Back to the Future - Andy Winslow

“If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.”

-Marty McFly in “Back to the Future”

As I sit trying to reflect upon another week in New Orleans, trying to bring together in a cogent way any sort of themes or build upon morals and values I have learned during the first four weeks here, the only thing that has come to mind since I began writing with “Back to the Future” on in the background is that New Orleans could use a flux capacitor. In fact, most things in life would be simplified with the ability to go back to reconsider alternative ways and approaches to situations or decisions, a theme not particularly unique to New Orleans and hurricane Katrina. One thing, however, I should credit to Dr. Brown and Marty McFly is a look back in time to my thoughts and opinions of DukeEngage in NOLA at the start of the experience.

At a reflection session held last week, I took in the thoughts and voices of my fellow DukeEngagees and heard an idea that really struck me. The idea pertained to the very enthusiasm and desire to produce change in NOLA all of us had the moment we stepped off the planes and out of our cars. A healthy level of this enthusiasm is a necessary component, I would argue, in many of the volunteers who are down here for the summer. Two problems, however, can arise when this level of enthusiasm becomes overbearing: it sets unrealistic expectations about the experience for the volunteer, and the citizens may themselves be less receptive to help from volunteers as was originally thought. I will first address the latter of the two problems, something that I have no firsthand experience with.

I can only imagine the types of emotions that go through the heads of families and individuals that have lost the homes, businesses, possessions, and sometimes loved ones that comprise their lives. A disaster of this scope is enough to cause any person to lose a fair amount of faith, helping explain a suicide rate that has almost tripled in New Orleans since the disaster and the myriad of cases of Katrina-related post-traumatic stress disorder in the two years following. For those that have escaped either of these two phenomena, it would be an understatement to say that they are still affected in some sort of way. Perhaps they know friends who lost everything, perhaps they have horrifying mental imagery left over of looting and violence in the weeks and months that followed the disaster, or perhaps they just had to find a new place of work. Whatever the case, it is a very reasonable thing for many of the people tied to Katrina in any of these fashions to be less receptive to the help volunteers are providing.

Try this example. Imagine a crew of ten workers with whom you have no previous engagements coming into your decrepit house—still painfully full with memories you and your family left behind—to tear away the very investment you have worked your entire life to earn. Imagine the crew, many of whom are seeking instruction for the first time, swinging with all of their might to knock down a ceiling or tear apart a floorboard to which they have no personal attachment. Being on the other end of a charitable donation or volunteer work, for many of these citizens, is an understandably difficult type of step to take. Although everyone I have talked to from New Orleans seems genuinely grateful of the work that is being done, some of the very and direct acts of charity might bring out vastly different opinions. Simply considering that the sentiment is not universal, or rather that there such a strong personal tie to a great deal of volunteer work, is an idea that volunteers hyped on enthusiasm might not necessarily carry with them when they trek down to New Orleans or out to other volunteer endeavors across the world.

Secondly, coming in with a gung-ho, change-all attitude is problematic in that the expectation for this type of revolutionary opportunity would be crushed in many cases as this opportunity is not allotted by the workplace. As I have not actively partaken in volunteering and civic engagement prior to coming to NOLA, my enthusiasm for the experience, I felt, was especially pronounced. What I may have been expecting was to walk into New Orleans and be told by my boss, “Andy, we brought you in to make a difference. Go at it.” I was to walk in and be embraced by the open-armed citizens of New Orleans, and to be immediately placed in a position to fix the city during my sojourn. And as I left New Orleans, I could take home a wealth of visual pictures accounting for the change I have directly caused.

In reality, much of the work I have done so far doesn’t provide me the tangible, visual evidence I expected that I have made a difference. It wasn’t until yesterday, in fact, that I actually got my hands dirty (I worked with a bunch of other DukeEngagees and a Catholic charity in New Orleans in gutting a house) and saw the impact of my work in the houses or on the streets of New Orleans. Due to these expectations of mine, it took a little time for me to come to terms with the fact that my work, as indirect, and in some cases unrelated to the hurricane as it is, still offers the city of New Orleans a service it is grateful for. Co-workers of mine and citizens of New Orleans have done, for the most part, a great job at providing me this type of validation I had longed for via a passing comment about the help I am doing or even a “Thank you.” But there is only so much that can be said about getting the most out of an experience by actively seeking or passively receiving approval and validation from officemates or passersby. At a certain point, the validation has to come from within. It took me time, but achieving this humble realization has allowed me to maximize my experience thus far in New Orleans.

So, all in all, when I look back in time, I could have come into New Orleans with slightly adjusted expectation and with a more open and empathetic approach. Maybe the best thing I can do is to apply these values to future situations. Or perhaps I shall spend the brunt of my final week in New Orleans working to generate 1.21 jigawatts of electricity to run the flux capacitor and go back in time to re-engineer the levees. We’ll just have to see.