Beasts of the Southern Wild

I was feeling a little run down last night, so I decided to curl up in my bed early with my laptop and watch a movie. I had just received a copy of Beasts of the Southern Wild, which I finally ordered last week after hearing about it for the dozenth or so time while working down the bayou. I had only heard criticism from the communities I've been working with, so I watched the movie with a pretty steep bias.

Ok, this is the part where I'm going to start discussing the film with reckless abandon, so if you are highly offended by spoilers and haven't seen it, go away (for now, I hope you'll come back another time to talk about this and other things). If you haven't seen it, I'd be more than happy to lend you my copy. Just send me your address.

Here, I'll stick a map in here so you don't have to see more words if you don't want to:


View Larger Map

So that long, skinny northeast-southwest line is the road to Isle de Jean Charles (the northish-southish oriented thing at the southwestern end of the road), one of the communities I'm working with through the First People's Conservation Council. It has recently been rebuilt, but it's still just a narrow two lane road with no kind of buffer on either side of it to protect it from high or rough water. (In fact, there was a temporary road put on the southern side of it, that is being removed-- why? Why spend the extra time and money to remove something that might potentially help? Sigh, bureaucracy.) And there is definitely plenty of water there, since various levees and flood walls have completely destroyed the wetlands as well as the island itself. Pointe-aux-Chenes, which I've mentioned once or twice, is what the road connects Isle de Jean Charles to. (And Montegut, just north of Pointe-aux-Chenes, is where the movie was filmed.)

Isle de Jean Charles is the place that bayou village Charles Doucet, which its citizens call The Bathtub, is based on. And while I think the movie did an adequate job of capturing the some of the joy and camaraderie that exists in little bayou camps, I could immediately see why the people of these real-life communities take exception to the movie's portrayal of them. The people of The Bathtub live in absolute squalor.

There were a lot of things I liked about the movie. For one, it's just beautifully filmed-- yes, literally filmed in a world where most major movies are made digitally. I like that the actors and actresses were mostly, if not all, from south Louisiana (and for many, this was their first time acting).

There's sort of this whimsical, mystical take on climate change, the melting ice caps, and the destruction of the bayou, and the main character, Hushpuppy, says a lot of things about the interconnectedness of the universe. "The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right."


I liked the honesty of the very sad, difficult, complicated story line of the storm's aftermath: this community trying to fend for itself by building a floating camp and blowing up the levee that was keeping their village under water; the fact that the mandatory evacuation enforced several weeks after the hurricane, with emphasis on the "force" part of "enforced"; the one way bus tickets issued to miscellaneous towns around the US. The storm in question wasn't called Katrina, but certainly carried a lot of her baggage.

I liked the inclusion of salt water intrusion, a subtle nod to the very real environmental problems of this region. "Two weeks later, everything started to die." Here's my picture from September of trees killed off by salt water in that neck of the bayou:


There was a lot about this movie that gave me mixed feelings. Like I said, the film portrays bayou camp dwellers as living in filth. I don't think that was especially true to real life, nor do I think it was relevant to the story. I'm sure there are some people who live in run down places amidst random junk, far beyond the grid, but that's not the norm. I've been in some homes that have an eclectic collection of things, but none of them have been so dirty.

I was also frustrated by the idea of the freedom of poverty. I don't think it was especially realistic. Yes, there is certainly some freedom for a culture that is not bound by bank accounts, but I suspect there are way more challenges than benefits (oh hey, super timely article "It Is Expensive to Be Poor"!). I'm not quite sure how Wink gets to the hospital, and back. And what about food? There are plenty of scenes that involve eating, whole chickens put on grills, plentiful seafood, hot peppers growing on the floating camp... in one scene, Hushpuppy is shown munching on some leaf. What about when the wetlands are killed by pollution or salt water? How did they get fresh water? What about oil? The BP Horizon disaster happened when this movie was being filmed. All kinds of environmental problems contribute to challenging food security. When you don't have a bank account, you can't just go buy what you can't catch.

The end scene with the community walking down the road to The Bathtub, which is the actual road to Isle de Jean Charles, and the waves splashing up across it... eerie. And so real. It doesn't even take a storm, just a stiff wind or a full moon. These are communities just about ready to fall off the earth, and with practically no attention or sympathy. I mean, in the movie, the authorities didn't notice the people still in The Bathtub until after they blew up a levee to let the water out. It took a literal explosion for anyone to check on them. That was probably relatively close to reality, because as it is, there is little to no local, state or federal government assistance for these precious places, or the people in them.

