It was my first time down to New Orleans – or really the South for that matter – and it is a city of contradictions. It is just as beautiful, lively, and hopeful as it is desperate, corrupt, and heartbreaking. The signs of Katrina and Rita are ever-present even outside the Lower Ninth Ward, the most badly damaged area of New Orleans. Hundreds of people, recently evicted from their formaldehyde ridden FEMA trailers sleep under overpasses in tents (and they’re about to big kicked out from there too if the city government has its way), windows are broken, water marks are still visible on homes. Across from Bourbon street is a down-trodden theater with ‘Lil Wayne” on the billboard – like a snapshot of the day Katrina hit, frozen in time. He was going to play in November. I guess he never performed after all. Even the building I’m working in – the tallest in New Orleans and owned by the largest Law Firm in the state—is still under reconstruction and the front entrance is closed two years out.

Despite all this – there is an incredible sense of community, partnership, and hope down here. People are coming together, breaking down previous boundaries to rebuild, and the music is louder and better than ever.

In the Lower Ninth Ward – an area that used to be home to thousands and that now is a barren wasteland save for a sprinkle of volunteer groups building a house here or there — Mack McClendon is building the Lower Ninth Ward Village, a community center in a warehouse he bought 7 months ago near the FEMA trailer where he lives. He originally bought the space to showcase antique cars, but when he first got the keys and opened the doors, “Here comes God and God spoke to me and said, you gonna build a community center. He even gave me the name. The Village. It takes a village to raise a child.” Since then, thousands of volunteers have stopped by to lend a hand to make the dream a reality, tons of money has been raised for the cause and for his part, “I used to be introverted, but now you can’t shut me up. This is what I was meant to do!”

We were invited down to a small town in Bayou Lafourche (pronounced LaFoosh), two hours south of New Orleans, by a community organizer named Patty, for a town hall meeting about the football field-size of wetlands lost every 38 minutes from degradation caused by the intense leveeing of the Mississippi river. Hundreds of folks from the town sat at cafeteria tables in a gymnasium behind one of the local churches eating banana pudding and watching a Power Point presentation about how their homes, land and history will cease to exist unless creative solutions are implemented and immediately supported by the government. Folks down on the Bayou are pretty convinced that the government does not want to save the marshlands because once the water covers the land, the water becomes government property (that’s Property Law 101 for you). There were tons of informed questions and interest in getting involved in the campaign. Afterward, Patty took us to a local sandwich shack and over shrimp po-boys told us the story of her town and their reaction to the Hurricanes. “I never believed this could happen in our country. The little Red Cross guy got into trouble when he told us we couldn’t eat the food that the area restaurant made for all the people living in the shelter because it wasn’t Red Cross approved. Well…after he fed us peas and carrots, he didn’t have a choice no more.”

Every Tuesday night at the Mapleleaf, the Rebirth Brass Band, a nine-piece brass band mixing traditional styles with more modern grooves and now celebrating their 25th year together, lay down their thick swells of sound. The place was packed, drinks were flowing, cigarette smoke and sweat filled the wooden walls of the bar, and the heat at one point was probably up around near 120 F. It was a beautiful sight—people from all over the place (volunteers, college kids, locals, black, white, brown, etc.) – head bobbing, smiling, and clapping as Rebirth screamed, “Shake Them Titties!” like there was only happiness in New Orleans and only had been happiness. The following night we visited the oldest gay bar in America called Cafe Lafitte in Exile (Cafe Lafitte down the street kicked them out decades ago, thus the “exile” modifier), and it was packed and raucous and I was forced to sing a duet of Summer Lovin’ with another dude on my trip. Definitely a night to remember.

That’s just a small taste of the good and the bad. There’s a ton of work to do, but if Mack and Patty, Rebirth and the folks at Lefitte are any gauge of the potential of New Orleans to come back, I feel a whole lot better about the region’s chances.

I’m heading back down for the summer to clerk for the Orleans Public Defenders. I’ll be keeping All Day Buffet posted about that experience as well.