Please help! You can text 9099 and type “HAITI” to send $10 to the Red Cross, which is such an easy way of contributing.
We’re watching the news on the earthquake and it’ sending us right back in a very emotional and visceral sense to four years ago in August when New Orleans was hit by Katrina. It’s impossible not to grieve and want to reach out to these people. Can you believe what that fat reactionary numbnut and that delusional evangelical rightwing extremist (won’t deign to mention their names) said???? I guess these people really have no humanity in them.
There are so many deep cultural and historical ties between New Orleans and Haiti…our music, our architecture, our celebrations, our food. The slaves who rose up against their French masters in 1791 and finally drove Napoleon out in 1804 were in many ways martyrs to the birthpains of an expanding United States. Without those 13 years of bloody revolt, the French most likely wouldn’t have given up on being long distance landlords in the New World and wouldn’t have sold the Louisiana Territory to President Jefferson. As a result of and during that period, New Orleans was flooded with people of all races and colors, including free men and women of color, and their influence is still felt in our city to this day.
(For a very interesting book, check out Ned Sublette’s recent “The World That Made New Orleans” which talks about the musical, cultural and historical ties between us and the Caribbean, especially Cuba and Haiti.)
On a happier note, we had a wonderful New Year’s and Sugar Bowl, with a full house of happy (albeit extremely wet) guests, cheering the end of this awful and troubling decade and enjoying fireworks, ball games and as always, great hot breakfasts at our place.
Plus Creole, the dog in search of a home, who somehow knew to make his way to our door as a refuge house, has a wonderful new home in Atlanta, with our previous visitors and their rescued greyhounds and cat!
And Player, our sweet new adopted puppy from the St. Martinville Parish shelter, has settled in quite comfortably as the new “baby” in the house, with all the attendent attention and doting!
This weekend the Creole Gardens Guesthouse is hosting the One World Conference—community and non profit kitchens—at our place, a fitting event to honor the work of the late Rev. Martin Luther King.
And one more time, PLEASE, do something to help the people in Haiti. Just remember, if you’re reading this, chances are you love New Orleans. And New Orleans wouldn’t be the special city it is without its profound historical and cultural ties with the nation of Haiti.
