last day in the Crescent City

I should probably clarify that I'm not one of those live blogging types. I am not currently in New Orleans but back in my apartment chomping on some late night chocolate chip cookies. So let's flash back together....

Friday morning we all dragged ourselves out of bed, climbed in the cars and drove out to East New Orleans without saying a word. The morning continued in silence as nursing hangovers and sleep deprived we continued to build houses. I moved on from painting things blue to painting things gray and then cutting J channels for vinyl siding. I don't mean to sound like Ms. Dudley can't-Do-Right but it involved geometry skills that I lack, or rather that I have to work super hard at. The day picked up when our fellow workers from a church outside Philly bought enough ice cream pops for everyone. Appropriately refreshed we took one last group photo and skedaddled into the sunset.

As much as I love people I am a big believer in me-time so that evening I splintered from the main group with Laura, a colleague from Parks, to seek out Mexican food. It was an interesting experience if only because they sold the nacho cheese and salsa separate from the chips. My face expressed a confusion evidently previously unseen in New Orleans when asked "You want chips with that?" I was tempted to respond, "No, just a spoon will be fine."

Switching gears we walked along the ole' Miss and stopped in at Cafe du Monde to sample beignets. They're open 24 hours a day! I would guess that the French donuts (fried dough smothered in powdered sugar) are one of the more unhealthy foods of the world but Cafe du Monde was opened in 1862 before the advent of cholesterol. Tradition calls for blowing the sugar onto a friend but Laura politely declined.

The next morning (day 6!) I decided to take full advantage of the day and go on a bus tour of the entire city. We stopped at St. Louis Cemetery. Built over an old leper graveyard (heck yeah, I'm composing the all-singing all-dancing leper musical in my head now) it is built with walls of niches. The bodies are laid there, do their thing, and then are transferred to ossuary buildings. During yellow fever, graves couldn't be reopened until a year and one day after the bodies were interred. I would love to share more fascinating information about the cemetery and new Orleans but I fell asleep on the bus waking up only to note where the Ann Rice lived and the Manning family lives.

Ok, I'm less than inspired tonight...blame the chocolate so I shall end with the flight home. It was the bumpiest, scariest landing I have ever endured and I did think that death was a possibility. Compounding my anxiety, there was a woman on my flight who was super afraid of flying...to the point that up until the minute we took off she kept asking her companion if perhaps they could drive. I am a super low key flyer but it was a rough landing.

Crescent City

Day 3: Hump day! Wednesday was the first clue that I might not make it through the whole week unscathed. Bright and shiny we met at Bayou Rebirth's nursery to be led into the wild blue yonder of a real live bayou. Unfortunately their truck wasn't quite in working repair. While the men folk tinkered with the engine (and by tinker I mean remove large parts of the engine that I'm pretty sure are necessary to its proper functioning) we occupied ourselves by devising a hockey-type game with broom sticks. But sun exhaustion and a twisted knee and a replacement truck conspired to cut the game short.

Driving to the site, we passed endless waterways and several oil refineries to arrive at a newly built waterfront park. On site we dug through the bucket o' waders to find boots in a size approximating our own and then headed into the water to plant the marsh grasses that we had lovingly repotted the day before. This was more complicated than you might imagine as mucking through two feet of water (and a foot of mud) in incorrectly sized boots leads to imbalance and wet pants.
After lunch crossed the water to plant cane. The boat ride would have been much nicer if waders in direct sunlight didn't conduct so much heat but it was a nice opportunity to see the innards of a bayou. I may or may not have seen an alligator and some of the girls swear to having spotted a dinosaur. We did positively identify several nesting kildeer.
Night 3: Anyhoo, at the end of the day we were glad to peel off four feet of rubber and make our way towards Lafayette Square for Wednesday at the Square, "a free, 12-week concert series with food and drink for sale to benefit the Young Leadership Council." Of course we benefited the Council by purchasing Mar-GO-ritas, the adult version of a Capri sun and then went to soak up the alcohol at Deanie's Seafood because "you haven’t done New Orleans, until you’ve done Deanie’s." After doing Deanie's (and boy did we do Deanie's) we walked off all the fried, steamed, and boiled fish-y goodness on the way to d.b.a.

According to their website, d.b.a.'s "building dates back to the 1880's, and musicians say the all cypress wood music room is one of the warmest sounding rooms in New Orleans." The website also says that it's located it one of the hippest neighborhoods in the country besides perhaps Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I maintain that Frenchmen Street and its live music venues and Creole mansions is way super cooler than the hipster haven. After drinking, dancing and feeding Philip (as in fill-up the tip jar) we caught a cab back to our plush bunk beds to dream of marsh grass and levees set to a blues soundtrack.

