DukeEngage in New Orleans

Q & A- Jenny Heffernan

2007-08-02T12:59:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, at 6 am, I jumped in a car with someone who, at the time, was a random stranger, Justin Tye. Six hours, 3 maps, and a few sighs of frustration later, we arrived in Jena, Louisiana to participate in a protest regarding the Jena 6. To catch yall up on the case, it involves racial tensions in small town Louisiana, culminating in the symbolic hanging of nooses from a tree, a response to the attempted integration by an African American high school student. After the demonstration, fellow protesters mingled and discussed the case, among other things. One woman I spoke with inquired as to my whereabouts and future plans; upon hearing that I hope to return to Nola post-grad, she responded with a striking question: “Why would you want to join a state where people hang nooses from trees?”

What a question. Without thinking, I gave the New Orleanian my heartfelt response: “Welll…. So it doesn’t happen anymore”. I admit, it’s a lofty goal, to hope to reverse discrimination, but, to be honest, my experience with Duke Engage has empowered me to aspire to such impossibilities. The mission of this program is to give us students an opportunity to, quote ““develop the valuable skills and self-knowledge that result from an immersive service experience”, and I believe that this goal has been realized. Thanks to the generosity of our employers, the encouragement of New Orleanians, the guidance of our directors, and the fellowship amongst ourselves, every student here has experienced the desired immersion- not only have we dipped into New Orleans, but also into ourselves. A lot of tough questions, similar to the one posed to me yesterday in Jena, have been presented to us through the course of our stay here, and, to be honest, it hasn’t always been easy to respond. Are we being useful? What is the best contribution we can make to New Orleans? Are we just getting in the way? Is our help and support meaningful? Is rebuilding New Orleans pointless?

Enter wise New Orleans native numero dos. Wearing a hat with the word “Answer” across the top, he approached me and said, as if reading my mind, “I’ll tell you what the answer is. It’s this. It’s us. It’s right here: look around, the answer is here.” While he was immediately referring to the rally gathered in support of the accused, his remark applies to the group assembled here. The answer to the questions we’ve all faced, students and employers alike, is staring straight at us in the community we’ve formed. While the effects of Katrina are still being felt throughout this city, not all of them are negative, I’ve found. From the disaster has sprung an opportunity for people of every possible background to unite in a common cause; as a coworker remarked, “it gives us a good feeling, hope”. Demonstrated here is the strength of the human spirit to perservere, and the potential for inter-personal connection and cooperation, regardless of race, status, or other social dividers. This lesson, among the others we’ve learned, are things that all gathered here can further apply to other aspects and situations in our lives, which is something we all appreciate as being something very special.

To close, I’ll quote one more New Orleans native I’ve encountered (the people here are just brimming with wisdom!). Larry, a Mardi Gras Indian, shared with me that which he has learned through his lifetime here in New Orleans: the greatest joy in life is knowing what life is actually about. New Orleans seems to have a solid grasp on this knowledge: its about people, relationships, and community; its about rebuilding, growing, and changing; its about helping and allowing yourself to be helped. I count ourselves lucky to have been able to glean some of this knowledge from the city, and believe we will all honor our responsibility to share it with those we encounter in our next adventures. Thanks so much to all of you who’ve made it possible- here’s to you, your continued progress, and a swift return to New Orleans !

Mass Times Velocity. (7/25/07) ~JCW

2007-08-01T05:06:00.000-06:00

4 “By the moon, we sport and play; with the night begins our day.”
- Unknown

My head jerked forward; I felt like I had just woken up from a twenty-one-year-long dream. How did I get here? As my eyes focused, I realized that I was sitting in the same place that I was 21 years ago, when the dream started: in a large, freezing, modular trailer. A man, reminiscent of a cross between Doctor Robotnik and Hellraiser, was standing before me. Or, rather, before us: we, the Engaged, were appropriately seated in a Usual Suspects-esque lineup, listening to a speech being made by M. Pfeiffer, officer of the New Orleans Police Department:

“…And the last thing you want is for someone to think their house is livable again, only to go home and find grandma drowned and plastered to the floor underneath her bed,” he was saying. Delicious. He continued:

“So then what happened? Well, they gave the go-ahead against my advice, and someone moved back into the city and found grandma stuck to the floor after their house was inspected three times by the military and marked as clear. Mistakes do happen, people.” He tried using his fingers to visually count off the points he was making, but since there was just one, his arms dropped awkwardly to his sides as he continued to change topics.

Seriously, though, where am I? I have never been this worn out in all my life. My body feels like it’s in pieces, and at this point I cannot remember what cerebral clarity actually ever felt like. It’s not that we go out too hard, because there isn’t such a thing, it’s that there simply are not enough hours in the day. Or night. Cutting out sleep seemed like the logical choice.

My state of delirium, fueled by excruciating exhaustion, crippling hunger, and the incessant thirst for daiquiris, somehow, at that instant, afforded me insight. What are we really trying to accomplish down here? Is it getting the most out of our internship, sometimes at the expense of everything else that New Orleans has to offer? Is it experiencing as much as possible of the city, and the people we meet outside of our jobs? Is it the nightlife? D. All of the above. I have been trying to do everything; I am running out of energy and still running out of time. My brain, rather hypocritically, feels like it’s so close to reaching an answer to this conundrum; is it obvious?

“…It’s obvious what you do with a nuclear bomb," our host continued, "You just close off the city, don’t let anything in, but most importantly, don’t let anything out. You have to figure, everything inside the blast radius is going to die, so just seal the citizens inside and wait it out. Natural disasters, however, are harder.” Perfect. And obvious.

Sometimes, I feel like my life can be defined by moments strung together by a common theme: the people I have been with each time I have been in the Duke gardens, the places I have been when I have heard the song “Amazing Grace,” or my general disposition during each successive reflection session. Somewhere in the middle, I was bit by a New Orleanian vampire; I lost the reflection I used to call my own.

Suddenly, my mind felt like it was stretched like a rubber band and quickly released. I’ve got it! It IS obvious. The answer is thus: that grandma must have been rather senile if she thought she could escape a flood by hiding under the bed.

I closed my eyes again, praying that, when I opened them, they would be staring at a daiquiri bar.

The Kindness of Strangers. (7/13/07) ~JCW

2007-07-31T23:56:00.000-06:00

3

”Lovin’ is what I got.”
- Sublime

“You are doing a great job, don’t get me wrong, but keep in mind that you are operating on a punch clock. We would all act differently around here if we were working on a clock running downwards,” Jared said to me. His southern accent was thick, and though he at times had the tendency to mumble, his thoughts were coming in completely clear. He was driving the two of us to 1824 Congress, a Habitat house a few streets off of Musician’s Village, to inspect some subcontracted work. I had no response; should I be offended, or understanding?

“Sometimes I wish I had a punch clock,” he continued.

“Well then, make one,” I threw back at him. We hit a nasty bump in the road, which shifted the lumber in his flatbed and temporarily threw my thoughts off track.

“Decide when you want to leave, and work towards it.”

“It’s not that easy, dude, this is my life. This isn’t a summer for me,” he informed me. We were silent for the remainder of the short ride, but as we got out and Bob Marley’s voice was extinguished, I felt like I had to vouch for myself in some way.

“Well, I don’t look at it like you think I do. So what? It’s eight weeks. It’s two months. It’s nothing, you think- but that’s exactly my point. I only have eight weeks to make a difference down here. I want to help, and I am not giving up. I am not looking at this place and saying ‘Screw it, I am out of here soon, why try to make a difference?’ I refuse to pretend that I cannot do anything.” The last sentence I spat out confused even me, the speaker, for a second, but I think my sincerity came across. So little time is not tantamount to so little progress.

We opened the house, and Jared went inside as I unloaded some lumber into a pile on the side of the house. We were still silent as we hopped back into the truck and drove back onto Habitat’s main site, the location –ultimately – of eighty homes of New Orleans residents. The entire staff of forty or so was in front of the field office, slowly forming a rough circle in the dusty heat of the afternoon. The volunteers had gone home, and we were the only people on site.

“Who wants to go first?” someone called out of the crowd. “Who wants to tell their favorite memory of working at Habitat?”

Was it Friday already? In the busyness of the office, I always forgot the most important things. Today was the last day of the majority of the AmeriCorps volunteers, who had decided last July to make a one-year commitment to work with New Orleans Area Habitat. I had only been there six weeks, and although goodbye’s were frequent, I could tell that they were still unwelcome.

“I will go first,” said Tara, taking a small step into the circle. “I remember, working on the West Bank, when the entire site flooded, and Brian, Dan, and I were stuck in our tool trailer for what seemed like hours.” Everyone cheered as she continued, “there’s even like a ten second video of us in there.”

“When I came,” David, a clean cut, twenty-something-year-old followed, “Kelly was my house leader on my very first day.” It probably felt like it would never end.

“I remember that!” Kelly, a genial blond girl from Colorado exclaimed. “You were wearing that exact same t-shirt!”

“I only own like three!” he shouted back. Everyone laughed, barely holding back tears.

“I think for me, it was the day I realized that we don’t just build homes anymore. Homes were the beginning; we now build neighborhoods,” Ann, a former teacher, continued.

We all looked at the non-Habitat houses across Alvar Street. People were moving back in. Bring homes, bring hope. “People aren’t moving back in everywhere, but they are coming back right around the village.”

“I think, those of us who are leaving, know how much they have done down here,” Terry, a native New Orleanian relatively new to Habitat, explained. “Seriously.”
I looked around; nothing but laughter, tears, and sweat. Good times under the lazy, sun-filled, limitless Louisiana sky.

Perspicacity. (6/27/07) ~JCW

2007-07-31T23:47:00.000-06:00

2

“Music is my aeroplane.”
-Red Hot Chili Peppers

“Musician’s Village, this is Joseph,” I say into the corded phone.

“Hey Joseph, this is Steve,” a man with a southern accent responds. Steve? Steve… 84 Lumber. We are waiting on purchases for 3058 Law and 3225 North Galvez. He continues: “I am not going to be able to get you all of purchase order X1330 today, but it should be in by the beginning of next week.”

“Fine, we can reconcile it if necessary. Thanks, Steve,” I tell him, and hang up the phone. Before I even feel the phone hitting the receiver, it rings again.

“Hey, this is Roy, over at Ram Tools? Those orders you put in for the 1800 Bartholomew block are under-priced. This steel is coming from China, and the 16-D’s are gonna be more expensive.” 16-D’s. Galvanized Nails used for framing and porch work. My mind races for a solution to a problem without a previously recorded answer.

“Ok, I will contact our purchasing department. In the meantime, keep assembling the packages, you will be hearing from Ed shortly.”

A dangerously heavyset man walks into the trailer as my push-to-talk starts beeping. “Hey, do you have a place I can sit down? I have really high blood pressure, and need to take a break from the heat. Do you have any water in here?”

I stare at him blankly, but the push-to-talk connects and snaps me out of my gaze. “Hey Joseph, it’s Adam. Can you pull out the framing plans for a P5 and read me some dimensions?”

“Sure, give me a second,” I say, as I reach for the only black binder on my desk.

The man, flushed, sunburned, dehydrated and weary, starts to wheeze. Please do not have a heart-attack in our trailer, I don’t have the time.

The phone rings again. “Hello, this is Joseph. How can I help you?”

“Hi, this is Natalie Shelton in 1825 Alvar,” a woman with a deep, raspy voice explains. “Your electrician never came back to fix my house. It’s also got a leak in the roof, and I need a lock for my tool shed. I already signed off on the punchlist-“

“If you signed off,” I interrupt her, “then you need to contact family planning, not construction.”

“Oh, well they won’t get back to me,” she said tempestuously, “and you are not helping either. What I am going to contact is a lawyer.” She hung up. Better her than me, I guess.

I look at the stack of paperwork in my box, and realize that it’s only 10:30. I need to take a break. I jump out of my chair and out the door as the phone starts ringing again. Outside is just as bright as it is hot, but a slight breeze makes the outdoors much better than the office. An overwhelming sense of calm permeated the Habitat construction site.

Behind the field office, people were gathering for a ceremony that had completely slipped my mind. Jim, one of the directors, was standing in the middle house of an entire block of Habitat houses. The houses were just framed, so the only construction above the floor plan was simple, skeletal woodwork. Ten to fifteen people were in the center of each house, eagerly anticipating the event.

“What we are doing here is unprecedented!” he was shouting at the top of his lungs. “Today, we will raise the front walls of seven Habitat homes!” A cheer came up from the crowds both around and inside the houses.

“Count with me! One! Two! Three!” with each number, the group in each house lifted the preconstructed front of the house and nailed it into place. “Four! Five!” An American flag rolled down off of each front as rose to standing vertically. “Six!” These walls are going up fast. I was standing at the center of the block, and the sight was nothing short of surreal. “Seven!” Each group began nailing their walls into place.

“Listen to that sweet music!” Jim yelled, as the hammers pounded away across the entire block. Everyone was cheering. Like I said, surreal. Time felt like it had paused for all of us to enjoy this moment.

“You have to stop and realize the good we are doing here,” someone said. Stephan, a supervisor on site who was also enjoying the show, had walked up next to me without my noticing. “It’s pretty cool, right?”

“It’s pretty cool,” I responded. “It’s really cool.”

“The funny thing is, I didn’t see any of those volunteers glue down those front walls, which means, we are going to have to pull them all out anyway,” he informed me.

I couldn’t help but laugh. My push-to-talk started beeping again.

The Arrival. (6/12/07) ~JCW

2007-07-31T23:30:00.000-06:00

1
“Let’s start by making it clear who is the enemy here.”
- Thievery Corporation

The Arrival. (6/17/07)

On June 14, 2007, the first definition of “Katrina” on Urbandictionary.com was: Crazy-assed bitch. When she first arrives, she's wet and wild. When she leaves, she takes the house, car and everything else in a 100 mile radius. The user who posted the message, Aniseed, clarified the definition with the use of the expression in a sample sentence: I ain't paying that bitch Katrina a dime in child support, that's for sure!

If this is a reflection our of nation’s sense of obligation and sympathy for those who lost everything – family and friends, homes, cars, ways of life - in Hurricane Katrina, which I believe it is, then I also believe we are as morally bankrupt as Ken Lay. Uh-oh. Ironically enough, the first night that I was in New Orleans, a woman on the street stopped me with a similar conversation. “Excuse me, sir? Could you help me with something?” She asked. I obviously thought she wanted money, but it was my first night in the city, and I was interested in talking with as many people as possible. We were alone at night on a street that was not well-lit, but even so I could still feel her genuineness.

“Sure, what can I do for you?” I responded. I don’t think she was expecting a response because she was slightly taken back.

“Can you tell me how someone can get back on their feet in this town?” She asked. Now, it was my turn to be taken back. The desperation in her voice reminded me of why I had come here in the first place.

“I had a house, I had everything. But then, this pretty girl came and took it all away from me in a week,” she elaborated.

