New Orleans: The Strength of a Community

Many of the homes surrounding Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church in the St. Roch district of New Orleans were damaged when Katrina blew through in 2005. Some of them, and countless more all over the city, sit abandoned to this day, their windows boarded up, dates spray-painted on the front door or the porch wall marking the last time anyone set foot inside. The school next to the church still has not reopened.

All of this stood in stark contrast to the people drifting in from all directions.

As we pulled up we were greeted by a man named Emmanuel, dressed sharp right up to his Kangol cap. Moments later Choir Director Richard Cheri emerged from the golden double doors of the church; his wife Cynthia, a choir member, would appear beside him out of nowhere. They all thanked us, graciously and enthusiastically, for coming to their parish. Only a few minutes in we already knew the pleasure would be all ours.

The plan was to carry the cross into the church and stand it up. This quickly went to pot when we discovered the hard way that it wouldn’t fit through those gold front doors. Our only other choice then would be to stand it up at the foot of the steps outside, but with the breezes threatening, leaving a 500-pound, 14-foot piece of steel teetering by itself out on the sidewalk for the hour and a half service (‘He gets us out of there in about an hour if the Saints are playing,’ young Roy LaFargue told us) was quickly voted down. ‘Just leave it on its back,’ Jon said, already sweating in the bright humid morning.

Mass began, not surprisingly, with the choir belting out a brilliant opening hymn. The altar was backed with a mural that stretched all the way to the arched ceiling. Stained glass windows, massive and sparkling; hardly a church in Europe could compete. The reading of the gospel was injected with more singing; the sharing of peace and handshakes lasted ten minutes. It was amazing to think this church, this neighborhood, these people’s lives had been so recently ravaged.

After Mass Richard spoke of his community, admitting that yeah he was surrounded by an incredibly strong group of people. But they hadn’t done anything so special. ‘Thanks to God, we’re still here.’ Richard’s smile and his spirit were infective. Outside, watching the congregation milling around praising the cross and slurping on cherry ice, a woman spoke to Rev. Fernand Cheri (yes, Richard’s brother). ‘I felt the spirit of the Lord in there,’ she gushed. ‘He rose up from your toes and right into my heart!’ Gerard Hairston, from DC and a university student there in New Orleans, understood the strength of the community, after Katrina and in all things. ‘You can go through any problem, any obstacle,’ he said. ‘And come out victorious in the other side.’

Spending a little time at Our Lady Star of the Sea, you can’t help but believe this is true.

Bunkie, LA: Music & Mexican Food

Fifteen minutes south of the Bayou Boeuf River we rolled into Bunkie, a Main Street mix of local joints, small businesses and national franchises. And, today, live music.

“Check it out,” Jon said, pointing at a parking lot on the right side of the road where a four-man band in cowboy hats was twinging their twang up on a flatbed trailer.

“Time to pull over,” I said as Jon was pulling over.

A modest mingling of people stood in the hot sun watching the band while others sat in the shade of a white canopy tent. “We’re celebrating the Grand Opening of Karen’s Kitchen,” they explained, pointing over to a small blue barn-like hut that could have housed an ice-cream parlor in a former life. “You guys hungry? Go get yourselves some lunch. Good home cooking for you!”

Excellent. Right there in the middle of Louisiana, in some small town along a two-lane road. Could there be a more perfect place to grab some real Cajun cooking? Some genuine Creole cuisine? Some mudbug jambalaya, or a heaping helping of down-home, authentic…Mexican food?

That’s how it goes when you decide to just see how it goes. (Karen, by the way, could make a mean enchilada.)

By the time Bert, Ronnie, Jason and Chad had finished their song the crowd, consisting mainly of Karen’s extensive family tree branches, was listening to Jon and passing around the brick. “We’re police officers,” said Chad, motioning toward Jon’s truck. “So this really means something special to us.” After having Jon climb up onto their flatbed stage to say a few words into the mike, Chad thanked him for bringing his project to their small town and asked everyone else to make sure they did the same. The band then fell into a seemingly spontaneous rendition of John Cougar Mellencamp’s Pink Houses.

With a population of four thousand Bunkie was by far the largest town we saw along the hundred-mile route between Alexandria and Baton Rouge. For two hours we rolled past the farms and fields and the homes that dot the flat landscape, no evidence of the wood-porch towns we were hoping for. When Route 71 ran into Route 190 we cut left and ran through the northern reaches of the Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge, habitat for Louisiana black bear, American alligators, bald eagles, white-tailed deer and the eastern wild turkey.

We saw none of them as we rolled along through the northern tip of the thousands of acres of rich bottomland hardwood swamp they call home. Just south of us, running parallel to 190, were the tracks of the Union Pacific Railroad. Interstate 10 brushed the southern boundary of the refuge. Somewhere in between, in the middle of all that green land, bordered on the west by the Atchafalaya River, all those bears and gators and turkeys were running wild. I would have given almost anything to see them.