I guess that's where other people step in, take exception to an otherwise beautiful movie, and try their best to raise some awareness and get some help to these communities. There's a lot of good going on down here, but it seems there are infinite challenges for each positive step taken. I know I am barely scratching the surface. But, Hushpuppy said it, late in the film, "I see that I'm a little piece of a big, big universe. And that makes things right."

Grand Bayou

This past Monday, I visited my first water bound community in Louisiana, meaning, there aren't roads or paths between the houses-- just water and trembling prairie. There is one road that ends at one family's house, by the old school house, and that's it. They use boats to get around the neighborhood.


View Larger Map

I was in Grand Bayou for another session with the group I met with in Pointe-aux-Chenes, the Mobile Farm Market. This is one of the kindest communities I've worked with yet. I was welcomed warmly into the home of people I hadn't met before. The chief of Grand Bayou was recovering from a cold, and also doesn't do cold weather, so I didn't see her. She and I have been in contact though, and she has a lot of great conservation ideas for her community that I'm hoping to help with.





The community felt very peaceful despite the frigid, high winds. I'm looking forward to exploring more beyond the end of the road, but it was definitely not a good day for a boat ride.

Aside from the one home, there was an old schoolhouse at the end of the road. It was wrecked by Katrina. It still stands empty.


Another thing I found interesting was these raised garden beds that people were talking about. It turns out, the community couldn't get funding or approval to build up levees, but could get funding AND approval to create raised garden beds. So they have some very tall garden beds that they're trying to figure out what to do with.

Grand Bayou is a quiet, friendly place. I'm really looking forward to working with this community this spring.

the frozen tundra of South Louisiana

I hope wherever you are reading this from, you are keeping warm.


(from here)

This weather feels like January to me. I don't mind wearing a sweater and a scarf. That being said, I realize South Louisiana is absolutely not built for this.

We have been running our faucets as per our landlord's instructions for 30+ hours as of my writing this (the temperature never broke freezing here today). It's not even the sound of the running water that gets to me... you can imagine how this conservationist feels about it, especially in a region where salt water intrusion is such a threat to the water supply! But these homes were built with exposed pipes and very little insulation, and there have been reports of burst pipes all over New Orleans today.

The bayou is in the midst of citrus season, but likely lost the vast majority of their grapefruits, oranges and lemons in these two days of deep freeze. Folks were encouraged to pick fruit on Sunday, but you can only eat and share so much fruit at a time, and not everyone is able to pick too much themselves. This month's YAV service project was to glean in Bayou Blue on the 18th, to share with the community and local food  banks. Instead, it's looking like we'll be picking rotten fruit to keep the trees in production for next year.


As I drove across town to give a presentation last night, I saw a few people on some of the neutral grounds (the grassy median in the middle of most major streets), curled up under modest blankets. I heard there were several emergency cold weather shelters around the city, but clearly some of them didn't get the message. I hope they found out before too long and were able to get there.

I know South Louisiana doesn't have it that bad with lows in the upper 20s. I have my sweet winter coat and a Saints hat that I got for Mike when he was here for Thanksgiving (he didn't think he'd need it in the desert!). But thinking about the local context, the upper 20s are just as bad here as the single digits are at home in New Jersey and the sub-zero temperatures are elsewhere.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's predicted high of 48 and finally turning off the water in this house!

What even is my job?!

I arrived back in New Orleans yesterday. Even though I'm still trying to figure out which of the four time zones I've visited in the past week I left my brain in, I was back to work today. I met my supervisor at her house to take a ride down to Pointe-aux-Chenes for an evening meeting with a representative from the Intertribal Agricultural Council and the Mobile Farmers Market.

While she was getting ready to go, she asked about my time home and my travels. Somehow we got to talking about how I would go about answering relatives when they ask what I am doing in South Louisiana.

FUMBLE! (Sorry, watching the Saints game. I am back in South Louisiana.) (But also, that describes how I generally feel when trying to explain to people what my job is.)

Really, it's difficult to describe my work. The day to day is always different. Giving presentations, coordinating conservation efforts, planning and taking part in planting projects, connecting different organizations... some days I'm working from home in my pajamas, some days I'm dressed up and sitting in meetings (and some days I'm dressed down, I love working in natural resources conservation), some days I'm covered in mud. I'll let you guess which days are my favorites.

