a bit of a sad day brightness on the horizon

hey yall
hope u are waking to a bright sunday morning on this day of october 2...
these last days have been making a lasting impression on my perceptions of reality, and keeping me extremely busy.

for the last few days i have been working on distributing stuff into an area south and a little west of new orleans--in the deep bayou. these areas have been harder hit by rita than katrina, in the form of mass flooding and resulting isolation from basic services. our relief has been the only support these folks have received so far. no fema, no red cross, not even the national guard or army corps have dropped mre's (weird prepared food packets) or drinking water. seriously folks, we in our humble efforts are in many cases the ONLY source of drinking water, food, baby supplies, and cleaning supplies these folks have. some of the homes in this area are still flooded as high as 8 feet. whoa. reality check.

so here in the city it is truly a militarized zone. the national guard, the army corp (under different command than ng), the nola police (whoa, some haven't been paid in a month, really unpredictable but getting better), the malitias of self appointed enforcers, the sherrifs (carrying around rifles and positioned at most intersections), the state police (dont know what they are doing here), blm rangers, forest service law enforcement, homeland security in all of its many forms, etc.
the curfew is selectively enforced but strictly prohibits people from being out walking on the street from 6 pm to 8 am. the ranking nola police said that the curfew and martial law emergency status would be in place indefinately. he also said (in response to my question at a surreal community meeting) that the reasons for the curfew were too many to discuss, and i would not be part of any kind of decision making in this regard.
its pretty intense, but we dont really have time to trip on the related fears and details...not to mention we have better rhythem and a better sense of humor than these guys.

so although my days here have been amazing and inspiring, ive been battling a bit of the ole depression over the situation in general here political, economic, ecological, social, spiritual. also last night on our way home from our drop offs in houma our convoy were the first to arrive on scene to an extremely intense and fatal motorcycle crash. lucky for us and for the single survivor, the next vehicles to arrive on the bloody scene were paramedics, who were able to transport a young woman to a nearby hospital and alert oncoming traffic with their sirens and flashing lights. unfortunately i held the only flash light, so i lead the paramedics to the gruesome sight of a dismembered corpse. my form of dealing with this situation is to simply recognize the significance of the experience and allow it to be there, without taking too much responsibility or distancing myself too much from the emotional trauma the sight can create. i think our crew of two trucks, the rv and the support van have all had opportunities to communicate their feelings about the experience.

anyway folks, ill give you more updates as time allows. lots of love from the deep south...

kerul