Unfamiliar with the joke, I fell right into it: “How did she do that?”

“Well, her name was Lady Katrina,” she told me. Ahhhhh, I get it. Wasn’t that clever? If she couldn’t already see the Best of New Orleans guide book under my arm in the darkness, the pace at which I walked, or my clothes, she just found out that I was foreign to this place.

I didn’t have an answer for her, but her condition made me realize, within a few hours, that things were certainly not fine in this city. To be fair, much of Louisiana was plagued with problems pre-Katrina. However, to claim that things are back to where they were is a complete fallacy. The fact that the status of New Orleans and other cities on the Gulf Coast no longer makes headlines because it will no longer sell papers, obtain ratings, or inspire internet readers is unacceptable, but it is a blatant and inevitable reality. If you don’t live it, if you don’t feel it, if you don’t see it, then it doesn’t exist. And I thought I was good at lying.

We have come here to make a difference, and it is both sad and selfishly gratifying that everywhere I go, I am reminded of our purpose. Entire neighborhoods have become ghost towns, uniformly stained with high water lines and marked with spray-painted rescue identification insignias. Infrastructure continues to fail relentlessly in the areas that are the most in need. The city perpetually exudes an overwhelming sense of abandonment.

Is it possible to change things here? To enact the Renaissance that New Orleans deserves, and that the rest of America must think has already happened? Some progress has already been made, and though it is slow, it is definite and it is real. A perfectly destructive girl came and took thousands of homes from some of the poorest neighborhoods in New Orleans, but only time will tell if New Orleans citizens will ever get them back.

New Orleans Music Video

2007-07-27T21:03:00.000-06:00

I found this music video by Old Crow Medicine Show (a favorite band of mine). Thought I'd share it since it's filmed in many places that we now recognize.

-Reid

ESPN.com article on New Orleans

2007-07-23T14:37:00.000-06:00

Check out this interesting article from ESPN.com about New Orleans:
New Orleans opens arms to ArenaBowl

Homes - Randy Chen

2007-07-18T11:31:00.000-06:00

The shiny white van pulls up by the curb and begins unloading each eager individual, one by one they spill onto the grassy lawn before the empty house. Lively conversation all around and the sound of metal against metal as hammers and crowbars are exchanged between excited hands. Footsteps fill the house and then pounding, crashing, and clamor. One boy bends at the knee to pry a stubborn nail from a floorboard.

Clap the thin aluminum door shut behind you and hold the broom with both hands. Step outside onto the wooden platform, the crest of the plywood staircase that leads up to your trailer that is painted white like gleaming disaster. Sweep the square of wood that you stand on, keep it kempt, keep it tidy. Look out to the blue blue sky and see the gray cloud in the corner bringing raindrops in but a few hours. Turn to the noise next door, grasp the broom with both hands, and watch.

They sling crowbars into the ceiling, splitting the plaster open and then a downward yank and the ceiling comes down in pieces. Falls apart with each new fissure. The air is hot and dusty and the smell of mold sifts down from the rafters. Remnants of the attic spill out with each rupture in the plaster skin. A magazine, three beer cans, and an old sweater. Breathing hard, breathing stale air through styrofoam masks, feeling the sweat linger and refusing to evaporate.

Make sure there is not a stray piece of leaf or trash on this wooden step. Watch the workers ruckus inside the empty shell next door. Hear the sound of dropped tools, the thud of metal hitting wood, the sandy footfall of fiberglass and insulation. Turn inside your home your trailer and pour yourself a glass of iced tea.

One boy stands atop a ladder to remove a ceiling fan. With a gloved hand he pulls with all his strength and it pops loose from its plastic joint, the wires exposed like naked ligaments. With a pair of rusty wire cutters, he severs them with one swift maneuver and carries the wooden fan outside and sets it on the green grass.

Place your glass of tea on the rough wooden banister that lines this step. Rest your elbow on it, look at the workers, watch the workers because there is nothing else to do today but be wary of splinters.

They move the slabs of plaster outside onto the curb to be taken away. They pour the insulation from plastic garbage cans outside onto the curb to be taken away. They shoulder the dislodged beams of wood outside onto the curb to be taken away. The dank entrails of a gutted home, steaming with the scent of dust and mold.

Look the gray corner of the sky has been stretched and it begins to rain.

The crowd hurries to the white van and quickly stashes the tools inside. One by one, they elude the rain, ducking in the door under the drumming of raindrops and pull away from the rubble arrayed on the curb, piled high like humanity.

Clap the thin aluminum door shut behind you and carry the empty glass of tea indoors. Move from the kitchen to your bedroom in one step and lie down on your bed as the sun begins to set. Craft yourself more makeshift idols from the temporal smoke of volunteers and find some way to dream because after all, the comatose world as you know it breathes slower and slower, weaker and frailer with each forgetting.

Parking and Providence --Cart Weiland

2007-07-17T14:19:00.000-06:00

Every morning at about ten ‘til 9, I drive into downtown on Poydras St., swing a left on Camp, another left on Common, and finish my commute by turning right into the Pere Marquette Parking Garage located a block from my office building. There is nothing ostensibly remarkable about the car park: my coworker and I just happened to stumble upon it on our first morning of work, liked $8 daily rate, and have been going back ever since. In fact, we were never really supposed to park there. Our boss had recommended that we park at a cheaper garage on the 6^th floor of some other building we never actually found. A little lost and a little late on our first day of work, we decided we had better cut our losses and park where we could rather than drive around aimlessly and waste the precious few minutes we had until we were due in the office.

I don’t want to invoke the supernatural just yet, but I’ve got to say, I’m pretty glad we happened upon this particular parking garage that first morning five weeks ago. It’s not just the friendly, prompt service the valet staff supplies every day; it’s not just the hard time that one guy gives me every morning I’m running a couple minutes late, and it’s not just that I no longer have to ask for a receipt every afternoon because all the valets know me as “that guy.” No, I’m especially happy with my parking garage because last Friday, it might have just saved my weekend. After a day spent geo-coding data in the office, I walked down Common St. to retrieve my car only to find that it wouldn’t start. Before I even had to ask, two of the valets came to my rescue with a pair of jumper cables. The three of us struggled to jump the car for about 15 minutes, and I soon began to think about the impending disaster: I would have to call a tow truck and wait for it to arrive. I would have to tell the other kids I was scheduled to pick up that they no longer had a ride home. I’d have to find a Volvo dealership, wait until Monday to have the car looked at, and pay to have it fixed…

For such a relatively minor inconvenience, the future looked terribly grim. The battery was dead, or the alternator or…something. I thanked my valet friends for trying and was about to pick up my cell phone when I heard that sound…the key turning in the ignition, and the car finally starting! The valet Manuel had the magic touch, and suddenly, my Friday—and most likely, the rest of my weekend—was saved.

Part of me doesn’t want to blow this event out of proportion, but I’m starting to think that appealing to Fate isn’t entirely out of the question. If I had chosen another garage that first day; Who knows? Maybe there wouldn’t have been any jumper cables or friendly valets with magical hands….Really, who knows? I may very well have spent my weekend having to deal with the type of annoying chore that everyone hates. Instead, Manuel started my car, I drove it home, and I had an awesome weekend.

I know I’m taking a while to make my point but here it is:

Coming to New Orleans, like happening upon that parking garage, was entirely an accident. If I hadn’t gone abroad last fall, perhaps I would have been better organized for my job search that started last January. If I had been better organized, maybe I would have narrowed my interests a little more during the application process. Maybe if I had done that, I would have received a job or two in New York or D.C. If I had received offers in other cities, maybe I wouldn’t have been so apt to bring up summer job prospects with my friend Sam over a few beers at a party as school was ending in May. Maybe he would never have mentioned the program in New Orleans that he was a part of, and maybe—no, quite probably, I would not be here right now.

As we were sitting around chomping down pizza the other night, someone in the group asked, “So, could you guys see yourselves coming back to New Orleans after this summer?”

Interesting question, I thought. If coming back to NOLA is anything like ending up here in the first place, I certainly can’t rule out the possibility. Accidents are meant to happen, and for that, I am very grateful.

impatiently waiting- joseph lanser

2007-07-17T13:43:00.000-06:00

So I know its only July, but my experience trying to get a hold of a camera in New Orleans has been reminiscent of Advent, the anticipatory four weeks prior to the celebration of Christmas. Believing (erroneously we would soon learn) that the acquisition of a video camera from Duke/DukeEngage/anyone who would hear my plea would be easy, Sam and I ambitiously wrote a script for and made arrangements to have our jingle about preparing an evacuation kit be performed by third to fifth grade students at the local elementary school. I think we were both impressed by the progress (at least I was). The intensity of Black Friday had nothing on us. We were rhyming machines. Now all we needed was a camera…

Well, when word, in the form of an email, arrived from Joy that the prospect of getting a camera was about as bleak as scoring a Tickle Me Elmo doll circa Winter 1997, I was a bit surprised but certainly not going to give up hope. I had Joy and Dr. Schaad on my side (Mary and Joseph? let’s see how far I can take this…). Alright so this brings us to the second week of Advent/NOLA, which in my mind mine as well be synonymous because they evoke the same feels of joy (hehe Joy…) in me, and putting off the filming of the video another week wouldn’t be the end of the world because there were other projects on the works. By the end of the week, we had a few leads but the chance of getting a video camera was grim. I was growing impatient but had no choice but to resort to Plan B (an actual plan, not the contraceptive). We made arrangements with the media specialist at the government office to film our video and soon afterwards received an email from Joy requesting that we submit a formal camera proposal (Christmas list?) to Eric Mlyn (Santa Claus?), director almighty of DukeEngage. Although the camera would not arrive in time for the filming, we would at least have one at our disposal for future projects (cue sigh of relief). The pink candle was burning brightly in my mind. Christmas was going to be awesome!

Looks like I’ve been a bad boy this year because the request was outright denied. My impatience, which, of late, had turned into anger, was now replaced by painful indifference. Despite our best efforts, we had nothing to show for them, having exhausted every contact and outlet. The filming went relatively smoothly given that we were working with a cameraman essentially oblivious to our vision of how the video was to be filmed. Much to our surprise, we received a phone call from Dr. Schaad soon after the filming telling us that he had acquired a video camera for our use, which we finally received last week.

At a very insignificant level, the frustration I experienced trying to get a camera had similar elements to the frustrations that residents of New Orleans and surrounding parishes have experienced and are still experiencing post-Katrina. Receiving assistance from the government, what they thought was a given, especially after a disaster of this magnitude, has proven to be immensely more convoluted than initially expected. Promises unfulfilled, the public’s dissatisfaction with the government’s response grows daily. Organizations like FEMA are unnecessarily complicating an effort for which it is very easy to feel detached. Their actions thus far are indicative of a gross indifference toward the plight in which residents have been stuck for almost two years now. The last thing New Orleans needs right now is a detached agency in charge of distributing emergency funds to the affected residents. Sadly, I don’t think there is much the public can do to rectify the situation. Only so much can be accomplished with the resources at their disposable. They can fight. They can complain. They can recount their sad tales. They can try to move on with their lives, but without government assistance it’s all in vain. This city needs a Santa Claus-and soon.

The Entertainer- Jenny Heffernan

2007-07-16T14:51:00.000-06:00

A weekend of New Orleans-style debauchery inevitably leads to a necessary re-evaluation of one’s personal merit and purpose as a member of the human race, as well as a reality check as to why one is actually in Nola for the summer (Bourbon Street and hand grenades aside). Through the haze that characterizes weeknight/end “noches”, I find it easy to lose sight of the reason for which I sit from 9-5 at my makeshift desk in city hall, apart from using the time to plan for the next set of after-5 activities. Duke Engage could hardly have been created with the intent of filling an entertainment role in our lives- or had it?

Undoubtedly, the work I am doing in the New Orleans Health Department is valuable. Fingers crossed, the grant I am currently applying for will be won, and I will leave a tangible legacy in New Orleans, in the form of an HIV education and prevention program, to be implemented on HBCU campuses. However, it is also possible that the grant will not be won, my hard work is rendered useless, and I have nothing to show for my time here. With all of this running through my head, I subjected my co-worker, Tucker, to my rants, to which he offered some consolation: even if we don’t end up winning the much-needed thousands of dollars for the department, at least we provided our co-workers with some entertainment.

Although it took a few minutes, I came to realize that my sage friend just might be right. Thinking over my hours spent in the NOHD, I concluded that I have logged just as many hours dancing the Cupid Shuffle (hottest dance to hit the US since the Macarena, fyi) with Valrita, joking with Dr. Franklin, and having lengthy conversations with Ro as I have spent actually drafting my grant proposal. While some may argue that my little quips and office banter aren’t exactly the kind of post-Katrina relief this city is looking for, I disagree. My office, as I’m sure is characteristic of many in New Orleans, is a breeding ground for stress; tensions are high and, at times, progress seems almost nonexistent. Additional funds, obviously, would help to alleviate some of the financial burden facing the department and its programs; however, a brief smile or laugh would just as effectively lift the cloud of anxiety that so often hinders productivity here.

The outcome of my efforts spent in the NOHD, then, is only somewhat unknown. Perhaps my lofty aspirations of “leaving my mark” will actually be realized, in which case I can pat myself on the back and self-servingly add the accomplishment to my resume and grad school applications. However, if the only mark I’ve managed to leave in New Orleans is in Val or Ro’s memory, as that “wacky, friendly, intern from Duke”, I won’t be disappointed; with the reality of post-Katrina New Orleans as a backdrop, perhaps the most valuable thing I can offer is a distraction.

The news today will be the movies for tomorrow - Tucker Page

2007-07-16T10:36:00.000-06:00

Obstinacy is the hallmark of post-disaster planning. Immediately after the September 11 terrorist attacks destroyed the World Trade Center, Americans wanted to rebuild. Rather than ask how we could rebuild most effectively, however, public discourse was often dominated by people juvenilely asking how tall we would need to build a replacement building in order to sufficiently demonstrate the strength and perseverance of our country. Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to build another skyscraper in New York City, but it took people some time to realize that “rebuilding” does not have to mean “replacing” – New York City had the opportunity to build something better than the World Trade Center.

Why is this relevant? Because faced with the daunting prospect of rebuilding, New Orleans seems more focused on replacing what was lost during Katrina rather than on reimagining what the city should be like. Of course, individuals cannot be blamed for wanting to rebuild their homes, especially those who have lived in New Orleans their entire lives and those who have deep cultural and community roots in the city. In addition, there are undoubtedly organizations in New Orleans that are pushing for fundamental social change. Therefore, I feel like I should refocus my critique onto the organization with which I am most familiar: city government.

