through. He had vowed to complete his run without turning back and he was determined to carry out his vow. He would never go back. Never! He would stay there until daybreak, and beyond if need be.
Suddenly, the paddleboat gave a massive jerk. The engine stalled. The boat shuddered and overturned. When the fog lifted the next day, they found his paddleboat sunk to the bottom with a gaping hole in its side, and the pilot drowned.
On foggy nights, you can still hear the ring of the bell, the sound of the engine and the curses of the ghost captain trying to complete his run.
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[Southern folklore traditions are kept alive in these expert retellings by master storyteller S. E. Schlosser, and in artist Paul Hoffman's evocative illustrations. You'll meet ghosts and witches, hear things that go bump in the night, and feel an icy wind on the back of your neck on a warm summer evening. Whether read around the campfire on a dark and stormy night or from the backseat of the family van on the way to grandma's, this is a collection to treasure.]
Source:
Spooky South by S. E. Schlosser may be found at:
http://www.americanfolklore.net/spooky-south.html
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8) JEAN SOT GUARDS THE DOOR as retold by S. E. Schlosser
Found at:
http://www.americanfolklore.net/folktales/la1.html
Story:
One day, Jean Sot's mother wanted to go to town.
"Now Jean," she said, "I want you to guard the door.
"Yes, Mama," Jean Sot agreed.
Jean's mother left for town. Jean waited and waited for her to get back. But she was gone a very long time. Jean got worried, and decided to look for her. But he remembered he had promised to guard the door. So Jean took the door off of its hinges and carried it on his back when he went to look for his mother.
Along the way, Jean Sot saw some robbers coming along the path, carrying a heavy sack of money. Jean Sot was frightened. He adjusted the door on his back as best as he could and climbed up a nearby tree to wait for the robbers to go by. But the robbers stopped underneath the tree! They sat down and began to count their money. The chief robber counted out the money for each man, saying: "This is for you, and this is for you, and this is for you."
"And that one's for me," Jean Sot cried. The robbers were startled. They looked around, but couldn't see anyone. The chief robber began counting again: "This is for you, and this is for you, and this is for you."
Again, Jean Sot said: "That one's for me!"
"Who is that?" called the chief robber. "I will wring his fool neck!"
Jean Sot was so scared he began to shake, and the door fell off his back and down onto the robbers.
"The Devil is throwing doors at us!" shouted one of the robbers. They were so frightened that all the robbers ran away without their money. So Jean Sot climbed down the tree, picked up the money and the door and took them home to his mother.
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Source:
Spooky South by S. E. Schlosser may be found at:
http://www.americanfolklore.net/spooky-south.html
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9) Mississippi “folklore” and sampler of rural sayings by Ed Blake
As the lure of real country living spreads over our fair state, it may be quite timely now to take a closer look at some of the age-old beliefs and practices that go on which may be termed “folklore” and which add color and insight to daily living.
Rural sayings kept alive through generations with enough power in them to stir people to action and conviction often reach the “axiom” plateau where their definition defines them as self-evident statements whose truths are assured without proof.
A few years ago, this writer was in the living room of an historical society president within a heartbeat of the full- strength mixture of town and country philosophies. I was given permission to take notes on their observations for a future article along this line – and this is it.
Gardening and home living practices drew the most comments. The group was anything but hushed as nostalgia pricked memories of some long dormant family stories. I soon got writer’s cramps, but kept on abbreviating the stories for this recall.
If you had been within earshot of this amazing subject matter you might have shuttered and shook at times when you weren’t reflective to the point of splitting your seams.
The moon is an important element in rural folklore. This particular moon was photographed rising over Sunrise Ridge on Springdale Hills Christmas Tree Farm and Arboretum in Pocahontas.
The moon got its share of admiration and obeisance. One let it be known that many gardeners don’t know any better than to plant their rows of corn during the period of a full moon. And then when the corn goes mostly to stalk they wonder why.
Or, how about those gardeners who recognize Good Friday as an ideal day to plant their cold-sensitive vegetables like beans and tomatoes. Unfortunately, it was pointed out, some folks spend all day Friday tilling and preparing the soil without putting seed into the ground that afternoon. Some, it was said, put it off until the next day – and that’s bad. Saturdays after Good Fridays are not called “Rotten Saturdays” for nothing.
In another spasm of someone’s time-honored wisdom, it was pointed out that those with a chronic anxiety about the weather shouldn’t fail to notice the Friday that falls on April 18, for when it rains on that day you may as well expect a dry year and prepare yourselves mentally for burnt up yards and gardens.
Slow to remove the ashes from your fireplace? Don’t fiddle around. Get rid of them right now! If you get caught with them there and have to clean them out between Christmas and New Year’s Day, you’re inviting unsavory trouble.
And before getting too carried away with your plans for a Happy New Year, you are reminded that a new bride was caught sobbing by her husband. Seems she had forgotten that you aren’t supposed to wash your clothes on New Year’s Day without risking the loss of a family member to the old gentleman with the long scythe.
Real bad stuff!
A caution for early morning talkers – especially those who have bad dreams. If you share your bad dream – or good one either for that matter– before breakfast, it is said that it would come true. This could work a real hardship.
Back to Good Friday. There were those in our assemblage who regarded the Wednesday after Good Friday as Sweet Wednesday and a very good time for dropping a few more seed into the ground.
Weathercasting in folklore? You bet. If it rains on Monday, it is considered likely that you will have two more days of rain that week. A Tuesday shower isn’t so ominous.
Dark nights are scary in more than the usual way for children. If you have a dark night on Christmas night then you may as well forget about having a heavy crop the following season. Just not meant to be! Yet dark nights have their supporters, especially in March, when they favor the germination of corn plantings and the darker the better.
Our weather enlightenments – three frosts in a row are followed by a rain; and maybe you’re scientifically-minded enough to figure out that smoke lingers closest to ground just before a rain.
If gardeners plant when the sign is in the flower grid of your almanac, your plants will go to flower and bear poorly.
I sank deeper in my chair when one folklorist shared that there are watermelon growers who plant their melons the first Saturday of May, before sunup, with the seed pointed down for best results.
Not many people “set their own hens” nowadays to hatch eggs to replenish the flock, but just keep in mind that if you do have setting hens, don’t let a man enter your house on New Year’s Day or else every biddy that hatches out will be a rooster. It’s said that a lady visitor during the same period creates mostly pullets – and that’s females of the breed.
Lastly, take it from those who claim they know, don’t start any job on Friday that you can’t finish that day or you’ll wish you hadn’t.
“Dear, what day of the week is this?”
