Last week I went to the CCCC convention in New Orleans. It was a great conference, but the best part of it happened afterwards when Sherry and I got out of the Quarter and adjacent hotel district and into the real city.
Since my sabbatical focus is Service Learning and Civic Engagement, I went to a conference session about something called the Neighborhood Story Project, where I met Rachel and Abram. NSP is a pre/post-Katrina grass roots, neighborhood based community publishing project whose goal is help New Orleans neighborhoods to tell and publish their stories. On Saturday, Sherry and I were able to join up with their Post-Katrina tour, and see a lot of the rest of the city.
The French Quarter is interesting, but underneath all New Orleans kitsch, it’s your basic tourist trap. It escaped Katrina largely unscathed, and most tourists don’t get beyond it.
Greater New Orleans, however, is a post-war landscape. I’m going to publish pictures later (was used old fashioned film which is not developed yet – such a luddite), but I wanted to throw this up here to let you know that there’s going to be more in the coming weeks.
Because we made a few local connections, we were also able to worship at First African Baptist Church in the 6th district, whose sanctuary had four feet of water after Katrina, and then join a Second Line Parade that started not far away at the intersection of 2nd and Dryades, also in the 6th district. Both of these events would probably rank in my top ten of amazing experiences.
Think of this as sort of a trailer. I can tell y’all are excited.
I’m VERY excited by the trailer. My knowledge of NO is from James Bond movies…not the greatest, I bet. I’m looking forward to the pictures and descriptions.
I, too, am very excited to see more. My cousins gave a similar report to yours after their visit last year, describing the city as “third world.”
You make me quadruply sorry I didn’t go along!