In mid-December I traveled to New Orleans with my great pals, campylady and aluminuts (of Silver Soul Search fame). We spent three days working at a Habitat for Humanity site on the bank of the Mississippi River in St. Bernard’s Parish. Our assignment was to help build an bedroom addition to a trailer home for a family whose house was destroyed by the flooding when the levees broke post-Katrina.
We were extraordinarily lucky to meet and work with a very special family. The addition was a bedroom for Shelton “Shakespear” Alexander, a well-known spoken word poet in New Orleans. Shake had given all of himself to his family and his community during the Katrina tragedy. The strength of his physical efforts and his inspiring performances in the Superdome are documented in Spike Lee’s documentary, When the Levees Broke. Now, over two years later, it was finally time for Shake to accept the help of others. With help from Habitat, he was refurbishing a trailer home for himself and his mother, Lorraine.
Shake’s father, Mr. Alexander, had flown in from California to help out and was our “boss” for the project. As a 70+ year old with a lifetime of construction/contractor experience, Mr. Alexander knew exactly what needed to be done and how to do it. His physical health severely limited what he could do by himself, so he needed strong and able team of volunteers.
Therefore, we could only imagine his skepticism when we showed up on his doorstep: one guy and two not-so-strong ladies, all with limited construction ability (read: none, really). Somehow it worked, though. Mr. Alexander sat in a folding porch chair in the middle of the room and told us what to do. We in turn listened intently to his every word and followed his instructions hesitantly, but exactly. It took us three full days to hang the dry wall and and mud up the nail holes and seams in the small room- a job that would probably take a crew of professionals less than an hour- but we did it.
After our second day on the job, Shake invited us to a spoken word performance night at a local club. He was the emcee and introduced us to a number of young talented poets. We saw him perform his poem, “Who Am I” which was very powerful. Everyone at the club was very welcoming to us and EXTREMELY appreciative of the work that we were doing in the neighborhood.
It is evident that Katrina and its aftermath is still very much a daily reality for many many people and there is a clear frustration at the very slow recovery progress and the lack of attention and resources from the state and the national government. The genuine thanks and appreciation we received for just our few hours of labor seems to be very telling.
We finished up our part of the construction project on the third afternoon. To celebrate, Shake treated us to amazing crawfish and crab boil with all the standard New Orleans fixins.
