Melissa's Hurricane Katrina Animal Rescue Blog

There's so much more to write about my experiences at Lamar-Dixon, but I wanted to at least first finish my chronological order of things before going back and remembering other significant moments I've left out. When I went to bed on Day 5, I knew I had to leave in the morning. I knew I couldn't do it anymore. I was done. I remembered on Day 2, when I woke up in the morning completely exhausted, not really getting a good nights sleep between the heat, the brightness of the parking lot lights blazing through the night, the noise of the generators that were running to keep the FEMA tent cool and the showers warm, and the hard hard gravel ground that was the base of my accomodations, I thought about what it must be like to be a soldier in the field, in combat, what it must be like to be out in the thick of it everyday, your life on the line, not knowing what was coming next, the labor and intensity of it, the trauma of the sights and sounds, the lack of sleep every night. I couldn't imagine doing a tour of duty in a war for a year and enduring that day in and day out. The thing I pondered though, was that a soldier trains for it, they are paid to do their jobs, it's work, and in a lot of ways, a soldier doesn't have a choice in the mornings when he or she wakes up. They have to go out there, where ever there is and do what is expected of them. It is their job and it is required of them; a soldier can't just pack up, give up, declare, i've had enough, i can't do this anymore. Regardless of how much they want to. I could. What was weird and hard to grapple with on day two and carried over into my last night there when i had realized my limits and accepted that i had to leave: i volunteered to be there, i didn't have an obligation to walk back to those barns on the second day. i could have easily packed up my tent and gotten back into my car and driven back home to my cats and my soft cushy bed. i didn't have any specialized training, i didn't have a paycheck waiting for me, or any other obligation that forced me in some way or another to stay there through day two needless to say day 6. in some ways i learned about myself because there was absolutely nothing keeping me there except my own freewill and personal beliefs and compassion. i know it takes a lot for a soldier to get up every day and face what they have to face, but it also took a lot to step out of that tent on the second day and face the animals and people again. especially when there was nothing truly holding me to be there. Even with my choice and my desire to do everything i could to make things better for the animals that were there and had suffered so much, i knew i was spent and done and didn't need to push myself any further. the animals were going to be taken care of and i needed to take care of myself. i would be of no use to them there or later on if i had continued to stay. i resolved to simply wake up in the morning and get on the road. i didn't set my alarm clock. i just packed up most of my stuff and went to sleep (which came a whole lot easier after day two, i never noticed the generators or the rocks after two days of work). i woke up the next morning around 5am. That's when camp would come to life because the rescue and feeding teams would had daily meetings at that hour before heading into the city. That is when they would be handed their quadrants and restock their vehicles with supplies so they could be in the city the minute the sun was up. I woke up and had my car completely packed up in less than 15 minutes. I remember hooking up my ipod and desperately scrolling through all of my radiohead albums trying to find one song. i couldn't remember the name of the song (i never pay attention to song or album names) and of course it escapes me yet again. I believe it is on their OK computer album, but the key to the song was the line "can't get the stink off...you do this to yourself, you do and no one else..."it's loud, it's emotional, and it's poignant. that song suited everything i was feeling at that instant. i couldn't drive away from that place fast enough. i lost all track of time and all sense of how fast i was going; whatever it took for me to get far far away from there and to shake all of the bad feelings i had bottled up inside of me from the experience. [When I returned to work after the trip, someone said to me "was it the most amazing experience ever" in a very positive way and all i could say was no.] Radiohead blasted on and on, over and over. Eventually I let the ipod go and moved on to more than just that song. But it was the most appropriate and the most comforting thing i could think of to listen to. I drove and drove. I decided to take the interstate that followed the northern shores of Lake Pontchartrain and went north through Mississippi. I had completely forgotten that Bay St. Louis and Stennis Space Center had been greatly impacted by the hurricane as well as most of the land along the route that I was taking. Being a former NASA civil servant, I was at first delighted to find myself passing through the area where one of the 10 NASA centers was located. Although I have only visited three of the centers, I can claim to have passed by three more and seeing the NASA meatball on a roadsign for Stennis made me feel a small semblence closer to my regular life again. The land was pretty wrecked and very devestated along the interstate. A lot more than on the trip down and in the Baton Rouge/Gonzales area. The only sights I had seen that were worse than the debris and wreckage along the interstate on the journey back, was in New Orleans. I stopped at one point to get breakfast and gas. When I pulled off the interstate, it really sank in how much damage the storm had actually done. There was a McDonalds, but it was closed, most of it had been damaged in one way or another. Only one gas station was open (out of three) and the Burger King was semi-open serving a limited menu and working short staffed. There were signs hanging from over passes that said "Thanks Ya'll, from the state of Mississippi" or for helping out Mississippi, or something like that. I don't remember the exact words, but the banners were the State saying thank you to everyone for helping them out during the hurricanes. I found the banners to be odd and now that I am actually processing it, and considering I design banners and handle budgets for producing them, they are not cheap and such a gesture, as polite and kind and well-intentioned, truly is a great big waste of money that could have gone to putting people back in their homes or rebuilding. Maybe because of my state of mind, the "Thanks Ya'll" signage campaign was for something completely different and I simply interpreted it to be in regard to the hurricane. After I fueled up and filled up on an egg and cheese croissant, I got back on the interstate and within a few minutes I saw a car pulled over on the side of the road with its hazard lights flashing and two women waving their arms at every car that went bag trying to flag someone down for help. I pulled over immediately. It took me several yards to get my car stopped from doing 80 to making a completely stop. I tried backing up to get myself closer to the women. One of them walked over to where my car was and thanked me profusely for stopping. She told me they had run out of gas and had been stuck there for over an hour trying to get someone to help them. Before leaving for my trip, I debated endlessly about whether I should take a gas can with gas in it, but decided it wold be best not to because my car is a hatch back and thought the smell and fumes would probably be very bad in an open air car like mine. I had also left every single gallong jug of water at the Gonzalles camp site with my friends from Alexandria so they could make us of the supplies for doing food and water drops for the animals. I had absolutely nothing in my car to put gasoline in, but did offer to take the woman to the nearest gas station. She thanked me profusely and we got some money from her traveling companion. It was quite a trek to the next