This meeting tonight was really good. There were about twenty people from the Pointe-aux-Chenes (Point-au-Chenes? Pointe-aux-Chien? I've seen it several different ways. Who knows.) to talk about first people's agricultural products. The Mobile Farmers Market gathers products from around the country-- there was blue corn flour and dried cholla blossoms from the southwest, cranberry syrup and organic corn from Minnesota and Wisconsin, silver and beaded jewlery, wild rice (real wild rice, which is very different from what they call wild rice in the grocery stores), salmon from the Pacific Northwest.

The goals of the program are not just reconnecting tribal trade routes and selling goods, but telling stories. The program has revived food traditions for many tribes, regardless of their federal or state recognition or lack thereof. The IAC works to help tribes gain better access to USDA programs, and seeks market outlets for their goods. Some very cool work going on.

I enjoyed sharing a meal and talking with more members of the community, especially since I've been partnering with the First People's Conservation Council. Tonight I met a man who invited me to work as a deck hand on his shrimping trawler this May. YES PLEASE! I have been able to have the most unique experiences here in South Louisiana. Even as a vegetarian, that sounds awesome. First day back, and I'd say I'm off to a good start!

time

I mentioned in my last post that my plans to travel back to New Orleans on New Year's Day had changed. Through some cosmic bank error, I received an email from the airline changing my flight from the 1st to the 3rd. Two extra days with Mike in the desert have been pretty wonderful.

After rushing around like a madwoman for two weeks, it's been nice to just relax. My brain has been all sorts of confused about time zones. It doesn't help that we are less than three miles from the time zone boundary. It also really doesn't help that as of tomorrow, I will have been in all four continental US time zones in nine days (Eastern time at home in New Jersey, Mountain time in Arizona and Utah, Pacific time in Nevada and California, Central time in Louisiana).

The extra time in Arizona allowed me to be part of something Mike and I have been planning for a while-- acquiring a small friend for our beloved Red. She's never been an only cat before, and we thought she might like a playmate since Mike is at school all day. Mike and I went looking for a cat before I knew about the flight change, and it was love at first cat when we saw this little guy in the shelter:



He had a holding period of a week after his Christmas Eve dropoff. We imagine he was a nixed Christmas present. We picked him up today, and he has been an absolute love. He only stopped purring when he fell asleep and when we bathed him, but that's about it.



We named him Palo Verde after the state tree of Arizona! But we've been calling him green cat, our little pal, orange cat, stripey baby cat, etc.

I fly back to New Orleans in the morning, and get back to work saving the wetlands, but will very much enjoying a little more time hanging out with Mike, Red and green cat first.


Red Oak, the state tree of New Jersey!

The Great Inversion in the Sky

It was a fun adventure trying to explain to people what I was doing for the holidays. Wellll, going to New Jersey for a week, then to Salt Lake City, but flying into Las Vegas and driving up, but then to Bullhead City for New Year's, and then flying back to New Orleans on New Year's Day (which has since changed, but more on that another time)...

Mike came with me to Salt Lake City to celebrate the wedding of my dear sweet friend Hilary and her husband Patrick. I was honored to be a bridesmaid!



I'd only previously been to southern Utah to visit Bryce and Zion from a Las Vegassy direction (Mike too, since we went on that trip together). The drive up I-15 from Vegas to Salt Lake City involved a lot of mountains and eventually, snow. The long vistas got my head spinning a little, especially on the low sleep, high caffeine kind of way we were running through the holidays. But Mike and I took turns driving and made it the six hour drive through space and time safely.

Space and time? Oh yeah. We left Vegas at 6AM for our six hour drive. Except, I got time zones all wrong, which would be a continuing theme on this whole trip out west. Utah is on mountain time. Nevada is on Pacific time. Arizona is on whatever time it wants and that confuses me (Arizona does not observe Daylight Saving).


Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Mountains... through the seasonal smog

Anyway. Hilary and Patrick had a beautiful wedding and threw an awesome party afterward. It was so great to visit with Hilary and her husband and a few other college friends, and to dance the night away like a crazy lady.


classy people at the end of the night...


Great Salt Lake behind us, the sun in front of us...

Salt Lake City was pretty neat, but I was surprised by the smog. In winter, with the cold air at high elevation, pollution just kind of sits in the basin between the Wasatch and Oquirrh and other mountains, with warm air on top (atmospheric inversion! ask me about it sometime) holding it down. Still, lovely.


