Pascagoula, Mississippi
After hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana & Mississippi in late August, I, like many of us, watched helplessly in the comfort of our homes as people cried desperately to be rescued from the carnage. Then I got a phone call from my friend Gareth, who invited me to do some relief work with a group he was leading from his church in Washington. I have to be honest, I wasn’t sure I would go. After all, I am a busy guy with a family, and numerous responsibilities on my plate. But on Thursday 10/6, despite my reservations, I hopped on the plane anyway.
First Impressions
Pascagoula and neighboring Biloxi were still reeling from the devastating rain, violent wind, and ensuing floods. The land was scarred by salt water, uprooted trees, and immeasurable debris that littered the roadsides. The homes that were still standing were bandaged with blue tarp on their rooftops. Closer to the shore it looked like a war zone where empty shells of buildings, scrapped wood, and empty slabs of concrete were all that could be recognized.
We wasted no time upon my arrival and crossed the railroad tracks down into the bayou. We approached a two story home with discarded furniture and personal belongings strewn across the lawn. We surveyed the damage to a home which saw waters as high as six feet on the first floor. There was a musty smell from the mold that pervaded the air. Everything that was on the first floor was unrecoverable. A framed baby picture on the wall was now a streaky water-coloring. The kitchen appliances were like lawn ornaments, and boxes of ruined family mementos were left on the porch. We tore out the drywall and sprayed it with bleach & water to kill the mold. We would have hung up new drywall, but we found termite damage beneath. Unfortunately, Melissa (the owner) and her family of five and a neighbor were all still living on the second floor.
Strange Bedfellows
I love meeting new people, but I wasn’t sure how I’d mesh with the team from Washington. We may not have been aware of it, but there was this “team building” thing going on. After all, this rebuilding effort was bound to have a galvanizing effect in pulling us all together. And yet, I was keenly aware that I was an outsider coming into a situation with a group of people who were well acquainted. Then that evening, I found out that I would be sleeping in a cramped RV with five others. It was like a bad episode of MTV Road Rules. To spice things up even more, I had to share an undersized bed with a 250 lb guy named Robert. Honestly, I wasn’t really feeling the whole “team-building galvanizing effect” thing going on as I laid there. Now, I am pretty comfortable with my masculinity, but I still had to lay the ground rules: No snoring, no flatulating, and definitely no spooning! The Washingtonians turned out to be real cool cats, and welcomed me in like their own family. I have to say, I still made an attempt to represent the Ohio contingency well.
Trailer Parks, Wal-Mart, and Welfare Checks
I have a confession to make. I’m a Yankee Northerner that gives Yankee Northerners a bad name. Holli still admonishes me for my disdain for trailer park kids and their parents who spend welfare checks on lottery tickets at Super Wal-Mart centers. I’ve been carrying this disdain for some years, then I met Shirley from Pascagoula.
Shirley was a hardworking woman born and raised in Mississippi. The premature lines that traced her face and expressive eyes told her story. It was a story all too similar to the thousands of others who live here in the Deep South. Shirley owned the rickety old single-story home we worked on, and we could tell she was a bit wary of us Northerners. For two days, we put up drywall and installed new electrical outlets in Shirley’s home. Most of the time, she was rather quiet, and spoke only to offer us a variety of Coke (i.e. Sweet tea, Gatorade, or real Coke). She bought us lunch, which we felt bad accepting considering the circumstances, but we would have felt even worse if we refused her gracious southern hospitality.
Her gratitude was quite inspiring. I came to realize that here was a woman whose home was heavily damaged, with very little left to give, yet she was so willing to give us all she had. She wrote an insightful note to us, from which we could almost hear her thick southern drawl saying:
I used to think that Northerners were not nice people. You certainly changed my mind.
These words would echo in my mind for days afterwards, helping me think a bit differently about myself. I admit, I’m a bit self-righteous about being so open to different cultures, and yet here I realized how closed-minded I really was to this particularly rich culture of America. Sometimes it just takes a face & a name. Now, I have Shirley to remind me of America.
- Marvin A.
