Tuesday, November 16, 2010

A Family Just Outside NOLA







I just uploaded some pictures from my point and shoot camera that these kids took of each other while I was in New Orleans, visiting outside the parish, beyond the Lower 9th ward. I ended up out this way one day looking for a cup of coffee. Sounds silly, but in the lower 9th there's not much place to buy things and I was looking for coffee to bring to Mac at the Lower 9th ward and ended up driving miles outside the parish in search of a McDonalds. I didn't have high hopes of anything fancy, but the oragne store coffee was just a little too thin and I just wanted real half and half.



This family taught me to shoot a gun, just an air gun that shoots bibi's, actually the wind blew the cans over for me, and spared me the pressure of making the shot.

They were a local family including some old timers who knew the area going way back, and some people from other parts of the country, like a Cherokee from Alabama. the kids were really fascinated with the camera and I love the shots they took of each other and their family. I hope to see them again my next trip. Joey, one of the men close to me in age, shared some of what he wrote in the time of Katrina. He remembered it so vividly, being without a place to stay, drifting. His voice carried so much emotion, I was surprised. I don't know why I am still surprised by listening to men tell their stories. Why am I surprised that they know sadness too. I've grown up hearing how men don't have feelings like women, but when I listen to people like Joey talk, I can hear it, it's in them too, the longing to be rooted to place, to have a family, and a home.

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