Down in New Orleans I had mixed feelings of surprise, anger, and wonder. As the train pulled into the station past the superdome, I kept saying to myself, "That's a symbol to their city but after the storm it became somewhat of a bad memory." I could still see damage that should have been fixed years ago. The fact that we were going down three whole years later was appalling in the sense that this wasn't some third-world country half-way around the globe which needed years and years of support. This is an American City (a fairly large and popular one) and the fact that it still is reeling from the damage just makes me want to stay and recruit many others to go down and work continuously.
The third year anniversary is only a few days away from when I am writing this and it's sad because similar to the tragedies on September 11th, our nation is already moving on but the people who experienced it are still trying to recover. I would suggest to anyone I meet to go and visit New Orleans because it is such a beautiful city. The people are great to meet, and the feeling is home-like. Maybe it's the humidity affecting my thinking but I felt strangely at home.
Now, as many within our congregation know, our train on the trip back was delayed indefinitely and we eventually took a bus back to Chicago. This made our group grow closer as we were forced to share confined spaces for many long hours. This kind of hit me as a physical metaphor though in regards to New Orleans. Like us, we became stranded and clueless as to when help would arrive. The officials had no idea, or were not telling the greater people (passenger/citizens) about the situation and what should happen next. Help took very long to arrive and when it did, it was disorganized and not put together well. The thing is, we the passengers have arrived home for quite some time, while many in New Orleans, are still struggling to pick up their lives from where it was before the storm.
This was an extremely moving work trip for it brought me into all the stories and chaos I had heard stories of.
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