One year ago today I sat glued to my television as I witnessed a naturally disastrous attack on the city in which Rick and I had celebrated our honeymoon only five months before. Four months pregnant myself, I helplessly watched a part of our extraordinarily advanced country turn third world.
Pregnant women, ill men, women, and children, elderly people, and babies baked in the sun, walked barefoot through filth, relieved themselves in the street, scavenged for fresh water, or a chair to sit down and rest in. Bodies both dead and dying lined the streets. Healthy men and women slipped into survival mode, foraging for their families if they were lucky enough to know where they were.
Good hearted people across the country joined the call to help in any way they could while those safely watching from a distance called into talk shows and complained about desperate looters, and opportunistic criminals.
I forced myself to curb the calling to jump into my own SUV and drive down to help. What good would I have been in my condition? So I donated all I could. My money. My heart. My photos.
The following pictures are how I remember New Orleans and the French Quarter. I only wish I would have taken the time to see more of the city before Katrina. Even with all the determination to rebuild it physically and spiritually, I'm sure it will never be quite the same.
I will be posting a new set of pictures daily for the next week. I hope you enjoy the beauty, the spirituality, the energy of the people and places we were privileged enough to experience. I will never forget them.
Z
6 comments:
Are all the pics ones you took???
I finally see where your first icon pic came from now! :)
Unfortunately I never got to New Orleans and probably never will.
All these pix are from our honeymoon trip. A few Rick took (we can't remember which now) but most are mine. There will be about 7-10 a day. I divded them into different themes. I have a ton more too. Thought I shared those with you already. You'll have to come over and see them sometime!
Finally found one zydeco video to add some appropriate cajun jamming to the posts!
Z
Man your family sure has an eye for photos! They could probably pass for professional ones!
Again, good luck this week!
BEAUTIFUL!
Do you know something - looking at your pics and especially reading this part of your post ..... "Pregnant women, ill men, women, and children, elderly people, and babies baked in the sun, walked barefoot through filth, relieved themselves in the street, scavenged for fresh water, or a chair to sit down and rest in. Bodies both dead and dying lined the streets. Healthy men and women slipped into survival mode, foraging for their families if they were lucky enough to know where they were." ...... made me sit up and think, simply because I had not (until now) realised how bad it all was!! I guess that is because it happened thousands of miles away from me. I don't mean that to sound cold-hearted it's just that I never thought of it happening in quite that context before.
I sure learnt alot from this post. Thanks Zen :)
Oh and thanks for the email a little earlier today.
thanx everyone.
Gareth, I put a link to a video of a very emotional cnn anchor interviewing a man who lost his wife on the next post. I was late getting the post b/c I was looking for other videos to send you. I didn't think about how bombarded we were with images until you said you didn't see that much. Too much of it will only serve to depress I think. But I will try to find some brief clips to send you or include in the posts to give you a better grasp.
But I can't tell you what seeing the babies and pregnant moms did to me being in a high risk pregancy at the time. Dehydration and lack of blood thinners could have killed me if I was down there. And those babies and toddlers limp with dehydration... I look at Anna and wonder what I would have done to feed her and keep her hydrated.
Horrible...
Z
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