After five weeks in City Hall, the lack of focus on the most fundamental issues facing the city is startling. Health Department meetings designed to address the future of New Orleans inevitably end with everyone agreeing that the department does not have the resources or the power to enact any fundamental social change and deciding to focus instead on surface problems that, while certainly easier to address, do nothing to change the reasons why those problems exist in the first place. At one meeting, for example, everyone agreed to focus on improving access to healthcare. But why do people lack access to healthcare? Lack of transportation, among other reasons. Why do people lack adequate transportation? Poverty. Why are people poor? For many individuals in New Orleans, in my opinion, centuries of racial discrimination. But there’s no way that the Health Department can begin to address racism and its legacy, or even poverty, for that matter. See the problem? Any intervention that the Health Department might conduct will inevitably focus on surface problems (e.g., lack of transportation) rather than the more important underlying problems (e.g., poverty) that, if not addressed, will continue to wreak havoc within the community.

The Health Department’s inability to address underlying social issues certainly is not for lack of trying. Everyone here would love to delve deeper into the root causes of New Orleans’s problems, but the resource simply aren’t available – time, personnel, and money (especially money) are all in short supply. Is it the mayor’s fault, then, for not coordinating a more comprehensive review of where New Orleans is going and what the city needs to do in order to rebuild better? I can’t say for sure – I have a feeling that the mayor’s office is just as swamped as the Health Department. Nevertheless, it’s a shame that the city may be rebuilt in the image of its troubled former self, problems and all. Fundamental change is difficult both to conceptualize and to carry out, but New Orleans has the unique opportunity to make itself a better city than it was before Katrina. I may just be a visitor here, but I would hate to see the city waste that opportunity.

Too Much of a Gamble? - Reid Cater

2007-07-16T08:56:00.000-06:00

While living in the NOLA area this summer I have been continually surprised by the prevalence of gambling. From other trips I remembered some small casinos along the water, but as the weeks have gone by I have noticed video poker in nearly every restaurant and bar as well as Harrah's Casino, a new and extravagant casino right beside the French Quarter. Even more surprisingly most of the people gambling seem to be locals. The NYT article here draws interesting insights into why gambling has become so popular for locals after Katrina.

First the obvious: insurance money and higher wages have given people money to spend.
Second: Katrina destroyed not only housing, health care, and public service infrastructure but also local entertainment options.

People who would have once spent free nights in a bowling alley or at a local bar now turn to the casinos as the only available form of entertainment. This combination of factors seems likely to lead to tragedy for those who let gambling go past entertainment and leave their only chance to rebuild sitting on a roulette table.

Casinos Boom in Katrina's Wake
By GARY RIVLIN

Published: July 16, 2007

BILOXI, Miss. — This seaside gambling resort along a stretch of the Gulf Coast, sometimes called the “redneck Riviera,” has 40 percent fewer hotel rooms and only two-thirds as many slot machines as it did before Hurricane Katrina. A major bridge that connects the casinos in this popular tourist destination to Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and other points east remains closed, and Mayor A. J. Holloway estimates that as many as 15 percent of the city’s pre-Katrina residents still have not returned.

Yet business in the gambling halls of Biloxi has reached all-time highs in recent months, so much so that Larry Gregory, the executive director of the Mississippi Gaming Commission, has half-jokingly barred his staff from uttering the phrase “record-setting” because “it was becoming too redundant.”
A similar story has been unfolding in New Orleans, where tourism is still in the doldrums and only 60 percent of the pre-Katrina population has returned nearly two years after the hurricane and flooding devastated the area.
Indeed, the casinos there seem to be faring even better than their Gulf Coast cousins.
Harrah’s New Orleans, the largest casino in the city, is on pace for its best year ever: gambling revenue is up 13.6 percent through the first five months of 2007 compared with the same period in 2005, pre-Katrina.
The casinos in this region are generating more revenue — from significantly fewer players — in large part because of the extra money that many area residents have in their pockets and fewer alternatives on where to spend it, casino executives and others in the region say.

(Full article here)

Road Blocks - New York Times

2007-07-12T14:54:00.000-06:00

There was a really interesting article on those stranded away from New Orleans in the New York Times today.

Road to New Life After Katrina Is Closed to Many
By SHAILA DEWAN

CONVENT, La. — This was not how Cindy Cole pictured her life at 26: living in a mobile home park called Sugar Hill, wedged amid the refineries and cane fields of tiny St. James Parish, 18 miles from the nearest supermarket. Sustaining three small children on nothing but food stamps, with no playground, no security guards and nowhere to go.

No, Ms. Cole was supposed to be paying $275 a month for a two-bedroom house in the Lower Ninth Ward — next door to her mother, across the street from her aunt, with a child care network that extended the length and breadth of her large New Orleans family. With her house destroyed and no job or savings, however, her chances of recreating that old reality are slim.

For thousands of evacuees like Ms. Cole, going home to New Orleans has become a vague and receding dream. Living in bleak circumstances, they cannot afford to go back, or have nothing to go back to. Over the two years since Hurricane Katrina hit, the shock of evacuation has hardened into the grim limbo of exile.

“We in storage,” said Ann Picard, 49, cocking her arm toward the blind white cracker box of a house she shares with Ms. Cole, her niece, and Ms. Cole’s three children. “We just in storage.”

Source: New York Times (Full Article, No Registration Required)

Submitted by Nader Mohyuddin

Crossing Cultures (Poorly) -- Randy Chen

2007-07-11T17:03:00.000-06:00

I suppose I learned today that being American doesn't always matter. But I learned other stuff too.

I was finishing my day at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School, sitting on the steps where the kids board their buses to go home. I appreciated the moment of repose—it was a long day trekking from museum to museum in the French Quarter trying to keep an eye on all 25 children who were all clearly exhilarated to be out of the classroom.

And then I saw a boy, about ten, teasing a smaller boy, about seven, heckling him and shoving him around. The larger boy stood up tall to maximize the height difference, puffed out his chest, and pulled his backpack up his back by the straps with his elbows out, and jutted his bottom lip out in one impressive picture of intimidation and to all this, the smaller boy slunk away.

Feeling the wisdom of the twenty one years in me rise up, I decided to address this. I barked at the older boy who was smirking and proudly relishing his newly acquired power wrought from pushing down someone weaker. I chastised his inconsideration of feelings and admonished him for bullying someone smaller than him.

And to all this he stared at me, considering me for a minute before replying with nothing but a sneer and a quip: “You Chinese,” delivered with the warped inflection of a mimicked accent. Oh, and, of course, he concluded with a requisite mock kung-fu pose with one open palm outstretched facing downward somewhat reminiscent (or so I’m told) of a crane.

Obviously, this is an unfortunate happenstance of cultural insensitivity. I should be angry about having the accent which my own parents speak in mocked with a sing-song tone of condescending derision, I should be livid that all I was to this kid was some misconceived extension that he had gleaned from kung-fu movies and that anything I had to say was null, void, and silly in light of this ancestral caricature of presumed heritage.

So I opened my mouth to say something in response and that’s when words failed me. What could I say? A harsh retort would only make him more hostile. A firm explanation of why what he said was wrong would only make him more resentful (and he only had a few minutes before he caught his bus—hardly the time to bring up a conversation about racism, especially with a ten year old). Understanding, it seemed, couldn’t possibly be squeezed into today’s agenda.

I ended up saying something vague around the lines of, “You can’t say those things,” to which the kid just stared at me indignantly and turned around to board his bus. Clearly, I didn’t get through.

It’s funny when situations in life rise up and you know exactly, at that instant, what the right thing to do is, but within the context of the strict contract between morals and their execution, the closest action to being right is simply nothing.

And it’s frustrating to no end.

Take a Wish- Alicia Zelek

2007-07-11T17:00:00.000-06:00

I love fountains. As a child I vividly remember begging my parents for quarters and tossing them into the fountain while making a wish. Hearing the sound of the coin dropping in the water and watching where it lands was a thrilling experience. I would put a lot of effort into making the perfect wish and whenever I failed to come up with just the right one I would beg for another coin. Standing by them listening to the sound of the water falling and feeling the splashes is a comforting experience. I feel closer to nature and distanced from everything else around.

On my last week working with the children at Ben Franklin Elementary we took them on a field trip to the Wax Museum and the Cabildo. While walking around the French Quarter through Jackson Square, the kids noticed a fountain and of course stopped to play in it. While I was immersed in my own thoughts, I failed to notice 8 of the younger kids were practically throwing themselves in the water. They were not throwing coins in but rather were reaching in to fetch the coins out of the water. They were collecting them in their hands and holding onto them. Some threw them back into the fountain while others I’m sure kept them. The other teacher I work with, a humorous Southern respected lady, yelled “Demons put those back, you do not want to have bad luck for the rest of your life.” However, the kids did not pay a bit of attention either because they did not understand English or pretended not to. It took us about 15 minutes to get all the kids out of the water. The teacher later told me she had never seen a sight such as this and I had to agree with her. Neither had I.

This experience struck me for several reasons. Working with underprivileged minorities in New Orleans made me realize the obvious, there are many things I often take for granted. However, it also demonstrated to me the mentality with which many of these underprivileged children in NOLA are raised. At our meeting on Sunday Sister Beth likened post-Katrina New Orleans to the California Gold Rush. People come to make as much money as possible and then get out. Many of the families I work with, especially those of Hispanic descent, recently came to the New Orleans for economic reasons because of the increase in job openings after the hurricane. Many of them have moved to NOLA temporarily and have indefinite plans to move elsewhere. Their children are raised with the guiding notion they need to do everything in their power to survive and they go about doing so whichever way they can.

Now as I pass by fountains, particularly the one in Jackson Square, I cannot help but imagine 16 arms dangling in the water and 16 feet dangling out taking wishes from all circumferences of the fountain. My image of fountains has changed but my outlook on life has bettered. While I have no regrets that my childhood was guided by the Disney fairytale notion of making a wish, I am open to this new alternative; I hope one of them took my wish.

Mom, Dad, and Sam Know Best- Jenny Heffernan

2007-07-11T13:08:00.000-06:00

A very wise man (or woman) once remarked on the beauty of a child’s innocence. A presumably equally wise person commented on the importance of experience. My mom and dad, perhaps the wisest of all, have told me to forget what other people have said, and figure it out on my own.
And… figure it out I did. At the very least, I am attempting the task, using an interesting combination of intuition, deduction, and random valuation skills picked up along my academic career at our beloved Duke. Revealing the oft-mentioned “nerd within” that is said to dwell in each Duke student, my confusion surrounding the merit of naiveté has taken the form of an internal cost-benefit analysis, known to us Public Policy majors by the ever cool abbreviation, CBA. With each experience in Nola, my own personal innocence is made strikingly obvious, and I resultantly alter my CBA to reflect my observations.

At work, for example, I have found my lack of experience somewhat hindering. Upon arrival at the NOHD, I anticipated a summer of changing the world- or, at the very least, New Orleans. Taking in the busy office, I envisioned myself re-opening the multiple health clinics still closed due to Katrina, single-handedly. I was going to be able to practically run this office come August. Then, however, came reality, aka my first staff meeting. There, I became painfully aware of the foolishness of my thinking. Did I really think I could simply just re-open a clinic? Clearly, there are political, financial, and logistical barriers to that which I thought manageable. Why had I thought that I, an undergraduate student with relatively no experience, would be able to accomplish that which the bevy of degreed professionals in the Health Department had not? An entry for the “costs” category was made.

Taking the form of a counter-argument strong enough to get any academic’s heart racing, the benefits of innocence have been equally convincing. On the 4th of July, this benefit took the shape of Sam, a precocious 11 year-old reveler at the St. Bernard Parish festival. Speaking candidly with me about the storm, Sam remarked, “Things were really messed up. But they’re better now. They’re great. I’m always going to live in New Orleans; who’d want to miss out on this?” Ignoring, or perhaps simply unaware, of all of the issues plaguing the adults regarding Nola’s future, Sam maintained an unshakeable optimism for, and love of, his home. His attitude, while perhaps ignorant of important issues, provides him, and those like him, the ability to continue into the future; while it may contain things unknown, Sam knows it contains great things. Mark one of the benefits.

While my tally is still developing, I find myself leaning towards Sam’s point of view. Realism may be handy in tackling technical issues, but nothing can be accomplished without some sort of faith that the goal is actually achievable. For now, therefore, my rose-tinted glasses will stay put, for, as a wise man (or boy) once said, “who’d want to miss out on this?”

Chickens and The Wild West - Nader Mohyuddin

2007-07-11T10:06:00.000-06:00

Balloon Festival in Albuquerque; French Quarter, New Orleans

Sometimes you don't really know a place until you leave it.

And leave New Orleans I did.

I spent my 4th of July "weekend" in what seems a virtual opposite of New Orleans today, despite sharing a variety of similarities. Albuquerque--my destination--and New Orleans are both cities with deep roots in history, with a well-preserved Old Town and French Quarter, respectively, keeping the traditions rich, colorful, and alive. Catholicism plays a role in both cities, though far moreso in New Orleans. Both are diverse cities with traditional race relations turning a new page with growing immigrant communities. Both are ridiculously hot in July.

But for every gutted house and FEMA trailer in New Orleans, there is a brand new, trendy housing development or office building going up in Albuquerque. While New Orleans' death rate skyrockets, Albuquerque's quality of life gets accolades from publications. Just this past year, Forbes ranked the city as the best in the country for business, with good scores across the board and the lowest cost of business in the country. High tech companies like Intel, and smaller boutique firms doing everything from genetics work to the first mainstream production of electric cars, to private jet design.

Even the landscapes are vastly different: where New Orleans is hugged by a mighty river, Albuquerque is built in the foothills of a gigantic mountain. And sometimes, it's the smallest of touches that make all the difference: where New Orleans roads are full of gigantic pot holes, complex mazes of one way streets, and parked cars on every curb, the usually boring-but-efficient interstate in Albuquerque has Native American artwork lining rocky median (there's not much grass around), stone lane dividers painted in an adobe and blue scheme to mimic the desert and the sky, and roads smooth as fresh butter.

Moonrise over Albuquerque and Sandia Mountain

I say this not to make New Orleans sound bad. It isn't. But it does highlight the tremendous challenges that lay ahead of this city, and what it needs to revitalize. Housing is certainly a big part of the puzzle. But in order to catalyze the renewal of New Orleans, better efforts must be made to attract business. Not many companies were attracted to the city before Katrina. It had little competitive advantage over other cities, and a variety of negatives (including a struggling public school system) that put it behind the rest of the pack.

But with the influx of federal money being pumped into this area (albeit mired in federal, state, and local bureaucracy), there is certainly money that can be spent on economic revitalization. Many local businesses, boutiques, and restaurants have re-opened, which is a beautiful sight to both a native New Orleanian and a free-market capitalist alike. But New Orleans could certainly take a page from Albuquerque's book to attract big businesses, which could give jobs to many, attract thousands to return home to New Orleans, and pump millions of dollars into the local economy. Tax holidays, fee and permit waivers, incentive programs, and selective land-grants could all work together to make New Orleans better than ever.