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Source:
Mississippi Farm Country
http://www.msfb.com/news/Farmcountry/jan04/Mississippi%20folklore.html
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10) LAPIN PLAYS POSSUM: Trickster Tales From the Louisiana Bayou (Hardcover)
by Sharon Arms Doucet, Scott Cook (Illustrator)
Reviews:
From Publishers Weekly
Pranks prevail on the bayou when lollygagging Compere Lapin (aka Brer Rabbit) takes on Compere Bouki (which means "hyena") in these three lively folktales from the Pelican State. Lapin continually outwits Bouki, cleverly tricking him out of his cotton crop or playing dead in order to abscond with Bouki's seafood gumbo. Colorful vocabulary ("picayunish"; "hornswoggled") and peppery idioms ("greasier than a politician's palm") season each page, along with Doucet's (Why Lapin's Ears Are Long and Other Tales from the Louisiana Bayou) robust metaphors ("And there, as far as the eye could see, stretched sweet potato vines greener than ten-dollar bills and thicker than a passel of lawyers in cahoots"). Many of these literary devices require a sophisticated audience for full appreciation, as may also be true of Cook's (With a Whoop and a Holler) illustrations, with their abstract brushstrokes, recurring salmon and saffron hues and subtle details. But those who pay close attention will be rewarded by Lapin's canny expressions and droll mannerisms (e.g., chewing a mint leaf while clutching a glass of mint julep as he lolls in his hammock). Glossary and notes round out this highly polished presentation. Ages 5-up.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 5--Anyone who enjoyed Doucet's storytelling in Why Lapin's Ears Are Long (Orchard, 1997) and Cook's artwork in With a Whoop and a Holler (Atheneum, 1998) should enjoy this new romp that combines the talents of both individuals. The author takes readers back to the bayou for three more stories featuring Compere Lapin, this time as he plays all his tricks on Compere Bouki. Since these two are the Cajun alter egos of Brer Rabbit and Brer Wolf, readers shouldn't be surprised to find familiar plots from African-American folklore. The tale known as "Who Nibbled up the Butter?" in Joel Harris's The Favorite Uncle Remus (Houghton, 1973), the story called "Fox Goes Hunting but Rabbit Bags the Game" from Harris's Jump!: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit (Harcourt, 1986), and the episode popularized by Janet Stevens in Tops & Bottoms (Harcourt, 1995) all turn up here. There is even a Creole variation on the tar baby and the briar-patch tradition. Cook's paintings, perhaps his most impressionistic work yet, capture all of the action and humor of the text. Although some might quibble that none of the illustrations actually depict the bayou promised in the title, those from southern Louisiana know that it's not all swamps and cypress. The glossary and author's note will be helpful for folks unfamiliar with the historical background and Cajun terminology. Even collections that already have the other versions deserve this valuable lagniappe.
Sean George, St. Charles Parish Library, Luling, LA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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54 used & new from amazon.com starting at $3.49:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0374343284/102-5003546-6987334?v=glance
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11) LITTLE PIERRE: A Cajun Story from Louisiana
by Robert D. San Souci
Illustrated by David Catrow
Silver Whistle / Harcourt, Inc., 2003
[ages 5-8], PreS - Grade 3,
Hardcover, Picture Book Fiction
ISBN: 0-15-202482-4
$16.00 USA
Trim size: 10" x 10"
32 pages
Full-color illustrations
Story:
A very tiny but clever boy outwits his older brothers, an ogre, an alligator, and a giant catfish to rescue a rich man's daughter in this Cajun version of a French fairy tale.
Little Pierre may be small, but he's got more marbles rolling round in his itty-bitty noggin than his four big, lazy brothers heaped together. Yet they just call him runt and ignore him. Course, when the good-for-nothing brothers flub their attempt to rescue a damsel in distress from the Swamp Ogre, it falls on Little Pierre to rescue them. Will this half-pint hero find out that his brothers were right all along--brains don't beat brawn?
Robert D. San Souci and David Catrow, the creators of the acclaimed Cinderella Skeleton, serve up a Cajun-spiced Tom Thumb tale straight from the Louisiana bayou.
Includes a glossary of Cajun words and an author's note about the origin of the story.
"San Souci's retelling has a rhythmic, rocking flair, and the fast-flowing text will work for storytelling, as well as reading aloud. Catrow packs his busy bayou with personality . . . the sweep of these watercolor illustrations exhibits continued mastery of diverse perspectives and balanced compositions. An extensive authors note provides a variety of written sources for this spicy retelling." --
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This book may be found at:
http://www.rsansouci.com/pages/books/littlepierre.htm
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12) Query: I'm volunteering to tell stories to Katrini survivors of all ages (including a special needs shelter). Suddenly the stories that I write and usually tell about my home state of La. don't seem to do it. If YOU were in their place, what stories would comfort you, bring you hope or a laugh, and relieve stress at least for the moment? If you have any suggestions, please send them to me at DarleneDu4@aol.com
Response: The first thing that came to my mind would be Noodlehead stories, the type of stories where those who seem to have the less resources, be them intellectually or monetary, win out in the end because they persevere. Lazy Jack immediately leaps to mind as the kind of story where one triumphs over adversities that seem to grow and grow, yet in the end he wins the gold and the girl. Trickster tales might work very well also, the kind that are a bit silly and fun, not mean spirited; The Theft of Honey is a LA tale that would work here.
Google Noodlehead or compilation of Noodlehead stories at:
http://www.story-lovers.com/listsnoodleheadstories.html
Lazy Jack stories:
http://www.story-lovers.com/listslazymen&women.html
Trickster tales:
http://www.story-lovers.com/liststrickstertales.html
You could also intersperse the with stories where folks discover what is most important in life, love and friendship like the story of Old Joe and the Carpenter.
http://www.story-lovers.com/listsoldjoe&carpenter.html
Karen C. 9/8/05
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Response: I would like to suggest that you take a look at the Stories for Children in Crisis that Laura Simms collected on the Healing Story Alliance website
http://www.healingstory.org/home.html
The articles on the site are also helpful.
If I were in the place of the survivors of this ordeal, I would like to hear stories that take me outside of myself and my current situation. Silly stories, trickster tales, anything that will let me laugh after having been in such a stressful situation. Juan Bobo and his Pig will surely bring a smile. Anansi's Hat Shaking Dance. I agree with Karen's suggestions too.
Anansi's Hat Shaking Dance
http://www.jobekah.com/Stories/The_Hat_Shaking_Dance.html
Story:
Anansi's Hat-Shaking Dance -- An Ashanti Folk tale from Africa
As retold by Chris Eagle Horse
If you look closely, you will notice that the spider, Kwaku Anansi, has a bald head. A long time ago, he used to have hair, but he lost it through vanity.
When Anansi's mother-in-law died, his wife prepared to go back to her village for the funeral. Anansi told her to go ahead and he would follow. You see Anansi knew that he would have to show great grief over her death. He would show such grief that he would not be able to eat. Therefore, before leaving, he stuffed himself full of food. He then set off for his wife's village.
