by Jenny McKay
Daily Lobo guest columnist
I graduated from UNM in the spring of 2002 and moved to New Orleans in 2003. I was part of Teach for America, an organization that recruits college graduates to teach for two years in under-resourced areas. I taught 10th-grade English in the Jefferson Parish Public School System and lived in Uptown, a neighborhood in New Orleans near the Tulane and Loyola universities.
I began teaching my third year on Aug. 22, 2005. I had just ended my first week when a phone call woke me up Saturday morning and I was informed by a friend that we needed to evacuate. Having evacuated last year for Hurricane Ivan, we knew it was crucial to leave before everyone else. Without any realization of what was to come, I packed what I thought would be needed for a few days. This did not include more than my dirty laundry, a pillow, blanket and three pairs of flip-flops.
Since the evacuation, every day seems to bring more bad news. Flooding, levy breaks, looting, shooting, stranded victims, death, accusations and racism are the issues I so helplessly pondered, first in Lafayette, then in Houston and now in Austin.
I search nola.com and wwltv.com, the local newspaper and television news Web sites, over and over again trying to make sense of what's going to happen. I hear on the news a report about Uptown's flooding, and then I read on blogs there's no water in the area. So-and-so's brother's wife's cousin said the upper Garden District is untouched, but I read in the newspaper there is looting at the grocery store I patronized every Sunday.
I stopped watching the hurricane coverage on television by Thursday because I couldn't take watching the pitiful images and witnessing the local leaders I respect cry on national news. I couldn't handle seeing the people of poverty reverting to the same violence that I taught my heart out to educate against.
It's not the New Orleans I want the world to see.
New Orleans is a city unlike any other in the nation. The city's unique culture, traditions and celebrations have provided me with an opportunity to discover a beauty of the human spirit that cannot be aptly described in words. I love taking a walk in my neighborhood and meeting old women knitting on the porch. I love shopping downtown and discovering an impromptu festival. The teachers at my school are the most amazing creatures to ever exist, for they have the compassion of saints but the assertiveness of pit bulls.
The great fear I have -- and one I think a lot of us have - is that our past life in New Orleans will not match the life we come back to. The people we know, will they return? If they return, will they work the same job? Will they still live next door to me?
If I have lost my apartment, although the possibility is distressing, I know I can buy new things. I will be able to return to the places I know, like my home or my school, even if it takes six months or more. The most upsetting part is that my community is lost.
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Families have left the area and have nothing to return to. Many of my colleagues may find teaching jobs in higher-paying areas. It is possible that I will never know what has happened to the majority of my students. It terrifies me to think about whether they are alive, where they are housed and if they are receiving an education there. If I return to my school, which is not slated to open its doors until Jan. 19, 2006, the students, faculty and administration may all be entirely different.
My life is on hold. When I'm not worrying what life might be like when we return, I worry about what to do while I'm in limbo. When I'm not worrying about what to do now, I worry about what I should do for my future. Do I begin a new life somewhere else? Do I file for unemployment at age 25? Do I find a community accepting evacuees, teach in a new district and live with strangers for six months?
The answers do not come easily. It is my hope that time will bring more explanations. Until then, my mind constantly searches for solutions as I travel to the safety of my home in Albuquerque - a wonderful place, with better Mexican food, but no jambalaya.
