Dear Friends:

The following are excerpts from entries in a journal I kept during a recent trip to Louisiana. I invite you to join me in taking a look at life behind the headlines in New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

Janine Arseneau

April, 2006

I. The First Day: New Orleans’ Still Life

It is nearly nine months since Hurricane Katrina. The plane I’m on from Milwaukee circles for a landing at the Louis Armstrong Airport in New Orleans. Passengers crane their necks to see –and what they’re looking for varies from person to person. First-timers are looking for vestiges of Katrina. Returning visitors are trying to find signs of life. Residents, simply, are looking for home. Some see nothing that gives them even a glimmer of hope.

The woman sitting next to me is going to stay with relatives. Her place is totally destroyed. Her aunt’s home is damaged, but livable. “I’ve been missing home all these months. I just want to go home.”

The fellow across the aisle is with a group of volunteers, and a church floor is where they will sleep tonight, dormitory style.

Jenny, the eighteen year old college student sitting behind me, had been in New York. Her family’s home in New Orleans is on high ground, and “built up” on stilts. That home had been spared most of the damage from Katrina and Rita. She says she knows she should be grateful, but she feels guilty, too. “It’s hard to be happy when everyone else lost everything, or pretty close to it.”

I’ll be meeting up with Marilyn and Al, old friends from the Midwest who moved to Baton Rouge more than thirty years ago. Their house – not directly hit by the storms.

Their lives – filled with unexpected ripple effects, no end in sight.

The first post-storm conversation I had by phone with Marilyn months ago contained long silences as she described seeing bodies piled up on baggage carousels at the same airport my plane lands in today. Fragments of that conversation replay in my head as I walk through the unexpectedly quiet, uncrowded airport, toward the baggage area.

Marilyn had described the scene: carousels that normally offered up baggage were converted into holding platforms for people, some seriously injured, others who were close to breathing their last, still others who had already made their exit. Marilyn went there as a volunteer, accompanied by her husband and their teenage son, thinking they would be offering food, finding shelters, helping in ways that did not include being told,

“Don’t bother with them. They’re already goners.” She sent her family home, as she stayed through the night, with the distraught souls who found themselves in the airport, not knowing what would become of them.

Today, Al meets me at the Northwest Airline carousel. His greeting, warm and genuine, is quickly followed by his story of bodies on carousels, of the airport as a staging area. As he speaks, he has the haunted demeanor of someone who has just seen a ghost. During my time in Louisiana, I will see that look many times, on other faces – a shadow, a hint of a brush with a shadow. It’s a look that’s familiar to me from my work with survivors of other types of trauma. Sometimes, a survivor will re-experience an entire episode. Other times, a fleeting suggestion of the event. For that time, whether a moment or much longer, the survivor emotionally returns to the source of the traumatic experience. Al is here with me, right now – and elsewhere, in a place he can neither escape nor forget.

On this sunny April day, Al and I go upstairs to wait for the arrival of my friend, Kathryn Hall. We speak about Al’s work and his children, of plans for supper, but the bodies on the carousels are never far away. We go with Kathryn to wait at another baggage area for her black bag to make its appearance. I can only imagine what Al sees as we look past green bags and purple duffles to retrieve a small wheeled suitcase from the carousel.

Al offers to take us through New Orleans before heading to his home in Baton Rouge. We hesitate an instant before agreeing, just long enough to consider what we are about to see, what we’re prepared to see, what it will do to Al to see it all again. As we drive into low ground areas, we begin to understand why it’s so difficult to describe the scenes, why even photographs don’t truly do justice to the experience. It’s the absence, the lack of, that’s striking. Paralyzing. Overwhelming. On this cloudless clear sky day, there is no breeze. There are no people in the neighborhoods Al slowly drives us to. There is not one bird in the perfect sky. Not one bird calls or circles or perches. This spring in New Orleans’ ninth ward is more chillingly silenced than Rachel Carson’s. I feel icy cold, despite the Louisiana heat.

