A bit of background. Zeitoun is a book about Hurricane Katrina, a Syrian family, and the aftermath of the story. The story is theirs, it is awful, and it is true. But it was a story about the inadequacy of our US policy, process, and people at their best and worst. Spoiler alert below:
Zeitoun was Muslim, and an American. He was arrested in his own home, not read his rights, not given a phone call, and held for weeks in a maximum security prison while his wife, an American woman from LA, and their 4 kids, thought he was dead.
He had stayed in the city to help. He had done nothing wrong. He was the owner of a successful painting business and a valuable member of his community. He is a man of strong will and character, and I admire him. It was clearly a case of racial profiling. He was put in a makeshift prison that should never have existed. He was caged and treated in an outrageous manner. It was obvious what happened to this man was unjust, and he has every right to tell his story. But for me, I didn't enjoy it. And here is why.I was on the ground in Baton Rouge three days after the storm. I had no training with disaster relief or the Red Cross , I just couldn't stand to see the pain on TV. I was single, could take time off, and they needed help.
I had 1 day of training and I was off on a plane headed into a city everyone else was fleeing. For me, Katrina brought out the best in me. It made me so proud of the other volunteers. So proud to be an American. I saw the help, the tears, and the selflessness of so many who had so little. When I came back, an essay I wrote was used by the Red Cross in all of their PSA's. I still come across quotes I wrote on fundraising materials for them. I was, and I am proud of the experience Katrina gave me. This book highlighted the brokenness of America. And well, I just didn't like it. Doesn't mean it isn't all true. Doesn't mean the story shouldn't be told, but I felt it was taking away from the pride I felt as an American while there.
At certain parts in the book I could pinpoint exactly where I was in LA. I was living through history. I could recall what I was doing and how much I was helping, while at the same time, in the exact same place, this man was living through a personal hell. While I was in Baton Rouge I was on the Material Support team. We sent help as needed, ordered supplies of all kinds, managed budgets and set deliveries. I was there to help this man. All the while he was taken so advantage of.
I read a lot of the reviews online, most were 4/5 stars, and Kerren and Anne both read it and liked it, which is how the book came to my hands, so I think really, it was just me. I think if the topic interests you it's definitely worth a read.
The book itself posed a lot of interesting questions. I felt at many times it was a book set out to highlight how broad assumptions about a mans race and religion can be devastating, at the same time I thought many of the statements made in the book had their own racists undertones, just towards other people. This happened a number of times, to the point I felt the author lost credibility. After I finished it I went back to my old pictures and my essay I wrote. I posted them all below. When you read what I wrote (if you are that bored) I think it will be clear why this book saddened me so much.
On to the next book!
My original essay:
The Two Faces of Katrina
A summary of my experience written over a 10 day period on site with Disaster Relief in Baton Rouge, LA
My entire life I have been an American, I was born here, raised here, and love it here. I cry when I listen to country music, fireworks make me feel like a kid again, and I like nothing better than pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. But it was not until I signed up with the American Red Cross to volunteer for disaster relief during Hurricane Katrina that I truly understood what it meant to be an American. The fragmented sense of community I had lived in my whole life was suddenly made whole.
When I hit the ground in Baton Rouge Louisiana it was an extremely hot and humid afternoon. There were people all over the airport, some were there to help, many there needing help. However that is not what struck me. What gave me pause was that people were talking to each other. It did not matter who you were, or why you were there, everyone was eager to hear your story, but more importantly, everyone was eager to help--even those who had nothing left to give but their prayers. It's a shame that it took a disaster this big to strike for this type of interaction to seem normal and welcomed. I was nearly brought to tears each time I saw two strangers embracing one another. The energy was intense. There was a constant buzz, I just wanted to jump right in the middle and see what I could do to be a part of it. I did, and I never want to lose that feeling.
I was seeing a side of Katrina that the media seemed to be ignoring. The hope, the selflessness of those there to help, and the progress. While I am fully aware that the people here have experienced a great tragedy, and I would never deny them that, there is a story here that has yet to be told, and I was lucky enough to be a part of it.
Once I arrived at the Red Cross head quarters in Baton Rouge, LA I was assigned to work in Material Support. I was lucky enough to be seated next to many Red Cross veterans who had done disaster relief time and time again, and I was privileged enough to hear their stories, and watch and learn. These individuals were able to get the infrastructure of a Fortune 500 company up and running in under a week. Stop a moment and think about the magnitude of that. Warehouses are unloaded, accounts activated, networks built, resources tapped, volunteers deployed from all over the world, and the end result is a corporate head quarters as efficient as the office I have worked in for the last 5 years--all in under a week. We literally had the resources of the world at our fingertips, and were taking advantage of them.