After the funeral, there was a huge feast. Anansi refused to eat out of respect for his mother-in-law. He said, "I will wait for eight days to pass before I will eat again, to honor my wife's mother." He hoped that this would impress the others. Anansi was the kind who had to outdo others; he had to eat twice as much, dance twice as hard and mourn twice as loudly. And although he was very hungry, he wanted others to think that he was very respectful and grief-stricken.
On the second day after the funeral, they said to him again, "Anansi, please eat something." However, Anansi replied, "How can I eat when my mother-in-law has just died?" I will wait until the eighth day, when the period of mourning is over." By the third day, Anansi was getting very hungry. The others again encouraged him to eat, and again he refused.
The fourth day came, and Anansi was left alone with the pot of beans. They smelled so good, and he could stand it no longer. He scooped up a spoon of the hot beans just as the others returned. Surprised, Anansi threw the beans into his hat, then put the hat on his head. Not noticing, the others again encouraged Anansi to eat, but all he could think about was the burning hot beans oozing over his head. He began to jiggle the hat around on his head with his hands. When the others looked at him strangely, he said, "Today my village is celebrating the hat-shaking festival. I shake my hat in honor of the celebration."
The beans grew hotter than ever, and he jiggled his hat some more. He began to jump in pain, dancing about. "This is the way they do the hat-shaking dance in my village!" The beans burned hotter. "I must go."
His family called, "Please eat before you go!" Anansi called back to them, "What kind of man do you think I am to eat before the eighth day?"
Anansi ran into the grass, with the others following him. He could stand it no longer, and tore off his hat. Seeing his head, the others began to laugh at him. Anansi begged the grass, "Hide me!" and it did.
And that is why Anansi is often found in tall grass, where he was driven by shame. Notice that his head is bald, for the hot beans burned off his hair. All because he needlessly tried to impress the others at his mother-in-law's funeral.
Story found at:
http://jeffcoweb.jeffco.k12.co.us/passport/lessonplan/lessons/trickster.html
Of course The little Engine That Could comes to mind with its familiar refrain of I think I can..I think I can...I know I can. There are so many challenges still yet to be faced by all who are living through this. Most of all have fun with your telling. It will be contagious and healing.
Story may be found at:
http://members.tripod.com/ah_coo/engine_that_could.htm
Jane C. 9/8/05
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13) MISSISSIPPI MOSQUITOES retold by S. E. Schlosser
Story:
A visitor to Mississippi decided to take a walk along the river in the cool of the evening. His host warned him that the mosquitoes in the area had been acting up lately, tormenting the alligators until they moved down the river. But the visitor just laughed and told his host he wasn't to be put off from his evening constitutional by a few mosquitoes.
As he promenaded beside the flowing Mississippi, he heard the whirling sound of a tornado. Looking up, he saw two mosquitoes descend upon him. They lifted him straight up in the air and carried him out over the river.
"Shall we eat him on the bank or in the swamp?" he heard one ask the other.
"We'd better eat him on the bank," said the other. "Or else the big mosquitoes in the swamp will take him away from us."
Frightened near to death, the man lashed out at the mosquitoes until they lost their grip and dropped him into the river. He was carried two miles downstream before he was fished out by a riverboat pilot. The man left Mississippi the next day, and has never gone for another walk from that day to this.
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Source:
Spooky South by S. E. Schlosser may be found at:
http://www.americanfolklore.net/spooky-south.html
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14) SWAPPING STORIES: THE STORIES
[These stories were reprinted at the website below with permission from Swapping Stories: Folktales from Louisiana published by University Press of Mississippi. This book contains nearly 200 additional Louisiana folktales, plus more detailed historical and anthropological notes on each story. Information on the transcription rules used is available, as well as biographies of the featured storytellers.]
The stories include:
Animal/Magic Tales:
Bouki, Lapin et Rat de Bois (Bouki, Lapin and Possum): Enola Matthews
Les trois Jobs (The Three Jobs): Enola Matthews
Jokes:
I'm Going to Leave You, Chère: Harry Lee Leger
Swapping Stories: Dave Petitjean and A.J. Smith
God Works in Mysterious Ways: Harry Methvin
Leaving Mississippi: Robert Albritton
You Think I'm Working, But I Ain't: Robert Albritton
Les trois couillon (The Three Fools): Enola Matthews
Jean Sot, la vache, les chiens et sa petite soeur (Jean Sot, the Cow, the Dogs, and Little Sister): Enola Matthews
The Reverend Gets the Possum: Sarah Albritton
She Has the Key: Sarah Albritton
Tall Tales
The Alligator Peach Tree: Pierre Daigle
Does He Drive, Too?: A.J. Smith
On Top of Old Smoky: Harry Methvin
Mosquitoes Save a Life: Harry Methvin
Legends:
An Oyster-culling Loup Garou: Loulan Pitre
The Shadow Companion: Loulan Pitre
Loup Garou as Shadow Companion: Glen Pitre
Life Saving Sirens: Loulan Pitre
The Widow's Buried Gold: Pierre Daigle
How the Koasati Got Their Name: Bertney Langley
Myths:
How the Bat Got its Wings: Bertney Langley
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Source:
http://www.lpb.org/programs/swappingstories/stories.html
28 new and used Swapping Stories: Folktales from Louisiana may be found at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0878059318/qid=1126501138/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-5003546-6987334?v
=glance&s=books
14 used books may be found at ABE starting from $4.50 at:
http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?bx=off&sts=t&ds=30&bi=0&tn=Swapping+Stories%3A+Folktales+from
+Louisiana&sortby=2
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15) LOUISIANA SONGS FOR KIDS! This site says "song lyrics," but they are also short and very delightful stories!
This stuff is FUN!!!
The lyrics are rich in Louisiana culture and educational content! The music is fresh, new and fun! Check out the lyrics to these fun
story-songs. They're ALL HERE NOW!
Psssst! Don't tell anyone, but some parents might get the idea to print these lyrics out and use them as bedtime stories!
Look for the logo on the lyric sheets, and click 'em for audio samples!
Producer Terry Lee Ryan
The song titles include:
* The Riverboat Song
* Oscar de la Oyster
* The Saint Charles Streetcar Song
* Manchac Chicken Shack
* It's Mardi Gras Time Again
* The Swamp Stomp
* Along Voodoo Bayou
* Toulouse the Crawfish Hunter
* The Louisiana Catahoula Leopard Dog
* Pretty Purple Possums
* Nobody likes fun more than me! (Mardi G. Raccoon's Theme)
* Louisiana's Alphabet Song
* Clickety Clackety Crab
* Pontchy Pelican
* Ezzard and Theodore
* Alphonse and the Little Alligator (a Cajun story)
* Aiy-eee
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Source:
http://www.louisianasongs.com/page3.htm
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16) Why Opossum has a Pouch (Koasati Tribe) retold by S. E. Schlosser
Story:
One evening, Opossum was playing in a field with her babies when Big Bat came swooping down and grabbed all of the little ones and carried them away. Opossum shouted and begged for Bat to bring her babies back to her, but he would not. Bat put the little opossums into a deep hole in the rock and watched over them there.