Like ABQ (an abbreviation people of all ages use, unlike ATL), New Orleans is a city without a tremendous amount of endemic resources that would attract business. Combine that with the disastrous effects of Katrina, and the comparisons to a developing country/economy are all the more apt. And just as post-colonial Latin America reacted to its export pessimism with the development of ISI strategy, so too could New Orleans help develop its "domestic" (local) economy through its specific policies. While this temporarily limits free-trade, it ultimately generates far more income mobility (if not equality), and an overall stronger economy with more jobs.

Central Business District during Katrina Flooding

A big hurdle to this is poultry. But instead of a chicken and an egg and an existential quandary regarding their temporal relation, theres about a thousand chickens and a thousand eggs, no one knows who came first, no one knows which egg belongs to whom (perhaps the other way around), and the resources with which to figure out this dilemma are available, but hoarded by a fat, slow farmer with whom everyone is frustrated, even the normally docile, mute eggs who have no means with which to even feel frustrated, but are frustrated no less.

Housing. Jobs. Schools. Infrastructure. City government. Environmental issues. Planning for the next hurricane. Crime. Clean up. Restoration. Revitalization.

You get the idea. But what comes first?

Developing affordable housing for New Orleans.

Despite my desire to use economics and the marketplace to restore New Orleans, I'm glad I'm doing housing development. Sure, it's part of the same puzzle, a feather on the chicken. But given all that coming home means to the people of this city--the people of any city--it's perhaps one of the most important steps in the whole process. Homes, porches, and evening conversations in the sunset wake all mean a lot to this place. Getting back to work and putting kids through school are no doubt hugely important, but having four walls and a roof make all the rest much easier.

Jackson Square and Saint Louis Cathedral, New Orleans

I thought I knew New Orleans pretty well in my month here. And I was amazed at the progress the city itself had made. Granted, Gentilly and Lakeview are still in shambles, and some areas of the Ninth Ward are in complete ruin. Those are enormous issues. But the flavor of the city, the jambalya mix of sweat, sin, and jazz that dances in the thick bayou air like smoke from a late-night cigarette, is already filling the lungs of New Orleanians throughout the city. I thought I had caught a whiff of it in my time here.

And maybe I did.

But leaving the city and seeing the progress other areas have made, and are still making, really throws into sharp relief the challenges facing New Orleans, the challenges everyone talks about but perhaps few actually have a real feel for, let alone solutions.

It is my hope, however, that come August, when we're moving out of our rooms and trekking back to our comfortable homes throughout the country and the world, that we'll leave with more answers than questions, with more solutions than problems, and with more conviction than hope.

Took My Chances on a Big Jet Plane - Michael Koler

2007-07-11T03:39:00.000-06:00

The Dilemma

IN the scatter storm that was spring semester 2007, I found myself, along with the vast majority of the junior class, precariously balancing an exhaustive internship search along with the normal academic workload. The Public Policy Studies degree (my major) actually requires an internship to be filled in the government or non-profit sector. I was (fortunately) disqualified from any financial or business-related internship – the i-banking/consulting recruiting blitzkrieg that storms Duke in late January is a beast all of its own... At any rate, I had a relatively specific sector to which my internship search would be targeted. This, in essence, meant that I was carpet-bombing my résumé into the office of every think tank, government office, and 501(c) in Washington. Because I’m on financial aid, non-paid internships were out of the question. I would find a paid internship!

Not surprisingly, K Street disagreed. I received decline after decline. By mid March, prospects were grim.

Eventually, by way of a rerouted e-mail, I learned about the DukeEngage New Orleans program at just about the same time I cheated and applied to a for-profit, private corporation that had managed to fall under the PPS internship umbrella, as a “government sector” job. The corporation? The military contractor, Raytheon International. While lacking the notoriety of a DynCorp or the shadow-factor of the Carlyle Group, Raytheon certainly does its fair share of arms dealing.

Telling people I was interviewing with a defense contractor typically drew two different responses: trigger-happy gung ho praise, especially from Halo obsessed slackers and most of my male friends; and mildly veiled disappointment from some of my more idealistically attuned peers who thought that at the tender age of twenty-one I was already selling out to help make war machines. As finals approached, I had narrowed my options down to DukeEngage NOLA and Raytheon.

It actually turned out to be quite an ironic choice dilemma, given that my summer options could essentially be delineated as 1. sell missiles; or 2. help people. (It would probably be fair to say that Raytheon was also paying, as well.) Of course, nothing is quite as black and white as 1 and 2, and so for a two week period I debating the pros and cons of both choices. I made it through the 2nd round at Raytheon and had my final interview scheduled a few days after my last exam. Amid research papers and final presentations, I debated what I had slowly managed to construe as one of the most important choices of my young life (Destroy or create! Profit or non-profit!) I started to add unnecessary weight and meaning to the decision. And so with oh so serious alacrity, I set about seeking advice from my family and friends.

I asked my roommate what he thought. “Financial security, Michael. Don’t think that you have a guaranteed job out of college. Don’t think that 30k in loans will be a cute little capuchin monkey on your back. It’ll be a fat and pissy half ton gorilla.”

I asked another one of my friends. “Spending a summer picking up trash so you can feel good about yourself is pretty odd, Mike. What difference are you going to make, anyway? But you still got to ask yourself: you trying to get yours first?

My sister disagreed. “If any place needs people, it’s New Orleans. Don’t you want to have an edifying summer experience helping people? Do you think you’ll get that in Duke in DC?

I asked my father. “Never been to New Orleans. Sounds pretty neat. Although I’ve been doing a little research Raytheon. That’s the kind of company you’d want to find a job at after you graduate.”

My mother, as usual, made a concerted effort to hide her real opinion and suggested I do whatever sounded best. I finally turned to my brother, to whom in times of crisis I typically genuflect and ask. He had originally been very much in favor of Raytheon, but he called me later during finals week to express his ultimate opinion.

In a few words, he swung a red state blue.

“Mike, you’re going to spend the rest of your life in an office. Don’t be in such a rush to put on a suit. I’m sure you’ll be in DC sometime in the future. But I’m not so sure you’ll ever get a chance to be in New Orleans.”

It made a lot of sense. My brother took the business route after college, bouncing between Chicago, Boston, and Connecticut along a path to “financial security.” Perhaps he is jaded on the suit and tie culture, but I grant him the wisdom of a brother five years my senior. And I’m not bull-headed enough to ignore that.

I call Raytheon the next day and cancel my interview.

***

And so for a summer, I say no to the private sector; no to a suit; no to the imagined prestige I associate with big corporations and government. I pull an about-face and say hello to an ill-planned and oddly placed trading post on the Mississippi River.

Let’s take our chances with that jet plane over there, with the fleur-di-lis emblazoned on the wing. I think Dulles can wait.

Bringing Light to St. Bernard - Clark Daniel

2007-07-10T16:58:00.000-06:00

Pretty noble sounding title, right? I like to joke around with myself and imagine that my job is much more grand than it actually is. When I arrived down the way in St. Bernard Parish I had no idea or expectations about what I would be doing. You probably have not heard of Chalmette, Arabi, or Meraux in the news following the aftermath of Katrina- but you should have. You would be surprised at how accurate and corroborating each individual’s account of the extent of destruction is. My guess is that it is not hard to be accurate when only 3 buildings in the entire parish were habitable following Katrina. Now, why haven’t you heard these small towns in eastern New Orleans mentioned on the nightly news when the destruction there far exceeded that of even the 9^th Ward? I don’t feel the need to politicize this blog, but if you can’t tell - sometimes I lean to the right.

The title does hold some relevance to my job, however. No, I’m not speaking of political light or even bringing the light of God down here to the parish (believe me, they have that here in spades); I am speaking of literal light. My job is to oversee the repair and installation of streetlight poles destroyed by the Hurricane. But I don’t ever have any physical contact with these broken streetlight poles- we have contractors who do that, and I don’t even have to supervise the repairs- we have monitors to make sure the repairs are being done according to the contract. My job is made possible by the wonderful government entity known as FEMA. I have to prove to FEMA that all the damage recorded on my endless list of destroyed light poles is not only accurate, but also that it was caused by Katrina and not by some other infinite list of possibilities. Not to pat my own back, but this process had already failed three times before I came on the job so to have FEMA finally approve and sign off on the validation gave me a pretty big sense of accomplishment. Of course it wasn’t until today that they tell me I have to show precedence for how new items are added to the expanding list and also give evidence stating how broken streetlights were repaired before the storm. Arghhh….

But now I reach the point where I will be met with some (and by some, I mean a lot) of contention from residents of New Orleans. I believe that many of the speed bumps that are slowing down the rebuilding of the city are not only purposeful but also completely necessary. I can already hear the hate mail rolling in! Let me be the first to say that I have not enjoyed working with FEMA. Their people have been simply miserable to deal with, are sticklers to every single point in their Bible (the Public Assistance rulebook), and are often apt to ignore simple rules of logic. But their incompetence has a silver lining. In my limited time here in “Da Parish,” I have witnessed and heard of more than a few crooked contractors. These individuals see FEMA as a sign screaming “Hey look, I’m handing out free money in New Orleans!” There are several outright thieves down here and many more who think they can get away with doing a poor job since it is “just government work.” By religiously following every rule set out before them, FEMA minimizes the chance of handing out money to these dishonest contractors. Even if I have to show them another damaged streetlight because the spec sheet says the one we are examining should have a completely missing housing while only the light is actually gone I think that in the long run it is worth it. There is definitely a balance to be struck between forward progress and spending money, but the series of checks and balances imposed by FEMA does serve a purpose. Its not like we have a choice otherwise- their money, their rules, right?

Comments, hatred, libel gladly accepted below or in email form.

- Clark Daniel

Cd21@duke.edu

Gone Fishin' -- Cart Weiland

2007-07-10T14:53:00.000-06:00

Mosquitoes be warned, I thought; we had come prepared. I drenched myself in Off, grabbed the cooler, and hiked up the levee that stood before us. I wasn’t really sure where we were or what small waterway we had found, but I really didn’t care. It was a beautiful, balmy night in the Crescent City, and we had decided we needed to be outside. We set out driving with Billy Joel blaring from the car speakers and soon stumbled across a small channel of water somewhere not far from Lake Pontchartrain.

As I sat in the long grass on top of the levee and gulped down my Turbodog, I watched one in our legion assemble a fishing pole that he had brought along. He baited his hook with some shrimp he had just purchased at the local tackle shop (also known as Whole Foods Market) and then wandered down the levee to the edge of the water. This night was about fishing, New Orleans style.

As I finished my Turbodog and switched to Haze, I gazed out over the moonlit marshy water, and I suddenly realized that this night—this fishing and this levee—perfectly symbolized my summer in New Orleans. Now, let me explain:

In less than four weeks, I will return home from New Orleans with a million unanswered questions on my mind. Graduation is less than a year away, and I am constantly being asked what I plan on doing afterwards. The plain truth is that I simply don’t know yet. I think part of the reason I have enjoyed New Orleans so much is because I sense a lot of the city’s growing pains inside myself. Post-Katrina, the city is trying desperately to figure itself out and fix its flaws. I, like New Orleans, am worried about preserving a past and paving the road towards a successful future. In other words, I see myself in the city’s transitions and the city’s transitions in me.

I may be leaving New Orleans in August, but I think I’ll just sit on the top of that levee—the barrier between college and the rest of my life—for awhile longer. And even after I make those difficult decisions that loom before me, I’ll come back to the water. I am certain that I will think about this summer often. While here, I have cast a line. My lure will remain in New Orleans, and I will forever reel her in.

Gut Instinct- Dana Stefanczyk

2007-07-10T12:53:00.000-06:00

I sit and work in an office all day. As much faith as I have that what I am doing is helping the city of New Orleans in some way, I don’t always have concrete evidence of my accomplishments or any real instant gratification I find myself craving. So when Reid asked if anyone would be interested in some construction work the coming Saturday, I volunteered to help, thinking I would enjoy getting my hands dirty. Gutting, he told us, is what we would be doing.

I realized, after committing, that I really didn’t know what gutting is. So, I did what any resourceful Duke student would do and googled it: Wikipedia does not even have a page. I had some vague ideas about it, of course, hearing the word flung around whenever the subjects of Katrina, housing, and weekend plans came up. I knew it involved tools and hard physical labor, and I knew that people cringed when they heard it, as if the name Voldemort had been spoken. My mom did not like the idea. “Dana, are you sure? I’m worried you’ll get hurt.” I had expected praise for my efforts, for working hard to help rebuild, and instead found fear and caution. What was I getting myself into?

We arrived at Catholic Charities early Saturday morning. Still fazed by drowsiness, I sat quietly while we were briefed. Then we got in cars and drove the short ride to the house we would be gutting. I watched as someone in charge walked into what remained of a house and spoke to a woman I assumed to be the owner. After a few minutes the owner left and went into her trailer on the side of the house. I wondered what she did for the rest of the day. Did she go about her business, numbed by months of waiting, simply wanting to get this done? Or did she watch us as we took crowbars and hammers to the casket of her memories?

I removed nails, tore down ceilings, took a sledgehammer to a railing, and in doing so sweated out anything I could feel. Need to relieve some stress? Try smashing a wall.

After a day of sweat, fiberglass, and exhaustion, Wikipedia, maybe I can now help you out. Gutting: stripping a house down to its bare stud walls and floors. Destroying and removing the heart and soul and traces of life, leaving a skeleton. I understand why it is called gutting.

Later that night (after a shower and nap, of course) a group of us went to a place called the Howlin’ Wolf to hear Trombone Shorty play. Though nothing spectacular on the outside, walking in I immediately felt alive. The animated notes from the trombone and saxophone begged me for a dance, and once again I found myself face to face with that spirit of NOLA that everyone knows about but no one can seem to define. With the next song, everyone was invited up on stage. I stood next to a girl I had just met, the music consuming us. “Now this is the heart and soul of New Orleans,” she remarked. And no matter how much gutting is done, I don’t think that can ever be stripped away.

Back to the Future - Andy Winslow

2007-07-08T14:08:00.000-06:00

“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.

2007-07-05T21:00:00.001-06:00

Coming to America - Reid Cater

2007-07-05T14:48:00.000-06:00

Baseball+ gigantic hot dogs+fireworks+hot summer night = an idyllic American experience. On the night before the Fourth of July I felt like I was sitting right in the schmaltzy, cracker-jack filled heart of Americantown, USA. I could have been sitting in a hundred other American cities having the exact same blissful experience. Except this night the home team was not the Mobile Bay Bears or the Toledo Mudhens, but the New Orleans Zephyrs.

So far our posts (mine included) have focused how culture, climate, and Katrina make New Orleans radically different from our hometowns. Yet, going out to Metarie to see a minor league baseball game reminded me that New Orleans is after all just another American city.

The issue of Americaness for New Orleans and its residents is significant. In the wake of Katrina many of the cries for help focused on how the government could let something like this happen in America to Americans. Our country and our citizens often reach out to others in need around the world, but the priority has always been to help our own first and foremost. This is the reason that the aftermath of Katrina looms larger for most Americans than that of the tsunami which devastated South East Asia. It is also the reason that many were so outraged at the lack of a coordinated response to Katrina.

