Reflection

I’m wary of the self-fulfillment stories that typically follow a service trip. I was bolstered in that opinion by George Clooney’s recent comments about his visit to the refugee camps in Chad. “I don’t think people should be going there and coming back and saying how it affected them,” Clooney said. “I think we should all know that these people are hanging on by the skin of their teeth.” The story I want to tell is about disaster relief, and what happens to a community after the initial flood (pardon the pun) of response dies down.

In conversations with survivors of the hurricane, what comes across is a sense of resilience and anger. Psychologists might characterize these victims as traumatized, and indeed they seem to view the world through a unique filter that thankfully most of us will never know. Many residents feel twice victimized, once by Nature and then by Humankind. I can only imagine how they feel watching Bobby Jindal proudly talk about Louisiana’s response to the Hurricane, while defending his decision to reject spending targeted for his state.

After the photographers leave, after the journalists start chasing other stories, the people of New Orleans remain hopeful and in need. Their houses are shuttered, the residents scattered to states near and far. The politics of poverty are evident everywhere. You have to see it to believe it.

In the end, of course, I did come away with my own story of personal change. But that’s not for this piece. I’ll leave with a story that someone else experienced. A homeowner, observing a member of our group taking pictures of his devastated house, asked her to come back after he had a chance to mow the lawn. I left New Orleans thinking about the humanity of that moment, and the people of Hollygrove, proud and resilient folks who, with a bit more help will surely rise again.

Heidi Brown