New Orleans part 2

I just remembered I have something to do this afternoon, so I’m going to post a bit early today, a surprise for my lovely readers.

So, New Orleans.

It’s hard to say, I think I brought in a lot of feelings about it before we even got there, so I preface my thoughts with the knowledge that some of the things I think about it might be me putting my own emotions on the situation.

But ultimately? I felt really sad about NO.

The people seemed tired, the buildings seemed tired. There was a desperation and an anger that couldn’t be muted.



Granted, we saw the French Quarter and only the French Quarter, but that just proves my point even more I think. Because there’s no doubt that as you move away from there it must just get angrier and more desperate.

Sabrina’s mom said something that really stuck with me. She said that after Katrina, 80% of the doctors left. EIGHTY PERCENT. And I started thinking about the only type of devastation that I could compare this to was the Chicago Fire of 1871. After the fire, EVERYONE came here. It was a boom, a total boom. There were so many possibilities, it was a new chance, the phoenix rises and every Easterner wanted a piece. Sullivan came here after the fire, a chance of a lifetime to build buildings he wanted.

But everyone left NO. Why? I don’t know. Afraid it would happen again? Tired already from the way it was run before? A chance to escape for real now?

The clerks in stores were so friendly, so so so friendly and they begged us to move there, construction men walking into the stores trying to find work or they’re going to have to get divorced, Katrina books on every counter, every newspaper had it on their front page, white people spending money in the streets while the black people held open doors.

There seems to me, and again, take this with a grain of salt, it felt really…hopeless. Not hopeful. Not building a new city to rise out of the ashes, but somehow trying to hang on to a city that got screwed royally by its own government.



Sabrina’s mom let us know that life is hard there, really hard, and they weren’t hit nearly as badly as some others, but things we don’t even think about…water, electricity, transportation.

We tried to party it up and enjoy Bourbon Street and the history and the flavor of New Orleans, but if you want the gods honest truth, it felt a little fake to put on a smiley face, to tell the clerks that we’d love to move here and secretly thinking that maybe its time for Sabrina’s mom and dad to get the hell out while they can.

Those depressing statements being said, it was extrodinary to see the history there, the beauty, the architecture and I’d love to go back in five years and see just how wrong I really was.