9 to 5 in the Ninth Ward

Callie Rubbins-Breen

I didn't expect to spend my time volunteering in New Orleans as a waitress. But working the lunchtime rush was exactly what Common Ground Collective, the grassroots organization providing "solidarity not charity," needed. Every afternoon, I watched cooked pasta-elbows drain in the most enormous colander I've ever seen and a cabbage, carrot, and onion stir-fry sizzle in a large wok. Fried chunks of TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein) were flipped and chopped on the two tottering grills in Common Ground's kitchen in the Upper Ninth Ward. One Cambro (a plastic tub with clasps on the sides for moving large quantities of hot food) full of pasta, stir-fry, and fried TVP would be loaded into the old blue minivan along with a huge cooler full of tossed salad. Water, plates, forks, and napkins also would go with us in the van. We hurried to match our head chef Clement's pace as he bustled around with a dirty towel hanging out of his back pocket, greasy long hair tied back in a ponytail, and his black semi-professional chef shirt contrasting sharply with his cut off shorts. I found it difficult to prepare myself for the destruction about to bombard me.

The funny thing was, I felt excited. There I was, in the heart of the Katrina disaster zone; flattened houses, flipped cars, and toppled trees were all around me. But heading into the Lower Ninth Ward meant meeting the darkest reality of the storm's damage. As I struggled to suppress my seemingly insensitive excitement, my horror at seeing the destruction wrought in the Lower Ninth was compounded by horror at my own excitement. I worried that however much I was programmed to respectfully gawk, gasp in horror, shake my head in disbelief, or be stunned by the lack of residential reconstruction, I would never truly absorb the reality of the Lower Ninth. I was worried my responsibilities as a volunteer would absorb all my concentration, and serving pasta would steal the one moment in which I wanted to be most aware.

I spent two hours that day with two other girls delivering lunch to work crews in the Lower Ninth. We were successful if we located the correct houses to serve. This is far more difficult than it sounds—we were in unfamiliar territory, where most street signs and house numbers had disappeared into the winds of the hurricane. As we pulled alongside volunteers gutting houses we were greeted with smiles, and shouts of "Lunch!" and "Food!" In retrospect, I only imagined most of the volunteer's smiles: they were covered in protective gear from head to toe, including heavy-duty facemasks and goggles.

Armed with hand sanitizer, we waited as the volunteers pulled off their sweaty masks and peeled down the top half of their white Tyvek jumpsuits. Their work gloves were set aside and the duct tape they'd wound around their wrists, covering the inch of exposed skin between their work gloves and their Tyvek suit, was thrown in the trash.

Then the rush began, as we assembled a lunch line along the open hatch of the van. One person would provide the hand sanitizer required before each meal, and handed out forks and napkins, while another manned large tongs and piled half of each paper plate with salad. A third took the plate and completely filled it with the pasta/stir-fry/TVP mix before handing it to the eager volunteer. This magical assembly line usually lasted no more than 15 minutes. Nonetheless, it was a hectic fifteen minutes to break out the food, distribute it, interact with the volunteers, get them safely eating, repackage the food, and jump back in the van to search for our next destination. On top of all that, while swept up in the whirl of spooning TVP onto thin paper plates and squirting tiny mounds of clear hand sanitizer into waiting palms, I had to remember we were in a disaster zone.

I jumped in and out of a van at about 10 different stops in order to serve vegan pasta to workers in white full length suits. This meant that for fifteen minute segments I had to focus solely on feeding other people, so the hurricane, and all its implications for the residents of New Orleans disappeared. No matter how much I want to be immersed in the reality of my surroundings when I travel, I know that there is little chance of immersion in three hours, especially in a disaster-torn district where I am responsible for feeding hundreds of people. While I remember the amoral excitement I felt at being handed the chance to drive through the Ninth Ward, I also recall the relief of being forced to concentrate on those fifteen minute feeding frenzies. Each fifteen minutes cleared just enough space in my thoughts to process the reality of life post-Katrina in the Lower Ninth Ward. And that is all I can hope for: an opportunity to become more aware, even for just a couple hours, of how people are handling the lot they've been dealt.

CALLIE RUBBINS-BREEN is a Columbia College junior whose life currently revovles around studying just about anything related to cities.