Steve Iskovitz New Orleans report #3 Feb 9, 2006 10:20 PM

Hello from St. Bernard's Parish, just outside New Orleans. I'm living in a tent city run by a new non-profit called Emergency Communities, which serves about 1300 meals a day to the people who've returned to their town which was covered under about 20 feet of water for a week or two last fall.

So what's happened since my last report? A lot of new volunteers have arrived. For once there are people from places other than Michigan and Wisconsin. A dozen high school kids from some cool alternative school in northern California, two people from New Hampshire, a guy from Somerville, others from various places, and two Americorps crews. The Americorps kids live in a camp run by the US Army, with curfews, i.d. checks and all that, and come here in the day to work. There are probably about 120 here now. A guy brought two teepees. Another guy build a tree-house about 20 feet off the ground.

The other night I hung around the campfire that's out in the field on the way to the tents and enjoyed it for the first time. Previously the campfire was a scene of tragedy, inhabited by people on the verge of being bounced from the camp by security, and even the scene of some attempted bounces, a depressing place which always made me feel awful. This last time, though, people talked softly, told jokes and stories, and created a really nice cohesive feeling, the kind I'm accustomed to from rainbow gatherings. For once I felt relaxed and accepted in a way I hadn't my whole two-and-a-half weeks here.

Although the population of the camp is increasing and the scene is in many ways improving, the end of this Made With Love Cafe is clearly in sight. First of all, hurricane season starts June 1. Secondly, as the parish gets back on its feet, restoring basic services, and as more people get their FEMA trailers, the forces of normality-- which as a rule don't tolerate tent cities and hippie kitchens in their towns in the first place-- are expected to close in on us. The other night two guys from here out on a night bike ride were harassed by police, who tried to scare one guy into digging up dirt on us. The helicopters which fly over every day seem to be coming lower.

Notice I said the parish is getting back on its feet rather than getting back to normal. St. Bernard Parish will never return to normal. Only one-twelfth of the pre-flood population has returned, and only a total of one-sixth are expected to ever return. The old tight-knit community of friends and relatives who've lived here for generations is gone forever. Where did they go? Baton Rouge, Texas, Slidell, Gulfport, Tennessee, Denver, and northern Alabama are some places I've heard of. Most of these people, it seems, are not happy with their new homes. How can northern Alabama compare with the parish just outside New Orleans, said a guy whose wife, kids and cousins moved up there.

What choice did they have, though? Why stay and rebuild, in a place which is considered likely to flood again in the next year or two? Most people have made what seems the more reasonable choice of relocating, and so, the old parish is dead, gone forever.

If our time here is distinctly finite, and it's unclear why we should want to help people relocate to a possibly doomed location, then what are we doing here, what are we building? These questions haunted me over the past week or so, making me so cynical that at times I nearly packed up and left.

Recently I feel like I have an answer to these questions: Aside from helping the locals, in our own way, to move back here, for better or worse, we are building something. It's not this particular camp, so much as the organization, and general idea, of Emergency Communities. The identity of EC is somewhat confused, undefined. I felt the effects of this lack of identity personally, and I saw it as a negative factor. My new attitude says: Of course it's undefined, it's too young to know exactly what it is yet. It began spontaneously last fall in Waveland, Mississippi, became a non-profit around December, and then moved here.

Emergency Communities will outlive this Made With Love Cafe in St. Bernard Parish. We may pack up and move out of here this spring, but there will be more disasters, and EC' response might improve by then, having already gone through the preliminaries here.

As for me, I've gotten some help in the bike shop. Two young guys have come by and started working on bikes, relieving me to work more on my bike cart idea, as well as other jobs. Yes, I'm still talking abouot my bike carts, and no, I still haven't made one. Even this, though, I see with a new attitude, a new patience. Rather than beating myself up over taking so long to do something I imagine a lot of other people might be able to do faster, I say instead that I'm inventing something (whether or not it's been done before this way), and you can't apply a strict timetable to that process.

And I no longer feel, as I had, that I might be seen as taking time away from more sensible projects around the camp, since people are now specifically requesting that I build bike carts, for the upcoming Mardi Gras parade. St. Bernard Parish is having its first ever Mardi Gras parade and has invited us. The stated purpose of the carts isn't so important to me. They can paint them up and use them in a parade or take them to deliver meals to house-bound people. To me it's an opportunity to learn how to build them and try out different models. Besides, once they're built, they can be used for multiple reasons.