Opossum walked around and around the forest, crying for her babies. When Wolf heard her wails, he came to her and asked what was wrong. "Big Bat has taken my babies from me and he will not give them back," she told him.
"I will get them for you," Wolf said. "if you show me where they are."
So Opossum showed Wolf the deep hole in the rock where Bat watched over her babies. Wolf bravely walked into the darkness. But a moment later she heard him cursing, and then he came running back outside saying, "I am sorry, but I cannot retrieve your babies."
So Opossum kept walking around and around the forest, crying for her babies. When Rabbit heard her wails, he came to her and asked what was wrong. "Big Bat has taken my babies from me and he will not give them back," she told him.
"I will get them for you," Rabbit said. "if you show me where they are."
So Opossum showed Rabbit the deep hole in the rock where Bat watched over her babies. Rabbit boldly walked into the darkness. But a moment later she heard him cursing, and then he came running back outside saying, "I am sorry, but I cannot retrieve your babies."
Opossum was frantic now. Brave Wolf and Bold Rabbit had been unable to retrieve her babies. She walked around and around the forest, crying hysterically for her babies. When Highland-Terrapin heard her wails, he came to her and asked what was wrong. "Big Bat has taken my babies from me and he will not give them back," she told him.
"I will get them for you," Highland-Terrapin said. "if you show me where they are."
Opossum showed Highland-Terrapin the deep hole in the rock where Bat watched over her babies. Highland-Terrapin carefully walked into the darkness. A moment later she heard him cursing. Big Bat had thrown hot ashes down in the path in front of him, burning his large flat feet. But Highland Terrapin kept going in spite of the pain. He could see the little opossums huddled together a few paces away. They were crying for their mother. Highland-Terrapin saw Big Bat hovering above them, and he scolded Bat for stealing the babies from their mother. Highland-Terrapin picked up the little opossums and carried them out of the deep, dark hole. Big Bat dove at him a few times, but he kept bouncing off the terrapin's hard shell before he could reach the babies. Finally, Bat gave up and flew away.
Highland-Terrapin cut a hole in the belly of the happy Opossum mama and placed her babies inside it. "You keep your babies in there until they stop nursing," he told her. "When they no longer need milk to drink, you can let them out."
From that day onward, Opossum mamas have carried their little babies in a pouch until they are old enough to eat on their own.
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Source:
Spooky South by S. E. Schlosser may be found at:
http://www.americanfolklore.net/spooky-south.html
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More Louisiana folktales may be found at:
http://www.americanfolklore.net/folktales/la3.html
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17) Yellowhammer retold by S. E. Schlosser
Story:
Once long ago, Sam, a young slave from Alabama, was sent to the market in Georgia with his master's cattle. After delivering the cattle to market, Sam was given some free time as a reward for good service. Sam decided to explore the city.
Sam went walking along the streets, admiring the fine residences of the Georgia folk. He was passing a particularly fine-looking mansion when he heard something give a scream. Sam was startled. He looked around for the screamer. There, up in a tree, he saw a parrot.
"Hush," Sam told the parrot.
Well, that parrot didn't hush....
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The rest of the story may be found at:
http://www.americanfolklore.net/folktales/al.html
Source:
Spooky South by S. E. Schlosser may be found at:
http://www.americanfolklore.net/spooky-south.html
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18) Why Opossum Has A Bare Tail (Creek/Muscogee Tribe) retold by S. E. Schlosser
Story:
One day, Opossum was walking in the woods around sunset when he spied Raccoon. Now Opossum had always admired Raccoon because he had a beautiful tail with rings all around it.
So Opossum went up to Raccoon and said: "How did you get those pretty rings on your tail?"
Raccoon stroked his fluffy long tail fondly and said: "Well, I wrapped bark around the tail here and here and here," he pointed. "Then I stuck my tail into the fire. The fur between the strips of bark turned black and the places underneath the bark remained white, just as you see!"
Opossum thanked the Raccoon and hurried away to gather some bark. He wrapped the bark around his furry tail, built a big bonfire, and stuck his tail into the flames....
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The rest of the story is at:
http://www.americanfolklore.net/folktales/al3.html
Source:
Spooky South by S. E. Schlosser may be found at:
http://www.americanfolklore.net/spooky-south.html
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19) Never Mind Them Watermelons retold by S. E. Schlosser
Story:
Well now, old Sam Gib, he didn't believe in ghosts. Not one bit. Everyone in town knew the old log cabin back in the woods was haunted, but Sam Gib just laughed whenever folks talked about it. Finally, the blacksmith dared Sam Gib to spend the night in the haunted log cabin. If he stayed there until dawn, the blacksmith would buy him a whole cartload of watermelons. Sam was delighted. Watermelon was Sam's absolute favorite fruit. He accepted the dare at once, packed some matches and his pipe, and went right over to the log cabin to spend the night.
Sam went into the old log cabin, started a fire, lit his pipe, and settled into a rickety old chair with yesterday's newspaper. As he was reading, he heard a creaking sound....
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The rest of the story may be found at:
http://www.americanfolklore.net/folktales/al2.html
Source:
Spooky South by S. E. Schlosser may be found at:
http://www.americanfolklore.net/spooky-south.html
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20) Callin' the Dog retold by S. E. Schlosser
Story:
Tall talkin' in Mississippi has been termed "Callin' the dog" ever since that famous tall-tale session when one man offered a hound dog pup to the person who could tell the biggest lie. Well, those stories started rollin' in, each one bigger and harder to believe than the one before.
Now, the last man to talk knew he didn't have a chance of winnin' that there pup on account of all them tall-tales the others told was so good. So he jest said: "I never told a lie in my life."
"You get the pup!" said the owner of the hound dog. And everyone else agreed with him.
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Source:
Spooky South by S. E. Schlosser may be found at:
http://www.americanfolklore.net/spooky-south.html
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More folktales may be found at:
http://www.americanfolklore.net/folktales/la3.html
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21) North Alabama Epidemics, Patent Medicines, Folklore & Superstitions:
Revised: August 30, 2003
Although today we have all the miracles of modern science and medicine, only a short time ago patent medicines, folk remedies, and superstition were still the order of the day. On the following pages we will try to recall the bad old days of epidemics, sudden death, and alcohol/opium laced medications. A few do not pertain to North Alabama, but I couldn't resist them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Best (or is it worst?) Lawrence County Folk Remedy:
Rabbit brains, rubbed on the gums three or four times a day, are said to be very helpful to teething babies. It must be a graveyard rabbit, killed on the dark of the moon, at sunset Friday, by a cross-eyed negro with a crooked stick.