exit and there were no gas stations there. I knew there was a Wal-Mart at the exit I had just come from, but that was many miles south of where we were. We turned around and headed that way, but did stop at an exit. The gas station there did not have any gas cans for sale. We tried a food lion, they were out, and the rest of the stores in the strip mall were closed. We made our way to the exit with the Wal-Mart, the woman was able to buy a gas can and we got them enough gas to get them to the next gas station. It took us about an hour to get them back on the road. The irony of it all was that no sooner did I stop to help them out and someone else stopped as well. These two women had been stranded on the side of the road for an hour and then two different people stop to help them. Both people that stopped were single women traveling alone. I had a flash of a thought for a moment there when the women was getting money that it could have been the stupidest thing I'd ever done in my life. Stopping on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere two help two strangers. After spending a week at Gonzalles and New Orleans, I couldn't not stop. All I could do was hope it wasn't a trap and that these women were real and genuine and definitely in a time of need. I thought we don't help each other out enough in this world. How awful is it that so many bad people have done horrible bad things that no one stops to help someone else out anymore. We've experienced so much or have heard of so many things that we fear even the most innocent of situations. What have we come to as a society for that? How bad has it gotten when two women are stuck on the side of the road for an hour because they ran out of gas and no one stopped to help. No one even bothered picking up their cell phone to call the cops or AAA or anyone else to help these women out. While I was taking the one woman on the venture to find a gas can and gas, someone else did stop and call the cops for the other women. By the time we returned a patrolman had arrived and stayed with the women while the fueled up and I drove off continuing on my journey back home. As I drove off, I thought to myself, I am ruined. This trip, this experience has ruined me forever. I was innocent and pure before this, now I am scarred and tarnished and changed forever. I knew I would never be who I was the week before; I would never find that person again. I haven't found that person yet and sometimes wonder if I ever will. If i'll ever be the same. I came home to my cats and my soft purple couch and I stayed there all day the next day with them. My cat Zoe, the one I've had the longest, and the one i've been through the most trying times with, was by my side the entire time. She usually is moody and grumpy and hisses a lot, but this time she didn't. If she wanted to sit on me, but I would let her, she would curl up next to me instead and be there with me. Normally she would growl and hiss and leave the room if she didn't get her way. Zoe knew and she still knows. She curls up with me and comforts me still when I have tough nights despite the newest addition to our family, a now 9-month old border collie, that zoe is still a bit leary of. I returned to work after a day and wasn't ready for that. I wanted a big welcome home we're so proud of you, a hug, a congratulations, thanks so much, something to give me comfort. Instead, I got a phone call to attend a budget meeting before I had time to turn my computer on and put my lunch in the refrigerator. My boss, trying to be kind and supportive, asked me how was it, how are the dogs and cats, doing well. I could barely answer and said, no they're not ok and took all the strength I had in me not to break down crying and run from the room, from the building, from eveyrthing. After the budget meeting, which I quite honestly was in no mental state to be thinking about, who cares how much money we need to spend on text panels for an art exhibition when there are people out there being evicted from their temporary housing because a landlord has decided a Katrina survivor is high-risk and could cost them money, or animals that are still stuck in the city and starving to death. It made everything I do seem so frivolous. What good is art, how can it help such trying things. I at least now have settled down a bit about that and know that although art might seem frivolous, I feel it is just as important to our culture, community, and history as the trying times that inspire it. Look at the art that was made between the wars, the greatest art created and an incredible reflection of what a society and culture was thinking about at the time. I wonder if people 50 years from now will pay attention to the art from Sept 11 and Katrina. if we'll ever be distant enough from the experiences to see the refelctions created in art or if that has been lost just like the innocence of everyone that was touched by that storm, just like the trust we as a people once had enough of to stop and help a stranded person. I didn't sleep at night, not completely through the night, not a restfull sleep for a month. My first good sleep came at the end of October. I traveled to DC with a friend for an art opening (I had two pieces of art in a group show). We stayed in a cozy plush hotel and had a fun and relaxing weekend being tourists in the city I once lived in. It was the first time i had felt comfortable and safe enough to sleep. i thanked him for helping me find that comfort. We had breakfast with another friend of ours while we were there. she had heckled me for not heckling her about her marathon recap story. she told me i hadn't been myself in quite a while, in what felt like almost a month. i shrugged it off, but then later in the conversation, i realized that the timing she had pointed out coincided with the New Orleans trip. She and everyone else at the table agreed, that was probably the reason for the change in my regular personality. It has gradually gotten better for me and has gotten worse at times as well. A couple weeks after that, my friend emailed me and told me she was happy to see the old Melissa back. She said she'd missed me, but could see an improvement and that I was getting back to my old self. I still don't feel like my old self. I find that I am angry a lot. Sometimes it feels like all the time. I wanted to jump back into volunteering at my local shelter, but have found that i just can't do it. i'm easily frustrated and my old temper that i spent many many years overcoming is as short as it ever was. i know part of it has to do with the trip, as i wake up at times having remembered a dream that was about New Orleans [I had one the other night, i had returned and everything was still the same, years later, nothing had changed, it was just as bad as it was the day the flooding began]. i think the sound of my dog barking gets me worked up and i get exceptionally frustrarted when she tugs to hard on her leash and goes extra hyper on our walks, it's too remniscent of the numberous pitbulls and rotweilers i walked on strained and tugging leashes. i know that my anger and frustration isn't just about New Orleans. It's about the Bush administration, the war in Iraq, the state of our economy and culture; it's about moving to a new city and still not knowing very many people after 6 months; it's dealing with a break-up from a relationship of 3 1/2 years; it's dealing with a lot of other things in my past and anxieties about my present and my future. I also know though that a year ago i would have never become so frustrated by a dog tugging too hard on her leash while she's still learning and i then become frustrated with myself because i have forgotten how to control my anger and can't seem to maintain my patience that i used to have and be somewhat good with, especially when it comes to animals. i want to feel calm and normal again and continue to struggle with tyring to find a way to make that happen, to make the frustration and anger so away. Maybe i'm just going through the 5 stages of mourning and am struggling with stage 2: anger. i just don't want to be angry anymore.