Let's just move right on to Day 4: Switching gears we began work with Habitat for Humanity. Although our crew leaders were total hotties and I could forgive them most anything I would have appreciated more of a welcome to the work day than "We have a lot of injuries each year. Please don't cut your fingers off or get hit on the head with a two by four." But besides the admonition not to rest tools on top of ladders that was about it; we were broken into teams and set to work hanging Tyvek sheets.


I immediately admitted to my team my complete inability to stand on ladders and do anything but stand. I was not blessed with a surplus of balance, if any, and was so relegated to the post of "ladder- holder and hammerer of low things" for the morning. At one point a two by four fell on my head. Seriously. Anyhoo, it was not an ideal job for any of us as there was no shade and boy is Tyvek reflective. We did take a brief break to construct a fort out of extra boards to provide a refuge from the blinding rays of the sun but I realized early on that any more time in the sun might cause my arms to fall off so after lunch I bribed someone with an inside job to take my place.

I spent the afternoon cowering in the shade and happily painting things blue. My arms, unfortunately had already started to blister a little (I'm allergic to the sun. neat huh?) which prompted a rational fear of what Friday might bring. But I didn't concern myself overly because of what Night 4 had in store.
Night 4: The leader of the gang (the fearless Brian, Lousiana native) had prepared a crawfish boil for us. We arrived to his house to be greeted by the spectre of 60 pounds of dead crustaceans on a table, with more in a large vat stirred with an oar. Also on the menu were corn on the cob, boiled potatoes and artichokes all smothered in cayenne pepper (which incidentally stings quite a bit when it comes into contact with your eyeballs) and a healthy selection of Abita, the local brew.

We spent the evening schmoozing and competition story-telling before Brian's neighbor hit on the bright idea of dragging us all to Rock and Bowl. Evidently this woman had an in so we paid a $5 cover and were treated to free shoes, $1 socks (bleached to germ free perfection), and an hour of bowling... to the sultry tunes of live zydeco. There was even a man with a washboard. It was perhaps the hippest bowling experience I've ever had. The lanes were new and pristine and the building featured a huge bar and dance floor.

In some fluke of lane assignments, I got a whole lane to myself and played against myself in five different positions. I impressed by bowling pretty much continuously for an entire hour and scoring higher than 60 for each spot. Sober with a tired arm I was in that first car to skedaddle home at 2am. We closed that place DOWN.

Does our hero survive Friday with only four hours of sleep and facing the threat of sun poisoning? Stay tuned for the next installment...

The Big Easy

Before I enlighten you on Day 2, I should probably give you a brief tutorial about wetlands restoration in general and in New Orleans in particular. Please keep in mind that I am by no means an expert. Any information that I hope to impart comes from an undergraduate degree in biology, several web searches, and three all-too-short days working with City Park and Bayou Rebirth.

Wetlands, as the name implies, is an area of land that is covered in shallow water all or part of the year. Think bogs, marshes, swamps, bayous. They are considered the most biologically diverse systems in the world.

New Orleans is basically one giant wetland. Bounded to the north by Lake Pontchartrain, to the south by Mississippi River and to the East by miles and miles of canals, most of the city is below sea level. It wasn't always that way though. The River, like all rivers, used to flood periodically depositing silt and sediment and building up the land mass of the city. After a particularly destructive flood, levees were built to control the flow of the river with the unfortunate effect of funneling all the dirt into the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. Additionally, channels were excavated to facilitate the transport of petroleum and ship traffic. The excavation increases the surface area of land exposed to erosion. So without new dirt provided by the river and with channels dug everywhere, New Orleans is slowly sinking. (National Geographic's feature "Gone with the Water" also points to overpopulation of nutria as a problem. Evidently those little suckers chomp wetland plants like no other. But not to worry, they're edible and soon they'll be as integral to Nawlins cuisine as jambalaya.)

Everyone we talked to in New Orleans also pointed towards the destructive influence of Mr. Go. Not a supervillian of extraordinary powers but the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, Mr. Go was dredged to serve as a 500-ft wide shipping shortcut. Unused, it has eroded to three times it's planned size and in Hurricane Katrina provided a direct route for storm surge to reach the city.

Storm surge, by the way, is the wave created by hurricanes in open water. But for every two to four miles of wetlands the wave's height is reduced by 1ft. This would be good news if the wetlands of New Orleans were untouched by levees, shipping channels and Mr. Go. (I have to say, it was remarkable how bitter NOLA citizens were about Mr. Go. Even the average joe seemed to be consumed by vitriol at its mere mention.)

Obviously people aren't just sitting around watching the wetlands disappear. There a number of groups doing phenomenal (albeit sometimes scattershot) work to restore the wetlands.

On Day 2 we got to work with such a group: Bayou Rebirth. "Founded in 2007 partly in response to the environmental and community needs present in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Bayou Rebirth envisions a revitalized and restored city through local and visiting citizens’ connection to the ecology of the coastal wetlands. Bayou Rebirth is offering local residents and visiting volunteers a way to get involved in solutions now."

