In addition to the French Quarter, we began visiting the city's lower ninth ward and the group which helped make it inhabitable.

Common Ground:

Malik Rahim is a respected member of the black community who talks a lot like the white radical kids you see around, using similar words and concepts. The divide between young white middle-class leftists and the poor and minority groups they claim to advocate for, which cripples the left in so many American places seems in some way bridged by his presence.

He speaks plainly and simply, still his words are broad in scope, and his focus is on coalition and generosity. “It’s not the American people that’s a asshole, it’s the government that’s a asshole,” he said to a crowd in Congo Square at a rally linking Katrina response and the Iraq war. “The army didn’t come down here to do no rescue, they came down here to put down a rebellion.”

On September 1st, just after the flood hit, Rahim, a former Black Panther and cofounder of the Louisiana Green Party, issued a statement entitled “This is Criminal.” White vigilante gangs, he said, were shooting “any young Black they see who they figure doesn’t belong in their community.” Amtrak trains could have been used to help in the evacuation but weren’t, and school busses that could have helped were instead left to be destroyed by the flood.

Parks and schools of the undamaged Algiers neighborhood that could have held 40,000 people weren’t used at all, the statement continued, and people from surrounding towns who went into the city with boats to bring survivors out were told by law enforcement that they weren’t needed.

Rahim’s statement was circulated around the country through community radio and activist groups. Within days, volunteers began arriving at his house. He credits these mostly white volunteers with defusing the violence and racial tension. “That's what stopped it, when they start seeing young whites sitting on my porch protecting me."

More volunteers arrived, they cleaned some buildings to live in and began working—gutting houses, and setting up a free health clinic and a free kitchen, legal work and media support.

This was the beginning of Common Ground. In the early days, relations were tense between CG and the police. I heard stories of volunteers traveling only in groups, and always with a video camera, to tape police who tried to harass them, and record badge numbers.

By spring police pressure had eased considerably. Still, if stopped by any authority while on our way to visit CG, we were advised to not mention any connection with them or we would more likely be harassed or arrested. Groups with corporate or non-profit sponsorship who helped CG in any way had to do so secretly, or risk losing their sponsorship. While supplies flowed freely into our camp in St. Bernard, goods were in short supply down at CG.

Still the group thrived. In addition to gutting houses and running health clinics, they started a “bioremediation” program, planting plants which detoxify soil, and offered workshops. Later they moved into a school building where volunteers slept in classrooms and meals were served in the gym.

Mardi Gras:

Personally, I enjoyed this, my first ever Mardi Gras. People in New Orleans have been making an art of partying for generations now, and when a people does something long enough, they get damn good at it.

There was a lot of nervous anticipation. The city had, in a sense, staked its reputation on it, and there was relief when the crowds did, in fact, turn out. The media spun the success of Mardi Gras into the lie that the city was back on its feet, when in fact, all it meant was that the French quarter bars and tourist shops could stay open. The destroyed neighborhoods were unaffected by the party.

Disasters and the Disruption of the Normal:

Although humanity, at the dawn of this 21st century, possesses astounding technological capabilities, it's become apparent that we're not organizing our use of them very effectively. We are, in essence, a giant burning machine, and we are burning ever faster. All attempts to slow this burning have failed, and our species appears at times to be on a death march, one supported by institutions and infrastructure.

What to say, then, of a weather phenomenon, likely caused from the heat of this burning, which, in a particular region, brings this entire process to a grinding halt? The answer cannot be simple. Amidst the tragedy there must be opportunity. Amidst the confusion there must be lessons. There must be all kinds of things to learn from Katrina.

In the disaster zone, with normal American 21st century life disrupted beyond anyone's repair and the immediate future a wide open possibility, it becomes possible to learn things about people and about oneself that cannot be learned in places where cars drive everywhere and sympathy is seen as weakness.

Living in a relief camp with no need for earning or spending money enables people to spend as much time as they want volunteering. One can look at the community around him and ask, "What can I do to be helpful?" and then act, in a simple, immediate way that is not usually possible.

Bikes:

For me the answer came in the form of a pile of abandoned bikes and bike parts lying on the edge of the lot. (I saw these abandoned bikes much as a counselor might see orphaned or sick children, needing direction and a chance to be useful members of society.)

I began fixing them with what few tools I had, running back and forth to the tool shed across camp to sign out a wrench or screwdriver when one was available. Seeing my predicament, people passing by throughout the day began donating extra tools, and in a few days or a week I had all the tools I needed, including a pump. People also began clueing me in to abandoned bikes around the town, often going out and delivering them back to me. One day, the owner of a bike shop donated thirty used bikes piled in his garage.

Soon enough I had a whole operation going. I began maintaining a fleet of about ten bikes for use by volunteers. They would borrow a bike for a few hours or for the afternoon and then return it. Starting from virtually nothing, and spending almost no money at all, I was able to service the bicycling needs of the community of a hundred volunteers.

My experience with the bikes, which I would describe as magical, illustrates something about the possibilities of what people can do with a little time, space, freedom and co-operation.

Though I didn't fully understand it at the time, my main role was not so much bike mechanic as the facilitator of a space in which bikes could be fixed and lent out, and people could give and receive in a new way.

Amidst the chaotic rearrangements, I supplied a most basic level of organization, based around generosity, and was able to attract the focus and generous impulses of others, so that the project became, in a sense, alive.

Other services were offered, to volunteers and residents alike, such as free massages and naturopathic care. We were able to experiment with these, and learn things about health that—for me, anyway—would otherwise have been too expensive and pressurized in a world in which "time is money."