I do not seek to open the argument on whether Americans are more or less morally obligated to help other Americans in need but I do want to point out that while we all face challenges in relating to the survivors of Katrina, we also have many advantages. We are working with other Americans; people that share our national culture and values. I think that at times we give ourselves too little credit for what we do understand about the people that live here and concentrate too much on the differences. Even something minor like following the same sports is a significant cultural asset. While here I have had the opportunity open several conversations locals on the topic of SEC football. This would be possible were I working Indonesia.

The uniqueness of New Orleans can at times be enchanting, puzzling, depressing, or threatening (sometimes all at once) but I think that we should remember that the sameness of the Crescent City ties us more closely to its citizens than we realize.

Stay atop the toilets --Cart Weiland

2007-07-04T15:05:00.000-06:00

“Hi there, maam, my name is Cart Weiland. I work for a New Orleans planning and architecture firm, and I’d like to speak with someone about toilets.”

Yes, the toilets, maam. It’s kind of urgent.

And so began another day in the office. The firm I work for is engaged in a high-profile “green” building project, and I have been assigned to do the bulk of the research regarding eco-friendly building materials that the work requires. Dual-flush toilets apparently use significantly less water than normal ones. Who knew?

But dual-flush toilets and green building supplies in general, I have learned, are considerably more expensive than your everyday, run-of-the-mill ones. And herein lies the problem. As I asked folks about their toilets, my mind wandered. Are we really worrying about the right things here in NOLA? I mean…toilets? Do displaced residents really care if their toilet conserves water? Is the extra money and extra time people are spending on finding solar energy panels, reclaimed lumber, and green roofing really worth the effort? Do long-run benefits really exceed costs?

My first three weeks have taught me that New Orleans is rebuilding, albeit slowly. But what I guess I ultimately was wondering during toilet time was this: Is New Orleans rebuilding “right?” Are the right priorities in place? Are the right people involved?

That’s when the second-guessing started. Eighteen Duke students and I are down here for the summer, but are we accomplishing anything? Should we be down here? We have already fallen into daily and weekly routines (work, work out, eat, go out, sleep), so it is tempting to lose sight of why we are here. I am an intern, and some of the work I do is pretty basic. I make phone calls, build spreadsheets, carry out research, and try to contribute in as many meaningful ways as possible. But I can’t escape the fact that what I do in the office doesn’t feel like anything more than a little three letter word that isn’t particularly noble: a J-O-B.

Before I came down here, I subconsciously said to myself, “I’m going to New Orleans to help a city rebuild. How cool, man! Way to go!” Now, I’m beginning to see the conceited error of my ways. I was wrong to think that coming to NOLA for a summer would be a feel-good, self-aggrandizing experience.

I’d like to think that most of us down here are still idealists. “Saving the world” (and New Orleans, specifically) hasn’t yet become an impossible dream of naiveté, but simply a more abstract idea with a million layers of complexity. I will leave New Orleans in a month without having solved any monumental problems. There will be no farewell parades, no pomp and ceremony, and the overwhelming majority of people here will have no idea that we inhabited The Big Easy for eight weeks. So, let’s leave the congratulatory remarks behind. No recognition is deserved. We are here, and we’ve got jobs to do.

“Hi there, maam, my name is Cart Weiland. I work for a New Orleans planning and architecture firm, and I’d like to speak with someone about toilets.”

Diane- By Dana Stefanczyk

2007-07-03T15:01:00.000-06:00

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.

The Field of Dreams - Andy Winslow

2007-07-01T12:11:00.000-06:00

Surrounding the unexpected meeting with Mr. C Ray Nagin, my job duties have taken a sharp turn. I bid my farewell to the leisurely French Quarter curb analysis to welcome a more important and less exciting windshield assessment project for FEMA. In teams of two, interns, city employees, contracted employees, and anyone else with two eyes and an arm or two take a drive out into “the field.” Similar to other “fields”, our “field” is the site at which our project is carried out, but the difference is this “field” spans the entire city of New Orleans, including each of thirteen separate planning districts. It is a massive project requiring the work of nearly everyone mentioned above and then some.

Conceptualization of the scope of disaster that New Orleans is faced with in repairing its roadways remains a feat even the city is still working on. In some cases, it is difficult to fathom attributing the destruction of the roadways just to floodwater. In many of these cases, the reality is that the damage came from multiple sources besides the flooding itself. First, a fair percentage of the minor roadways throughout New Orleans were in need of serious repair prior to Katrina. Second, the debris trucks and heavy equipment from the Army Corps of Engineers that served such an important role in the cleanup efforts of the city placed unrealistically heavy loads on the roads, sidewalks, and curbs. Unfortunately for New Orleans and much of southern Louisiana, and especially pronounced in the areas that used to be wetlands, the soil is soft and rich with sediment. The manifestation of heavy loading atop regions of poor soil, quite predictably, is widespread subsidence.

In the absence of the aforementioned hardships, this road assessment project would be made infinitely easier. Besides the inconsistencies in documenting the same problem across the teams of largely untrained and inexperienced inspectors, the real problem lies is the delineation and categorization of specific types of damage in a severely damaged segment of road. Some of the roads are so bad that documenting the short stretches with no visible problems is easier than pointing out the individual problems themselves.

On a more anecdotal note, when we converse with locals and let them know the type of work we are doing for the city, many of them are quick to point out the terrible state of their respective road or sidewalk before Katrina. Since FEMA’s responsibility is not to repair the problems that existed before the hurricane and flooding, an added importance comes with filtering out the preexisting roadway problems and deciding what damage is a direct result of floodwater or debris truck-induced subsidence. The irony behind the situation, we later joke, is that this friendly neighbor is revealing the very information that would prevent FEMA from considering repairs, in a sense “blowing the cover” for the entire block!

Although the monotony of the job is something I have come to dislike, working on the streets of New Orleans provides me the type of experience I sought when I joined DukeEngage. Aside from getting out to see firsthand the really hard and devastating effects of the storm, I have taken an interest in talking to the locals and piecing together certain themes they profess regarding the many failures of Katrina. These themes span from the (mis)engineering behind the levees, to the policy decisions by city officials, to FEMA, and even to themselves. Whatever it is, everyone around here has a certain opinion or strong feeling about how post-Katrina New Orleans was handled, which really spells out how disorganized it was. Although it is my personal belief that the root of the problem can be traced back to the engineering of the levees, I have learned over the first few weeks philosophies that suggest the problem spanned far beyond the levee breach. Rather than finding a scapegoat and pointing fingers, it is my personal philosophy that the best way to approach a solution the problem is to go out and get your hands dirty in “the field,” as large as it may be.

2007-06-26T14:45:00.000-06:00

The Jungle Gym

2007-06-25T17:16:00.000-06:00

Papers and crayons tumble to the floor. There are 15 bodies to 10 desks. 3 heads submerge under the table. I crawl under to fetch them. I emerge and find two other bodies violently intertwined on the floor. Spanish curses are uttered from behind. I see scratches, blood, and tears. I feel hungry and nauseous. I close my eyes for 4 seconds. This is all a terrible illusion. I open my eyes. The pieces to the 1000 piece puzzle I begged the children not to open inundate the floor. What am I doing here?

When I was assigned to work for three weeks at Baby Ben (Ben Franklin Elementary School) I was told my job was to teach English to ESL children. However 2 hours and 6 Peptos later, I realized this task was impossible. The class is a jungle gym swarming with children of different nationalities, languages, ages, and temperaments. While I attempt to teach verbs and nouns, 4 little ones are hiding under the table stepping on their classmates’ toes. Another 2 are wrestling. Another 3 are thankfully quiet but are only able to complete the assignment by copying off their peers’ papers. I had come with the intention of teaching but it didn’t take me long to realize I was running a day care (and was doing a pretty bad job of it).

I decide to break the children into 2 groups. I put the 5 younger ones who can’t read and write (2 of them don’t talk) to do a worksheet, on which they scribble and feebly attempt to color. I work with the other 10 kids on pronunciation and vocabulary. 6 minutes later I am interrupted by a child who needs to use the bathroom. 8 minutes later is lunch time, then recess, then another bathroom break. After that their focus is gone so learning for the day is futile. I watch as the kids fill the buses, praying they hop onto the right one. I put my ipod on and go home thinking.

A 5 year old tells me she wants my hair. The trouble-maker finishes his worksheet. The lost child is found hidden in the bathroom stall. The Hawaiian student gently pushes the Honduran toddler on the swing. The 17 year old caresses the crying 3 year old. 2 dirty sweaty arms embrace me from behind. The hurting child clutches my hand. The “mute” child utters his first English word. I smile. I kinda don’t want to leave this jungle gym.

-Alicia Zelek

Show Me the Money - Tucker Page

2007-06-25T11:09:00.001-06:00

Oddly enough, it took a weekend in Chicago at my cousin’s wedding to really appreciate the dire situation in New Orleans. Here in NOLA, nothing seems strange, nothing seems surprising, and nothing seems out of place. Gutted houses don’t catch your eye as often when you’ve already seen hundreds of them. The ubiquitous X symbols used by search and rescue teams to mark houses in the hurricane’s aftermath serve as a constant reminder that we’re still in New Orleans, but no longer carry the emotional weight for me that perhaps they should. So many people have told me that Xavier is in a bad part of town that I no longer believe them. After two weeks, New Orleans already feels like home.

The barrage of questions from family members over the weekend, though, put everything here in perspective. When my mom asked me about the shortage of doctors in New Orleans, I responded factually that there are currently no operational public hospitals within city limits. “There aren’t any hospitals?!” she responded incredulously. “That’s crazy!” And indeed it is. The notion that a city with over two-hundred thousand residents has gone two years without a functioning public hospital should shock anyone. But after working for two weeks in the Health Department and seeing firsthand the shortages of both staff and money, I would find it far more shocking if there were not a lack of doctors and open hospitals.

I would like to think that my lack of surprise at the current situation in New Orleans is not a reflection of ambivalence, but rather of my realization that New Orleanians aren’t responsible for many of their city’s problems. (Let the FEMA rant begin.) The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), for those of you who don’t know, is supposed to be helping the City of New Orleans rebuild. However, just last week I compiled a spreadsheet that highlighted the gap between FEMA estimates of hurricane damage incurred by the Health Department and money that the department had actually received from FEMA; for the Health Department alone, the total gap exceeds $5 million. Read that figure again and then ask yourself if you’re still surprised that New Orleans doesn’t have a single operational public hospital.

If you still aren’t convinced, consider the way in which FEMA pays New Orleans for repairs. For some inexplicable reason, FEMA is only in the business of reimbursement; FEMA will not give you money upfront to rebuild a hospital, for example, but it will reimburse you for however much it costs you to rebuild. Of course, any Duke Engage student knows that this payment method is problematic. Let’s say I know that Duke will reimburse me for food, but that I have completely run out of money and that I will not receive my latest reimbursement check for another week. I can’t just walk into a café, tell the cashier that I have no money but that I will bring some as soon as I get reimbursed, and then expect to be served. The FEMA reimbursement plan has the same effect. The fact that FEMA has offered to reimburse the City of New Orleans is inconsequential because the city can't afford to rebuild anything to begin with. Many other factors no doubt contribute to the problems that continue to plague New Orleans, but the federal government certainly isn’t helping.

-Tucker Page

Rebuilding NO One TPS Report at a Time - Reid Cater

2007-06-25T10:09:00.000-06:00

Customers call into a service number and are asked to leave their information. The next day their call is returned by an employee who asks what service they require and takes their pertinent information. After fielding several dozen calls the employee gathers the various forms he has filled out makes copies of them and files the originals. Next he goes online to print maps of each customers location. He then attaches the maps along with other paper work to the duplicate of the customers form and forwards the packets to the field office. Finally he enters the customers information along with the reference number for their completed packet into an Excel spreadsheet for record keeping.

Since beginning my internship two weeks ago I have completed this process dozens of times. I would probably be doing very similar things if I was working for a company that was installing pools or selling paper. The big difference is that Operation Helping Hands is not selling anything to our "customers" instead we are gutting, painting and helping them to rebuild their homes for free. When I finish a packet and send it to our field office it does not lead to a small profit for a faceless corporation, it leads to a home owner receiving help that they desperately need. It brings them a step closer to returning home to New Orleans.

Sitting in an air conditioned office wearing business casual attire is much easier then gutting houses in the heat. It is also easier to become apathetic when your job mostly resembles Office Space more than Extreme Makeover Home Edition. However, when I field calls from homeowners and process their paperwork I still get to feel the satisfaction of helping people who are in need. Often times they have been trying for months to find someone anyone who might be able to help them. It feels great to be able to say to them that I can make sure that their house is gutted and that we will make sure that the city does not demolish it first. In my desk job directly helping people more than makes up for the occasional boredom of a long Excel spreadsheet.

Having an office job with such rewarding aims may have ruined me for more traditional office jobs. If so that might end up being the most meaningful result of this summer for my future.

Where The Heart Is- Jenny Heffernan

2007-06-25T09:51:00.000-06:00

As is customary for the average college student, I filled my Sunday catching up with friends and family at home and around the country. Into what felt like the 19th hour of phone conversation, my best friend asked the inevitable question: “So what do you think of New Orleans?” Without hesitation, I responded with the same enthusiastic “I love it!” that I have used to answer everyone else. Matt, knowing me all too well, then made an interesting remark; “Jen, have you ever not loved a place you’ve stayed in for more than 12 hours?”
My darling friend had a point; I have used the same “I love it!” to describe Duke, Madrid, Charleston, Miami…and now NOLA. This factuality of his comment did not prevent my subsequent wave of indignation, however. Feeling as if my credibility were on the line, I forced Matt to endure a litany of the N’awlins specifics that brought about my love: the people, the culture, the architecture, the history, the spirit. It was then that I realized Week 2’s “lesson”; I already think of New Orleans as home (or one of them).
What’s more, it seems that my somewhat ferocious defense of “my” city isn’t uncommon. Sitting by the waterfront last night, a few of us found ourselves sharing wine and conversation with a friendly couple picnicking nearby. After introductions were made, I asked our new friend John if he was a New Orleans native, to which he responded in the affirmative. Several minutes later, however, he revealed that he and his wife, Kyle, have actually only been in the city for 7 years, and hail from Ohio. Their attitude towards NOLA, coupled with my quickly developing sense of belonging, bears testament to the magic of the place. The pairing of the city’s unique and captivating personality with the unifying effects of tragedy make for a fierce loyalty to the city, regardless of one’s actual origin. Consequently, my work in the Health Department has transitioned, in my eyes, from an effort to help the strangers of Nola to a mission to aid my neighbors. This shift in viewpoint has already served to inspire me more than any altruistic motive could; I’m no longer performing anonymous community service, but rather am serving my community.
It comes down to the tried and true saying, I suppose: home is where the heart is… and my heart is in my work and in New Orleans.