Kathryn recognizes a building she had stayed in years ago. She gets out of the car to walk near the building, to breathe its air, to take a snapshot of the street. An old gentleman is standing there, in that abandoned neighborhood lined with gutted houses and trees stripped of their limbs. An old man, alone. Kathryn, national director of the Birthing Project, speaks with him for a bit, then asks the question she asks nearly everyone she encounters: “Are there any pregnant women here?” He chuckles before saying, “Pregnant women? No, there’s no pregnant women. There’s no one here.” Later, we will wonder if there really had been an old gentleman, alone on that street, on that silent, cloudless day.

A few weeks ago, Kathryn, who now lives in New Mexico, was in Milwaukee, one of her regular visits as consultant to Milwaukee’s Birthing Project.

She told us about her plans to travel south, to Mississippi and Arkansas and Louisiana, at the request of community members in those states, to help establish birthing projects in places that had been affected by last year’s storms. Places where pregnant women had no where to go for prenatal care.

I had wanted to see my Baton Rouge friends, and both of us wanted to respond to a Baton Rouge area physician’s plea for people from around the country to bear witness to the aftermath of Katrina – to see for themselves the impact on people who had already been living on the margin long before Katrina. We quickly decided to make this visit to Louisiana, a reconnaissance trip, in advance of her scheduled trip.

What Kathryn and I see and hear will stay with us, and will shape what we do and the way we understand and interpret news reports from the most affected areas. We see two Americas, still separate and unequal, living side by side, and at times, one inside the other. Sometimes, the separation is subtle, difficult to discern. At other times, it is breathtakingly blatant. Ripple effects cast their wide arcs, even now - months after the storm. Post-Katrina ripple effects, more destructive than the winds and waves of Katrina itself.

II. Baton Rouge and Blue Tarp Dreams

Al points his car toward Baton Rouge, speaking softly as we leave New Orleans and the blue tarp-covered roofs. Al says that each tarp sends a signal that FEMA is on it, is working on it, has got it covered. It’s the way his voice closes as he says the words that telegraphs his meaning.

He clears his throat, loses his voice. When he speaks again, he adds, that’s what they say, they’re on it, see the blue tarps? Now they’ll get to it.

Al tells us about the codes left on some of the buildings we saw. A yellow line indicates the high water mark, that level the water reached in a storm damaged home. A yellow line, drawn just under a window sill. Above a doorframe. Just below the roof. All the way to the roofline.

Another mark indicating people were found, alive. Another for bodies, the number of bodies, found in a house. No spray painting tagger could have left a more heart-stopping message.

We see underpasses filled with cars, abandoned or washed away in the flooding.

Al talks about people who hope to rebuild, to return to their neighborhoods, and shakes his head slowly. People who rent in the poorest areas, the areas with the most damaged areas, usually don’t carry insurance. Owners with insurance find the redtape maddening, and the claims system irrational. One fellow’s claim was partially approved: his house was covered, but his roof was not. Go ahead and rebuild your house. Just don’t put a roof on it. Another was told his insurance would cover damage done by rain, but not if it entered his home because it was wind-driven. There was a storm. There was wind and rain. Rain flooded his home. There was damage. Now what? Months and months later, now what?

Al continues in a voice hardly audible above his car’s engine, story after story tumbling out, irrational example followed by bureaucratic nightmare. Kathryn falls asleep in the backseat. Al’s voice fades away at times, and even though I can’t hear everything he says, I get the point and realize his stories need to be said out loud, even if only in a hoarse whisper.

We drive into Baton Rouge’s high ground areas, where life could pass for normal: rush hour traffic, kids playing in a park. Cars in Al’s driveway, indicating that some family members are already home for the evening. A rosebush, big as a tree, fragrant blossoms spilling open in the front yard. A tangerine tree, still dropping fruit, on the other side of the drive. No visible signs of Katrina or Rita.