Just as I hadn't touched a bike in twenty years before arriving there, a lot of people did things in the camp they'd never done before. The bike co-op came from nowhere, and came from all of us. It’s not so much about bikes as this: Something happened which no one—least of all I—would have thought possible. This begs the question: What else can happen when the usual barriers come down and people are allowed to work together in a simple, direct fashion?

Why don't spontaneous, co-operative efforts like this occur naturally here in Cambridge or Somerville which haven't seen disaster—or have we already been hit by a disaster, of a social and political nature?

Poisoned:

Anything that has ever been dumped into a river that flows into the Mississippi since the beginning of the industrial revolution, as well as any of the oil and chemicals spills which Katrina caused, including the Murphy oil spill just a few miles away, could have ended up on the bikes we worked on, the ground we stepped on and the dust we breathed, and could be inside us. The list is too long. Arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, E. Coli, salmonella, yeast, all kinds of carcinogens. And mold.

I'd been fighting off "Katrina cough" and other, presumably toxin-related symptoms for about five weeks. And as the weather warmed and more people took interest in bikes, I was pressed to begin donating bikes to parish residents, instead of keeping them in the camp for volunteers only. Since most residents didn’t want to borrow bikes but rather take them permanently, this strained our resources. And as word spread that we were beginning to give them away, and more and more residents arrived looking for free bikes, I became the target of sob stories, lies, threats, and, worst of all, theft. At the same time more volunteers wanted to ride in the nice weather, and I found myself in the middle of a shortage.

I'll spare the details and simply say: shortages do not tend to bring out the best in people. The magic and success seemed to have mysteriously turned against me. At the time I had the inexperienced idea that if I just worked a little harder I could satisfy demand, not realizing that the more I worked the higher the expectation, and the more time I spent in the shop the more people could request or demand of me. I worked ever harder trying to reach the mythical point of satisfaction just around the corner, after which I would supposedly regain control. With a few days off for Mardi Gras, of course, which was exhausting in its own way.

Just a few days after Fat Tuesday, we had a particularly productive day in which two new volunteers and I fixed about six bikes, yet ended up the day with two less bikes than we'd started, the rest having been stolen while we were busy working. Bikes had been disappearing at a relatively stable rate of three every four days, about three-quarters of a bike per day. So the idea that more volunteers and more productivity only led to a logarithmic increase in theft was a stunning blow.

Somehow between this disappointment, the rising stress, the late nights in the French quarter, and the buildup of toxins—I became suddenly, intensely ill.

No more bikes for me. Interestingly, as soon as I got sick, all the pressure ceased. No one asked for any more bikes because no one expected any. I'd accidentally solved the problem. Too bad I couldn't have solved it sooner, in a less drastic manner. I spent two weeks at a volunteer retreat up the bayou, with mosquitos, snakes, alligators, “Looters will be shot” signs and other burnt out volunteers, before returning, still sapped of energy, to EC for my last two weeks in the area.

The awful substances had finally gotten to me. But which substances were where, and just what should we do about it? Where are the soil testers? Where are the doctors who know? Where are the people who can help us with this?

No-one seemed to know. Even worse, few seemed to even want to discuss it. Hopefully next disaster season the science and medical communities will be more involved with EC and other grassroots groups. I can only describe it this way: So much of this was new to everyone, they did the best they could under difficult circumstances, but, from what I could see, this subject was essentially overlooked.

Police Harassment

In the winter, when Common Ground volunteers were getting harassed regularly by police in New Orleans, we considered ourselves lucky out in St. Bernard Parish, where things were quiet on that front. Interestingly, a month later the police had laid off of CG, and St. Bernard Sheriff's department was coming down more and more heavily on us. First they began stopping and searching folks found biking or walking off the grounds after dark. Then they set up a few blocks away, stopping cars after they pulled out of the lot. Arrests, and beatings, began happening more and more frequently. Every two or three days, another arrest. Once they arrested two guys from our camp, and brought them back to the camp and searched their tents. Helicopter flyovers, originally one or two per day, increased to four or five per day, and they began coming in lower.

While some of the local politicians were on our side, they seemed to have little influence over the sheriff, who apparently operated with a good deal of autonomy.

The helicopter flyovers and arrests were very much like those at a large political demonstration. The mold which permeated the area even smelled like tear gas, adding to the demo ambience.

People up here ask me, "You mean you went down there to help people and they still arrested you?" Yes, I tell them, that’s what I mean.

My last week around the camp was calm and reflective. As my energy was low, I spent a lot of time sitting around, waiting for a scheduled departure. I cursed the toxins and my own inability to help out more, like a depressed guy who lost his job and goes around glaring at people. Still, as I knew I would soon leave, I took a good look around me. I'd never seen anything like this before. Quite possibly there has never been anything like this before.

I sat in the "courtyard" surrounded by facility tents, watching the dish pit crew, young people washing tirelessly. Kitchen workers walking back and forth getting supplies. People going in to clean the dining tables. Johnny Cash songs echoing off the cement courtyard. People around a table taking a smoke break. I watched the way people moved around, with an understanding, a shared sense of purpose, that was unspoken. Working as hard as one might in a restaurant job or some other job back home, but with no boss, and for no pay. I could criticize their docile attitude toward the police, or their lack of a coherent political position. But despite the quirks, annoyances and disagreements that are inevitable in any group, this Made with Love Cafe really was made with love.

I could take it for granted the rest of the time, but watching it as if from a distance my last few days, I knew I would miss this place, most particularly this unspoken understanding that we are all here for the same reason, to help out, everyone around us. Central Square or Inman Square, or inside some restaurant or store, it just wouldn't be the same.