Stranger in a Strange Land (Margaret)

Today we went to the French Quarter. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I knew it would be something akin to my visits to other big city visits, with lots of tourist shops and traps. And it was basically that. We were there in our vans and after getting lost and separated and saved by phone calls and a GPS, we were told we had until four thirty to look around, as long as we stayed in big groups.

Throughout my week, I've done some pretty amazing things - I helped to dig a huge trench, getting an atrocious sunburn that was absolutely worth it. I made so many phone calls that I know city codes for phone numbers. I have known every single time I perform an action that it is valuable and it will mean something to someone.

But in the French Quarter everything changed. We seemed to be the only ones who knew or cared about the real New Orleans. On every corner was another store with "I Love New Orleans" tee shirts in the window for people to buy, gigantic floppy purple, gold, and green hats that would proclaim to all who saw you, "I have been to New Orleans!" And I felt so out of place. We didn't belong there, among all the cameras and cheap made-in-China goods. I bought two prints, a really lovely bag, and a Mardi Gras mask. I know other people bought beads, jewelry, things that would remind them of their trip. But these things aren't all representative of the things that we do.

I'm reminded of something Gwen spoke about earlier, while we were looking around at the artists with their work spread out around the square. The paintings were either bits of "disaster tourism" - salvaged work turned into famous scenes, or else pictures of the Garden District, the French Quarter, things that everyone who has't really worked in New Orleans associate with this city.

What are we going to bring back? What would we have left of this trip, if suddenly a hurricane took away all of our material possessions? If we didn't have those masks and tee shirts and souvenirs of our afternoon in the Quarter?

That's what I've been thinking about, and what I couldn't get out of my head when we walked by a bar where adults were stumbling out drunk at three o'clock in the afternoon. And I realized that even if I hadn't bought the things at the Quarter, I would have been fine. I guess in retrospect, it wasn't even so horrible that we did go to the Quarter - the frustration I felt wasn't directed at the people selling things, at anyone who lived in the city who was making their living. It was the tourists, who have been everywhere, who simply don't understand that the world is more than shot glasses and cheap beads.

I wish that everyone in the world could go through the things we're experiencing this week. I think it would teach them a lot. Mr. Kane read us an amazing piece tonight by Dr. Bob Moorehead that talked about how this world has become superficial, yet we still have the choice to go out and change it.

There's a life to the city and the Quarter that I don't see in the Lower Ninth Ward. I know other people feel exactly the same way. In my perfect world where everything always gets better, that life would spread, grow, and move out throughout the rest of the city and every other area devastated by Katrina and the other hurricanes.

For once, I believe that my perfect world and reality are going to collide. It's going to take a lot of time, and those tourists I saw in the French Quarter certainly didn't help, but I have met so many incredible people who believe in change, and are so passionate about their work, that I have hope. It's nice to have hope.

Going to the French Quarter showed me how alive this city can be. I can't wait for the day when all of New Orleans will have as much life and soul as this place did.

(I'm going to go so Colleen can blog now.)