Diane- By Dana Stefanczyk

I was starving.

It was Monday, it had been a busy day, and I was ready for lunch. Despite the ominous skies, I decided to run across the street to get something to eat, and planned to bring it back to the office to eat. Yet of course I had just ordered when the heavens opened up, something I have now learned to expect from NOLA. Well, I was starving, and since I didn’t feel like an afternoon shower, I sat down by myself in the crowded café.

“Are you waiting for someone?”

A woman stood in front of me, tray in hand.

“Nope, not waiting for anyone.”

She sat down. She told me that she had planned on taking lunch to go and eating at her desk, but didn’t want to go out in the rain either. I smiled, told her I had planned to do the same, and went back to concentrating on my food, content to get lost in my own thoughts. As we sat there in the slightly uncomfortable silence, one thought persisted: “This is DukeEngage...am I engaged?” I chose to engage myself.

“So what do you do?”

I learned that Diane works in a nearby LSU clinic, and is a New Orleans native. She was here during the storm, but soon evacuated to stay with relatives in Texas. She came back five weeks later when she had power again, and has stayed because of her job and her husband’s job. I was surprised by her pessimism-as soon as her husband retires, Diane plans to leave the city. As a health care worker, she had spoken to many people who had left during Katrina, found a better life somewhere else, and decided there wasn’t enough here for them to return to. There isn’t enough for Diane to stay.

Two years after Katrina, the city is far from fixed. And the sad reality is that before the storm, things weren’t perfect either. In a meeting last week, the health department discussed problems in the city that lead to problems in health care. The long list included issues such as transportation, education, and “voter apathy.” With such basic infrastructure in disarray, how can there be any hope?

I had heard somewhere that after Katrina there was the question of whether it was even worth it to rebuild, and sometimes I still ask myself that question. Many have found better lives elsewhere, and if another hurricane comes, who knows what state the city will be left in? I have seen many sides of NOLA- it’s beauty, history, spirit, destitution, poverty. Something made people come back. Somehow, for some reason, they came back. Diane, though reluctantly, came back. And after living here, I know that at some point in my life, I too will come back.