We are each called to duty by our passions.
Some people I know are called to help homeless animals, homeless kids, the dying, the wrongly accused, and so many other good causes. I feel for all those. But it's houses in need of help that stir my passions.
And New Orleans, where you see block after block of charming houses that need help, is the mother lode for someone like me.
Here are scenes I saw last week:
A row of "double shotguns" in the Mid-City area. This area was hard-hit by flooding and is coming back.
Here's what these houses look like before they've come back. The spray-painted symbols told rescuers if the house had been searched after the storm in 2005 and what was found there. A haunting book by Times-Picayune reporter Chris Rose is named after the writing on one house: "1 Dead in Attic."
This the saddest scene, when a school has not come back. And so very many of them have not. A beautifully reported and written article in the New York Times Magazine explains why.
Over in the Lower 9th Ward, many of the homes were totally destroyed by the breech in the nearby levees. Some neighborhoods look like this.
Just up the street from the desolation, new homes are being built on piers to withstand the next flooding event. Mike Holmes, of the popular Holmes on Homes TV show, is building one of them. You can see him here, just to the left of the pole.
Elsewhere in the Lower 9th Ward, Ariane Wiltse is still trying to get her home structurally sound before the bad part of the hurricane season is upon her. The going is slow, and she has taken a construction job with a local builder to learn more. That gives her knowledge, but less time to work on the house. She gets set back when too many people stop by to visit.
Just around the corner from Ariane is a beautifully restored cottage. I saw a woman and baby on the front porch, and that was a good sign. The Times-Picayune reported recently that the steady stream of people moving back to New Orleans is slowing down, and some say people with kids don't find it a good place to raise those kids. So whenever you see kids and babies, that's a good thing.
For those who do come back, though, there is a welcoming.
While the return of permanent residents may be slowing, the volunteers keep on coming. Here you see volunteers from a group called Common Ground mowing some razed lots.
And here are volunteers from AmeriCorps putting a new roof on a Lower 9th Ward home.
So this is what I see: a city that was already full of heart and beauty (and struggles, to be sure) that is coming back, helped along by a flood of volunteers and good-hearted people.
In terms of my passions, this is paradise.
And finally, after all my hard work, I stopped by a street fair in the Lower 9 and enjoyed this female drum and horn band. That's me in the hat on the orange chair. I was tired when I sat down and energized when I got up. That's what New Orleans does for me.
Tabb, wearing a gold chain and a baseball cap, doesn't look the part of a typical band teacher. But every weekday evening in the French Quarter, he beats out the rhythm on his music stand as students play their chosen instruments. In doing so, he gives them an alternative to New Orleans' rough streets.