(Moulton Advertiser: 13 Aug 1907)
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More folklore and superstititons may be found at:
http://www.lawrencecounty.ala.nu/north_alabama_folklore_and_medic.htm
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22) Patin's Pumpkin Patch, written by Tom Coleman - from Louisiana
Story:
"DON'T GO INTO PATIN'S PUNKIN' PATCH. THEY GOT TATIES IN THERE!"
How many times have I heard that growing up in South Louisiana? Seems like every time I'd turn around to go outside my momma and papa would tell me, "Don't go into Patin's Pumpkin Patch. They got taties in there!"
Now for those of you who don't know, a tati is like a Cajun boogyman. They love to scare bad little childrens.
But I could never understand why outa all of the punkin patches in Acadia Parish, any Tati would want to live in Patin's pumpkin patch. I mean, it was all overgrown with weeds. And the punkins were so villain - ugly, all twisted out of shape.
My papa used to tell me stories about old man Patin, and how he put a gris gris on his punkin patch - you know, an evil spell to keep the taties there. He went out into that punkin patch one time a year, on Halloween night at midnight, to put a fresh gris gris on his field. Don't never go into Patin's punkin patch. They got Taties in there.
Well, me and my best friend Shawee, decided we was too old to believe in taties anymore. So we was gonna play a trick on old man Patin.
We sneaked into his punkin patch on Halloween night and we was gonna take our pocket knives and carve some Jack O' Lanterns out of them old scraggly punkins. Yeah, we was gonna fool old Patin into thinking that the Halloweenies had passed, and scare him real good.
We sat down with a couple of punkins and...
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The rest of the story may be found at The Moonlit Road:
http://www.themoonlitroad.com/punkin/punkin_page001.asp
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23) Chasing John Henry in Alabama and Mississippi
The Oldest Known Copy of the Legend of John Henry, the Steel Driving Man
View a readable copy of the legend. Taken from the Guy Benton Johnson Files at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Manuscripts Department.
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Source:
http://www.ibiblio.org/john_henry/broadside2.html
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24) THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS (song)
Sung by: Jimmy Driftwood
Listen to the original recording at this website
(Mr. Driftwood: “Now I want to do a little practice on a song
that I’ll be singing, one of the numbers I’ll be doing at the
World’s Fair. I hope you like it. I guess you know what it is.
What do you think it is? Ah, one man’s a good guesser.”)
In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip.
We took a little bacon, and we took a little beans,
We met the bloody British near the town of New Orleans.
Chorus: We fired our guns, and the British kept a-coming.
There wasn’t nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more, and they began to running,
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
I seed Mars Jackson a-walking down the street,
Talking to a private by the name of Jean LaFitte.
He gave Jean a drink that he brought from Tennessee,
And the private said he'd help 'em drive the British to the sea.
The French said, "Andrew, you’d better run,
For Packingham's a-coming with a bullet in his gun."
Old Hickory said he didn’t give a damn.
He was a-gonna rip the britches off of Colonel Packingham.
Chorus...
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Rest of lyrics and a recorded versions of this song may be found at:
http://www.lyon.edu/wolfcollection/songs/driftwoodbattle1309.html
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25) Cajun Stories
The Cajuns are some of the happiest people on earth. Their humor is second to none. The Cajuns have always been able to laugh at themselves and not take life so serious. It is this positive attitude that allows the Cajuns to let the good times roll and pass a good time.
Story:
Captain Boudreaux
Boudreaux got his first job flying a passenger plane to the Islands out of New Orleans. On his first flight as Captain, he announced to the passengers, good morning, this is your Captain Boudreaux. I want to say thank you for taking a chance flying on my first job with Delta and hope it's not my last. I hope we have a safe trip to Jamaica, we are at 8,000 ft we will clime to 28,000 ft, boy that's high. I just want you to know that you are in good hands and we are flying a good plane. This is a DC plane with 4 engines. We will make it to Jamaica in about 2 hours. So please relax and enjoy the trip. The waiter will go around and serve you some good Cajun coffee and breakfast. Later the barmaid will go around to take your drink order. We will all pass a good time on this trip..
Twenty minutes into the flight one of the left engines started burning....
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The rest of the story may be found at:
http://www.leonce.com/cajun/welcome.html
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26) Old Story-Telling Traditions: LIFE ON THE BAYOU... by MizMo (includes music and songs)
ON THE BAYOU
A Meaux Reunion
My Dad
Faisson du Boudin
Those Theriot's!
On Grandpa Ozeme
'Nonc senias' Whiskey
On Old Coffee-Making Traditions
Mother's Garden
My Big Brother, George
Indigo Blue and Silver Spoons
The Pickle in the Middle
School Days: Lessons in Justice
Cutting the Levée
An Act of Contrition
Becoming High-Water Theriot's
Cajun Exchange
A Heroine's Moment
Harvesting Oysters
Stories My Father Told
Kaplan: The Gary's Rent House
Like Mother, Like Daughter
Kaplan: The Castanza's Rent House
On to Perry: Plentiful Depression Years
My Big Sister, Nan
Dr. Mouledous and 'La Traiteuse'
More Lessons in Justice
Second-Hand Stories
Acadian (Cajun) Ways
My Other Mom and Dad
Mother's Heart of Gold
and many many others...
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May be found at:
http://www.terriau.org/bayu.htm
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27) THE LOUP-GAROU LEGENDS OF OLD VINCENNES
Although scholars cannot agree when French fur traders, adventurers, and pioneers first settled in what now is Vincennes, Indiana, these hardy souls surely arrived in this small town near the Wabash River sometime during or before the early 18th century. Wherever the French wandered in the New World, their folktales came with them, and occasionally stayed to be collected by folklorists. As late as the 1930s a group of writers with the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration discovered a handful of Vincennes French descendants in their seventies and eighties who remembered the French oral traditions of their ancestors. These writers recorded some of the folk tales of a culture that was important to the development of the United States. A copy of the unpublished WPA manuscript is shelved in the Lewis Historical Library at Vincennes University. Fortunately, folklorist Ronald L. Baker has published some of the 277-page WPA manuscript as French Folklife In Old Vincennes (Terre Haute: Indiana Council of Teachers of English, Hoosier Folklore Society, 1989). Baker explains that storytelling was one of the main forms of entertainment of the French at social gatherings and in the home. Baker notes that a popular figure in these stories is the frightening loup-garou, or werewolf:
The loup-garou, to most who believed in him, was a fierce werewolf, though in Vincennes, as in New York, the loup-garou may also be a person transformed into a cow, horse, or some other animal. Once under a spell as a loup-garou, the unfortunate victim became an enraged animal that roamed each night through the fields and forests for a certain period of time, usually 101 days. During the day, he returned to his human form, though he was continually morose and sickly and fearful to tell of his predicament lest even a worse sentence should befall him. The main way he could be released from the spell before serving the stipulated time was for someone to recognize him as a person transformed to an animal and somehow draw blood from the loup-garou. Even when the disenchantment had been performed, both the victim and his rescuer could not mention the incident, even to each other, until the time was up. Anyone who violated this tabu would become possessed immediately and face a much stiffer sentence. (34)
The following are loup-garou and other supernatural tales collected in the 1920s by Miss Anna C. O'Flynn, who taught school for many years in the old French section of Vincennes. They have been transcribed and mildly edited by me from the unpublished Vincennes WPA manuscript entitled The Creole (French) Pioneers at Old Post Vincennes: A Product of Federal Writers' Project District #5 (Vincennes Office), by Doyle Joyce, Loy Followell, Elizabeth Kargacos, Bernice Mutchmore, and Paul R. King, circa 1937. The tales were told to Miss O'Flynn by French descendant Pepe Boucher, who favored the use of French Creole dialect.