Dinnertime at Marilyn and Al’s house. Three generations appear at the table at exactly the same time as the crawfish, potatoes and corn. The table is draped with several layers of newspaper, a roll of paper towels gets passed around along with small bowls of dipping sauce. Liam, the ten month old son of Marilyn and Al’s daughter, scatters cheerios and reaches for a shelled bit of crawfish. We stop to watch as his fist finds his open mouth. He grins as he chews, and reaches for more.

Through the course of the meal and the rest of the evening, Liam will be carried in the arms of three uncles, two grandparents, his mother, and his honorary aunts – Kathryn and me. Two dogs will sniff at him as he pulls himself to stand on his sturdy legs and figures out the business of walking. When he begins to lose his balance, a hand steadies him. When his head is about to make contact with the edge of a table, an arm scoops him away. There always seems to be someone around, in this village of a family, ready to protect him from harm. Kathryn and I exchange glances, both of us thinking about birthing projects, about ways the projects link pregnant women to communities of caring – and about what is taking place in this home, so naturally – a young mother and her baby, surrounded by people who love them both.

After dinner, the conversation turns to Katrina. In this structurally sound home, we hear the ways the storm has affected life for this close knit family. Adult sons living back at home – Katrina. Jobs difficult to find or keep or travel to – Katrina. College education, interrupted –Katrina. More work than expected for counselors like Marilyn, with a focus on long-term effects of trauma, including domestic violence –Katrina.

Then there are the stories of people who tried to volunteer. Shortly after Katrina, Al’s godson, a physician, volunteered to come and assist. No return phone calls. When he persisted, he was told his services were probably useful, valuable, but there wasn’t a system set up to use his help. Al had worked for the city of Baton Rouge until he retired a few years ago. He is on the board of Habitat. Now, after his efforts to volunteer hit repeated dead ends, he tries to find buildable tracts of land where Habitat can create sustainable neighborhoods. His conversation is peppered with stories of insurance settlements that don’t go far enough and government vouchers that miss the mark.

Kathryn and I replay bits of conversations we heard earlier in the day. They really told someone he could rebuild but wouldn’t cover the cost of the roof. How on earth does that make any sense?

We also consider how close to the surface the storm’s effects are, even for people whose homes were not in the path. I think about the clients Marilyn counsels. I remember different voices at the dinner table talking about years of storm warnings, of stern recommendations to leave, only to find that the storms took different paths, or hit land but did relatively little damage. How does anyone know which one is the one, really the one to run from? And how do you leave home, leave everything that means home, especially if it’s a false alarm?

The primary reason for our trip is to meet with Dr. Joe, the physician who made a public plea for people to bear witness to the effects of Katrina on the poorest people in the area. He requested moral support and assistance in re-opening his free clinic.

In our first afternoon and evening in Louisiana, we were welcomed into the home of friends and learned more about Katrina in a few hours than we had in all the months of news reports. As for Dr. Joe, he works the night shift in an ER more than an hour from Baton Rouge. He may not be able to meet with us after all.

Kathryn and I decide to get some rest, and see what morning brings.

I dream of blue tarps floating above houses, of looking up into the ceiling of a gutted house and wondering if I am looking at a tarp or at the sky, then wondering if the New Orleans sky had looked cloudless because it was filled with tarps that had blown away.

I wake up to the smell of coffee and the sound of a baby laughing, a deep throaty chuckle.

III. Dr. Joe

“These are my people,” Dr. Joe tells us, by way of explanation. “These people are me.”

We are standing outside a two story building in Plaquemine, Louisiana. Kathryn and I watch as Dr. Joe reaches for his keys to the Freeman Family Clinic, his clinic, the clinic he opened more than ten years ago. The clinic that had been segregated, complete with a dividing wall, whites on one side, non-whites on the other, until he tore down the wall and opened the clinic, with free health care for anyone who needed it. The clinic that served patients after Katrina, only to close after the next storm. The clinic that sustained damage from forces of nature and from forces Dr. Joe described as more damaging than any storm.

