ADVENTURES FOR EVCUAEES - COMPLIMENTS OF THE RED CROSS
Sunday, October 02, 2005
I really wanted to write about something trivial and stupid today- like how the portly Dachshund who lives on our host family’s land waddles to the outside refrigerator and lays on his back whenever someone passes by or about how their son, who is 12, knocks on the door to our roomof the room at the same time as he pushes it open. We are staying in his sister’s room and he is use to coming in and playing video games at all hours. I would have liked to wax philososphical about the cane fields, the Cajun meals, the bizzare custom of mowing a lawn the size of the White House with a lawn-mower the size of a 6-cylinder truck. These are the tiny details of life that we notice when the world around us is calm, when we have the quiet and the tranquility to listen and observe.
I was going to write about these things, but then we decided to go to the Red Cross. Now all I can see when I close my eyes is the line outside of the Belmont Hotel in Baton Rouge. We saw it before we even got off Airline Hwy. A thin, slinking serpent, a tee-shirted, baby-strollered wave of humanity that stretched from the entrance of the hotel, along the side parking lot and down two blocks passed an over-grown and mosquito-infested vacant lot. At that point, it turned the corner and continued forabout a half of a mile to the west. As we pulled off to the side of the road, more people were joining the line, setting up folding chairs and umbrellas, arranging bags of peanut butter sandwiches, calming already-grumpy children. What waited for them was a perpetual wall of people and an entire day standing in approximately the same spot, staring at the backs of the same, sweaty heads. National guard members were scattered here and there, wielding machine guns and trying to look tough in front of the swelling crowd. Some will probably wait all day in the Red Cross line. As night falls, yhey will be told to come back again. Some will not leave. They will camp out right there like they did the night before. All this- for a $300 individaul relief check, or $1500 per 5-member household.
Jeremy and I, along with T. and D., went to Baton Rouge to check out random rumors that folks were getting $1500 each there. Jeremy and I met T. and D. at the American Legions Shelter in Kaplan exactly one month ago. Since that time, Jeremy and I have been to two host families, gotten jobs, scoped out houses for possible purchase. T. and D. are still at the shelter, waiting on their FEMA check, no housing prospects in sight. T. says that the folks who run the shelter are keeping their check from them. D. says its true- they are doing it so that they have no choice but to stay at the shelter. If they leave, then the shelter will close down. It was never suppose to be just a processing center for FEMA and now the Red Cross. It was suppose to be a shelter in which to feed and house people in need. T. and D. are, on most nights, the only ones there. They say that the folks who run the shelter are keeping them there for this reason but also- who is going to clean the toilets, take out the trash, help with the mopping if T. and D. leave? Yesterday, a shelter volunteer with a thick Cajun accent and a pink I (Heart) NY tee shirt attempted to bark an order at T. - but she had had enough.
“Where’s the bucket?” she demanded, one hand on her swollen hip.
“I think there’s one over there,” T. said with a hiss and exaggeratedly nonchalant brush of her hand. T. can give a mean stare when she wants to. Such a stare she gave to the unsuspecting little volunteer, who got the hint and retreated into the icy-cold A/C of the Legion building (minus the bucket). Sometimes, T.’s energy can hit a person square between the eyes and leave them blind. After a month of prejudice, menial work, waiting, and just general racist bullshit by the shelter staff (all of whom are white. T. and D. are black), T.’s stares have become downright deadly.
Because of all this, and also because a major Red Cross aid center doesn’t even EXIST in Lafayette (you heard that right folks- despite the 40,000 plus evacuees that are in the city as we speak), we decided to head to Baton Rouge. Jeremy and I haven’t registered yet (never having gotten out of busy-signal mode on the 800 number), and the extra money would allow T. and D. enough cash to leave KKKaplan behind them forever.
“Here is the address,” the spunky Red Cross volunteer said as we stood in the shade outside the shelter. She handed us a little scrap of paper. “The one at the Belmont Hotel is just opening up. That is your best bet. It probably won’t be that crowded right now since not that many people know about it.”
Sounded good to us- at least at the time.
As the menacing line came into view, D. made the decision for himself. “ If we wait in this line, we are going to have to breakfast, lunch, and dinner there and then breakfast, lunch and dinner again in the same damn place. No, thank you, sir.”
It was only 8:30 in the morning so we decided to buy a map and head on over to suggested Red Cross distribution spot number two. This one was actually in Denham Springs, tucked away in a park in the middle of a sprawling, tree-lined suburb. The environment was decidedly greener, the population in the line decidedly more fair of skin. And the gates along the outside of the park had been locked since 6:30 a.m. Supposedly this Center was only for residents of Livingston and Assumption parishes. Yet by 2:30 that morning, folks from as far away as Lake Charles and New Orleans had caused a traffic jam for two miles in every direction. By dawn, someone had broken the lock on the main gate at the park. People- from St. Charles, from New Orleans, from Abbeville, from Baton Rouge, from all over- had poured in to the facility, eager to secure their place in line. In the darkness of early morning, the police came, threatened arrest, and locked the gates. By the time we arrived, battered but not yet defeated, only a few folks milled around or sat in folding chairs near the gates, hoping that they would miraculously open and more people would be let back in. A sheriff came around on a shiny motorcycle and said not to count on it.
“Look folks, they might not even open the gates tomorrow. If you ask me, those people that are running things over there don’t know what the hell they are doing.”