Jenny Heffernan

Who's up for "Twenty Questions?" by Cart Weiland

2007-06-25T09:35:00.000-06:00

Consider Andrew Wilson Elementary here in New Orleans:

Once an important part of the Broadmoor-area community, the school now sits abandoned two years after Katrina. The school suffered substantial damage from the storm, and neighborhood residents complain that the laggard response of the city government has brought theft and vandalism to the facility.

Now, ponder Andrew Wilson as a microcosm of city planners’ efforts citywide.

Will Andrew Wilson Elementary be refurbished or completely torn down and built anew?
Which is more cost efficient?
Which does the neighborhood prefer?
If the school is too damaged to be renovated, what are the social implications of tearing it down?
What sort of racial or class issues would this arouse?
If the school is to be renovated…
Has the school already been gutted, or is it still in the shape it was in immediately following K?
What work has the community already done on the facility?
What remains broken? Who will fix it?
What kinds of materials are needed? Who will supply them?
How much money will be allocated to rebuilding the facility? Is that enough?
What projects within the school will we prioritize?
What new technology needs to be introduced to the old facility?
What is the timeline? Is it realistic?
Are there enough teachers to staff the facility?
Have students moved back? Are there enough to fill the school once it reopens?
If students have not moved back, where are they?
What do current students want to prioritize in rebuilding? Is it different from what their parents, school alumni, or city officials prefer?
Should Andrew Wilson be opened immediately or only after other schools are reopened?
Is the school in an area that is at high risk of flooding again? If so, what precautionary measures are being taken?
How soon can we start?

Keep in mind, this is just one school of many.

There are 69 schools in New Orleans that have officially reopened. Before the storm, there were roughly 130. That’s a difference of about 60.

If we multiply these 20 questions by 60, we get 1200.

And this is just the schools.

1200 questions to answer, and they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

-- Cart Weiland

The Greatest Fear- Dana Stefanczyk

2007-06-25T09:09:00.001-06:00

I’ll admit it: I’m scared.

I grew up in a suburb in New Jersey, living a comfortable life. I am white. I am female. I am a US citizen. By sheer nature of my birth, I am better off than many. I have accepted my life, and been very grateful for it, and in the past always assumed that I could adapt to different lifestyles.

Here in NOLA, I am scared. I have been warned by many of the dangers of the city, and that I should be extra cautious here. Extra cautious. In Wayne, NJ extra cautious means locking your door when going for a walk on a summer evening or putting on bug spray so you don’t get eaten to death by mosquitos. I realize that is not enough here, and I of course take the regular precautions. We always go out in groups, stay in well-lit areas, and don’t carry valuables around. Am I safe?

In areas off the beaten path, away from the swarms of tourists, I feel like I am always being looked at, like I stand out, and for that I feel like I am a target. A target of what, I don’t really know; perhaps simply a target of wonder for my differences. But is it merely my physical appearance that makes me the object of so many stares?

Maybe it is my fear. Maybe others can see my eyes darting around cautiously at night, or how I jump a little when someone says hi to me while I am running. Maybe it is my naivete, my cloak of ignorance that I hide beneath, yet am desperately trying to shed. No matter how I try to get around it, I simply can’t know what these people have been through. I can hear their stories, I can volunteer for eight weeks, I can live right in the heart of it all, but I can never really understand. I am still a white girl from suburbia, with a world of opportunity in front of me, and as much as I may try to blend in here, maybe I simply can’t.

All in all, my personal safety is not my greatest fear here. I am more afraid for the city of New Orleans, and that whatever I do here won’t be enough. I fear that I will leave and never have a chance to come back, and that NOLA will become enshrouded from public consciousness once again with the veils of time.

I must sound pessimistic here, and in that I realize that I stand apart from this city. Part of me struggles to see the endless optimism of these people, how after everything their spirit never dies. Fear changed to hope, maybe that can be enough. In the end, there is nothing worse than apathy.

A Savage Journey... - Nader Mohyuddin

2007-06-24T20:20:00.000-06:00

A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

WE WERE SOMEWHERE on the edge of Central City, just north of midtown, when reality began to take hold.

The deadliest district of the deadliest city in America. Murders daily, violent crime amuck. And there we were: property development professionals, an accountant, a law student, and an acquisitions intern.

Why?

Lunch, actually. Were you expecting something a bit more substantial? I'll continue.

We had just taken a tour of the multi-family development units throughout dilapidated, abandoned apartments, schools, and churches. Some were well under development and renovation, soon to become affordable apartment housing for the elderly. It's part of HUD's Section 202 initiative, and my employer is working to develop those properties into quality housing for those New Orleanians who have spent decades and decades in the city they love and wish to return to.

But this isn't about housing. I spend enough time at work on that subject. I'll leave that for another time.

This is about lunch.

Terri, our head of finance, suggested Cafe Reconcile as a lunch destination, as she directed her sizable SUV along the bumps on Esplanade Avenue. Cafe Reconcile, I thought, interesting name. As we headed toward the restaurant, I noticed we were turning on to Martin Luther King Jr Blvd. Uh-oh, I worried. The street forms one side of the triangle-shaped area known as Central City, an area I was strongly told to avoid. And we're traveling down it? Surely there are eating options in safer parts of town...

We found a tight parking space and headed to the patio of the cafe. Opening the glass doors revealed a lively scene. Nearly every seat filled, the open kitchen roaring, waiters scattered about, scurrying from one table to another. Nice place, I surmised. Guess it's worth the risk of getting here. I still didn't understand the hype...evidently community leaders, business people, and public officials from all over the city frequent the place regularly. Walking to the table, I glanced at some of the dishes on other tables. Seemed well enough but...what was it about this place that attracted so many powerful people in New Orleans?

And that's when I met the owner.

Cafe Reconcile is really a beautiful organization. It's tough to call it a restaurant, it's so much more than that. The group takes at-risk youth from Central City and other areas of the city and puts them to work at the restaurant, to keep them out of trouble, to teach them valuable job skills, and mentor them to keep them away from the drugs, violence, gangs, and other elements in their communities that can completely ruin their lives. Sure, this business model has its hiccups: the teens forget an occasional order, maybe drop a drink now and then. But the smiles on their faces no matter what the difficulty, no matter what the issue. Our waiter was a young kid, with bright eyes, a starched white shirt and black slacks, and the brightest white teeth, which he flashed all the time through his brilliant smile. It never faded. You couldn't get waiters this nice, polite, and kind anywhere. Really remarkable.

For the record, I had a po-boy. Dressed, of course.

I looked at other tables. Lots of professionals and executives, enjoying a home-cooked style country meal in the roughest part of town, talking it up about every which subject. Like anywhere, "the storm" was a frequent conversation topic. It always. But still, looking around at the patrons, it was quite a thing to behold, but it paled in comparison next to the sight of the hard-working kids, their heads held high, their priorities in order, all thanks to the folks behind Cafe Reconcile.

I learned something that day, something that didn't have to do with adjudicated properties or the inconsistencies of real estate databases. I learned that even in the hardest of times, in the roughest of areas, the power of mentorship, of guidance, of holding out a helping hand to those so often deprived, can defeat all those forces which work to leave life in ruined squalor. Poverty, drugs, broken families, murdered loved ones...everyone working at Cafe Reconcile has seen these horrors first hand. And when all seemed lost, an amazing opportunity arrived to help change these lives for the better, to give them a running start in the working world.

With their big smiles, those kids reminded me that we cannot turn a blind eye to the roughest part of town. We cannot simply tell ourselves, "Oh, there'll always be a rough neighborhood in the city. There'll always be poverty. So what good can we do?" There's plenty. And the cafe showed that in a very real, tangible (and delicious) form. And on a personal level, as a capitalist libertarian, I was quite happy to see a non-profit, privately funded and managed organization provide such a social service, without governmental intervention or (potential) mismanagement. But the important thing is, lives are being changed, futures are being secured, and a better tomorrow lay in store for a group of kids fortune forgot.

Zagat might find fault with a few dishes, but no one can argue that Cafe Reconcile is a real gem. de Gaulle said something that seems really apt for the place, and really, for New Orleans as a whole. So, I'll leave you with that:

It is not tolerable, it is not possible, that from so much death, so much sacrifice and ruin, so much heroism, a greater and better humanity shall not emerge.

pain, pain, go away

2007-06-24T16:40:00.000-06:00

NOLA Week 2 has been an entirely different experience for me. After feeling anxious and unsettled for two weeks, I’m just now finding my way in the Big Easy. This newfound comfort, however, was very well earned, coming at the expense of the loss of my appetite for ten days. When transitioning to a new environment, I have come to expect minor physical discomforts, namely nausea, insomnia, and loss of appetite (for a more comprehensive list of my symptoms, we can talk one on one). However, since landing in New Orleans, I had been plagued by some serious uneasiness in my stomach, which I was quick to attribute to the, um, satisfactory (neutral enough adjective?) dining offerings at the Xavier Dining Hall. But even after our esteemed director Joy Mischley bargained for and won us the right to less restrictive food options, I was still not feeling like myself. In fact, I felt worse everyday. My anxiety (I’m referring to it as if I have a disorder-I don’t) was getting worse by the day, and the only option, in my mind, was to ride it out. Starving, sleep-deprived, and physically exhausted, this was not going to be fun. Now’s the part where you’re expecting me to build up to a giant realization, become physically reinvigorated, restore New Orleans, and have my tale serve as an inspirational story for future DukeEngagers (or at least anyone reading the blog…maybe? just a little?) Well, that big moment never happened. I just woke up one morning and felt like I was back to my old self (booooo…terrible anticlimactic story) and only in retrospect do I recognize the source of my unease.

This place was really getting to me. I was internalized the pain and suffering of the New Orleans citizens. I am uncomfortable with the state of affairs in the city. I am upset that I can’t do more to help out. So the moral of the story: Anxiety makes people feel weird. Just kidding. Kinda. In all seriousness, looking back, I welcome the anxiety (I say that now but am really hoping it doesn’t return. I was really hungry. And I didn’t appreciate the anorexia rumors) No, really, but seriously, I like that I felt/feel uncomfortable. I’m personally compelled to do everything in my power to restore some semblance of community and life back to the city. These days, their pain is just as much my pain, and in the month or so I have left in New Orleans, I want to ease it, even if its just a little.

-Joseph lanser

Political Puddle

2007-06-24T07:51:00.000-06:00

I really didn’t know what I was doing at Joe Brown Park on Wednesday afternoon, but any break from the monotonous data entry project that Chief Engineer Nguyen assigned me last week, in my opinion, was a much needed break. And then, something rather unexpected happened. I was informed that the mayor was coming to Joe Brown Park to take a look at the recent renovations that have taken place since Katrina.

The park itself is located in New Orleans East, all of which was absolutely devastated by the flooding from Katrina. For the majority of nearly two years the park was unable to gather any citywide consideration to be rebuilt, given the wealth of existing problems with the buildings, homes, and roadways. Representing a venue at which everything from youth sports to wedding receptions would take place, Joe Brown Park, I would argue, was formerly a very important piece of New Orleans East. The restoration of this iconic park, however, was unique in that it symbolized the first real push by the city to restore a very personal part of New Orleans East that would seem to change how people spend their leisure time. This restorative effort was directed specifically at the citizens of New Orleans East, and it was sure to facilitate a boost in morale and, equally importantly, a more active and healthy outdoor lifestyle. I walked around and viewed a park pavilion that was newly painted and restored, a pond fountain, baseball fields, and tennis courts in close vicinity. What I didn’t see was the work that still had to be done. Downed trees from the flooding lined the perimeter of the picturesque panorama. An indoor community pool, likely playing host to standing water that had not been drained from Katrina, sat in the distance. A bike path that zigzagged throughout the park’s scenery remained invisible. We finally convened outside a central park building with a decimated interior and water lines four or so feet from the ground, awaiting the mayor’s arrival.

I was about to meet the storied mayor of New Orleans, Mr. Clarence Ray Nagin (Cee Raaaaay, as described by one of my coworkers). Although I didn’t have nearly as much discontent for the man whom many of the citizens of New Orleans had learned to loathe for his policies behind the handling of Katrina and his off-script and off-key remarks, I still had to look enthusiastic to meet him. When he and his caravanning entourage finally pulled up through the gates of Joe Brown Park, I was uncharacteristically anxious (in a good way). He made the rounds and I when he finally got to me, I grasped his hand and shook it hard. Besides a non-verbal head nod, I was, however, at a loss of words. I uttered in a fairly incoherent manner something to the extent of “Andy…intern…Duke.” I didn’t really embrace the opportunity to come across as smoothly as I had hoped, which was evidently clear to C. Ray, but the experience was something I came to later value.

The twenty or so of us (the meeting was not open to the press, which only added to the cool factor of the experience) relocated inside the air conditioned building following the introductions. Nagin began the very informal meeting by asking a fair amount of factual questions about the status of the park and the strategy and priority for rebuilding. Ms. Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, city council representative for District E of New Orleans, provided Nagin with the majority of the responses, and some of the other representatives from DRC, a construction company contracted by the city of New Orleans for many of the rebuilding projects, as well as the Parks Department chimed in with their respective status updates. During the entire briefing, I lost focus from the actual meeting at hand and switched focus from what Nagin was saying to his impeccably shiny golden head. I had heard legends about it, but to see it in person is a completely different experience.

Nagin was indeed very personable and charismatic, but he didn’t come across as incredibly verbose or well spoken, a trait of his I had grown to expect. One side of me was embracing the fact that Nagin responded to most of the city officials’ and representatives’ updates on the park with “That’s awesome, man” or “Man, that is great” while another part of me, the part that had grown accustomed to Dick Broadhead’s mellifluously strung speeches at Duke, was aching for an amazing oration by Nagin. And of course, there was a third side of me that wanted him to go off on a ridiculous tangent to the twenty of us in the park building on that Wednesday afternoon. The reality is, in hindsight, I agree with Nagin in his characterization of the work being done to Joe Brown Park. Although I would like to think there are better assessments, sometime “That’s awesome, man” does the perfect justice.

-Andy Winslow

Crescent City Connection

2007-06-19T17:03:00.000-06:00

June 18, 2007

The people and city of New Orleans have redefined for me what it means to be a true southerner. The grace and charm of the city and its people surpass anything I have ever encountered in any city or anywhere in the world for that matter. Coming from Texas I thought that it would be a pretty tall order to find a place with more friendliness on the streets or strangers more willing to help a NOLA-newbie out. Every facet of life in this city seems to occur at a slower pace and people seem to linger a little longer on mundane tasks. I’ve only been here a week and it has already affected the pacing of my life!