The breeze picks up as we stand outside, rustling papers I carry with me. Among them, a hardcopy of the email that prompted this trip: “Brother Doctor in Gulf doing the work,” with a link to a series of NPR broadcasts with Dr. Joe.

For a moment, it’s just the three of us, standing outside the clinic in the noon day sun. Then a car pulls into the spot right behind Dr. Joe’s car, and two women rush out to hug him and squeeze his arms and weep and laugh and tell him they have been looking for him every day, every single day – knowing, hoping, praying he would come back to open the clinic. He is weeping and embracing them, and looks at us with a look devoid of the despair that had clouded his face for the last two hours, and says once again, “These are my people.”

The women ask him when the clinic will open again. He does not give them a date, but nods in our direction and answers, “That’s why they’re here.”

Kathryn, with her trademark smile that makes others feel like the sun has just found them, asks her Birthing Project question: “Are there any pregnant women here?”

Both women answer, “Yes, lots. Lots”

“What about prenatal care?” Kathryn asks. “Where do they go for prenatal care?”

The women shake their heads. “No where. Not since Dr. Joe closed this clinic. There’s no where for them to go now.”

Kathryn and I look at each other, each of us registering the information: pregnant women, with no access to prenatal care since this clinic closed.

Last night, Kathryn had called Dr. Joe from Marilyn and Al’s home. He was about to begin a twelve hour shift in a hospital emergency room, and wasn’t sure he would be able to meet with us. He said he would probably be exhausted in the morning.

We wondered if he was trying to decide whether it would be worth it to spend time with a couple of well-meaning women who were unsure how they might help, if they could help. When he called this morning, he was cautious, but arranged to meet us.

At his invitation, we meet Dr. Joe at his residence in the Lake Charles subdivision of Baton Rouge, a leafy area of well-tended homes. We sit in the living room of his spacious home.

He is clearly exhausted, weary, and as he speaks, his voice trembles with emotion:

“Last year’s storms,” he tells us, “didn’t just do the damage you see in some areas. What we had here was a diaspora. Here, in the United States. In the twentyfirst century. A diaspora of people no one cares about.

“In a democracy, the voice of the people must be heard.

“Who,” he asks, tears and beads of sweat running down his face, “who is listening? Who is listening to the voice of my people?”

His hand are shaking as he drinks from a bottle of iced tea.

“I didn’t want to care. I just wanted to do my job, come home, raise my kids. But these people, these people. They’re me. The people who used to come to my free clinic. They don’t have anywhere to go now. Part of the roof of my building’s blown off. The electricity is off. Doctors who tried to volunteer at my clinic, they couldn’t get credentialed to work there. We had patients and no doctors. Other places have doctors, but hardly any patients. My people are not white, not middle class.

“What am I supposed to tell my sons? If you’re black, there’s nothing for you?

“This disaster, this is not over. It didn’t start with Katrina or Rita. There were other Katrinas. I’ve been living with Katrina for a long time.”

He has stories. Many, many stories: women white and black, without prescriptions, coming to hospital emergency rooms, seeking insulin and needles after the storm. Insulin and needles, given without question to some, but not to others. Infant mortality rates that differ widely, based on race. Inadequate, substandard care given to women living on the margin. He repeats it like a mantra: “This is not acceptable. This is not acceptable.”

He stops for a moment.

Kathryn notices a family portrait of Dr. Joe, his wife, and their three sons. As we look around the room, he points to crocheted afghans draped over the sofa we’re sitting on. “We made those,” he tells us. “My sons and I crochet. We make hand lotion. They play sports, they study. But I want them to know other things, gentle things, too. We make afghans and give them away.”

He takes a deep breath. He looks at us. “Okay,” he says. “I wasn’t sure I was going to see you. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do this, feel it all again. I don’t know what you can do. But this is important to me. This is very important to me. To make sure people understand what it’s like to be a doctor, a black doctor, in Louisiana, and see my people being turned away. To offer my services, to try to find a way to help, and wind up being sent to the morgue, where the Red Cross gives FEMA workers back rubs. That’s what they wanted me to do? Help FEMA workers?

