jambalaya porkfish pie

New Orleans. What an experience. This has been a trip that I will never ever forget. The things I've seen, the people I've met, I'll probably remember for the rest of my life.



This was the scene on Nawlins highways in the middle of the afternoon when we got there. The first thing you notice aside from the damage is the fact that this place is a relative ghost town. There's nobody here. All those reports about New Orleans already coming back to normal are all lies.



When we got there the volunteer centre was almost deserted because most of the group's go back on Sunday but still the remaining staff were holding a service for themselves. That was like a movie moment. Deserted streets and a lonely parish.



Thats the inside of the volunteer centre. Honestly I was wasn't sure if we were supposed to be the relief or the refugees



Our very first look at the damage had me speechless. Its been 9 months and the place looks like Katrina happened the day before yesterday!! So many houses had just about all of their owner's possessions still inside rotting away. Thank goodness most of the time the owner's themselves weren't inside as well.


So thats what a big proportion of the people still living in New Orleans stay in now. Tiny trailers given to them by FEMA that they've been living in for the past 9 months. Right in front of the houses they used to live in. FEMA stands for Federal Emergency Managment Agency and its the butt of just about every New Orleaner's jokes right now.

The very first house we got to gutting. That means we had to demolish the walls to get to the rotting insulation and drywall inside. That plus taking anything else inside the house out to be carted away to the dump. Precious little could be saved because most of the house was under 14ft of water for 2 months!! And that water was toxic as hell! It was just plain unreal having to cart a person's entire life out and dump it onto the pavement. The owner of the house was standing right there watching us and there was a sadness around him that none of us could do anything to absolve. His family and him had been living in that house and the one next to it for the better part of 60 years. There were books in there dating to 1931. There was a collection of Mardi Gras coins from 1960.

Closets full of clothes, grand bedrooms with rotting mattresses, vintage signs, wedding photos of children, a pool table with the stories of loads of kids according to Julius the owner's wife at least.











Ok I'm getting really tired and I'm running out of time so I'll just let the pictures tell the rest of the story.