NOTE: See American Life Histories: Manuscripts From the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-40 for 2,900 full-text WPA documents, including many from Indiana. The Vincennes manuscript does not yet seem to be among the ones listed.
Charlie Page's Loup-Garou Story
The Bewitched Treasures of Point O'Chene
Jean Baptiste Loup-Garou Horse
The Spirit of Otter Lake
The Feu Follet at Otter Lake
The Good Pumpkin Loup-Garou
The White Eagle Loup-Garou
Example:
The Loup-Garou Cow as told by Pepe Boucher
Of course there be other loup garou stories! Oui, I must tell you many so you know the loup-garou well. Most every other place they be just wolf dogs but here in old Vincennes they be awful. Most any bete noir you hear about. You never want to think on a dark night when you be out by yourself, that they be here, these loup garou, in Vincennes. No I tell you this little one. It not be so much scare you as you run home.
This happen here in Vincennes after Gen. George R. Clark take the British fort from Lieut. Gov. Hamilton. After that time plenty of the Americans came here to our town and dey laugh at us French and our loup garou stories. Dey say be impossible. Mais soon Americaine he say he lost his cow and he go out to hunt her every night. No one ever find him in his home at nights. At last Vetal thought of his own miserable time and he say to himself, "Go and hunt the man and deliver him as Page did you." So Vetal gets a big knife and starts out in the dark and hunt for the Americaine who he thinks be possessed. Bien he hears a cow moaning an remembering that the man say his cow be gone Vetal now know it be the poor Americaine who had always laugh at the French when they talk of the loup-garou. Gathering up all his courage Vetal crept softly, softly as an Indian, on an on he slowly move toward the spot from where the moaning came. The cow did not hear Vetal. She was moaning like a person in great pain. The sound make Vetal tremble. He reach out to cut the cow so he draw blood and deliver the man. Just as he bent over the cow she jump up--right between Vetal's leg she jump an start on a cow jump, lope, gallop or run out toward the Commons. Now Vetal he not be so brave like Page so he be frightened most out of his wit. He reach for the cow's horns. Mais the cow toss her head and bellow an try to jump from under Vetal. Pore Vetal, he was dead scared and not have sense enough to stick the knife in the cow until they be run a mile from town. He hollar an call loud "So Boss," because he thought an Americane cow loup-garou would not understand French. Mais that cow navare stop. So he cried out "Mon Dieu arrester vache, vache arrester!" Mais that did not enter the ear of the loup-garou, so Vetal at last recouvrer ses esprits (he came to himself). He get courage enough to stick his knife in the shoulder. Oh! Oh! the blood spout out and the cow tumble down as Vetal tumble over on the grass in the common right by the side of the Americane what always make fun on the French loup-garou.
At last Vetal an the Americaine walk back to town an all the way the Americaine try to express his gratitude. He beg Vetal not to tell until he die or move away. He move back East purty soon an he nevare come back. When he be gone Vetal tell, mais some not believe, pourquei. Et quelquesunes ne pas eroire! (It is so whether you believe it or not.)
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Text for these stories may be found at:
http://rking.vinu.edu/loup.htm
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28) Tall Tales from Chuck Larkin
[These Fish Stories are collected and adapted for telling by Bluegrass Storyteller, Chuck Larkin. Permission to use, revise and tell the stories from this manuscript is granted to the storytelling public.]
Mississippi River Fishing
I was about 16 years old the summer I arrived in Carlisle county, Kentucky to vacation with my Uncle Ike, Aunt Bert and Cousin Guy. The day I arrived my Uncle said, Chuck, I heard you have learned to swim, so you can use my flat bottomed wooden row boat tied up there on the river bank." Well, the first thing I did was head to the barn to make some special fishing gear. My friends at home had been telling me about how big Mississippi fish were and they tasted like chicken. I wanted to catch one or two.
My Uncle had some blacksmith equipment. I fi red up the forge and made a fishing hook from two old iron horse shoes. It was a big hook like if I curled my wrist and hand up toward my arm. In the barn I also found an old busted up piano. I pulled out a big thick piece of piano wire. I would estimate today that the wire would be about a 2,000-pound test line. After all I was after a big fish and in the old days you went fishing to catch fish. We had never heard about sport fishing. For a fishing pole I borrowed my Uncle’s small flag pole. In the forties, we did not have aluminum flag poles like the whimpy ones today. In the old days, our flag poles were made of U.S. steel. Next, I fixed some dough ball bait. For those of you who were raised culturally-deprived, dough ball bait is made out of coarse ground yellow corn with bacon fat mixed in to hold it together. The dough ball bait I made was about the size of a soccer ball. I put it around my hook and baked it in the oven awhile until the dough hardened up some.
The next morning, I dropped my baited hook into the water from the front of the boat. Wham bam a fish grabbed that bait and the next thing I knew I was being towed down the Mississippi at incredible speed. That surprised me, because I knew I had tethered the boat to a small 100 foot Oak tree. I looked back and that tree was bobbing in the water behind me. The roots of the Oak tree were still snagged in a tiny five acre island it had torn loose. The island was fluttering along behind the Oak tree. It looked like a giant cow flop. We went skimming over the water at such amazing speed that the friction of the water passing under that wooden hull was too much. The boat’s bottom started to heat up. The next thing I knew, the bottom of the boat was on fire! The boat sank and left me barefoot water skiing down the Mississippi river holding on to that steel fishing pole.
Now, I know that some of you do not believe me. Well, I’m known to be open, forthright, candid and truthful. If you check the Guinness book of records, you will fi nd my name listed as the father of barefoot water skiing. I was clocked that day at 96 miles per hour. That was 1947. I held the speed record until 1951 when Evenrude finely built a motor large enough to take the record away from me.
