why I could never leave
Jun. 2nd, 2008 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marathoner452I spent the day in Algiers painting Algiers Technology Academy high school with Habitat for Humanity. The building used to be an elementary school and the students didn't like all the bright colors, so we repainted it a more institutional and sedate gray that has been added to the palette that is my painting clothes. There were about 10 of us doing the painting, mostly long-term volunteers and I was the only one who could describe myself as living here. As we finished up the conversation turned to New Orleans' recovery and I found myself unable to participate because unless you live here and are invested in this place, you don't fully understand why someone would want to live here. I can't be rational on that subject. I bought a fleur de lis ring last Thursday and wear it on my left ring finger where you're supposed to wear a wedding ring. Yeah. I've committed at least three more years of my life to New Orleans and I can't see myself leaving after that.
Unless. of course, I melt this summer. It's 84* with a heat index of 89* and it's almost 10 pm and it's only the beginning of June.
I've put down roots and started to carve out my niche. Tomorrow I'm going to to DMV to get my Louisiana driver's license.
I'm on the membership team at church now which last Sunday meant giving visitors and volunteers Mardi Gras beads and explaining that Muses is the name of a Mardi Gras krewe and what a krewe is, then having the pastor encourage us to give her an address where we could be reached in case of a long-term evacuation, then listening to Malik Rahim, founder of Common Ground, speak for more than an hour about social justice in New Orleans. I love my UU church for all of that.
Today was my dad's 50th birthday and the entire family got a kick out of the card I sent: "Cher, I could cook a pot of red beans over your 'burthday' cake!" I got it at Boutte's Bayou Restaurant down in Lafitte, total Louisiana birthday card.
On the way back to Camp Hope down in St. Bernard today, we stopped for snowballs and I got a hurricane (flavored) snowball because it is the beginning of hurricane season, after all. I'm trying hard not to think about the implications of that, trying hard not to think about how safe we're not and of all the reasons why no sane person would live here.
Unless. of course, I melt this summer. It's 84* with a heat index of 89* and it's almost 10 pm and it's only the beginning of June.
I've put down roots and started to carve out my niche. Tomorrow I'm going to to DMV to get my Louisiana driver's license.
I'm on the membership team at church now which last Sunday meant giving visitors and volunteers Mardi Gras beads and explaining that Muses is the name of a Mardi Gras krewe and what a krewe is, then having the pastor encourage us to give her an address where we could be reached in case of a long-term evacuation, then listening to Malik Rahim, founder of Common Ground, speak for more than an hour about social justice in New Orleans. I love my UU church for all of that.
Today was my dad's 50th birthday and the entire family got a kick out of the card I sent: "Cher, I could cook a pot of red beans over your 'burthday' cake!" I got it at Boutte's Bayou Restaurant down in Lafitte, total Louisiana birthday card.
On the way back to Camp Hope down in St. Bernard today, we stopped for snowballs and I got a hurricane (flavored) snowball because it is the beginning of hurricane season, after all. I'm trying hard not to think about the implications of that, trying hard not to think about how safe we're not and of all the reasons why no sane person would live here.
