17 April 2006 - Jambalaya Convergence

We started under the moon, leaving Seattle in the cool early morning darkness. As our plane finally lifted off, after an hour's delay, and Chen, Kyota, Tomoki, Misha, Robyn, Karl, Jeremiah, Kevin, Eben and I settled in to our seats, the Karamazov bus was cruising from the east towards the New Orleans airport with Doug, Gina, Rod, John Fugo (who will be photographing the tour,) Paul and Artis aboard. Mark flew in from New York while CiCi, Ray and Faith arrived in Mississippi early in the morning from California, and Michael and Oliver made their way in a cube truck from Austin with our food supplies for the tour. Jan and Ruby Luby flew from Rhode Island to New Orleans, and another large group from the northwest was several hours behind us flying in from Seattle. Michelle was in the final day of her drive from the north, having picked up Tiberio (our cook for the tour) from the airport in Oklahoma City. Harry and Andrea had also driven from up north while Joan Matey and Lorraine Anderson came in Joan's RV from Florida. David and Tasche were already in New Orleans and would meet us in Bay St. Louis.

As we flew from Dallas to New Orleans, the shift in cultures we were undergoing was evident in my row-mates, one of whom studied the Bible while the other read a book titled Answered Prayers. They are members of one of many church-organized groups doing relief work in Louisiana and Mississippi. As we approached New Orleans, everyone pressed to the windows, assessing the city, taking the vast physical pulse of the place they knew and loved from the past, or were seeing for the first time. Immediately apparent were striking swaths of blue-tarped roofs and there was a gathering sense in those around me of the work yet to be done, and the shift in fate of a place.

Karl had arrived early in the morning and spent the early part of the day walking in New Orleans before meeting our flight group which now included Tim who had joined us in Dallas. We also acquired Gabe at the airport, a Bellingham friend of Karl's who was already here working with Common Ground. After gathering the usual giant masses of luggage we rented mini vans and split up, Eben and Tim and I to rent an RV, and the rest of the group to drive to our camp in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, in the vans. The Karamazov bus dropped a group of people at the camp site and went on to New Orleans to pick up the second batch of people from the northwest. That group (Joannie, Daniel, Robin, Alexandra, Erin, Joey, Howard, Andrine, Petra, Sasha, Luke) was delayed four hours so everyone else went on ahead.

Barbara Sehr, a journalist for "Yes" Magazine is knocked so far off course that she is routed away to St. Louis, Missouri, for the night. She will have to catch up with us tomorrow.

 

As we leave the airport in New Orleans the vast disarray is immediately apparent in broken buildings, smashed signs and missing street signs. As we drove east after renting the RV, the extent of the destruction was even more pressingly evident. All the way into Mississippi are shattered buildings, uprooted trees and blue-tarped roofs. Most of the large, light-up commercial business signs are missing their panels, twisted metal framework being all that remains.

After a trip to pick up some key supplies, we made our way in the darkness to our new ball field home in Mississippi. Our base for this week is a ball field in a small town severely battered by Katrina and the storm surge that followed the winds. When I was originally told that we were camping in a ball field I had pictured a large featureless space, but when we climbed out of the RV into the embracing, humid warmth we found a little village of tents, RVs and a series of outdoor spaces defined by chain link fences, with roofs and walls made of old signs and junk wood and tarps. What was once the dugout of the field is now a passageway between spaces. It instantly reminded me of the junk yard setting of the Top Cat cartoons. A small group is already set up, and Jan Luby reports on our arrival that she has already had to move her tent. The field is also home to a relief group that has been here since the hurricane, and a local expert noticed that our group had started to set up tents on the ground and steered them towards stacks of pallets and wood that had been dropped there for us. All the tents have to go on platforms to be safe from the fire ants.

 

Completing our facilities are a kitchen, some refrigerators and porta potties, tables, chairs and a tent shower structure that looks like a zippered marshmallow-shaped cabana. I know I am truly on Chautauqua when I come to a space filled with tents with a table in the middle where Doug and Gina are madly writing out musical parts by lantern light to the new tune Doug has transcribed for us on his ride here.