Hope that elusive friend..

There is so much violence in the world right now it seems. So much anger and hatred and intolerance. So much willful ignorance and sociopathic behavior.

I stayed in New Orleans for a time. Mostly in the Harvey, LA area, about 15 minutes drive from the French Quarter.When people think of New Orleans, they think of Bourbon street, drinking, parades, festivals, voodoo, vampires, and other pop culture novelties that make their way in the world. Before I spent time there, that is what I would think of too. I would imagine the wonder of the French Quarter, Vampire Lestat parading himself around the area, the reek of history, sex, and abundance. I found allure in the representations of New Orleans, it’s history and culture, it’s music and arts, the beauty of the architecture and the cemeteries. It is steeped in cultures mixing, mysterious swamps and bayous, creole and slaves, the good and the bad mixed in a way that it can be found nowhere else in the country. It is it’s own unique place. I have wanted to go there for as long as I can remember. I am fascinated by this mix of cultures, of history, of voudou, of that dark and mysterious reputation. The ghosts and legends standing guard over everything and everyone there.

What I didn’t expect before living in New Orleans was the startling amount of violence, the extreme poverty, and nearly 10 years after the fact, the complete devastation of some areas still that were hit and destroyed by Katrina. When I came to the city I was on a long journey of my own. I was searching for a place that could hold me down for awhile until I could find my way back to where I was going in the end. I had been traveling for over a year, was nearly destitute, all I had was my car and my clothes and was just exhausted from my Journey. In New Orleans I found a temporary home in a crappy hotel in Harvey.

People who have traveled a lot and have spent any time basically living in hotels will know that this, in and of itself, is a weird lifestyle. But if you are a people watcher it is a pretty interesting one. I have stayed in a lot of places in nearly all the states and what was different about this one is that nearly every person who was staying in the hotel, lived in the hotel. These were not tourists, not people visiting the city. They were people who were displaced by Katrina. People whose houses still didn’t have running water or electricity or solid walls to protect them. Oh, there were a few contractors staying there and some regulars who came and went a few days at a time. But for the most part it was residents. Entire families living in one room with one bed between them, trying to balance work and finding a job and trying to make the $200/mo foodstamps pay for a months worth of groceries for 7 people.

I lived in that hotel on and off for 4 months. It was violent. There were more than 10 shootings on the property in the time that I stayed there. One of the guys who regularly got groceries for a disabled man who hadn’t left his room in 7 years was shot basically in front of my door for nothing. For no reason. For sport, entertainment. Let me reiterate that this was a crappy hotel, that housed mostly families, with small children. But while that is mostly true, it had it’s share of drug dealers, prostitutes, criminals of varying degree, and the hopeless. And that is one of the things that is most striking about New Orleans. You can go to really crappy hotels in any city, in any state in the United States and find all of those things. That is not unusual. What is unusual is the attitude of the people staying there. The hopeful and generous spirit of these people who live so hard and just get by.

The people I met there had basically nothing. They were poor to the point of destitution. They had very few material belongings, very little money, very little in the way of anything that most would consider valuable. One of the things that happens when you live in a life this way is that you prioritize your life by the second. You have $10. You could get medicine, but then how would you eat? Is eating more important than healing, and which thing will make the most difference. You learn that most of the things that you have in your home are expendable, based on the amount of money and level of need. Let me state right now, before you, in your mind, brand these people as slackers, as losers, or people who are just living off the government. They aren’t. Of course there are always a few you could say that about, but the majority of them had at least one if not more jobs. They worked hard for very little in order to try to sustain as much of a normal life as possible. Most of them had dreams, had something they were working towards. A better job, a home for their children, a life somewhere safe for their children. One of the drug dealers spent 4 hours every night doing football drills with his son in order to try to help him get a football scholorship so he could go to school. They all were desperate and yet they all had hope for something better.

I firmly believe that everyone you meet and every place you go has something to teach you. You can learn something from every situation no matter what. Hope is what I learned in New Orleans. When I went to that city I had none. I didn’t believe in anything. I didn’t believe things would get better, I didn’t have any hope for the future, I didn’t have any belief in myself or anyone else at that point. I was in a bleak place and basically had figured that New Orleans would be a poetic place to die. I was in a bad situation that I couldn’t get out of, I was exhausted, I was hopeless, and I was broke, and sometimes homeless depending on the day. Frequently I would go for multiple days without food.

These people, these destitute people who had nothing in their lives, who were the poorest of the poor and didn’t know whether they would have food from day to day, and didn’t know where they were going to sleep or if they could live another day, these people who were just like me in so many ways, these people shared their food with me when they knew I didn’t have anything. They shared their time and their meals and their laughter and a surprising amount of hope and forgiveness in the face of all that happened to them. They did it out of kindness and generosity, and I did the same for them. In all the places I have been in the united states, these are the people that had the hardest lives and the most giving and generous spirits. These are the people who gave me hope.