The Reality of the Situation

The entire time that I was in New Orleans I felt like something was missing.  I couldn't figure out what that something was until I returned home.  Besides the people and the normal way of life, I realized that there was very little things green.  Green things provide oxygen and keep us safe from ozone.  Yet, for the people in New Orleans the only thing green is this Levee.  A levee that was breached and destroyed so many lives is the only thing truly green that these people see.  The warm feeling of summer can be felt in the freshly cut green grass and flowering plants in NJ, yet when we saw these rarities in NO we commented on how odd they looked.  This may have been because they were so normal. Yet, there was nothing normal about the daily operations of St. Bernards Parish.  Laborers lined the highway daily waiting to be picked up for odd jobs, shopping centers and drive thrus were either gutted or just bare concrete slabs.  Three years later some apartments and houses remained untouched.  Our group has now come back and returned to our daily routines and yet these people still live in anything but normalcy. The government will take away the FEMA trailers in July and will leave these people to return to lives where relatives are now hundreds of miles away and they struggle to pay the bills even more than they did before.  I often panic at paying my bills as I don't have a salary or career yet and yet there are these people who have been living like this for years and sometimes don't even see any end in sight.  The work that I performed was just the beginning of the process to transition to normalcy.  This is so powerful.  I would hope that if I was faced with the same situation, that I would be helped in the same way.  It is so important to me that I continue to help these people that I have grown to love in any way that I can.  And I ask that if you are able to help, to do so. It is an experience that will change your life.  May God Bless the people of St. Bernards Parish.