Yes, I still have two more days of my trip to write about. I've been rather sick for the past two weeks, but have been thinking about my blog and how much I need to keep adding to it. I didn't realize how much energy it takes to write the entries until I got sick and it was the last thing I wanted to do while I got better. I can finally breathe again and my energy levels are getting better, so time for a more uplifting and makes me smile kind of entry. Its about the amazing people I met and worked with while I was in Gonzalles and New Orleans and it connects to Day 5.

It's a small world. If you don't believe me, move to Washington DC and see how long it takes you to run into someone you know. It happens more often than in a small town sometimes. Maybe it's just DC, because on the evening of Day 3 I had a new neighbor at my tent site. It was a subaru car, an animal rescue van, and the usual tent and tarp with people curled up in sleeping bags. The next morning, when I was returning from the showers, I thought I recognized one of the women that had arrived the night before. Because it was early and my eyes were still blurry with sleep I doubted it was her. That afternoon when I returned to my tent, there she was, sure enough, it was the woman I knew. Her name is Suzanne and she works at the Animal Shelter I volunteered at for 6 years while living in DC. I couldn't believe it. I said hello, we talked and wow, how crazy is that. She and two other co-workers had driven from Alexandria to Gonzalles. It took them 24 hours to get there and I can't describe how good it felt to see a familiar face and talk to someone I knew. I'll speak more to the amazing work that the Alexandria shelter does on a daily basis and how quickly these women made a huge difference at Lamar-Dixon later. They are amazing! There were around 300 people at the facility on a daily basis, spread out in tents on the gravel parking lot (which had some size to it) and sleeping in the forever cold FEMA tent. I couldn't believe with the number of people and how spread out we were that the people I knew would end up camping right next to me. What a great feeling it was to talk to and connect with people that had been a part of my previous animal rescue life.

On the morning of Day 5, I got up and attempted my regular routine of working in catland. I had worn a pair of overalls that my sister had given me (which were quite handy with all their pockets) and a sports bra. It only took me one day in a t-shirt and very few pockets on my pants to figure out the best attire to be most comfortable in while working. One of my friends recommended I take duct tape as I packed in prep to be roughing it for a week. That was one item that wasn't on the packing list that definitely came in handy. I used it most often to make my clothes more comfortable! On Day 5, I realized within minutes that the straps of the overalls were chaffing my skin and I made my biggest fashion statement yet, i put duct tape on the entire straps of the overalls. What a difference!

