Monday, November 6— I've taken on the job of librarian here. I made some nice shelves, cleared out an area, etc. People seem to appreciate it, they come every day and take stuff out. I don't know if there even is another library or bookstore in the whole parish, it might be 50 miles or so to the nearest book source (just a guess).

The only problem is the books we have aren't the greatest. I know some of you have extra books you were at one time talking about getting rid of.

All kinds of books are welcome: Books on rebuilding, kids' books, novels of all sorts, history, etc.

Also warm clothes— toys, sports equipment — tools—If you have these items and would like to donate them, you should package them tightly in boxes, and label the contents.

Terra Friedrichs, who lives in Acton and co-ordinates shipments of goods down here, says if you can pack the books tightly in boxes and label them with our address she'll pick them up from you. Contact her if you have questions:

terraf@compuserve.com

(978) 266-2778

You can address the boxes:

Steve Iskovitz, Emergency Communities, 36342 Highway 11, Buras, LA 70041

The government tells us—don’t feed those people

Wednesday, October 18

Greetings from Plaquemines Parish. It's very isolated down here. It's almost like a different country, I guess, and that was even before the storm. This area was wrecked bad by the storm, even worse than St. Bernard where I was before.

I just got in last night and still haven't seen a whole lot, but I'll tell you about the basics. This camp is a lot smaller than the one in St. Bernard. I arrived with a few others, and now we're up to thirty volunteers. We're set up in the building of an old YMCA. Everything was ruined except for the structure of the building, so they put the kitchen, dining area, play area, and computer room, where I'm sitting now. Next building over is where people set up tents for sleeping.

They speak in a southern, Louisiana drawl, with some Spanish and French thrown in. I like the way they talk, and they're friendly. Most of them work on boats catching fish, crabs, scallops.

FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) is universally despised in this parish, since they've done next to nothing to help anyone here.

Some people in other parts of the country might say: Why should they? The area is prone to more flooding. How much money should the country spend on an area which is doomed anyway? Nature is on the verge of wiping this area off the map, why fight nature?

I won't speak to this argument either way. I'll say only that there is a unique culture down here, and most of these people barely ever left the area before the flood. Now a lot of them are relocated in North Carolina and other places, but some returned because they didn't want to give it up.

They all hate FEMA, and most of them love us volunteers. "Thank God for y'all," someone said to me today.

A few restaurant owners nearby don't like us, they say we're taking business from them. So the rule is that we're not allowed to feed contractors, just residents. No-one likes this rule, and someone told me that some of the contractors are people from Mississippi who lost everything in the storm and came here for work, why shouldn't we share our food with them? Still, the Parish threatened to shut us down if they catch us feeding contractors.

It's crazy, but of course it's not the only crazy thing about the whole Katrina mess. Remember the claim that Katrina was not a natural disaster but a man-made one.

Speaking of that, during our drive here from the New Orleans bus station in the dark, people pointed out to me a huge FEMA trailer park, in Plaquemines, north of here. Word is there are about 300 trailers, housing people from all over—the Lower Ninth, Plaquemines, etc.

Get this: Though people have trailers, many of them have no money, and apparently FEMA doesn't serve meals! Since it's many miles from any stores or anything, and there's no public transportation, some people are actually going hungry!

Supposedly there's prostitution, drugs, and shootings, there in the camp. People from our camp tried to go in to serve meals there, but FEMA security guards wouldn't let them in! Since FEMA is connected with Homeland Security, it sounds a bit like Guantanamo or some other prison camp.

When my bus pulled out of Boston's South Station last week, we stopped at a red light and I looked around. There we were in the middle of the Big Dig. I thought of the irony of my trip taking me from the Big Dig to Katrina, likely two of the Federal government's biggest domestic screw-ups ever.

Steve Iskovitz, a member of Mystic River Green-Rainbow Action, spent several months working for Emergency Communities and CommonGround in Louisiana last year. He has written about his experiences there for The Bridge.