New Orleans

 

Spread the word. This was sent from a friend of mine, Justin Hite, around November 1st, 2005:

I've been in New Orleans working with a group called Common Ground
since October 4. I came down with my friend Ryan, who took two weeks off at
Cornell (without telling his professors). For the first week or so I
worked all over the place, and the experience was very positive and I felt
good at the end of every day. Then I started working in the 9th Ward and
emotionally I collapsed.

I've continued working on Common Ground's 9th  Ward
project, and have taken on much of the day to day organizing. Our 9th
Ward project is run by an extremely talented and revolutionary man named
Branden (pictured with the red cross volunteer on common ground's 9th ward
photo webpage), and I'm learning and doing an insane amount of work everyday.
I've been setting up and living at Common Ground's new 9th Ward
Community and Distribution Center for almost a week now. We have no power, no
phones, and we're under hard core curfew lock down with way too many angry and
overtly aggressive cops swarming all over us. The 9th Ward has been
completely neglected by all governmental and aid agencies, and from the
militant animosity coming towards us from the NOPD and Homeland
Security, it seems that they don't want there to be any community organizing or aid
in the 9th Ward.

I just read through this email, and wanted to insert here that the
second
part of the next paragraph is graphic and disgusting and can be
skipped.

My flight back to Ithaca left about five days ago without me. There
was no
way I could get on that flight and live with myself. I've seen
terrible
things here. The situation is so much worse, so much more desperate
than I
could hope to convey through words right now. A dead rottweiler,
molten
with decay hanging by it's ass from the top of a fence around a 9th
Ward
house fence post two months after the storm might describe it. I'm no
squeamish about dead animals and I have little attachment towards dogs
and
cats; what kills me inside is seeing the state the dead pets are in and
knowing that they look so much like the dead people still decaying
inside
their homes. So many of the 9th Ward homes have NE tagged on their
stoops
and doors, meaning No Entry, meaning they have still not been searched
for
bodies.

And the people. Their lives have been so completely destroyed and they
are
getting no help. And almost no one down here in the richer and
non-flooded
neighborhoods seems to know or care. It hurts so much having to drive
through the French Quarter or other areas of town to get supplies and
see
the smiling faces and then think of the forgotten devestation only a
few
miles away. It hurts so much having a 9th Ward house with a looter in
it
surrounded by myself, my new friend Emily, and two 9th Ward residents
(Birdie and Alfred), and having the Sheriff we flagged down as he drove
by
just look us over, stare blankly for a while, think for a while longer,
and
then speed off and leave us there with nothing to do.
It hurts so much looking a single picture of a man's daughter - the
only
thing he salvaged from the roof of the house he spent four days on
after the
storm - as he stands there weeping in front of strangers. It hurts so
much
taking a 16 year old local kid birding for the first time along the
levee,
watching him get genuinely excited by the migrating cuckoos and
warblers in
the willows, and then finding out that the week before I got here more
than
15 squad cars showed up here at Common Ground where he was staying,
drag him
into the street for allegedly steeling a cooler, beating him there in
front
of everyone, and then taking him off to jail for a night and beating
him
more while he was there. I didn't bring my binoculars down here and he
bought himself and me $20 pairs a week ago.
Would someone send me a bird book to give to him?

I brought a copy of Grapes of Wrath with me, and one line in particular
rings true in New Orleans. "There is a crime here beyond denunciation.
There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a
failure
here that topples all our success."

I've more or less given up my former life and will be living here
indefinitely. We need aid and we need volunteers. As soon as I can
I'll
send a wish list of things that the communities down here could use the
most. But we need volunteers more than anything else right now. Short
term
and long term, commitments of a few days to a few weeks to a few months
or
more. We're getting 300 volunteers down here over Thanksgiving, and
would
love that number to be closer to 1000 in case you've got nothing to do
over
thanksgiving. Please consider it, and tell others. At
www.commongroundrelief.org  you can find some information on Common
Ground in
general, and the 9th Ward project in particular which I am focused on
(some
of the pictures i've taken in the 9th Ward are at
http://www.oberlin.edu/student/awrichar/images/Photos%20from%20Common%20Ground/  ).
You can also download interviews; the one I would recommend the most
is
"Malik Rahim speaks at Common Ground about the problems after Katrina
and
the origins of Common Ground". And you can call me for more
information.
My phone broke a few days ago, but I am using the 9th Ward cell phone:
504-913-9691. (This also means I lost everyone's phone number that I
had in
my phone, so please do call me so I can get your number again.and free
conversations for anyone with verizon).

Finally, a big thank you to everyone who has supported me financially,
emotionally, and with research help. We should have internet access at
our
9th Ward center within a week (generator that charges deep-cell
batteries
that run a wireless connection, mainly so residents can file FEMA paper
work
from the 9th Ward but also so that volunteers can do research and have
contact with the rest of the world), and I will email more then. I'm
super
rushed for time right now (I'm across the river in Algiers to pick up a
shipment of supplies and to send this email) and can't add everyone's
email
to this list, so please please forward this to others who would be
interested (I'm thinking in particular Mono Lake and PRBO folks,
family, and
Cornell folks, and longtime friends).

For at least the last 2 weeks, I haven't had more than a few free
minutes to
stop and step back from what I'm doing and look at it. I have no clue
how
New Orleans figures currently in the news or the national conscience.
I have no clue of the extent or lack thereof that Common Ground is
providing
in the larger sense. I do know that the need is urgent and that my
life has
been completely transformed. I feel shattered and stressed to the
limit yet
also supremely happy and proud. For those of you who know me well, the
fact
that I've started smoking to help deal with the insane stress should
underscore the desperation of this situation. I feel like I have
pre-post-traumatic stress syndrome and i'm not just crying but weeping
every
fucking day. I have so many stories and more than 800 pictures so far
to go
with those stories. As soon as I can I'll get some of the pictures
organized well and send them out.give me a week though. A lot of my
pictures are on the CG website, among the pictures others have taken.

Ok, that's it for now. I love you all.

Justin

ps I really need a little vacation one of these days. But I need
someone
to replace me while I'm gone, and currently our volunteer situation is
on
the decline, I guess because it's just been so long since the storm.
So
I'm hoping that at least one person who gets this email can make it
down
here sooner rather than later to learn the ropes and allow me to
disappear
into the bayou for half a week to look for birds and water moccasins
and
alligators and something sublime in the cypress swamp

NOVEMBER 14 UPDATE

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