Catland was rather chaotic that morning. There were a lot of new faces and all of a sudden there were a lot more military personel everywhere. Through the grapevine I heard that the Army had arrived and they were insisting on changes that dealt mostly with health concerns and the aggressive animals. Because of that, we not only had to clean cages as usual, but also had to rearrange the entire space of catland to quarentine off the aggressive cats differently. That meant a lot of cage changing and setting up new crates. There was also a shortage on dry catfood (I think it was because of the shift from search and rescue to doing food drops in the field). Since I was a seasoned catland worker, Hilary (the woman in charge of catland, who was the most incredible person at lamar-dixon) asked me to take a new volunteer and work the cat cages in intensive care. While we were over there, I noticed there were even more new volunteers. I asked the woman I was with what day it was. I had completely lost track of time and had no idea what day of the week or day of the month (and apparently what month all together) it was. She told me it was Saturday, October 1. Ahhh, that's why there were so many new volunteers. It was a new weekend. Amazing how you can lose yourself and all sense of time in a situation like that.

Shortly after we started working the intensive care cages, a woman came and got me and asked if I could help her with a special project. Hilary needed us to open sample bags of cat food and consolidate them into one big bag. Sounds tedious and rather boring. I was so ready for such a task! The woman that helped me, her name completely escapes me, I want to say it was Linda, she was from Alaska. She and I sat down together and started tearing open the sample bags and dumping them into garbage bags. That was the solution to the food shortage problem. We had boxes and boxes of cat food samples, but they were so small and took so much time to open, no one bothered with them while cleaning the cages. It was the best thing for me that day. I didn't realize how exhausted I was (and I think it was mostly mentally and emotionally exhausted) after making the trip into the city. Linda and I sat and cut open bags and talked for hours. We were joined by one of our other fellow catland veterans who had been there all week as well (and of course his name leaves me as well, I believe it was Jay). The three of us talked and talked. Jay would get sent to do some other tasks that usually involved heavy lifting so for the most part Linda and I spent the day together doing the most uninvolved work ever. It was perfect, absolutely perfect. I don't think I could have lasted the day if I had been doing anything else.

I can't even remember all the things Linda and I talked about (we literally spent the entire day together over catfood sample bags). We talked about politics, we talked about our personal lives, the things we did to get there, of course we talked about Alaska a lot and her adjustment to the extremely hot weather. It was 48º in Alaska when she left vs. the almost 120º heat indexed Louisiana. She was there with her husband, Mark, and her sister (again the name escapes me, but it did start with an L, Lyn maybe). They had rented a house for two months and a car and planned to stay there until Nov. She was a vet tech. Her sister was helping in the prowler (one of the dispatch centers for the animal rescue teams) doing paper work and handling phone calls. Her husband was working dogland. They were amazing and inspiring people (i'll probably say that a lot about everyone i mention). They were just your average people that felt they could contribute significantly to the animal rescue effort. The people in their community held fundraisers for them to get enough money together to help pay for their trip to Gonzalles. [As a side note, I met and talked to many many people and I was very surprised to discover that I lived the closest to New Orleans of all the people I met, I live in TN]. I told her I had heard about them when I first arrived. That they were famous at the complex, everyone knows there are some people from Alaska. She laughed. I found great comfort in our conversations and her warm spirit.

After lunch, another woman joined us in our catfood task. She had arrived the day before from NY and she realized very quickly that she hadn't brought the right clothes for the tasks at hand. Linda offered to drive her to the outlet mall that was near by so she could purchase some loose fitting pants and tank tops. I told them I'd like to go as well since I hadn't really been to civilization since I had arrived. I thought it would be good to reacclimate myself before heading home. Before dinner, we went to the outlet malls. I mostly just wandered around. I felt very out of place, then again, I was wearing overalls with duct tape on the straps and a sports bra, maybe a hat. I'm sure my clothes were rather grungy as well. I did get quite a few stares. Being in a shopping mall felt all wrong though. Completely wrong. I felt like I couldn't touch anything or get too close to anyone. I had this unexplained fear that I would taint everything. As if I would violate something (or someone) if I got to close to it. Walking through the stores and looking at the trinkets and gadgets, it was hard. None of it seemed relevant and was rather useless and trifle. It was also very hard to watch so many people (the place was mobbed) just going about their everyday business as if nothing happened, yet we were only a mile from the staging area where, at that point, over 6,000 animals had moved through, 3,000 alone in the week that I was there. And only 30 minutes away was the most devestating area anyone could ever lay eyes on, yet it was as if nothing had happened and no one had noticed. I'm not sure what I had expected and I do not fault anyone for carrying on with their lives. I think instead it was a rather hard juxtaposition to be faced with so close to the situation and at the time that I was in.