“That’s alright, they need a doctor, too, but what about my people? Who’s there for them, giving them back rubs? Giving them heart medicine and blood pressure medicine and insulin? Taking care of their kids?”

He looks at us again, clearly sizing us up. Finally he asks, “Well, you want to see my clinic?”

I watch as Kathryn’s face softens, and know that mine is doing the same. We both understand the gift, the sacred trust he is offering. “Yes, of course, very much. We would like to see your clinic.”

We ride with him as he drives from Baton Rouge to his clinic in the town of Plaquemine. The water is high, he tells us, and the Gulf water never cooled off. More storms coming.

His clinic is beautiful, visitor and patient friendly and accessible. Even with part of the roof blown off, even with a water damaged ceiling. Even without power. Everything about it says welcome, glad you’re here. The waiting area looks like a comfortable living room. African artwork is on the wall. All of that, Dr. Joe tell us, was a major problem. The community took exception: why do you want to make it look good for those people? They won’t appreciate it. It won’t matter to them. And besides, it’s a free clinic. It’s not supposed to look like this.

The clinic, designed to offer family care, was staffed by a small health care team. Medications and equipment were donated. As Dr. Joe shows us this clinic, we know we are seeing him in context. This is home to him as well as to his patients. He had fought systems and community leaders to desegregate the clinic, to open it, to keep it functioning. Now, thanks to the domino effect of the storms, financial distress, lack of support, his own near-fatal experience as a patient in Louisiana’s health care system, his current schedule as an emergency room physician, the only free clinic in town is closed.

We walk up the block to a café. Its doors closed after the storms, but it reopened recently. We are greeted with the smells of gumbo and catfish, red beans and rice. Dr. Joe brings a bottle of his ever-present diet green tea. We sit at one of the square tables and start making plans for next steps: Kathryn will return to Baton Rouge in a few weeks to meet with community members and begin the process of setting up a birthing project, with the Freeman Family Clinic as home base. I will meet with the staff and board of the Milwaukee Birthing Project to consider ways MBP can serve as a sister friend, a big sister to this new project, and seek funding for the Plaquemine project. All of us will work with local contacts to rebuild the clinic.

And we will remember that the next storm season is two months away.

As Kathryn and I leave Louisiana, she calls Sacramento, home of the first birthing project. There has been a flood. A levee has been breached.

IV. Epilogue

Kathryn Hall returned to Baton Rouge, as planned, and is collaborating in establishing a birthing project in Plaquemine, where a coordinator - a resource momma - will work with community volunteers and Dr. Joe. Milwaukee’s birthing project will serve as a big sister to the new program.

A young physician who received his medical training in Cuba hopes to return to his family’s home, just outside of Baton Rouge, and to work with Dr. Joe.

Kathryn has traveled throughout the south, where areas are even more devastated than any of the places we saw during our short time in Louisiana. One woman told her that she had not only lost her home, but all the landmarks that pointed her toward home. No landmarks, no signs of home at all. She could not even find the spot where her house used to be.

Kathryn was reluctant to ask for birthing project volunteers, knowing she was asking people who had lost everything to find a way help others. Women showed up anyway, ready to volunteer and to recruit others. When she asked why they came to meet with her, one of them said, “Helping to bring a new life into the world gives us all hope.”

V. An Invitation

If you have traveled to Louisiana or other storm-ravaged states, please share your experiences. Give others an opportunity to learn more than what the media chooses to show. And please don’t under-estimate the power of bearing witness.

That was the message I heard the most often during my brief time in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the message I continued to receive after I returned home to Milwaukee.

In the words of Dr. Joe: “Let us know you haven’t forgotten about us.”

For more information about the Milwaukee Birthing Project, with links to Kathryn Hall and the Birthing Project USA, please visit www.milwaukeebirthingproject.org