11/18/05 and after - New Orleans, Louisiana, USA - Somewhere in the 9th Ward

It's cold.

Nobody told me this about New Orleans. I am sitting by the industrial train tracks that run through the 9th Ward. The Convergence Center is still asleep waiting for the 100+ volunteers arriving in the next few days.

The blue sky and the wandering dogs.

I am impatient I want to start working. Not even my knee can stop me at this point. Jimmy dropped me off. He needed to go to court so he took me over the bridge. Just one of the many things you have to do. You have to go to court when the police arrest you for double parking! You have to take time off from distributing much needed supplies at the Algiers Distro Center in order to help yourself stay free!
Everyone is operating on their own level.
A gentle bulldozer needs to level it out!

It's still cold.

If Gerard got here I could start working. I need tools that's all. I still have to put the walls in between the makeshift showers. Yesterday, Gerard and me setup the platform and put in the three tubs to be used as shower pans. I don't think the solar shower idea will work but Gerard says, "I don't argue." The 60 year old from New York is now retired. He's a union man. He's proud of the Irish local. Good men working hard. His five daughters are his ticket to heaven. Good man. The hernia couldn't stop him from doing the work that needs to be done. He always gives a few bucks to Joshua even if he might not deserve it. Gerard doesn't understand the whole act and the cursing. He hasn't watched rap videos enough to familiarize himself with the culture. Joshua is more than happy to fill him in.

Standing between the old Irish man and the young kid.

We're looking for scrap wood to build the shower walls. Joshua's a character. Timeless character. Forever young yet he grew up too fast. Still a kid but already a man. He's a good actor but he plays a dangerous role and it never enters the last act until it's too late. Good kid. Curses too much. Calls me the N word too much. He lives the culture, breathes the culture. I respect that. He's like a mini-Deniro on steroids. Always ready to beat you up. Brown hair, brown skin. Little kid from the favellas. Actually I don't know where he's from. Kind of hard to have a conversation with him. If he hadn't lied about the water heater I wouldn't have turned around and I would've given him a ride back. Walking is the lesson.
"If you don't lie I won't leave you."
Too which he replies,
"If you leave me again I'll sock you in yo' mouth!"
Fair enough.

War zone.

Alex agrees. This is a war zone. Piles of trash and debris everywhere. Telephone posts and light posts knocked down. Trees lifted out of the grown. Humvees riding the streets. Military camouflage circling the French Quarter.

Colonialism must go on! Colonialism must go on!

Never let them catch you when you're down. Like Jimmy said,
"They'll only hit you when you're down."
And the police's stupid arguments. Oh, we can't be responsible for our action when you stick a camera in our face. Well, pig, the truth is without this modern technology it would be harder to capture the injustice you promote with that baton! Gerard just called. He was at Malik's place. He'll be over shortly.

This place is too quiet for 8 o'clock.
There should be movement, action, work!

I liked Gerard's expression when I told him my father was from Queens.
"You kiddin'!"
One day I'll go back to the borough.
One day I'll trace back my roots.
One day I'll stand in the place my grandfather was born.
One day I'll stand in the place my family was murdered.
One day I'll stand in the place where my son is born.
For now I'm standing here.

In the war zone.

Bombs of neglect have destroyed this city. Mortar attacks of discrimination are ripping it to pieces. Shots of racism can be heard throughout the night. The bodies of injustice pile up. The brown humvee crosses the street. It shouldn't surprise me. Something about the camouflage color makes it more fit for Iraq. Not that they should be there. They shouldn't. But the desert beige stands out too much over the backdrop of the broken down house in the 9th Ward.

"Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere"

I guess being in Iraq sends a clear message. The violent response to Katrina answers the violent response to 9/11 which answers the violent response to... Well race has always been an issue since the Europeans got here. Maybe not with the first Viking and maybe not the first merchant. But eventually it became central to the economy, the political system and the way society was organized. New Orleans used to be the biggest slave market of the U.S. at some point in this long history of dehumanization and exploitation.
Mikkel said, "It's very severe out here."

Damn it's cold.

6am. I'm doing security. It's part of our 24-hour security service. Making sure Common Ground is safe. You never know when you're working in a war zone. According to crazy guy there'll be a blood bath when National Guard pulls out. I try not to listen to crazy guy. When the cops came by he told me to grab my camera. I hesitated and they were gone.
"I won't ask you for a favor anymore."
Fine. Then he had to sit next to me during the acupuncture session. A nice woman from Acupuncturists Without Borders was sticking some needles in my knee. It felt good. But crazy guy had to sit next to me to give his un-called for advice about acupuncture and witness his libido push him to make desperate attempts at getting a girl's attention. Anyway the acupuncture was great.

I closed my eyes and I could feel the energy slowly dispersing from my knee.

I shouldn't have been using it so much. But there's so much work to do. Yesterday I was at the Community Center. Tyvek suit, goggles, heavy-duty dust mask, gloves and special boots. I felt like one of those creepy FBI guys in X-Files come in at the end to clear up all the evidence in a procession of white suited people. The rhythm was different though. We were hauling ass! Well, mostly mold. It grew 6 feet high on the walls of every room. 8 feet or more in the bathrooms. We cleared out all the molded furniture. Then the destruction begun. One by one the nasty walls came down. I grabbed a sledgehammer and started punching holes in the wall along a straight line that ran across the room. The mold line. Once the opening was big enough I grabbed an end of the sheet and pulled. I also kicked. Slowly but surely the light would creep inside every dark corner of every room. This once vibrant Community Center that had been abandoned after the flood was now being liberated from the forces of neglect. These are extremely dangerous and the destruction they cause is enormous. The forces lead people to misunderstand and miss-allocate. The forces supply the bigots with rage and the liberals with intellectual fantasy.

I love it here because we are not living in fantasy.

When the sun is rising on the railroad tracks and you see the military humvee waiting at the stop sign you know this is reality.

There is no hiding the devastation.
There is no hiding the desperation.
There is no stopping the liberation!
We will achieve a common ground!

On this ground people will come together. The violence will stop because we will understand that killing the other is not different then killing our own.

When words become bullets you start to understand.

When the woman was asking for Tyvek suits so she could clean up her house. Politely asking,
"Where can I find these suits?"
Obviously noticing that the thirty people wearing them had some kind of supply hook up. The woman in the Tyvek suit responded,
"You can order them online."
The expression on the woman's face was beyond words. She said,
"Online? What are you talking about online? I'm homeless."
She wasn't mad. She didn't even look shocked.
But I knew she was hurt. Here are these people in suits supposedly helping rebuild our community but judging by this one suited woman they really don't understand.
They didn't get it!
They didn't know where people were coming from.
That ignorance is deadly.
Come one step down from your platform of privilege and share this pain and sadness with me.
But don't try to share with me by bending down or kneeling down or anything like that.
Just come down, even for a second because I known how comfortable that spot is, just come down and share.

Share the tears, share the laughs.

But don't do it online, do it with human physical contact. Shake hands, look people in the eye, hear their stories, taste the air...

Like Malik said, if you don't/can't stand for peace and justice now, don't you ever complain about anything. You'll have lost what you didn't/wouldn't fight for.

I dream every night!

I think I'll eat breakfast now.




by Yoram Savion