When we returned, I had dinner. It was the worst meal they had served us (and I actually found the food to be rather good), but I managed to scarf down every last bite of it. The first time that week I'd actually been able to finish a meal they provided because the proportions were so large. I think I even had dessert. During dinner, a woman joined us at the table. She wasn't a regular volunteer, or had literally just arrived because she was very dolled up and fresh looking. She asked me a few questions about where I was from and what my experience had been like. She asked about the food. She asked a couple of other people as well and in the conversation we found out she was a high-up official in the Humane Association. One gentleman at the table started to tell his story. He was from Buffalo NY (and had the accent to go with it) and said that he wanted to get to Gonzalles sooner, but couldn't; he had just arrived. The woman asked why he chose to volunteer and he said that when the hurricane hit he was watching the news and saw the footage of the animals being left behind. There was one shot of a golden retriever swimming towards a boat and the boat (and news crew) left it there in the water swimming after them. He recalled the news reporters saying they weren't allowed to rescue the animals and that people were forced to leave them behind. He said they showed another shot of a dog that had died, it was floating in the water and had a piece of drift wood clutched in its mouth. It had been holding onto the driftwood to stay afloat from treading in the water for so long, but couldn't hold on any longer. It was heartbreaking. He started crying. He apologized for getting so worked up. We all comforted him and let him know that we shared in his pain and frustration about all of this.

After dinner, I straightened up in catland. Hilary found me and we said our goodbye's because that was going to be our last day in Gonzalles together. Tomorrow we were both leaving. Hilary was from Massachusettes and had driven down to Gonzalles with her mother. She had a young daughter waiting for her at home. Her mother spent the week taking care of us working the cattery. She fixed us snacks and brought us drinks. She kept our carts stocked and put together litter boxes. Hilary arrived the day before me and had been asked to take charge of catland, so she did, and I must say she was the most together and well-balanced volunteer there. She handled pressure and frustration with grace and charm. She was always polite and helpful. She comforted those that came looking for their animals and handled the most obnoxious volunteers all the same without ever losing her cool. She was in her mid-thirties. Had short funky auburn and blonde hair, she was in tank tops everyday making the many tattoos she had visible. She wore a brown leather strap tied around her neck with a metal tag that had a letter imprinted on it (i think it was an R) and a key. The letter was the initial of her daughter and the key was to her car, it was the best way for her to hang onto both and not lose them. She had so much grace and class and was so good hearted. People I talked to outside of catland would ask me, have you met Hilary, have you gotten to work with her, isn't she amazing? I was truly honored to meet her and work with her that week.

When I returned to my tent, Suzanne came by and invited me over later to celebrate her birthday. Yes, it was her birthday and she was spending it in Gonzalles. I was pretty wiped out and ready to curl up into a ball and cry. I told her I'd stop by later, but that I had some things I wanted to do first. She was very energetic and so cheerful, she told me I had to come over and share in her birthday cake and celebration. I showered and went back to my tent, I curled up into a ball and cried. I had originally planned on leaving Monday morning, but knew I couldn't do it anymore. I had to leave that place, get as far away from it as possible. I had done enough. After, having my good cry, I could hear them singing happy birthday to Suzanne, shouting surprise and having a good time. It was comforting to hear them. I got my composure and my camera. I wanted to walk through the facility one last time and say goodbye to everything. My neighbors stopped me on my way out and asked if I'd be joining them. I told them I would as soon as I got back. I didn't spend a lot of time with the animals. It was too early for export and there would be no more intakes, so it was very quiet and calm. All of the animals were relaxed and sleeping. I didn't want to disturb them, they rarely got quiet time like that. I returned to the tents and joined my fellow rescue workers from Alexandria. They had cheese cake and banners and ribbons. Beer and frapaccinos. One of the women was even cooking pasta on a charcoal grill. We sat around their tent area and talked and laughed and had about as much fun as one could possibly have celebrating someone's birthday in such circumstances. It was rather hillarious. One of the women, Ronnie, had bought Suzanne this crazy contraption from Wal-Mart. It captured the complete essence of Gonazalles and that place we were in, that's what the picture is. It was a fountain that had dragon flies and frogs. It even lit up and changed colors as the fountain ran while playing very tacky music. The best feature, it was clap activated. Yes, just clap your hands and the magical fountain would light up, start playing music, and the water would start flowing. It was soooo funny. We all laughed and joked about how Lamar-Dixon was hell on earth. It truly was. Even if we were doing a lot of good, the whole place, the gravel parking lot we were sleeping on, the heat, the bugs, the arctic FEMA tent, the politics and conflicts between the rescue organizations, the circumstances of the situation, it was as if we were on a different planet entirely. This couldn't possibly be earth. That little sculpture was so bizarre and so kitsch yet it captured it all and epitomized where we were and what we were going through. It couldn't possibly be real. The biggest joke of the day among all the volunteers was t-shirts. There were some volunteers that had received t-shirts for coming and helping out. A lot of us didn't. No big deal since no one expected to receive hot meals or showers, and at least got those, a t-shirt didn't matter. Apparently though, there were t-shirts to be given out, but there was a lot of red tape and beuarocracy preventing that from happening. One of the women that joined us for Suzanne's party, Kate I believe, joked that we all needed to make a t-shirt to give out instead. It should read "I worked my ass off rescuing animals in Gonzalles, LA and didn't even get a t-shirt." We were being very cheeky about it and laughing so much, it was such a hot button issue of the day and so silly. All we could do was laugh. Celebrating Suzanne's birthday was a great way to end my trip to Louisiana.