One person who seems to embody everything I love about this city comes from a most unlikely source: my boss. Rick is the kind of family man you wish you could have as your neighbor. He went to lengths to ensure that I knew my way around the area where I work and also took me on a tour of various hot spots where Katrina had done her worst[1]. After less than two days of working for him I had met both his daughters, been taken out for a roast beef po’ boy, toured his house to see his restoration work (his house was destroyed by Katrina), and he even trusted me enough to drive his truck back from the shop. At similar work experiences in other parts of the United States it would take weeks or months to build the kind of trust it takes to invite others into your home and family. But what makes this region so great is that it seems this attitude of openness is shared by all New Orleans citizens, not just those I work with.

On a recent, humid Louisiana summer night a group of DENOLA (Duke Engage New Orleans, LA) kids were out at a local bar, the Snake n’ Jake. You can easily place yourself in this modest watering hole by imagining hanging out in your best friend’s garage while passing around a handle of his dad’s whiskey and the only light is coming from a string of Christmas lights dangling behind your head. On this particular evening we had the privilege of meeting a Katrina survivor, Victoria, and her husband. When she found out what we were doing this summer she became immediately attached to us and very emotional. She couldn’t give us enough thanks for what we were doing and wouldn’t leave us alone until she had individual conversations with each of us. While we settled back with a few brews we listened to stories about how groups such as ours have had an impact in New Orleans and on individual lives such as Victoria’s. We were even invited to her husband’s restaurant which we haven’t partaken of… yet.

So far my New Orleans experience has been defined by my interactions with her citizens. With people such as Rick responsible for rebuilding the city and Victoria living in it, it’s hard to imagine the city not coming back stronger and better than before.

-Clark Daniel
cd21@duke.edu

[1] One of my favorite things he showed me was a house that Katrina had moved completely- slab and all. Apparently the slab and house floated for blocks down the street taking out light poles and stop signs but miraculously not striking any other houses.

“We just want to be whole again.”

2007-06-18T23:40:00.000-06:00

It wasn’t till I overheard the tail-end of a conversation on the plane that my trip down to the bayou, and all its complexity that I would soon face, started to set in as a reality. “Yeah, Nawlins will never be the same again.” As a woman in her sixties recounted her Katrina experiences to the passenger next to her, I listened mildly disturbed; what was most unsettling was my disbelief that the city continues to remain in utter shambles even two years later. In retrospect, I don’t know why I so naively assumed things would be chugging along the way they were pre-Katrina. New Orleans and its submerged city walls went off my immediate radar as soon as the media coverage waned, and I resumed my daily business as the remnants of Katrina’s wrath seemed to float away into the distance. I suppose it goes without saying that I am now slowly coming to feel the relentless grip Katrina continues to hold over the hearts and minds of New Orleanians.

I work in an architecture/planning firm called Concordia. The company oversees many different projects revolving around the development of the city, and works with several other organizations in the rebuilding efforts. What makes Concordia unique from most urban planning companies, however, is its firm dedication to working with the community. Citizens’ input is a central component of Concordia’s mission, and this is evident in the multiple community meetings the company orchestrates and extracts data from. The amount of responsibility Concordia takes on is almost overwhelming for a company of its size. There are approximately 10~15 workers, but there are at least 30 projects that are currently on the dock. So far, Cart (my partner in crime) and I have been focused on getting a better understanding of the economic and political landscape following Katrina. The scope is far broader than I had imagined, with multiple players, wishes, needs, agendas, motives—all mangled together in a complex web of uncertainty and frustration. At times reverting the ruins to what they were and what they used to embody seems impossible, but at the heart of it all, the simple desire “to be whole again” (as expressed by a community representative at a city council meeting Cart and I attended a few days ago) is what drives the community despite the adversity and hopelessness.

I don’t know if I will ever fully understand the impact Katrina has had on this city, being the oblivious outsider that I am. But for the two months that I am down here, I hope to leave with a better understanding of the struggles and determination the people have thus far shown, and contribute to the reconstruction of the wholeness they so long for.

-Theresa Cho

Thank you, Ms. D

2007-06-18T18:00:00.000-06:00

The eight-hour drive to N.O.L.A. was a learning experience in itself. I discovered that my “new” car (its actually 12 years old) has some quirks to it. For instance, the air conditioning sometimes chooses to stop. It must get tired or overheated, but in any event, it sometimes just stops working. This started happening around hour 3 of the drive. By hour 4 I had discovered that by banging my fist above the stereo, I could get the A.C. working again. This remedy proved to be quite embarrassing when 4 fellow Duke Engagers piled into my car to go to Tujaques restaurant for our first introduction to each other and to the Program Directors, Joy Mischley and Dr. Dave Schaad. It was swelteringly hot and everyone was dripping sweat and I just kept banging and banging in front of these new people and they were very nice about it, but I could tell they were a little freaked out. Thanks for hanging in there, guys. I have since discovered that I can achieve the same result if I just turn it on and off, with a switch and not a fist.
The drive itself was extremely interesting. Watching the Texas landscape curve and bend from loud pines into lazy Louisiana marshes, dotted with quiet wildlife, echoed in me a strange sense of natural progression – from school to summer, from Durham to Dallas, and from all this push and rush, to this landscape of loud ease. I have been to New Orleans before and when I was there I tried to soak in the cultural climate seeping from every bar, from every twangy voice, from every fleur de lis, but I knew I hadn’t; I knew that whatever I thought I had taken with me after that two day visit was about to taken back, adjusted, and given back to me twenty fold. I had no idea what to expect. I had a read about the problems in N.O.L.A. – the racial tensions stiff since 1927 when a levee was purposefully broken above the predominantly black neighborhood to save the richer parts of the city – that were now even more unresolved after Katrina. I had read about Nagin and Blanco’s lack of leadership and resolve in the days and hours before the storm made landfall, about how hundreds of lives could have been saved if evacuation had been ordered sooner. I drove into New Orleans staring out my window trying to see the source of all of this weight and fear. I tried to peer into the windows of houses that I passed, but most were boarded up, marked with X’s, and waiting to be demolished because front lawns were too high, or residents weren’t returning.
I didn’t see what I had read about – I didn’t see how New Orleans was struggling because I was looking for something specific, for a sign, or landmark. What I wasn’t realizing was that I was surrounded by it. I was driving down an interstate banging my air-conditioning, listening to Fergie, not noticing the two walls that guarded the road on either side that were marked by an 8 foot high water line, a scar of Katrina. I was oblivious. I hadn’t yet heard a woman’s voice quiver from pain as she showed us pictures of her kids next to her flooded house. I hadn’t yet driven down Claiborne Avenue for eight straight blocks without seeing one house lived in. I hadn’t yet been to the Lower Ninth Ward and I hadn’t yet realized that it didn’t used to be a massive field full of tall grass, but was once one of the most densely populated areas in the whole City.
A waitress started talking to Joe and I last week because she heard us asking each other “Where is the money going? How is all of this going to happen?”
- “We don’t know. I lost everything, and we still struggling to get our lives back…” she said, pausing for a second to lean on her broom. Her brown eyes leveled on us like she was our mother.
- “But we just happy to have y’all here to try to help us, to try to answer some of these questions.” I nodded, overwhelmed by her resilience, put my eyes down, as she refilled my ice tea.
- “Hey, ya hear now. If you ever over by 9th ward, stop over see Ms. D. I be happy to have you.”
- "Thank you" we said, quietly.

Thank you, Ms. D, for your unbelievable strength.
Thank you, Ms. D, for making this city alive with so much heart and passion and resolve.
Thank you.

my two cents

2007-06-18T17:18:00.001-06:00

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the Hurricane Katrina “experience” being that it was so much more than a natural disaster. Beyond the widespread physical destruction that the storm caused lies a community still, almost two years later, emotionally grappled by the effects of the storm. In a very tangible way, the residents of New Orleans and its surrounding parishes effuse pain, indignation, and helplessness, the last being the most evident. Every resident with whom I have spoken has eagerly shared his or her personal story, one being more tragic than the other, and I finally feel that I am getting a real sense of the magnitude of this disaster. It is very easy to be apathetic toward a situation in which one has nothing invested, but even having only been in New Orleans for one week, I have an entirely different perception of what actually occurred in the city. I could never understand what it meant for a city to be destroyed without having come here and seen the damage myself. Media coverage only tells a small chapter of a very tragic event, whose repercussions will not stop haunting this community.

I get the impression that most residents of New Orleans feel that they have been abandoned, not only by their state government, but by the national government as well. They are given hope for relief, but time after time are let down. The only way I can characterize the current mood of New Orleans is that of anticipation, manifested in speaking with the residents, by reading about legislation in the city, and by having a general feel for the city’s prevailing climate. I arrived in New Orleans with many questions, mainly pertaining to what degree of damage the city suffered, what portion of the city had successfully rebounded, and how extensively the government had provided assistance to the New Orleans population. However, what I have come to discover in my very short time here is that in answering these questions, I have only found there to be even more pressing and uncomforting ones for which I have yet to find answers. Much like the residents of New Orleans and the surrounding parishes, I am appalled by the government’s sluggish legislation, the inequitable distributions of aid, and just the general unresponsiveness to the very real needs of its citizens. In the government’s defense, however, nothing could have prepared it for such a widespread crisis, so the fact that there is dissatisfaction in the community does not surprise me. This is just as much a learning experience for the government as it is for its people. I hope by the end of this internship to have a more thorough understanding of the government/citizen relationship, as well as to have contributed on a very personal level to the needs of New Orleans.

-Joseph Lanser

Forget the fairy tale for now. by Cart Weiland

2007-06-18T17:07:00.000-06:00

There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but there is every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from ourselves the gravity of the problems before us nor fearing to approach these problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them aright
-- Teddy Roosevelt

A week ago, I would have told you that New Orleans is rapidly approaching a complete and total recovery from the Katrina disaster that devastated the city almost two years ago. Well, forget the fairy tale, folks. A week ago, I would have been dead wrong.

I suppose that I was somewhat naïve before I arrived. I, like most of America, had followed the headlines in the weeks immediately following the catastrophe, hardly believing the extent of the destruction I witnessed in images on the television screen. My response to Katrina two years ago was utterly generic. I felt terrible for the residents of New Orleans, conversed tritely with others about the disaster, gave a little money to charity, and then soon went about my business. I did not have any personal connection with the place—no family or close friends that were hit—and so other things quickly occupied my time. Subconsciously, I just assumed that progress in New Orleans was being made. I assumed people had moved back, rebuilt, and returned to life as normal.

My assumptions belie the actual situation I have witnessed firsthand in my first few days in the Big Easy, and I am already profoundly struck by immensity of the challenges that lie ahead for the people here. New Orleans, quite literally, is in ruins. Once a city of almost 600,000 people, recent estimates now hover around 200,000. While there are certainly parts of the city that have recovered physically and economically, there are still other, larger areas where rebuilding has yet to begin. Block upon block of blighted houses and boarded-up windows lie untouched in neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward and Lakeview, and even in downtown’s central business district, some restaurants and stores have yet to reopen.

The magic wand that I thought had already been waved over New Orleans simply does not exist. Rebuilding, I have learned this first week, is a long, complicated process that requires the participation and hard work of thousands of people. There are countless non-profit organizations, federal, state, and local government officials, contractors, planners, and architects involved in the process, all of them with different opinions and agendas that must be considered. For me, an inexperienced 21 year old used to the easy, humdrum lifestyle of my college town, this giant rebuilding bureaucracy is confusing and unsettling. At times, coordinating all these individuals seems like a virtually impossible task, but then I pause to remember what exactly is at stake: the preservation of an entire American city.

To throw in the towel and forget about New Orleans would amount to a societal cowardice. We would be turning our back on centuries of history, saying “Sorry, New Orleans, your rich traditions have no cultural value and are not worth saving.” We’d be telling the people here that we are too busy, too tired, or too scared to continue with the monumental rebuilding.

I guess what I’m ultimately saying is this: Perhaps the nebulous web of actors engaged in the Katrina recovery should inspire rather than intimidate. The fact that so many people are involved in the rebuilding efforts speaks to how deeply citizens here care for their city, how willing and able they are to participate in its recovery, and how much they believe in their own future.

-- Cart Weiland

The Big Easy - Tucker Page

2007-06-18T09:29:00.000-06:00

New Orleans is the friendliest city that I have ever visited. Sure, people back home in Portland are friendly, but only if you act friendly around them; Europeans always surprised me with their friendliness toward total strangers when I was in London for study abroad, but New Orleanians take friendliness to an entirely new level. It seems like people here go out of their way to be nice. People actually say hi to each other in New Orleans, or at least acknowledge each other’s existence; the "I'll just walk past you like I don't know you're there" mentality that one sees so frequently at Duke or in big cities like Boston is conspicuously absent here.

I am not entirely sure why all of this friendliness has shocked me so much. I guess I would have thought that people who had so recently gone through such a life-changing event as Hurricane Katrina would have been in worse spirits. What I have seen here, though, has been far more complex. New Orleanians certainly still face innumerable hardships. I have met numerous people whose homes were destroyed; some have rebuilt, but some are still living in FEMA trailers or are still in the process of gutting their houses. One doctor that I work with at the Health Department told me that his wife and children are now living in Baton Rouge while he works in New Orleans; although he visits them on weekends, he told me that after thirty years of marriage, he had never been away from his wife for as long as he had been over the past two years. Nevertheless, people seem to reserve their anger for organizations like FEMA or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and not for other people.

I had never felt uncomfortable being thanked until I came to New Orleans. Everybody thanks us for coming here to volunteer, from my supervisor at the Health Department to my co-workers to completely random people whom I have met around the city. This wouldn’t make me feel so strange if I actually felt like I had already done something meaningful here; we have only been in New Orleans for a week. Even looking toward the future, I don’t feel like I could ever possibly make a dent in the enormous amount of work that everyone at the Health Department has on their plates. I am beginning to think, though, that people just appreciate the idea of us being here more than anything else. No doubt New Orleanians would like us volunteers to actually do something constructive, but the mere fact that we are here in New Orleans seems to be important to them. Just by being here, of course, we are supporting the local economy. On a deeper level, though, I think New Orleanians are happy to see that two years later, people still care about them. Especially as the government continues to renege on many of its promises to those affected by Katrina, it seems as though people here draw emotional support from the fact that the American public has not forgotten about New Orleans.