The people that comprise the Red Cross make it a phenomenal organization. In the two weeks that I was onsite I saw volunteers give and give of themselves until they were exhausted and barely able to complete a thought. Each of us was a piece of a life saving puzzle. It did not matter if you were scooping mashed potatoes in a shelter, providing mental health services, tracking down a fork lift, or working as a liaison for the Federal Government, you were invaluable, and made to feel just that way.
The magnitude of what was being accomplished by the people here is like nothing I could have imagined. I sat at a desk that had a view of the head quarters building that allowed me to watch the interactions of those involved day in and day out. Each person carried out their assignments with a sense of urgency, pride, and compassion. Everyone I worked with was kind, skilled, and welcoming. The decision makers played by the rules, but what I witnessed is that the rules were made, first and foremost, with the well being of those we were to help in mind.
My team was diverse and wonderful. Each one of us possessed skills that made our abilities as a group complete. Everyone was supportive, and intelligent, providing hugs, humor, and an ear to listen whenever necessary. Leaving those people behind was one of the hardest things about my experience in Baton Rouge. I am truly a stronger, more balanced person for having known each and every one of these people, and its rare in life you can make a statement as bold as that. I look at strangers differently after having been thrown together with so many during my time in Baton Rouge. I don’t think in terms of “strangers vs me,” I think in terms of “us,” and while that sounds cliché, it could not have been more true or more impactful on my life.
I learned many lessons on my trip. Some have been comical, (how to bathe in a Wal-Mart bathroom in the sink), others have been more serious, (how to learn to truly rely on others), but the thing that I think was most important for me to learn was how easy it is to help. You just get up, get out of bed, and do it. It's that simple. It would not have mattered if I had a totally different skill-set, the Red Cross would have found a way to let me help. It was a scary thing for me, at 27, heading into the biggest natural disaster this country had ever seen, alone. But as soon as I hit the ground I realized I was anything but alone. The Red Cross is out here rebuilding the lives of those hit hardest, and in the process, I was lucky enough to have had them rebuild mine. I left California one person, and will come back another altogether.
I know I have not written much about the people we were there to help, that story is being told time and time again by the media. But for me, the face that I will always have to this tragedy is the face of Tyrell. He was a 4 year old little boy, with big chubby cheeks, huge brown eyes, in a cute little button down polo and shorts. He had a big plastic spider attached to an air tube that had a small ball at the end, and he was pressing the ball to make the spider jump. He went up and down the aisles of cots singing to himself with his sad little spider as happy as can be. He was adorable.
I squatted down to his level so I could talk to him and he approached me. I asked him his name, and in turn he asked me mine. He took my hand with his tiny hand and I walked up the aisle with him and his spider, I will never forget how that tiny hand felt in mine. We started to talk and he asked me why I was there, I told I was there to help. He then asked me what I was there to help with, I told him I was there to do all sorts of things. Then he asked me if I could help him, and I said I would try.
He said he wanted 2 things. One was a basketball, the second was for me to find his gramma, they had lost her in the storm. When it was time for me to leave he let go of my hand and asked me if I would be back. I told him that I would not be, but any one of us in the red vests were his friends and would always be there to help. Suddenly the red vest I had been wearing all week became much more to me than a means of identification, it made me a part of an amazing community of people.
Some people complain, and I am sure you hear them on the news, but all-in-all things are really moving along. Any organization, in any industry, would have hiccups along the way when responding to a disaster as big as this. However, the people responsible, from what I have witnessed, have handled the snags with a sense of ownership and dignity. If everything in life went as planned, we would never even need an organization like the Red Cross. I truly hope that the country understands that each and every person in Lousinanna is doing his or her best, with nothing but the well-being of those we are trying to help on their minds.
I am sure when I get home to the Bay Area, when my head hits my feather pillow, and I am surrounded by all the comforts of my own reality, I will cry. It will be a release a long time coming. But I won't be crying solely for the loss and tragedy that the survivors of Katrina are dealing with, I will also cry because I was a part of the hope, the healing, and the solutions. It's such a comfort for me to now know first-hand that an organization like the Red Cross exists, but most importantly, that there are the kind of people in the world to help it run, and now I am a part of it, and them.
The Red Cross's motto is "Together We Can Save a Life," and we did. And together we will do it again and again and again.
Ashley Gottlieb
September 2005
My bed, as well as many other volunteers. As people came and went, corner cots were the hot thing.