One of the most wonderful things happened this morning. I got up and started my daily routine, take the dog out, feed the cats, and usually I go back to bed for a few hours on the weekends. Instead I decided to check my email. I had received a yahoo message last night notifying me that a person was connected to me now (yahoo 360 works similar to Friendster). I didn't recognize the name, but I was very very curious about who this person was and how I could be connected to her. I checked my messages and then noticed that there was a comment posted to my blog. Her name is Linda and she is from Kansas City. Thank you so much Linda for your message, your motivation, and your kind kind words. They brought tears to my eyes because I have never known if my blog was reaching anyone outside of my inner circle of friends. Thank you to everyone for reading!

I had realized a while ago that only yahoo360 users could post and was going to migrate my blog to another site that allows people to comment freely, but must confess, I've been rather lazy because the mere thought of it seems so daunting. I've also been very busy in my daily life and rather sick for the past 2 weeks. I'm on the mend and Linda's message was that nudge I needed to do something so people can communicate with me. I will be migrating the blog to a more user friendly site, but in the mean time, I have set up a second email address for myself specifically for people to communicate with me about this blog. Until I get the blog migrated, I'll do my best to publish comments that are made and update my blog more frequently. The email address is isadorah2@hotmail.com

It's been a while hasn't it. Believe it or not, I still have the rest of Day four, five, and six to go through. This will be the final entry about Day four, so we can all finally move on (I hope).

After the sunset, I had wanted to leave the city. It was too eerie for me and I also thought rather dangerous. There were still rumors of people being shot at throughout the city and the mere idea of two females being stranded down there in the dark seemed very very unsafe. Even if there wasn't a threat of being shot at, there was so much debris everywhere, it increased our chances of getting a flat tire and being stranded. I think I might have expressed this earlier. Danelle wanted to drive over to the French Quarter and see Bourbon Street since she had never been to New Orleans before. I also found this unsettling and it made me very uncomfortable. I didn't want to be a tourist. I wasn't there to gawk or see the sights. Maybe it was because I'd seen them before and didn't want my vision of the city ruined for me, but I think it was more the sensitivity to the city and the people. We were there to help them and try to make things better. People were suffering, the city was in shambles, it felt very wrong to drive around and check out Jackson Square. It also felt deceptive as well, as if we got our permits to enter the city under false pretenses. We were there to do animal rescue, not to see the devestation or the beauty of the city. It made me uncomfortable.

She was determined though. We drove towards the French Quarter, but remember also, it was after 8pm which was curfew, I think that also made me uncomfortable. I am a very straightforward, by the book, by the rules, worrier. It makes me so uneasy to break the rules and go against what you are supposed to do. I was worried that we would get pulled over by a cop or the National Guard and next thing we know, we've been detained for an unlimited period of time for being out past 8. Silly I know, but this is me, I would have been like that if it weren't a national disasster and I was at home under curfew for some reason. I worry a lot. There were several streets that lead directly to the French Quarter that were blocked by National Guard troops. I kept directing her away from those areas and tried to convince her that they probably have the French Quarter blocked off. We somehow managed to drive right past the Convention Center. The second holding area for survivors in the direct wake of the hurricane, where conditions were just as implorable as the SuperDome. It was a completely different place from all the pictures you had seen on the news. It was completely cleaned up, shiny and pristine. It had full electricity and it appeared to be one of the staging areas for the National Guard (is that a dangerous thing to announce on a blog, where our troops were located, I hope not). There were troops everywhere and hummers everywhere and jeeps. I felt safe for those fleeting moments when we drove by the Center.