-Tucker Page

The Soul of New Orleans

2007-06-17T19:51:00.000-06:00

I believe I can
I believe I will
I believe I know my dreams are real
I believe I stand
I believe I'll dance
I believe I'll grow real soon and
That is what I do believe
-Yolanda Adams, “I Believe”

New Orleans has always laid claim to a larger-than-life reputation; for years, it was renowned for its playful defiance of corporate America’s work-driven energy, as best exemplified by the world famous Mardi Gras, an “adult’s playground”. In the past two years, however, the name “New Orleans” most often invokes images of a city in possession of a different, overwhelming presence: desperate residents perched on their rooftops, awaiting rescue; thousands of helpless people crowding the now infamous Superdome in hopes of food or water; spray-painted X’s on home after home, declaring entire neighborhoods uninhabitable. As I prepared for my arrival in Nola, as the locals reference their home, my expectations embodied an odd mixture of the two, of a battered city with a lively party scene. While both components of this prediction are readily apparent to the visitor, what is most striking, and most deserving of a reputation, is the subtle phenomenon of the New Orleans resident.
In an effort to witness this phenomenon firsthand, we elected to visit the annual SoulFest in Audobon Zoo, advertised as a celebration of New Orleans’ rich African-American heritage, and of the cultural tradition that is Soul: food, music, and attitude. While enjoying the music of Yolanda Adams, a modern-gospel musician, a sudden downpour sent many running for the tents. Dripping wet, I looked around the tent to realize I was facing a huge, freshly-painted mural. Noticing my stare, someone handed me a brush and urged me to add whatever I wanted: this was a compilation of New Orleans natives’ ideas and thoughts. And so, with Yolanda Adams singing in the background, I began to take a look into the true spirit of New Orleans, as embodied in their collective artwork. The piece featured what seemed like a million fleur-de-lis, the official symbol of New Orleans, in every color, shape, and size. As I picked up my brush, I was conscious of the company of the other contributors: a combination of old and young, New Orleans natives and recently arrived volunteers, of every race and ethnicity. Mid-stroke, the powerful voice of Yolanda Adams drifted into the tent, at the same time as crowds drifted out of the tents, braving the somewhat diminished rain. Despite the disastrous impact rain has had on their community in the past, the festival revelers sent up thanks for the storm, as it provided respite from the heat. In a celebration of their culture and city, the crowds converged on the dance floor to the sounds of “I Believe”; audibly, the city was reaffirming that which makes it so very special: I believe I can. I believe I will. I believe I know my dreams are real.
My somewhat surreal experience at SoulFest embodied that which I had struggled to define throughout my first week in New Orleans. The city, while undoubtedly deserving of its fame for both disaster and delight, is most remarkable for the outstanding spirit of its residents. Never before have I witnessed so much determination and energy converged in one place; the people are filled with a burning pride in their home, and a strength of faith that permits them to continue to believe in the renaissance of New Orleans. In the face of seemingly unconquerable adversity, the residents have found a way to hold onto their rich past, while moving purposefully toward the future. The soul of the city embodies the clichéd “force to be reckoned with”, a force remarkably capable of defeating the forces of the natural world and the trials of the modern world, a force that I find myself believing in more and more with each experience in captivating Nola.

Jenny Heffernan

Acclimation - Nader Mohyuddin

2007-06-17T19:37:00.000-06:00

VS Naipaul writes in his 1987 novel, The Enigma of Arrival:

To see the possibility, the certainty, of ruin, even at the moment of creation: it was my temperament. Those nerves had been given me as a child in Trinidad partly by our family circumstances: the half-ruined or broken-down houses we lived in, our many moves, our general uncertainty.

Little is certain. After another harrowing finals week in Durham, I had before me several weeks of uncertainty. While I knew mine paled next to those of whom I’d be helping in New Orleans, it bothered me still. I knew summer would be fun—I knew that. But without an idea of where I’d be working, or of details of the meet-up in New Orleans, or of the personalities of those I’d be living with for two months, a lot seemed up in the air. I relaxed when I could, during my month of vegetation at home. Lots of food, video games, basketball, and fun summer outings. Couldn’t complain.

But the details worked themselves out. I’d eventually decided, on a last-second whim, to work with Providence Community Housing, a non-profit housing development group, working in property acquisitions. With my career interest in business, it seemed a good fit; with the tremendous benefits the work could result in (that is, a key step in building homes is to secure the property), it seemed a great fit.

And so June rolls around, my sister graduates high school, I say goodbye to a few friends, and I pack my belongings and head down to the bayou.

A week goes by.

And really, in a whirlwind. Providence ended up a spectacular fit, with consummate professionals in all areas of work, a short commute, and a comfortable working environment. A good friend of mine, Reid Cater, works with me at the office, though is often with another division. Mike Koler works there part-time as well, and may be involved in similar tasks as mine. With my own business card, a cubicle, and three bosses, I feel well acclimated already. I was never a coffee drinker: two days into work, and I can’t go without two cups a day. So it goes.

A brief description of what I do: I accumulate, manage, and analyze databases of potential target properties compiled from multiple sources (City of New Orleans, Housing Agencies, etc.) and examine their desirability for redevelopment. Another project on the horizon will entail assisting the development of a community-wide survey of every house in our target area (just north of Vieux Carre), to get a solid idea on who lives in each house, and what shape (physically and legally) the property is in. Meeting with residents and community “stakeholders” (those with vital interests in the community) for input in the redevelopment process is a key part of Providence’s vision. It is their community: Providence wants to develop it the way they want it. Paramount in this end is the philosophy of one-to-one housing: that is, building exactly as many units as is demolished, to make sure everyone who was displaced has a place to return.

So, I won’t have a lack of things to do. Sure, it’s a very “office” kind of job. (They are getting a new watercooler this week, in fact. Here comes the gossip.) But the cause is a great one, and they are taking the lead on all sorts of work, from community outreach, maintaining contact with refugees spread across 37 states, to lobbying Congress to ensure money allocation is done in the best interest of those most affected. Altogether, I don’t think I could’ve hoped for a better company, a better job for my interests and skills, and a better way to work this summer.

But summer isn’t all about work. Certainly not in New Orleans…to do so would be to belie the history and traditions we are working to restore. Fun is in no short quantity here. St. Charles Avenue is an architectural landmark, along with the rest of the Garden District. Just gorgeous. The food (non-dining hall, that is) has been good, but there’s certainly more to come. Delmonico anyone? The French Quarter, is, well, an icon. From the packed streets, to the legendary balconies, the fun is raging 24 hours a night. Old Bruno's on Maple is great, and Magazine Street has been a quieter, and personally more enjoyable destination, but fun spots seem to be all over the city.

There’s still a lot to do, no doubt. A bus tour of the Katrina destruction was certainly sobering. Virtual ghost towns that were bustling just two years ago. The water lines in particular are rather poignant. But, as the tour guide noted in her very slight Louisiana accent, there’s a lot already underway. For all the (deserved) anger at FEMA, The Road Home, and other inefficient bodies, the one force that even Katrina can not quell is that of human compassion. With thousands of volunteers in the area, work is getting done. Gutting houses, putting up drywall, painting houses in classically bright New Orleans color schemes—homes and businesses are slowly coming back to life. And with those come communities, and with communities comes a city. Long considered “the biggest little city in America,” New Orleans has had a variety of small, vibrant neighborhoods that had their own personal flavors. Working to restore these communities, which Providence is doing, is a key part of restoring New Orleans to what it was. And to help that cause is rewarding in any number of ways.

Arrival may be enigmatic, but life moves a little slower by the mighty Mississippi. With steamboats still chugging, with rum flowing like wine, and with muggy summer nights punctuated with the sweet swing of street jazz, it’s better just to take it easy.

The Water is Falling -Reid Cater

2007-06-17T17:58:00.002-06:00

How can you not feel good when the water is falling?

There are a lot of reasons not to feel good in New Orleans, especially if you have lost your home and don't have the money or experience to even begin to rebuild. Yet, there I was at a meeting for homeowners who had lost everything and I was being asked how someone could not feel good. Looking outside the window of the trailer at a former church and school, now a warehouse and headquarters for Catholic Charities' Operation Helping Hands. I began to understand what that could mean. Progress may be painfully slow, but New Orleans is healing. People are slowly finding the money and help to turn their gutted houses back into homes. Working with Operation Helping Hands through DukeEngage this summer I hope that I will be able to watch the water continue to fall and maybe pump a little out myself.

Operation Helping Hands is a division of Catholic Charities that works with homeowners of all faiths to repair and rebuild their homes. We have programs that bring in volunteers from across the country to gut houses and do exterior work, i.e. painting, as well as a rebuilding program that guides homeowners through the process of completely renovating their gutted homes. (Since I am working with them as an intern this summer I guess that I can say "we" though I don't feel like I have earned that yet.)

An hour or so into my first day I found myself dialing the number of a Katrina survivor who had called our helpline, wondering what I would say. I had been given the job of calling people back and figuring out if they fit into one of our programs. After several calls and plenty of questions for my boss I began to get the hang of the calls. Some of the the people who called in needed help gutting their homes. Gutting is the process of tearing out all the drywall and destroyed personal items in a house and it is the first step towards rebuilding. However most of the callers had gutted their homes and were ready for the next and much more difficult step of putting the "guts" back into their houses so that they could finally move home.

Helping Hands provides gutting and painting free for those in need using volunteer labor and donations. Since most volunteers are not skilled enough to wire a home or put in the plumbing and dry wall the rebuilding program focuses on putting homeowners in contact with reputable contractors (working the phones I heard several stories about contractors who literally left holes in the walls) and acting as a mediator between the homeowner and contractor during the rebuilding process. Homeowners pay for the work themselves using funds from insurance or from "The Road Home" (a convoluted, federally-funded state-run, privately adminstrated-program that seems to be widely despised). Often there is a significant gap between the cost of rebuilding and a homeowner's avaliable funds. In these cases Helping Hands tries to fill the gap with donated materials and skilled volunteers. It is my job to explain all this to people who are desperate to move back into their homes as soon as possible. If they are interested I invite them to one of our meetings where they can hear more (from people who have been with helping hands much longer) and sign up if they like the program.

At the meeting I saw dozens of people packed into a small tralier on the grounds of St. Raymond's Church which was itself flooded in the storm. Many were elderly an/or disabled and all were fighting the frustration of being out of their homes for two years. And yet, after the meeting it was one of them who reminded me that no matter how bad things were or still are here on the Gulf, the waters are falling.

Week One- Dana Stefanczyk

2007-06-17T16:39:00.000-06:00

The first thing I noticed about New Orleans was the heat. And around Xavier, the emptiness. Homes and buildings stand abandoned here and sometimes it can seem so desolate. Images of the surroundings make it easier to see why tourists are so welcomed here.

After tours of campus and the surrounding area, we went to our first experience of the French Quarter, and what I believe was our first experience of true New Orleans culture. The seafood fest consisted of people milling about while live music was being played. Some people were sitting out and baking in the sun, others were dancing barefoot. We were still getting to know each other. The striking thing, and something I later found to be consistent, was the mood of the place. People are relaxed, and carefree, and take it easy. And they love that we are here.

One Monday we went on a bus tour of the city, a trip that took us through the eclectic mix that is New Orleans. St. Charles Ave. consisted of some of the most beautiful mansions I have ever seen in every style of architecture under the sun. The French Quarter is a like something out of a storybook, with its colorful houses painting the streets with icing. And then there are the areas that were much harder hit by Katrina, and though they are rundown and abandoned, they still hold that mood.

Work has been a different experience for all. Personally I have been very welcomed by the Public Health Dept., and was surprised at how excited they are to have me there. I have been working with other to set up Medical Vans, and it is nice to feel like I am having a tangible impact on the city, and to have people care about what I am doing.

I am trying as hard as I can to immerse myself in this city, for better or for worse, to experience everything it has to offer. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." And when in New Orleans, talk to everyone, go everywhere, do anything possible to live this city.

Andy Winslow

2007-06-17T10:40:00.000-06:00

Week I (Sunday, June 10, 2007 – Saturday, June 16, 2007):

My first impressions of New Orleans save the airport and the humidity were very positive. Riding down the freeway to Xavier University, where DukeEngage NOLA will be staying, I tried to maintain a conversation with Dr. Schaad, our faculty advisor, and look out the window to take in New Orleans. Something had to give, and unfortunately for Dr. Schaad, my gaze out the window wasn’t moving.

I didn’t see anything that profound or unexpected, which, I guess, is an observation in itself. I had expected to see decrepit and abandoned buildings, boarded houses, and a bit of the bayou shrubbery that a Minnesotan never gets to experience. Since Xavier is right off of the freeway in a fairly urban setting, our drive didn’t expose all that much of New Orleans. It was our later trip to a restaurant on Decateur St. called Tujagues, adjacent to the famous Café Du Monde and the mighty Mississippi, which provided our first tour of some of the devastating effects of Katrina.

Perhaps the most compelling observation I made was on the facades of a number of the houses on our drive to Tujagues. I noticed a spray painted ‘X’ adjacent to a date and a separate number. Dr. Schaad informed me that the fire department came through New Orleans after the storm and flooding and knocked on the doors to make sure nobody was inside. They surveyed each of the houses, recording the date and the number of bodies found in the house. Though these visual images set a profound image in my mind, the reality is that this district, as I would find, was not the hardest hit area (click the ‘regional picture’ tab).

The restaurant gave a survey of the Creole cuisine, which was a great way to start off DukeEngage NOLA. After exploring the town Sunday with the other members of the program, we headed to work the next morning. I work with Kristin Bova for the City of New Orleans Department of Public Works. I didn’t know what to expect, given that there were probably a number of Katrina-related problems the department was dealing with and that this was my first real exposure to engineering outside of the classroom or laboratory. I walked away from the first day with a bit of an ambiguous feeling about the internship, but this was only due to some unsure feelings I had about my actual job duties. The next day, we were introduced to our supervisor; he listed a myriad of problems the Public Works Department had on its agenda, giving the impression that there was plenty for us to do.

As it turned out, the office is a great place, the people are friendly, laid back, and they rarely make it to the office before 9:00 AM. We were assigned the task of going in the field to the historic French Quarter to survey some of the street corners in effort to make the curbs ADA compliant, a project that both of us have thoroughly enjoyed thus far. Indeed, as fun as the job we are doing is in comparison to the other DukeEngage internships, part of me had hoped that the work would have more of a direct relation to Katrina and its after-effects. The Quarter, after all, is set near the River on the highest ground in New Orleans and was mainly unscathed by Katrina. My work felt a lot better when I grasped the idea that the Department of Public Works lost 70% of its manpower during the storm, a seemingly incomprehensible loss to a department that was already falling behind.

Finally, part of the group went out to the Mississippi river Saturday night and we enjoyed the sunset and a walk through the French Quarter. Our night included a stop at Café Du Monde. From my personal experience, beignets are the greatest thing known to man, but attempting to eat more than five of them in one sitting is never a good choice…

-AW

DukeEngage New Orleans : June 10 - Aug 5, 2007

2007-06-07T18:50:00.000-06:00

Duke University students will be intimately involved in the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast community. Working with local and state agencies in the New Orleans area, volunteers will help with the engineering work of rebuilding and neighborhood planning, community development and housing advocacy, and environmental work

Students:
Clark Daniel
Nader Mohyuddin
Randy Chen
Matthew Short
Alicia Zelek
Reid Cater
Jenny Heffernan
Tucker Page
Dana Stefanczyk
Burke Thomas
Joseph Williamson
Theresa Cho
Cart Weiland
Michael Koler
Joe Lanser
Bibek Joshi
Kristen Bova
Andrew Winslow
Sam Bowler