Leaving New Orleans
Sunday, January 3, 2016. 9am.
I'm jotting down a few notes as we wait at MSY airport for our flight out of New Orleans.
Yesterday was a slow day for me. As I posted on the actual day of January 2 (as opposed to journals such as this which got stuck in my queue for a week-plus awaiting editing) I have been wrestling with sickness and an intermittently working computer. Thus the editorial backlog.
Saturday I spent mostly around the firehouse. About half our friends were out doing things around town. I wasn't feeling well enough to want to join them. The other half were taking it easy in the house like me. I'm not sure to what extent that's because they were nursing oncoming colds, too, or just needing recharge time. I'll hope for recharge time because I don't wish a cruddy cold on anyone. I was feeling pretty trashed after dinner so I called it an early evening at about 10:30.
This morning we woke up early to catch a car to the airport. One thing about the dismal neighborhood of New Orleans we're staying in is that car services are spotty here. Several times this weekend I've opened the Uber app on my phone only to be told there are no cars nearby. This morning Hawk tried downloading Lyft to see if it was any better, but it was actually worse. Our backup plan was to walk 1/2 mile north to a major thoroughfare, but fortunately just before we girded to do that we got a hit on Uber. A driver was just 2 minutes away.
We chatted with the driver en route to the airport. She explained that she's a native of the neighborhood and, as a driver, often sticks nearby to pick up people out of some sense of personal identity. She agreed with us that it's a rough neighborhood- and for all the reasons we'd identified. Borderline poverty. Houses seemingly empty. Very little street activity, meaning few people to hear cries for help if something did happen. The latter two she blamed on Airbnb. "Investors from New York and California scooped up these houses cheap and rent them out online. They make enough money even when the houses go empty for weeks at a time." We gently explained that we are from California and were staying there via Airbnb....
To these problems with the neighborhood she added that there's a local gang. They are teenagers who lived through the carnage of Katrina: seeing people left helpless as flood waters rose, seeing people prey on each other in shelters, hearing stories of police shooting unarmed civilians with barely any investigation. They no longer value human life. Their story sounded like that of 12-year-old soliders from some conflict halfway around the world. That, added to the post-apocalyptic appearance of the neighbhorhood, made it feel like we really were in the aftermath of a war zone. Fortunately we never met the local gang... though I do believe we saw them checking us out on the street two days ago.
I'm jotting down a few notes as we wait at MSY airport for our flight out of New Orleans.
Yesterday was a slow day for me. As I posted on the actual day of January 2 (as opposed to journals such as this which got stuck in my queue for a week-plus awaiting editing) I have been wrestling with sickness and an intermittently working computer. Thus the editorial backlog.
Saturday I spent mostly around the firehouse. About half our friends were out doing things around town. I wasn't feeling well enough to want to join them. The other half were taking it easy in the house like me. I'm not sure to what extent that's because they were nursing oncoming colds, too, or just needing recharge time. I'll hope for recharge time because I don't wish a cruddy cold on anyone. I was feeling pretty trashed after dinner so I called it an early evening at about 10:30.
This morning we woke up early to catch a car to the airport. One thing about the dismal neighborhood of New Orleans we're staying in is that car services are spotty here. Several times this weekend I've opened the Uber app on my phone only to be told there are no cars nearby. This morning Hawk tried downloading Lyft to see if it was any better, but it was actually worse. Our backup plan was to walk 1/2 mile north to a major thoroughfare, but fortunately just before we girded to do that we got a hit on Uber. A driver was just 2 minutes away.
We chatted with the driver en route to the airport. She explained that she's a native of the neighborhood and, as a driver, often sticks nearby to pick up people out of some sense of personal identity. She agreed with us that it's a rough neighborhood- and for all the reasons we'd identified. Borderline poverty. Houses seemingly empty. Very little street activity, meaning few people to hear cries for help if something did happen. The latter two she blamed on Airbnb. "Investors from New York and California scooped up these houses cheap and rent them out online. They make enough money even when the houses go empty for weeks at a time." We gently explained that we are from California and were staying there via Airbnb....
To these problems with the neighborhood she added that there's a local gang. They are teenagers who lived through the carnage of Katrina: seeing people left helpless as flood waters rose, seeing people prey on each other in shelters, hearing stories of police shooting unarmed civilians with barely any investigation. They no longer value human life. Their story sounded like that of 12-year-old soliders from some conflict halfway around the world. That, added to the post-apocalyptic appearance of the neighbhorhood, made it feel like we really were in the aftermath of a war zone. Fortunately we never met the local gang... though I do believe we saw them checking us out on the street two days ago.