Danelle on the other hand got very upset and extremely belidgerent about it. She was so uncomfortable about seeing troops in "American neighborhoods" and insisted that it was Bush's way to start taking over our contry with the military. I completely disagreed with her and told her this. I viewed the troops as being there to help the people and to protect us. That they are vital to situations like the one we (New Orleans we) were in and if anything it would be comforting to see even more troops. She got so belidgerent about it that she was making snide remarks (in the road rage driver kind of way) as we followed behind a truck full of troops and they were looking at us and waving. Being polite and friendly as I have found my interactions with the troops to have been up to that point (at the staging area in Gonzalles and earlier in the city). I told her she probably didn't want to do that and to please calm down about it. For starters, we were out past curfew and quite frankly they have machine guns, we don't, please don't piss one of them off for no reason. That they were there to protect us and she should be gratefull for their presence. She went on about our country being taken over by the military and there should never be troops patroling American streets. I told her maybe it was because I was raised military (she claimed to have been too), but i disagreed (again). I then told her, maybe it was because I lived in Washington DC for six years and experienced September 11 first hand. After being next to the White House on September 11 and having to evacuate the city on foot not knowing what was going on or how much danger I was or was not in, seeing the military around in a situation where there presence means your safety, I myself was happy they were there. She still didn't get it. I continued and explained to her that I thought it was because she has never seen troops on the streets of her country. She disagreed with me and told me she had been to Israel and there are troops on every corner with machine guns and that didn't make her uncomfortable. I made the mistake of telling her that wasn't her country though. OOOOOhhhh, but it is. OK, let's stop being figuritive for two minutes already. Yes, she's jewish, yes, she's been to Israel once, but when I say her country, the united states is her country, her everyday and what she knows. I've been to Italy and Greece in which both countries had troops with guns on the streets and no it didn't make me uncomfortable, but I believe that is because I had only experienced those countries with troops present. Say I'd gone to Greece 10 times and on the 11th trip there were troops, then, yes, I probably would be uneasy because it wouldn't be the Greece I was used to, it instead would be a situation I'd never experienced before and I believe I would be uneasy, beause let's face it, we should be afraid of men with machine guns, if we don't know why they are there. However, Danelle completely missed this point and was so focussed on Bush's military take over, she didn't see the message I was trying to get across. Being stubborn, I tried again and tried to explain that very thing to her. She has spent her entire life in America and has never seen the military on the streets before, therefore it makes her uncomfortable, although I believe in this situation it shouldn't. That if nothing had taken place and the troops just showed up one day, then you get nervous and scared and belidgerent because it would be a military take over. She still didn't get why I wasn't uncomfortable then if I was saying it's because it doesn't happen in America. I explained to her that ever since Sept 11, it was rather common place in DC. That on Sept 11 and the immediate days afterwards, there were troops everywhere and hummers on every corner. Following that, you passed hummers and troops on a regular basis if you drove by the Pentagon and whenever the security level was increased in the city or on holidays there would be troops walking the metro and on the streets. That seeing a military presence in a city became common place for me and something I grew to understand would be a part of living in DC. After experiencing Sept 11, I recognized that the troops were there to protect us and they were there under orders. The people she's yelling at for being there are just kids and the lowest men on the totem pole. I expressed that she should travel to DC and experience that for herself and maybe she would understand a bit better because it is a different world in DC compared to the rest of the country. The things she should be concerned with is that the police and military do constant random searches of vehicles (which is a violation of our constitutional rights) and can detain anyone for any reason for any period of time without justification or clear cause. That fact is something the rest of the country doesn't pay attention to and is instead something she should be belidgerent about and cry abuse of power over.

She asked me if I took pictures of the military on the streets of DC and what a sight that would be. The whole military taking over the country thing again and how awful to have troops around. I gave up. She wasn't going to relax about having the military around, so my other option was to ignore it. I explained to her that after going through Sept 11, hearing the fighter jets over head and a secret service agent scream into her radio that there aren't supposed to be any planes in the sky and what was that, you get a different perspective. After crossing the Roosevelt bridge and seeing the pentagon burning clear as day, I didn't want any pictures or newspapers or magazines. I had seen enough pictures for myself, I had those memories in my head, forever there, never to go away. I didn't need a photograph to remind me what it was like. She said she understood that, but what about taking photos of the military taking over the city for the weeks afterwards. I told her the same principal applied and that it wasn't a military take over, I viewed it differently from that and photographs of the troops wasn't something I wanted either. Once you live it, you don't need pictures of it (at least for me anyway). Besides that, who in their right mind in the wake of Sept 11 would have stopped and taken photographs of the troops. Want to draw attention to yourself, stop and take pictures of military places, people, etc that makes those that are watching for suspicious people rather suspicious of you. Why does anyone want pictures of troops? Military personnel can think of reasons. I had a friend detained in Russia once for taking pictures of buildings. Yes, it was Russia, but the idea is there, photography isn't just an art form. But my main point was that I didn't need the memories, I had enough of them and I didn't find the military's presence something that needed to be documented, they were there to protect us. [side note: when I returned, i relayed this story to one of my close friends who has lived in DC far longer than I did and is still there. She thought that Danelle was crazy and said these days she feels like the military presence in DC has dwindled and it doesn't feel as safe. Every know and then it would be good to see a few more troops patrolling the metro system. I agreed with her.]

We moved on from that topic, it was exhausting and by that time the presence of troops had dwindled to where we were in the city. She then went back to trying to make her way to the French Quarter. So we did. Interesting enough, we made it to Bourbon Street (I'm not the best person to hand a map to and ask me to get you somewhere). Believe it or not, Bourbon St. was alive and well. Bars were open and there were people everywhere. I found it to be weird to see people out partying when in other parts of the city people were sitting on their porches, heads in hands with nothing left. We parked and got out and walked Bourbon St. It smelled awful. Horrible horrible stench, but very different from what i smelled earlier in the neighborhoods. I didn't figure out what it was until we were on our way back to the car. Garbage. All of the rotten food from being in the restaurant freezers for a month without electricity placed on the street corners for trash collection that wouldn't be happening anytime soon. So instead of continuing to rot inside, it was sitting outside rotting. Not sure what they should have done with it, but it was unsettling to think 1) that people were inside eating and drinking when such filth was rotting only feet away from them 2) people were eating and drinking in facilities that had such filth festering inside for a month with little amentities and resources to clean up. Ewwwggh, I would have spent a month sterilizing the freezer after that, how vile. Needless to say, the people on Bourbon St didn't seem to mind and they were everywhere.