Suddenly the line went slack and I sank. I swam up to the surface. Let me tell you something. If you find yourself in the water in the middle of the Mississippi, that river looks about as wide as it is long. And the Mississippi river runs from D-11 to L-14. I started to shout for help. But I had swallowed too much Mississippi river water. I was all choked up. All I could do was whisper the word help. I reached into my bib overalls and pulled out my reading glasses.
When I was a child my eyes were so bad I had to wear big thick lens glasses to read. I have gotten older my eyes have gotten better, so now I just pick up some thin magnifying glasses in a drug store for reading. I put the big thick lens up to my mouth and whispered, "help, help, help." Those glasses magnified my voice so people as far away as Vicksburg thought it was Gabriel’s horn and Judgment day was here. Boats came from everywhere.
I was picked up by a stern wheeler river boat. Let me digress from telling about my experience that day. Back in 1985, in Louisville, Kentucky, I was telling stories on the Belle of Louisville during the Corn Island Storytelling Festival. The boat appeared familiar. I looked on the bulkhead by the Captain’s cabin and found the wall plaque that had been put up in 1947 to commemorate what happened that day. My name is on it, you can check it out and see for yourself! I’d eat fried chicken before I’d tell a lie. I was on the boat that pulled me from the water that day.
I was wet, irritated and still holding the fi shing pole. I gave the pole a great heave to set the hook. That is when I discovered that the fish that had taken my bate had never moved. It was my bait moving from his mouth to his stomach that had drugged me so fast in the reverse direction down the Mississippi river. That was one humongous fish. Do you know that Jack Cousteau put 185 underwater photographers into the Mississippi river? They took one sequential lengthy picture of that leviathan fish, and the picture itself weighed three tons! That is one big fish.
When I popped that fishing pole, up out of the water came nine Guernsey cows, fiie hogs, a flock of 27 Mallard ducks and four acres of corn. Apparently they had been feeding on the corn inside that fish. Next came a baby 432 pound catfish with my fishing hook caught in his tail. It was a lucky catch after all. Now here is the part some people do not believe. In the side of the baby 432-pound catfish was a fishing spear with a 54 foot long line. On the other end of the line we found a skeleton of a man. He was sitting in a small rowboat with the end of the line tethered around his wrist. Between the feet of the skeleton was a small leather bag filled with 720 mint new gold coins, datestamped 1872.
I thought this was my lucky day. That is, until we returned to Carlisle County where old Judge Vandegrift recognized his Guernsey cows and hogs. He thanked me profusely, without financial reward I might add, for rescuing his cows and hogs. They had been swallowed a year earlier during the drought when they were all skin and bones and as thin as fence rails, but after feeding on the corn they had fattened up well. Of course the corn was gone and only the fodder was left. Would you believe? The FBI impounded the gold pieces. They had been stolen in a bank robbery in Memphis, Tennessee in 1881. The robber had been ingested by that fish during his getaway. That is when I learned that sometimes crime does not pay. And I’ve been ruined for fishing ever since. I do not know about you but I do not ever want to hook on to another fish the size of the one that got away that day. Anything smaller then a 432-pound catfish is just too small for me to bother with.
Now I know some of you doubt the validity of this experience, but I have proof. I still have my baby jack knife, Santa Claus gave me when I was just three years old. You see, I was born during the Great Depression. When a child got to the walking/talking stage, they got their own pocket knife. We used that pocket knife to cut that skeleton free and give him a fitting burial. The next time you see me, ask me and I will show my baby pocket knife to you. I do not lie.
AND THAT’S A TRUE STORY.
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Nassawango Creek Rip Tail Roarer
I’m half horse and half alligator. I have a mouth chock full of bear’s teeth, a jaw like a Mississippi snapping turtle and part of the devil’s tail for a tongue. I am mean. I do not shave in the morning, I just hammer in the bristles and bite them off on the inside. I have never seen a man or woman yet that, if you will pin back their ears and grease their heads, I can’t swallow whole. Mean, my daddy could whip any man east or west of the Mississippi River, and when I was six years old, in the second grade, I could whip my daddy. I can outrun a fox, out grin a panther, swim like an otter, out wrestle a bear and tote a steamboat on my back. I can scream like a banshee, out stare a flash of lightning, or even slide down a lightning bolt with a wild cat under both arms and not get scratched. I can chew nails and spit bullets. I can move so fast, I can shoe a horse on the run and at the same time lather and shave a rabbit on the run. I can even swing a stick over my head in a rainstorm so fast that not one drop of rain water can touch the ground or get me wet. I can walk like an ox and not bend a blade of grass. So look out. I am wicked mean.
I eat rattlesnakes for my breakfast. For lunch I like an old possum. In case you do not know, a possum is a little flat furry creature that lives out in the middle of the highways. Their relatives go to lots of funerals. I’d hate to be a midwife for opossums, ‘cause it sure must be dangerous. However if you are ever lost in the woods, look around and find an opossum and they will lead you straight to the nearest road. I like to spot an opossum that has been roasting out on the side of the road in the hot summer sun for four or five days until they swell up and get that sweet odor. Then I leans over and (slurrrrp) sucks on their nose until the eyeballs collapse. That’s why I
am just ugly mean.
I understand that most people like to take a flat opossum, fold in half and fill him up with shredded cheese, tomatoes, sour cream and lettuce and call him an opossum taco. Myself, I do not care for 'possums that way. That’s a fact. Even though I am fierce mean.
AND THAT’S A TRUE STORY.
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These and many other delightful stories may be found at Chuck Larkin's website:
http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html
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PART 4: LINKS OF INTEREST
("before" and "after" stories about Katrina and similar disasters; stories of survival from other disasters)
1) Gone with the Water — a "before" article published in October 2004
By Joel K. Bourne, Jr.
Photographs by Robert Caputo and Tyrone Turner
The Louisiana bayou, hardest working marsh in America, is in big trouble—with dire consequences for residents, the nearby city of New Orleans, and seafood lovers everywhere.
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Suggested by Tom and Sandy Farley
This copyrighted article may be found at:
http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/
© 2005 National Geographic Society. All rights reserved.
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2) About Stories and Being a Survivor — a survivor story from another disaster
By: Glenda Bonin
The fear, the sights, the smells, the bewildering feelings and confusion are things survivors of a natural disaster never forget. I know. I have an emotional bond with the survivors of Hurricane Katrina that extends back to Memorial Day, 1948. Fifty-seven years ago, when I was seven, my family survived the Vanport (Oregon) Flood. We were among the lucky ones who got out alive, and - like the Katrina survivors - once out of harms way, we faced the daunting prospect of starting life over with nothing but the clothes we were wearing. It is inappropriate to compare the magnitude of Katrina’s devastation with what happened in Vanport, but the haunting similarities have caused me to revisit a childlike anguish I thought the years had erased....
