After viewing New Orleans through my camera lens, hearing people’s life experience and helping to rebuild a home, I realize how fortunate I am. I have been to devastated and poverty stricken areas in the Philippines but this experience made me see our nation’s social structures from a different angle. This tragedy has blown the top off of the Pop Rocks and Pepsi that have been shaking up all these years in the Big Easy. Last night, we listened to Dr. Stevens, the Head of the Health Department speak about his experience during Katrina. However, I walked away from his presentation wishing that he was more aware of how the issues he discussed could be alleviated instead of listing all the problems he was fighting against. I felt that as a man of power he would be the first person to have solutions to implement, strategies to attack the mold and contaminated soil, and the delayed progress of the Greater New Orleans area. I was anxious to hear about social equity that he mentioned at the beginning but was sadly disappointed. He merely urged us as the “strong, energetic, bright young people” to enact these motions to close the “health disparity.”
Back home, I have seen children starving in the streets without running water and the conveniences of civilization. Until this week, however, I have not been this close to walking a mile in another man’s shoes. I have seen and walked into houses that looked like the hollowed snail shells moved into by mold, bats, rodents, and an inevitable stench that soaks into clothing. Seeing a displaced house with a child’s toys still strewn over layers of debris and the thought of that childhood being interrupted by Katrina pulled at my heart strings. I have heard from skeptics that reconstruction of New Orleans and the surrounding area is a hopeless case because of the low lying land and the high occurrence rate of natural disasters. However, I cannot bring myself to agree with them because of what I have seen in the Philippines. I would have to sacrifice my conscience in asking poor Filpinos to move out of their little hut in the barrio. In much the same way, I feel the internal conflict of New Orleanians who do not know whether they should move back to their hometown again. To abandon a birthplace, a brilliant culture, a homeland, a place of familiarity and brotherhood would be a crime.
Living in Fish Camp has helped me to appreciate all the things I have at home in New Jersey and has helped to silence any complaints that I might make. Despite the lack of plumbing and a constant source of heat, it pales in comparison to the psychological, physical, mental, financial and health problems that New Orleanians have had to face in these past two and a half years. I am humbled to be in this city and believe that the good works we do will help it to return to its former greatness.
Eunice Cuyos