Now you tell us, mister.
Sunday, October 02, 2005
I really wanted to write about something trivial and stupid today- like how the portly Dachshund who lives on our host family’s land waddles to the outside refrigerator and lays on his back whenever someone passes by or about how their son, who is 12, knocks on the door to our roomof the room at the same time as he pushes it open. We are staying in his sister’s room and he is use to coming in and playing video games at all hours. I would have liked to wax philososphical about the cane fields, the Cajun meals, the bizzare custom of mowing a lawn the size of the White House with a lawn-mower the size of a 6-cylinder truck. These are the tiny details of life that we notice when the world around us is calm, when we have the quiet and the tranquility to listen and observe.
I was going to write about these things, but then we decided to go to the Red Cross. Now all I can see when I close my eyes is the line outside of the Belmont Hotel in Baton Rouge. We saw it before we even got off Airline Hwy. A thin, slinking serpent, a tee-shirted, baby-strollered wave of humanity that stretched from the entrance of the hotel, along the side parking lot and down two blocks passed an over-grown and mosquito-infested vacant lot. At that point, it turned the corner and continued forabout a half of a mile to the west. As we pulled off to the side of the road, more people were joining the line, setting up folding chairs and umbrellas, arranging bags of peanut butter sandwiches, calming already-grumpy children. What waited for them was a perpetual wall of people and an entire day standing in approximately the same spot, staring at the backs of the same, sweaty heads. National guard members were scattered here and there, wielding machine guns and trying to look tough in front of the swelling crowd. Some will probably wait all day in the Red Cross line. As night falls, yhey will be told to come back again. Some will not leave. They will camp out right there like they did the night before. All this- for a $300 individaul relief check, or $1500 per 5-member household.
Jeremy and I, along with T. and D., went to Baton Rouge to check out random rumors that folks were getting $1500 each there. Jeremy and I met T. and D. at the American Legions Shelter in Kaplan exactly one month ago. Since that time, Jeremy and I have been to two host families, gotten jobs, scoped out houses for possible purchase. T. and D. are still at the shelter, waiting on their FEMA check, no housing prospects in sight. T. says that the folks who run the shelter are keeping their check from them. D. says its true- they are doing it so that they have no choice but to stay at the shelter. If they leave, then the shelter will close down. It was never suppose to be just a processing center for FEMA and now the Red Cross. It was suppose to be a shelter in which to feed and house people in need. T. and D. are, on most nights, the only ones there. They say that the folks who run the shelter are keeping them there for this reason but also- who is going to clean the toilets, take out the trash, help with the mopping if T. and D. leave? Yesterday, a shelter volunteer with a thick Cajun accent and a pink I (Heart) NY tee shirt attempted to bark an order at T. - but she had had enough.
“Where’s the bucket?” she demanded, one hand on her swollen hip.
“I think there’s one over there,” T. said with a hiss and exaggeratedly nonchalant brush of her hand. T. can give a mean stare when she wants to. Such a stare she gave to the unsuspecting little volunteer, who got the hint and retreated into the icy-cold A/C of the Legion building (minus the bucket). Sometimes, T.’s energy can hit a person square between the eyes and leave them blind. After a month of prejudice, menial work, waiting, and just general racist bullshit by the shelter staff (all of whom are white. T. and D. are black), T.’s stares have become downright deadly.
Because of all this, and also because a major Red Cross aid center doesn’t even EXIST in Lafayette (you heard that right folks- despite the 40,000 plus evacuees that are in the city as we speak), we decided to head to Baton Rouge. Jeremy and I haven’t registered yet (never having gotten out of busy-signal mode on the 800 number), and the extra money would allow T. and D. enough cash to leave KKKaplan behind them forever.
“Here is the address,” the spunky Red Cross volunteer said as we stood in the shade outside the shelter. She handed us a little scrap of paper. “The one at the Belmont Hotel is just opening up. That is your best bet. It probably won’t be that crowded right now since not that many people know about it.”
Sounded good to us- at least at the time.
As the menacing line came into view, D. made the decision for himself. “ If we wait in this line, we are going to have to breakfast, lunch, and dinner there and then breakfast, lunch and dinner again in the same damn place. No, thank you, sir.”
It was only 8:30 in the morning so we decided to buy a map and head on over to suggested Red Cross distribution spot number two. This one was actually in Denham Springs, tucked away in a park in the middle of a sprawling, tree-lined suburb. The environment was decidedly greener, the population in the line decidedly more fair of skin. And the gates along the outside of the park had been locked since 6:30 a.m. Supposedly this Center was only for residents of Livingston and Assumption parishes. Yet by 2:30 that morning, folks from as far away as Lake Charles and New Orleans had caused a traffic jam for two miles in every direction. By dawn, someone had broken the lock on the main gate at the park. People- from St. Charles, from New Orleans, from Abbeville, from Baton Rouge, from all over- had poured in to the facility, eager to secure their place in line. In the darkness of early morning, the police came, threatened arrest, and locked the gates. By the time we arrived, battered but not yet defeated, only a few folks milled around or sat in folding chairs near the gates, hoping that they would miraculously open and more people would be let back in. A sheriff came around on a shiny motorcycle and said not to count on it.
“Look folks, they might not even open the gates tomorrow. If you ask me, those people that are running things over there don’t know what the hell they are doing.”
Now you tell us, mister.
posted by Nikki Lyn Pugh | 2:30 PM
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