"Why are you here?" Last year I posed this question to my group several times without a complete answer. My group, or "Team Bonin" as we named ourselves, was not afraid of working in the summer heat, angry wasps and fire ants, or strange mold growths, but when I would pose this simple question every few evenings, they would squirm and avoid eye contact.
For me, there are two answers to this question. The first is a simple one, it is one that I give to family friends and curious relatives. People who I know well may have heard the story about how I first became involved in Magnolia Project. A dorm hall debate about Hurricane Katrina and a fortuitous chalking in a classroom the next day led me to a info session, and here I am. But there is also a longer answer. A couple info sessions might explain how I got here, but not exactly why.
The photo above is a small street island in Uptown, about .5 mile from Tulane. On the last work day of my first trip to New Orleans, we helped dig up the overgrowth that had accumulated since the storm. I was so exhausted by the end of the trip that this was probably the hardest labor I have ever done in New Orleans. During lunch I fell asleep on the sidewalk next to Papa Johns, and while working there were several times that I zoned out completely, staring at my feeble attempt to uproot a weed, until a fellow volunteer jolted me back to attention.
The island is close enough to our current residence that I walk by it several times a week. Every time I do, I think about that day and how much energy I put into this little plot of grass. It seems so inconsequential, just some neutral ground that the Tulane students who live in the area probably do not even think twice about. But to me it does have some meaning, and there are points all around this city that are just like this island. A vacant lot in the lower ninth, a house in the East, a school in Uptown, a family I met in Mid City. To anyone else, these are all just small pieces, but to me, they represent why I am still here.
The feelings that these places and people evoke in me give me a perspective on what this entire city means to someone who has been raised here. For just a moment, I can experience first hand why the residents of New Orleans want to come back so passionately. At the same time, the brevity of this emotion tells me that this city can never mean to me what it means to them. I have a few points of reference, they have a hospital where they were born, a neighborhood where they grew up, a school district where they were taught and a city that tossed them out and draws them back.
So I am here, still here, for the sake of what I have already seen and done. The places and people I have discussed above mean something to me and I want to be apart of supporting them. However, I can also see that New Orleans is not my home, no matter what, I will always be a little bit foreign here, and that is OK. I do not expect to co-opt a place just because I have spent some time there. New Orleans is important now because of the scale of what it has gone through and because years from now, children will learn about what happened here and I want them to have a positive example to carry on. But at the same time, eventually we all have to go back to the places we are from, where everything means something to us, and try to make a difference there. Until then, it is important for me to put myself in the shoes of others, to share what they feel, if only for a short time.
