Jambalaya Tour Journal

21 April 2006 - The Fighting Instruments of Karma Go to Marching Band Heaven

This morning we woke to weather warnings for both rain and wind, so we battened down the camp as much as possible before our departure back to New Orleans. We made the now familiar drive past miles of blasted landscape, collapsed gas stations and empty, shattered strip malls. No traffic delays this trip, although there are long waits sometimes on the long bridges across Lake Pontchartrain.

We gathered at the local headquarters for Emergency Communities, an organization that is doing for St. Bernard Parish what Common Ground is providing in the Ninth Ward. St. Bernard Parish was a working class community that is now a dead zone like the Ninth Ward, also due to flooding. It is back to streets lined with smashed businesses, and houses marked with the dire crosses of findings in the days after the storm. Many generations had been born here and stayed here, most of them not moving more than a few blocks away from family members. They were even close to their ancestors, who were buried close by in the vast aboveground cemeteries. They had a sense of continuity that is hard for us to really grasp, as it is so out of our experience.

 

I happened to have a new client last week in my veterinary practice in Seattle who was the first member of her family ever to move away from New Orleans. She grew up in St. Bernard Parish, and her whole extended family is now living in her house, the only residence of all of her relatives to survive Katrina. She and her husband and her dogs have made a new start, but she talked about the significance of losing the place where both her present and her history were all around her.

 

Emergency Communities is a large village of domes, tents and teepees plus a "Made with Love" kitchen that serves hundreds of meals three times a day to residents of the village and community. They offer free internet access and wireless services and medical care. There is a huge dome that is a dining/recreation area filled with tables, a piano, a pool table, boxes of books, board games, several beverage stations and information boards. One sign says, "If you think of an idea, don't say it, just do it!" This dome and an adjacent connected smaller dome are decorated with lights, mobiles, chimes and the ever present Mardi Gras beads. Common Ground had a very gritty urban encampment feel, and this is more like an alternative town. There is a meditation/quiet space, large showers and ranks of port-a-potties as well as tents with stored- goods and food. There are lots of dogs cruising around with their owners which gives it a homey feel.

 

We found places to park all the vehicles and began to explore the show space. The show will be in the dining tent over lunch for the relief workers so the show crew got to work on setting up the space and arranging the tables and chairs for the show. The green room will be the very hot and crowded supply tent, with Trash Fashion wedged into a back corner amidst crates of food and other goods. Tim went out and looked around the village to set a route for a pre-show parade. Petra played the piano, Joey readied cards for his workshop, and the jugglers played juggling games with the pool table. It has been raining on and off, and water runs through the dome along the edges of the space. We have been joined by Vermin, one of the characters from Common Ground.

The Made with Love kitchen brought us lunch and set it up on a table outside the supply tent. Tiberio circulated with his big jar of coffee elixir - sweetened strong coffee that he makes and freezes each night. It thaws as the day progresses and is ready to be poured as shots for everyone right before the show. The band assembled and watched the clouds warily. We were able to kick off the parade in a dry time in between showers and made a loop by the kitchen, dishwashing space, tents, showers, port-a-potties and through an outdoor tented dining space before entering the dome to start the show.

 

When Faith started to sing, the skies truly opened and a deluge hit the dome, completely drowning out her song. The band stepped in and countered with Sousa's "Washington Post" march [Why not his "Thunder and Blazes" march? - Ed.] until the rain subsided enough for her to be heard. The show ran like yesterday's with the addition of a Tom Noddy Midnight Show moment in Demon, a volunteer who did his staff spinning routine.

After the show we cleaned up, packed and then gathered in one of the tents to decide what we would do next. It had been proposed that we take the band to the French Quarter and do a parade. There is a music festival in the French Quarter and we want to get there early enough to park the vehicles and assemble without running into darkness or the crowds for the event. We offered to help in the kitchen and around the site at Community Emergencies today and to provide workshops after their dinner but their coordinator reported that he had plenty of helpers and thought his folks would want to get into town after dinner so he urged us to go to New Orleans with our parade. As wagon-master, Andrea expressed her concern that our descending into the streets of the French Quarter could result in "wagon-master hell," as she was afraid of losing people in the complicated coordination of multiple largish vehicles. We negotiated the vehicle scene and arranged a meeting place where Paul thought he could park the bus and a time to gather to start the parade. We decided to seek food on our own tonight in the French Quarter so we all would be free to enjoy the afternoon.