Hidden in a parking lot behind an abandoned kitchen fixture store Bayou Rebirth has a nursery of wetland plants. There we stepped up marsh grasses, drained pools, weeded and cleaned up bags and bags of styrofoam in the unfortunately direct sunlight.

Night 2: After work, we ventured over to the lower ninth ward, the neighborhood of New Orleans that sustained the most damage and casualties in Hurricane Katrina. As it turns out, the levees built to control flooding were found to be in complete disrepair, or rather they were built in a manner that was since found to be completely negligent. Disregarding the settling and sinking of the land and using outdated methods the levees were not built to standard. In some areas, the walls were filled with crumpled newspaper and sand instead of dirt and cement. The citizens of New Orleans filed suit against the Army Corps of Engineers and in a historic settlement were awarded damages.

The levees were rebuilt twice as high but only 60% of NOLA citizens returned after the hurricane and houses remain abandoned. They retain the water line and markings indicating FEMA searches. The juxtaposition with modern new houses built by Brad Pitt's Make it Right is especially eerie.

After a dirty day in the hot sun, and the depressing spectre of a devastated neighborhood, we recovered our spirits with frosty daiquiris at the drive-thru.

Coming off the high of a craw-gator frozen drink we went to Mandina's a "Creole-Italian" restaurant near our house. I didn't notice anything remotely close to Italian food (except for perhaps mufaletta sandwich which is a glorified sub) but they did have several varieties of traditional NOLA sandwiches including a French-fry po'boy. Really.

Then we rested for a hot minute before going to the Maple Leaf Bar to check out the Rebirth Brass Band. The bar hosts live music seven days a week....and it was packed to the gills. With good reason. The Band, which plays there every Tuesday, has been a "New Orleans institution" since 1983. I suppose they could be classified as funk, solid gold brass funk. Oh and Tim Robbins was there! He's tall!

You most definitely should download some Rebirth Brass Band tunes before reading the next installment of the NOLA files. Consider it homework.

a New York interlude

Today, while I was walking in midtown (the lights! the bustle!) my iPod got into the spirit and started playing songs from the great white way (Broadway). It took all I had to not burst into song. I know that most anything is acceptable in the big bad city but I still think people would frown upon me belting "Seasons of Love." And yes I am that trite.

A Streetcar Named Desire

Two weeks ago, I went on a work-sponsored trip to the Big Easy to plant things and build stuff. Arriving on Sunday evening we went straight to business at Franky and Johnny's with alligator nuggets. That's right, delicious fried reptile. Mmmmm. I never knew what I was missing living in NY where alligator is not readily available. Moving on to other items in the Nawlins repertoire I ordered red beans and rice which you are evidently only supposed to eat on Mondays. Don't ask.

Have you noticed that thus far I've only talked about food? I'm afraid it will continue as cuisine and New Orleans seem to inseparable. If anything can be made bigger, better or deeper fried, it can be done there.

Day 1: Donning our waders and braving poisonous stinging caterpillars we set out to City Park to plant trees, dig up marshgrasses and just get dirty. At 1300 acres City Park is one of the largest (and oldest) urban parks in the world. It has an amusement park, golf course, botanical garden and so so many big beautiful gorgeous 600 year old live oak trees. After Hurricane Katrina, the whole park was under water and much of the vegetation was destroyed. Five years later, the Park's staff still works out of a trailer. But they are a few hundred trees closer to being restored after our work day!

It's gonna eat me! These suckers dropped out of trees and lurked everywhere waiting to sting the unsuspecting.

A spring chicken of a live oak tree. Their branches can reach lengths of 40ft!

Night 1: When most people think of New Orleans they think of Bourbon Street: the traditional center of drunken debauchery where open container laws hold no stead. But as upstanding young citizens we opted to go for sno balls instead! According to several culinary websites, sno-balls are an institution unto themselves not to be confused with sno-cones. Sno-cones are made with crushed ice. But a snow ball? light and fluffy shaved ice. Made with the one and only Hansen's Sno-Bliz and you can get just about anything you want on top, including sugar syrup, sweetened condensed milk and chocolate sauce.

...And then we went to Bourbon Street. At the Gumbo Shop I ate my first crawfish ever and drank my first hurricane of the trip. Actually four of us girls split a hurricane because we might be a bit lame for New Orleans. After dinner we popped into a voodoo shop selling Virgin Mary tokens (that looked an awful lot like Frida Kahlo), charms (unfortunately all for fertility) and a wide variety of cigars. I was tempted to peek into the aura reading happening in the back room but the posted signs promising death and doom to those who looked without paying scared me back on to the street. We moved on to souvenir stores selling beads, boas and bourbon and walked by Big Ass Beers several times. And then headed to bed.

All right ladies and gentleman, please watch Spike Lee's When the Levees broke before reading the next installment of Nawlins for lame-os.