Unfortunately, there wasn't a whole lot to joke about on my recent trip to New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The city is as bad as the reports suggest; a tour around Kenner and Lakeview and some downtown areas showed the widespread destruction up close and personal. It's hard to imagine people returning to some of the areas and I didn't even go through the worst hit. In some places, every building and house is deserted and damaged, blocks and blocks. In others, the people have those FEMA trailers out front while they try to salvage their houses. The waterline was very visible on just about every surface in some areas - above the doors, to the windows. It was quite unbelievable. And unfortunately, NO recently re-elected Nagin so one can expect that things will not get any better. LA has a pretty incredible history of political corruption (see: Huey P. Long, Edwin Edwards, and now William Jefferson) and the people have come to expect that their elected officials will do nothing. And they don't. And thus, you have a situation where you need competent, honest people in charge of rebuilding a broken city and instead, you get more of the same that led to the original conditions that made New Orleans both uniquely elegant, sadly run-down, and ultimately doomed. In some ways, I am glad my mom is not around to see what became of her birthplace; I know how much it would have devastated and upset her.
All was not lost, however. My extended family held their annual crawfish boil as they do every year. Gumbo, red beans and rice, crawfish eitouffe, etc etc. I also managed a stop in NO to Cafe Dumonde for beignets while visiting friends in Jeff parish. So essentially, a lot of my trip was: eat, drink, repeat. Lots of catching up was done, though not all of my aunts were able to make it. It was not as bittersweet as it was last year so I was able to relax and enjoy. Lordy though, did I eat! One thing you don't want to do is insult my Cajun relatives by not eating. Only a Boudreaux would do that..