 

There was happy news from Lorraine that she had masterminded the donation of a roll of screening for Common Ground kitchen, that would get dropped off as the group made its way to the French Quarter. When Lorraine heard about the need for the screening yesterday from the Common Ground volunteer she remembered that Arlene, in Bay St. Louis, had a big roll of it that they had moved when they worked in her yard. She called Arlene, who met her at the house and gladly donated the screening. It is sweet serendipity to see a dream come true so neatly. After a group photo it was time to go and meet our marching band destiny.

Tim, Michelle, Tiberio and I went quickly to Michelle's van so Tim and I could get into town, scope the Festival scene and see where the best place would be to take the band. The French Quarter is up and running although many businesses are not yet fully open, or are just getting back to pre-Katrina hours. We walked the tiny embellished streets and located the music festival. With ideas of where to go and not go we walked back to find everybody else and get ready to parade.

We got near the meeting place and couldn't see anyone, but then heard the strains of the "French National Defile March" floating towards us. We followed the tune to the band. After a few phone calls and the collecting of people as they arrived we were ready to start. For the band, this is the quintessential experience of marching, here where the second line was born. We have our own second line of dancers and jugglers, including Tiberio with a mop sweeping the way clean for the rest of our crew, and Vermin and Demon. As we lined up on the sidewalk under the grillwork balconies "Chumleighland," in a way, had come home. (We love you Thaddeus!!!)

 

There had been some apprehension expressed about launching into a parade in the middle of a festival without seeking permits or permission, but it was all beautiful and surreal here in the land of music and lush Mardi Gras dreams. Almost as soon as we started a super long white limousine pulled up alongside the band, opened its windows and paced us for a while. People came out on their balconies and emptied out of businesses onto the sidewalk and cheered and danced. We were met with a spirit of uninhibited joy that matched our own. The dancers abandoned the sidewalks for the streets, and were joined by a tiny, ancient woman with a parasol who showed them how it was done. Joey was tossed Mardi Gras beads with a big plastic cabbage on them and played the cabbage like a percussion instrument all through the streets. We marched through Jackson Square, right through the middle of a wedding party who had just come out of St. Louis Cathedral. We wanted this ultimate dream of a parade never to end.

We played until we ran out of streets and chops. We reluctantly returned to the bus and stowed our instruments, and then set off into the twilit Quarter in search of food. Eben had a place in mind, seeking in particular an oyster po-boy sandwich, and secured a large number of tables. We piled in, taking over the entire front of the restaurant except for one couple at a tiny table who were gracious about being displaced into a corner by the waves of arrivals. It was time for gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice, crawfish and shrimp. We pretended it was Joannie's birthday (she always has a Chautauqua birthday during the summer tour) and sang the Chautauqua birthday song. We walked back through the warm streets to our various vehicles home, caught in the dreamlike rapture of this extravagantly emotional town.

 

The adventures of the day weren't quite over. Joan's RV broke down on the way home, providing us with our traditional Chautauqua vehicle moment. Fortunately it turned out that it was a broken gas gauge leading to them running out of gas that was the issue, so some folks rescued them and they were soon on their way.

 

It didn't only rain in New Orleans, it rained hard in Bay St. Louis as well, and some folks returned to wet tents and wet bedding. The large tent used by the Christian encampment is empty tonight, so some folks sleep there, and the RVs absorb some of the other rained out campers. We have snacks in the kitchen and find that better weather is forecast for tomorrow, so hope we will be able to get everyone dried out in the morning.

 

---

Return to Jambalaya Tour Journal's main page

---