New Haven Independent

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I must do penance for the crawfish.

Jim (pictured) and Joe (pictured below him), my two traveling and work buddies, and I went to the Louisiana Crawfish Festival over the weekend right here in St. Bernard Parish. We heard some great fiddle music from a local teenage phenom named Amanda Shaw. Joe (the self-described omnivore) chowed down rhapsodically on dozens of steamed crawfish (which looked positively alive, eyes, antennae and all); I, the vegetarian, satisfied myself with sweet potato fries. Then, wanting to get a little more taste, as it were, of the festivities, I joined a dozen other folks for a crawfish race.

This is how it works: a pail of crawfish is dumped in the middle of a big board painted with concentric circles and numbers. Each bettor (the money going to support the local hospital) stands behind a number and “encourages” a crawfish to cross his or her finish line by slapping or pounding on the board. The round I was in took forever, and my hands hurt so much, long before it ended, that I was just pretending to pound. But I also realized that this game was cruel and unusual punishment for the crawfish, especially if forced to compete in several rounds in a row. The emcee described them as “like you having a hangover.” Half of them were on their backs, and, in any case, they just bounced around until one of them happened to cross someone’s finish line. I really felt terrible for my role in their suffering. Better to cook and eat them.

This is my third trip to the Gulf Coast and I’m just discovering St. Bernard Parish — the area between New Orleans and Mississippi that was the most devastated of all by Hurricane Katrina. Unlike the Crescent City, which is beloved and which became infamous for the public way the federal government abandoned its own people, and unlike the Mississippi coast, which was swept clean by the storm and which has a lot more clout in Washington, St. Bernard Parish has been largely invisible in the nation’s eye. It seems most of its residents feel that their experience since August 29, 2005, has not been recognized or validated in the same way as their neighbors’. One hundred percent of the buildings in St. Bernard Parish were partially or totally submerged in the flood waters when the levees broke; the disaster was exacerbated when the power of the raging waters pushed a huge storage tank off its base and the biggest terrestrial oil spill in U.S. history slimed Chalmette, the biggest city in the parish.

Steve Gonzales (pictured) and his wheelchair-bound wife were evacuated from the roof of their home the day after Katrina struck. After that they were transported by boat here and there for a couple of days, then finally bused out to supposed refuge. He tells the story of their pilgrimage to city after city in Louisiana, being told each time that there was no room for them in the inn, so to speak. Finally, he says, the mayor of Lake Charles welcomed them, apologizing for their ordeal. That’s when Steve starts to cry.

His wife had a bad heart, and due to all the stress she suffered after the storm she could never get her blood pressure down to a safe level. She died six months later — as surely a victim of Katrina and its bungled aftermath as the other 1,600 official victims.

But Steve has made so many friends since the storm from all over the country that he considers himself blessed. Here he is (pictured above) smiling to show off his new dentures, which friends from Wisconsin brought him up to Madison to have put in after most of his teeth fell out from stress.

So much goes on here in any given day that it’s hard to focus on the highlights. I’m overwhelmed at seeing all the petrochemical plants and storage facilities here in St. Bernard, the eastern end of “Cancer Alley,” which extends to Baton Rouge about 60 miles away. The air often stinks of oil or sulfur, and at night I am completely intimidated by all the smoke stacks and other towers rising right next to the road, ablaze in lights. One of them is right next to a trailer park, the only separation being a chain link fence. These residential areas are even called “fence communities,” and some of them have done a lot of organizing to demand that the industries clean up their emissions. A few have met with modest success.

Faith and family are the glue that hold people together here. Most people live with or near their extended families, and their faith is a 24/7 deal. I stopped by an event behind Chalmette High School sponsored by four local pastors. They were giving away food, free haircuts, makeovers, and even had women in rocking chairs sitting by to rock babies. I spoke to two brothers, 15 and 16 years old, about their evacuation to Denver and their subsequent return. Cody, the 15-year-old (pictured on the left with his brother, John), told me that it was a difficult year-long ordeal — “not like a break up that lasts a week.” They said people in Colorado were very kind, but they never felt at home there. They also said that having each other made the situation bearable, because they always had someone to talk to when they felt depressed or confused. They said they felt sorry for anyone without siblings.

When we arrived at Camp Hope, located in a former (and soon to be again) elementary school, we were three of about 150 residents. Now, on Sunday night, there are 600. Last week there were 900. The walls don’t go up to the ceiling, so noise carries far and wide. With this many people here now, it’s impossible to find a quiet place anywhere. That’s the hardest thing for me, but aside from that, the conditions are luxurious: We each have a bed with a comfortable mattress, nearby bathrooms, showers with hot water, a meeting room, a lounge, internet access and plenty of food. It’s run by Habitat for Humanity, and most of the volunteers work on rehab or new construction.

But every place like this I’ve ever been is always desperate for kitchen help. I volunteered for the first few days I was here, working with Rick, the mess hall honcho — a guy about my age from East Texas who insisted on calling me “Ma’am” even when I asked him not to. Instead of a term of respect, I felt like it was his way of dismissing me, of not bothering to remember my name and treating me like an idiot. But once I showed him that I knew my way around a kitchen and was willing to work hard, his attitude completely changed. He stopped calling me “ma’am.” Then didn’t we have fun, listening to the best oldies station I’ve ever heard and getting our pick of the best day-old donuts some guy in town donates every day. Donuts are something I never eat in my normal life, but a lot of things are not normal here.

I feel like the government’s complete bungling of both hurricane damage prevention (totally inadequate levees) and recovery efforts set the stage for an amazing network of solidarity born of tragedy. Everyone who comes down here is changed — often profoundly — by the experience. They develop friendships with local people, and they go home and talk to others about what’s happening here and how they can have a small, though real, impact, and then more people come down. The vast majority of volunteers are teens and 20-somethings, but there are also plenty of older people (usually retired or near retirement age). They all want to give back, and some have been here close to a year, though the typical length of stay is about a week. Everyone here says the recovery will take at least a decade. I firmly believe volunteers will keep coming — and coming back — for as long as it takes.