Culture Shock?

from new orleans, louisiana to austin, texas?

3 weeks in New Orleans.

The tourism industry wants you to think everything's just the way it's always been, back to normal, right? because then i can go to mardi gras and jazzfest and walk down bourbon street and have a great time. because no one wants to spend their vacation being depressed or thinking about things like death, destroyed homes, homelessness, children with post-traumatic stress disorder, etc...
But some people in the tourist industry have decided they are going to make a profit off of this disaster. They are driving tourists around in air conditioned buses, through the neighborhoods which were affected the worst by the flooding, where entire streets of houses are gone, nothing left but overgrown grass and the concrete slab that was the porch. People take pictures through the tinted windows, but do any of them get out and talk to the people who are still there, who either rebuilt their house, or were lucky to not have their house destroyed, or who are living in toxic trailers, or who are volunteers? no.
perhaps some of these people on these buses are affected enough by what they see to come down on their own and walk around and maybe talk to somebody (although I doubt it), or maybe they go online when they get home and look for how they can donate to an organization that is helping to rebuild. Hopefully most people at least tell people about what they saw. The biggest problem with this is not necessarily the people on the tourbus, but the bus drivers, or the people who run these companies. They are profiting off of people's misfortune. People should not support these companies. They should rent a car, or take a bus, and take a look for themselves. Get information from the residents or volunteers themselves, not the tour guides. And the money they would have given for the tourbus, they can give to common ground or habitat for humanity or one of the other organizations working down there.

On the brighter side, Common Ground Relief, the organization i was volunteering with, is only one of many groups doing everything they can to help the people trying to restore the lives they had. The residents are grateful to have so many people caring and helping them get back on their feet, even if it is just someone to come and cut their lawn (so they don't get fined by the city), or to plant flowers in their yard.

It is hard, though, when the city is doing almost nothing to help. And even once you move back, it's not the same. Because the lots on either side are not necessarily rebuilt.
All your neighbors that you've had your whole life are probably not there anymore. Drainage on your street is so bad that there are giant puddles for days after it rains, breeding mosquitoes.
Electrical wires are still fallen down.
There are no schools for your children. In the 9th Ward, there were 9 schools before Katrina. Now there is only 1.
Then there is always the thought in the back of your mind, did they rebuild those levees well?
Or are they gonna break again at the next storm?
How many times can i go through this?

This is truly a grassroots movement to rebuild New Orleans. Whatever gets done is by people who care. The government does not fail to provide reasons for people to need more help. For example, by the end of this summer, everyone is to be out of their trailers. It is nothing more than a deadline. No one is making sure that they have somewhere to move into once they move out of their trailers. It is all about image.

If you want to learn more about New Orleans post-katrina, you can look on the internet at all of the volunteer organizations. www.commongroundrelief.org
If you haven't seen the Spike Lee documentary, When The Levees Broke, you should see it. It is a good introduction. There are also other documentaries as well.
You can volunteer your time, donate items, or money.
The least you can do is to remember that there are many people still struggling, dealing with their lives being ripped apart, family and friends scattered all over the country and some of them dead, all of their possessions gone.
And if you ever go to New Orleans, at least talk to people. Listen to people's stories. Put yourself in their shoes.
Next time you vote for president, governor, mayor, anyone, think about what happened in New Orleans. What would this candidate do? Would they go on vacation while people die, show up 5 days later? Would they continue to spend all the money on a stupid war halfway across the world, instead of dealing with a tragedy happening to their own people in their own country?

Just think about it. That is what I am trying to do now. And that is where the culture shock comes in because I just spent 3 weeks constantly thinking about it, immersing myself in it, and now i find myself in a place where everything is business as usual. I am not saying it shouldn't be. But it is like coming back from a country where people are dying for lack of clean water or simple antibiotics. It's hard to figure out how to deal with the fact that some people have enough and some people don't. That is my goal to figure it out.

Solidarity Not Charity