Journalism — it’s a business that revers the rapid. Get the story idea, get the quote, write it up, do it all as fast as you can, and, of course, it’s got to be accurate. For me, that’s a part of the allure, it brings out a bit of a competitive streak, and certainly an adrenaline rush. Reporting in Washington only fuels the fire as everyone always looks toward the next story, the next update. You’ve got to be thinking of the next vote, the next issue, the next election, if you want success.
Perhaps that’s why the contrast was all the more stark when my plane touched down in New Orleans on Tuesday morning. The airport was remarkably calm, traffic was light. I made it to my first interview of the day with time to spare. A strange feeling.
I’m in New Orleans this week to report on the growing trend of religious organizations advocating for cleaning and restoring bodies of water, particularly the Mississippi River and others in this area.
As I threw my suitcases into the cab at the airport, glanced at my watch and started typing an e-mail on my phone while announcing my destination, the driver drawled, “Slow down, ma’am, no rush. We don’t hurry things down here.”
I found this to be all the more true when one of my buses came 45 minutes late, and none of the other waiting passengers seemed to mind a bit. It’s funny to think I get annoyed at the Washington Metro when I miss one train and have to wait seven minutes, and it seems an eternity. People here are willing to wait in so many aspects of their lives.
But there’s one thing almost everyone I’ve talked to seems to have lost patience with — and that’s the continuing recovery from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Organic gardens in New Orleans East that used to provide sustainability to a community have remained contaminated and dilapidated from the effects of Katrina. (Michelle Minkoff/MNS)
I visited a church on Tuesday out in New Orleans East (so far from downtown my cab driver got lost) that’s advocating for cleaner water in the lakes and rivers that surround the community. The leadership and parishioners at the Roman Catholic Mary Queen of Vietnam Church are fighting against the burying of post-Katrina debris in a landfill that was hastily reopened just after the hurricane. They said the debris seeps into the residents’ water supply. The community is surrounded by the collapsed remnants of organic gardens, once used to provide sustenance for those in the area. Change has taken too long.
Head back west to the French Quarter, though, and you’ll find a whole new world. The restoration seems almost magical. Tourists line the streets, and people’s biggest concerns seem to be whether they have to make a purchase to get the “free drink” promised by the hotel concierge.
I last came to New Orleans in the mid-1990s, when I was about 10. My main memory of that trip was the amazing seafood: It’s when I discovered a love for oysters and mussels. And yes, even now, they are just as delicious as I remembered.
But the reason I’m here — to learn about water’s effect on the community, and how religion plays into that relationship — has changed my experience of what the city is about.
Now, maybe it’s not just Katrina, hopefully I’ve gained some additional perspective on the world in the last 13 years. Either way, there’s a palpable difference in the pulse of the city. The waiting, a sense of perpetual transition, permeates almost all of the streets and buildings.
Starting Wednesday, I’ll be covering religious leaders, politicians and academics who are convening to analyze the remaining issues stalling recovery and how they can be addressed.
As I file stories about these ideas and then go out to collect information and interviews for a longer piece on organized religion’s role in protecting the world’s water supply, I hope to learn from the different pace of this city.
It’s good to slow down sometimes — to relax and experience the moment, to understand what is fixable and what isn’t. As a journalist, I need to learn that some things — including the insights gained from deep reporting — take time and can’t be rushed. But I also have to be able to see the difference between the Big Easy and the Big Stall, the ways that government moves too slowly to ease the suffering of those it is supposed to represent and help.