Comparing New Orleans to herpes

1) we're never ever going away
2) we annoy the hell out of a lot of people
3) nobody wants us
4) if they could, they would get rid of us

Here in the Persian Gulf, many people I talk to recognize that New Orleans is different from "america". We're still on their minds. When people find out I'm from New Orleans, they ask how the city is doing. They care. They're astonished at how a country can abandon its own people -- there is no financial reason, there's just apathy and greed.

In the Gulf Daily News, the news of Brad Pitt's pink housing project in New Orleans got plenty of coverage.

Yesterday I was at the hotel bar. After the Colombian band played my favorite Francesco Guccini tune, I started talking to the guy sitting next to me. He was wearing a polo shirt instead of traditional clothing, and alternating between speaking Arabic and English.

He said that he lived in Saudi Arabia, but his family was in Jordan for the weekend. I mentioned that my family was in New Orleans. He said he went to school there. Tulane. Same years as me. He got his degree in Chemical Engineering.

As we talked, we found that we lived about 5 houses down from each other. I lived at Oak and Burdette, he lived between Snake and Jakes Christmas Club and the S&J. We had evidently even played soccer against each other. Seeing as how I was playing goal, and his team beat me 7-1, I had for some reason repressed that memory.

We reminisced about life in the hood, the cheap rent, Adams St. Grocery po-boys, the unique operating hours of Snake and Jakes, but mostly, how even though it was the hood, it epitomized all that's good about New Orleans. Somebody had a big cookout every weekend. His specialty was roasting a big leg of lamb. Other guys did ribs or brisket or hot links. And despite the high crime, everybody watched out for each other. If you lived there, didn't matter what your race or ethnicity was, you were part of the family. And we watch out for family.

He hasn't been back to "america" since he graduated. He hasn't had any desire to go back. I told him he didn't need to go back there, he could just go to New Orleans. He said he wants to, he misses it, but now he's married and has a kid. I said, then it's even better.

He knows I'm lying.

It's not necessarily better, but it's different. Sometimes it is better.

Sinn Fein.

Comments

[doctorj]

Overseas press has been kinder (and closer to the truth) about New Orleans and Katrina from the beginning. It is really an eye opener to read the headlines on the same story. The US press always put a little editorial spin on theirs. (You know, the "lazy, stupid to be living below sea level, crime ridden, unworthy, whiny, not my problem spin.) I can usually tell if a story is local, US or foreign just from the headline.

[D-BB]

I had herpes once and it was in the shape of a crescent. Wow, now that makes you stop and wonder.

[alli]

I was traveling through Asia when Katrina hit. We watched the aftermath unfold from a hotel room in Vietnam.

We were at the Tibetan Refugee Center in Darjeeling in early to mid September. I was showing some little kids postcards from Notre Dame, where I went to college. One of them was a postcard of the football stadium.

This girl, no older than 11, said in broken English, "Thats like where the people lived after Katrina, in the Superdome."

I started crying and gave her a hug. I think she thought I was mentally ill.

An 11 year old girl living in a refugee center in the middle of the Himalayas... and she knew.

Fast forward to the Sugar Bowl last year, where I said to a friend of mine, "It's going to feel weird to go into that stadium." She asked me why, and I said, "Because of the aftermath of the storm. Because of all the horrible, horrible things that happened here, and the dead bodies that were left here..." I went on for a minute and this, literally, was her response: "Oh wow, I didn't even know that happened."

[goob]

There were not so many horrible things that happened there other than goverment neglect.

[saintseester]

That explains the itching.

[J.B.]

I got ringworm in the shape of Lake Pontchartrain...

[Mr. Clio]

I named my blog World Class New Orleans mostly because I believe that the world appreciates us more than a lot of America does.

Although some of America really does give a damn about us and has been true blue.