It didn't take long to figure out that the majority of the patrons on Bourbon St were rescue workers. Police officers, fireman, medical workers, and the troops. There were people everywhere in scrubs (something else i've never been able to grasp, how can someone sit and have a meal in their scrubs after say doing surgery for an hour, ewwwggghhh, I find that to be gross). I felt great pleasure for the city of New Orleans to see such patronage from the workers and thought good for the city. At least in the time of the disasster they are able to cash in a bit and make some money on the relief effort. The economics of it were beautiful. Good for the city and the people that lived there, the business owners of Bourbon St for making some money in a time where most would think it would be impossible. Danelle didn't agree (of course). She was upset that it was relief workers and how dare they take advantage of a situation. This wasn't their city why should they be there drinking and living it up. The people of New Orleans should be the one's enjoying Bourbon St. She went on and on about it. I ignored her comments and didn't engage in the debate. I just told her, "good for them" for making some money off of it and pointed out that the band playing a bar couldn't have been rescue workers. She also didn't understand why there wasn't jazz pouring out of every bar. I gave up on that one before it even started. She doesn't want rescue workers out on the streets, but she does want jazz to be everywhere, I dind't get it and found her to be exasperating and naive. She really needed to travel more and experience our country first hand instead of from the stories and mythology we hear from the comforts of our own homes. But that sounds snotty and I digress.

We finally left the city and ventured back to Gonzalles. She stopped half-way across the Lake Ponchetrain bridge to get a cd out of the trunk that had a song on it that mentioned the lake. She by the way was definitely a crazy LA driver. Yikes. I laughed when she put the cd in because it was the cajun country singer Jimmy C. Newman, who i had seen three times in the past two months at the Grand Ole Opry (and actually enjoyed his performances). A small comfort of Nashville in New Orleans and yes indeed he was singing about the very lake we were driving over and caused all the flooding.

We stopped somewhere and I ordered a pizza (I was starving at the point, and I have to say it was so yummy to have cheese, a staple I hadn't eaten the entire time I was there). Danelle didn't want to eat and got really upset as we were talking and somehow it came up about the animals that were being found on their dead owners. She started crying at the pizza place. When we got to the car, she continued on about that and didn't understand why it touched her so much. She also didn't understand why I wasn't upset and why I didn't cry about things that bothered or moved me. I told her she leaves tomorrow and that I have two more days there. There are a lot of things I find extremely upsetting, more than she could ever imagine, but the only way I was going to make it through the next few days that I had, was to put it aside and trudge through. If i broke down then, I wouldn't be able to continue to help or even make it home. She didn't understand that either.

I had a friend email me today to tell me she liked my latest entry. It got me thinking about the blog and how empty I feel sometimes after I've posted. It made me think about conversations and dialogue. Couple this with having watched the entire first season of the tv show Lost. I had an epiphany just now. In Lost, a character is killed and another character is extremely angry and sad about it. The little boy on the show gives her his dog and tells her he can help her deal with her brother's death. He told her the dog was a good listener and very helpful if she ever needed someone to talk to; that when his mom died no one would talk to him, it was as if they were afraid of him, so he talked to the dog instead.

When I first started writing in my blog, I had several entries up and had not seen any comments. In addition to that, I had also emailed many many friends about having been in Ner Orleans. I had a few friends respond to send me well wishes for doing such a heroic thing. I actually stalled on a blog entry when a few friends emailed me and said they were anticipating my next entry. Up to that point, I didn't think people were actually reading this and it showed me that some folks were interested in what I had to say.

Now I'm not saying I haven't spoken to anyone about New Orleans. I'm sure some people have heard more than enough about it from me (and I've probably repeated my stories over and over again). I have found though that through the blog and personal interaction, folks don't engage me in a conversation about my experience. If there is a conversation, it is very uncomfortable and it almost seems as if people are afraid to talk to me about it. I can understand why folks aren't first in line to engage me in such conversations. I do hope it is because, like discussing the death of a family member, it is an awkward and uncomfortable topic that people aren't sure how to approach someone or what to say. I sincerely hope it isn't that people would rather forget about what happened so recently and stick to their own lives.

I struggle with this aspect of not really talking about it. On one hand it is hard for me to discuss, but on the other, I do wish at times I could have an ellaborate conversation about the humanity and inhumanity down there. I think if I heard other people's perspectives, their reactions, their thoughts on any of it, I myself could come to better conclussions, wouldn't feel so alone in my perspective, or realize maybe that I just need to get over it. I find it interesting to think about how we all communicate with one another and the conversations, reactions, and feedback we all engage in with one another. I find it fascinating actually.