More at...
http://www.storyteller.net/articles/188
Suggested by Sean Buvala
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Part 5: Storytelling experiences
(in shelters and other venues in support of Katrina survivors)
From Darlene DuFour 9/19/05
This is in response to Granny Sue’s email asking if anyone could tell her what to expect when she and other tellers who are about to tell stories at Hurricane Katrina shelters.
I told stories at a Red Cross shelter which was set up at in a former discount store located near Alexandria, Louisiana in September 10, 2005.
The Red Cross worker who invited me welcomed me at the door with a squirming child under each arm. Someone made a PA announcement that a storyteller is here, got a firmer grip on the toddlers, then escorted me to the rear of the building to a well-used rug.
I noticed about 30 teenaged boys in green t-shirts who are in the sheriff's leadership program. My hostess said the guys had shown up that morning for the first time. The children were interested in these young people with energy and patience while their evacuee parents have run dry. The teens’ instructions must have been to help with the 20-30 children walking or crawling and yelling or crying or staring in wide-eyed silence.
With no time to center myself, I surveyed my audience of five or six children, the Red Cross worker, the two toddlers, and three of the uniformed teenagers. I hoped that more children would be drawn in after they saw what was going on, so I began with a song and the older children joined in.
I used some tissue from my purse to wipe the runny nose of a child crawling on the floor. Then I launched into Hound Dog and Rooster Call Up the Sun. One small boy enthusiastically made both the hound dog and the rooster sounds. The smaller children did their best. I wiped the crawler’s nose again before the mucus reached the floor.
I was about to begin my second story when some of the small children who were walking and crawling near my area grabbed three of the teenaged boys around the legs. The boys responded to the children’s need for attention by launching into activities with them. Right beside me. Loudly. "You want to play trucks? Okay. Ba-rr-rum. Ba-rum." "Checkers? Okay, let's sit on the other side of this lady who’s telling stories and we'll play checkers."
Two siblings or cousins who hated each other and showed it joined us. One girl came with a toy; the other pounced on her and wrestled it from her. They both left. A few minutes later, one came back with another toy. The other came and they yelled and wrestled again as I told stories. Get the picture?
Two girls who looked to be about eight years old joined my audience while others left, so I launched into my version of the Little Red Hen. Two of the girls did their parts well, the third responded with gentle prompting on her lines. Then they left for other activities that caught their eyes.
My audience of six or eight--or however many showed up at the moment-- dwindled to the Red Cross worker, the two squirming children she kept up with and eight-year-old Michelle from New Orleans. She reminded me that I was probably like her when I was her age: chubby, articulate, loves to read, loves to talk even more and does and does and does. Michelle showed me “The Three Little Pigs” and said it was her favorite story. “I write stories and I draw,” she said. Then she told me story that she has written. I listened to her and encouraged her to continue. I told her that she has talent for writing and for telling stories, to keep doing it, even when she grows up.
I came home exhausted and feeling like a failure, except for Michelle. If only I’d been a better teller, I could have commanded their attention. If only I’d . . .
Five days later I attended a workshop in “Facilitating the Arts in Hurricane Relief Shelters” sponsored by the Arts Council of Central Louisiana, and presented by the University of Florida Center for the Arts in Healthcare and Shands Arts in Medicine. Although the two Florida based groups have years of experience in using the arts to promote healing, their representative, Jill Sonke-Henderson, admitted that they had never been involved in hurricane relief shelters.
These suggestions are a compilation of information from three sources; the Red Cross representatives who spoke at the meeting, information from the sources cited above, and based on my own limited experience. Maybe they will help another teller. Now that I know what to expect, I will do a better job next time.
Suggestions for Storytelling in a Hurricane Katrina Shelter
• Leave your expectations and ego at home. The shelter won’t be anything like you expect; neither will the audience. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Be flexible.
• When you arrive, expect to identify yourself and give your purpose for being there. Ask whoever comes to escort you to your performing area to give you five or ten minutes to set up before they announce that you are in the building.
• Expect your performing area to be a rug in the rear of the room with several activities going on nearby. Expect to see small children unattended running or crawling or playing with toys around your space.
• A Red Cross worker will make a PA announcement similar to this: “Darlene Dufour, a storyteller is here. She’ll be telling stories in the rear of the room.” The announcer will not encourage people to gather around for stories or make similar comments to rally an audience among the other activities going on. This is Red Cross policy, not an indication of the announcer’s lack of interest in your storytelling, so don’t take it personally. Expect it.
• Do not approach residents directly beyond a cordial greeting.You may NOT encourage people to come and listen by speaking to them directly even to say, “I’m going to be telling stories; come join in the fun,” or anything like that to draw an audience. (I don’t know why, but that is what the Red Cross leadership told a group of Louisiana artists who gathered to volunteer their services at shelters.)
• Do not promote any religion, belief system, business or personal enterprise.Even if the evacuee brings up his/her religious beliefs and they are similar to yours, you should NOT express your agreement with their beliefs. If the evacuee is wearing a religious symbol or t-shirt, don’t use that as an opening.
• Be flexible. Don’t be attached to the product/performance; facilitate an enjoyable storytelling experience for your audience. No one but you will know if you change your planned program.
• Be a compassionate listener. Unless you are there frequently, evacuees won’t have a chance to share their story with you. If they do, it is an honor.
• A large audience or an attentive one no matter how good a teller that you are. Children’s attention span is short anyhow, and you’ll be a building with adults and children milling about.
• Expect interruptions that may dissolve your audience in a wo-o-s-sh. You may be the best teller in the world, but when people hear a PA announcement: “The food stamp people are here to sign up anyone who needs to apply for benefits,” your audience will disappear. (This happened to a group of musicians who’d been asked to come and do a concert for evacuees.)
• If an evacuee complains about the conditions at the shelter, don’t encourage the conversation. Don’t promise to make things right.
• Remember that in the shelter, you are there as a storyteller, not a therapist, spiritual counselor, or medical doctor. You are a helping artist, a facilitator of your art form, one who seeks to support individuals in creative expression without a particular outcome in mind; without interpreting or judging the art produced.
• Manage your own feelings about the disaster. Be empathetic, patient and listen but do not add to the evacuee’s distress by express your own feelings, political views, and so on.
• Take tissue for wiping noses on unattended crawling children.
• Take attention-getting items such as a sign, puppet, musical instrument, or anything that will draw attention to your activity.
• Do NOT take water colors, paints, or scissors for children. This is a shelter with limited facilities for bathing, laundry, and cleaning up messes. You can use markers. Don’t give out small objects such as beads that can be easily ingested by a baby who grabs it. Think safety.
• Do not go into the dorm area. For the time residents are in the shelter, the dorm area is their home and no one enters their bedroom uninvited by the resident.
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Darlene DuFour
Storyteller for the Young at Heart
http://www.darlenedufour.com/
http://www.ghministry.net
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(This
web page updated 9/20/05)
To return to the Home Page, go to: http://www.story-lovers.com