Great Salt Lake State Marina, Oquirrh Mountains

I'd like to see more of Utah. Good thing Hilary and Patrick live there. Congratulations, Lamberts! and yaaaay Utah!

the ocean

I always try to see the ocean when I'm home, just to make sure it's still there.



Jamie and I were going to meet up, potentially to record a Christmas greeting to our beloved Katie over in Chinook. I had suggested we meet up at the Sawmill in Seaside (a pizza place and bar) instead of going all the way down to Katie's neighborhood by Island Beach State Park, where we usually hang out.

I forgot what happened to Seaside this fall until I got over the bridge. Ugh.




The Sawmill, all melty and unsafe for occupancy but still standing thanks to some serious sprinklers

It was hard to go over there, but I'm still confident in the strength and resiliency of New Jersey. I'm glad I made it to see and feel and hear and smell the ocean for a few minutes before heading west. I may like to wander, but home is home.



Till next time, New Jersey.

tidings of comfort and joy

Some background music for you:



Church is so important and so personal for me. It's been a really fun and interesting few years of exploring many different churches, but the truth is: I came into this season with a heavy heart.

This year has been marked with a deep sense of loss after finding that I needed to move on from both the church I grew up in and my other church home, my camp. I'm grateful for many years of many good things from both beautiful places, but find myself heartbroken and feeling homeless.

That's not to say I don't love Bayou Blue-- I love my little rural church very much, for many reasons. I also love Louisiana and New Orleans and bayou land and wetlands and trees and grasses and mucky soils, but that doesn't quite make it home. You know?

So, speaking of home. I landed in Newark last Wednesday. I am so, so, so happy to be in New Jersey (you don't know how beautiful Newark Airport and Elizabeth Seaport look until you're feeling so far away from home on so many levels, although the fresh blanket of snow and the glorious view of the Manhattan skyline complete with Freedom Tower didn't hurt, either). This may come as a shock, but I've kept pretty busy. I had a long-overdue nerve block, and after a few hours of rest, a 245ish mile roadtrip on Friday, time with Mike's family on Saturday, and another trip up north Sunday into Monday to accomplish holiday baking and soil expedition.

Not going to church right now isn't really an option in my book. Not only are we strongly encouraged to attend worship regularly as employees of the church through YAV, but I'm at a place on my own journey that requires constant attention. My solution this past Sunday was to attend worship at the church I was baptized in up in Montclair. It worked out very well-- I was welcomed very warmly as soon as it was mentioned that I'm a Spain, and my great aunt was there. It was especially good to be with her, as it was the first anniversary of Uncle Fred's passing. We went to a Christmas hymn sing before church together, where the carol "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" stuck out at me because of the tidings of comfort and joy part.

What am I taking comfort in right now? I am blessed beyond measure. I have an awesome family and am marrying into one equally as great. I have incredible friends. I have work that I enjoy. I have amazing adventures to places I never imagined I'd see. I have good health, now greatly improved by that nerve block and getting off the high dose of pain medicine that has fogged my brain for the past seven months.

My brain might be clear of tramadol but is definitely bogged down by something else. Being a sort of gypsy is exciting and fun in many ways, but I do miss having a home. There are no easy answers with this stuff, and I didn't have a good solution for tonight, so I went to the church I grew up in. I was thankful that a few of my friends were attending the late service, which made it a little less painful to sit out of choir for the first time in at least 20 years. I stopped by the choir room to visit and say hello to old friends, who voted by cheering that I get a robe and join them, but I couldn't do it. I needed a little distance. Funny, how I'm feeling sad because I feel so far away, and yet I need some separation too.



I love the themes of Advent. Hope, Peace, Joy, Love. While I'm not feeling especially peaceful this Christmas, I am definitely grateful for the many ways that the others manifest themselves in my life. Reuniting with loved ones. Remembering my way all over NJ. Walking without limping. Soil expeditions. Planning another epic Christmas dinner (creole deep fried turkey being the centerpiece). Gearing up for more adventures-- Utah and Arizona in the next week, New Jersey again in February, and of course all over South Louisiana.

I have great hopes that all of these things will settle out in time. It's just a heavy weight to carry meanwhile.

Wishing you a very happy, hopeful, peaceful, joyful and loving Christmas.

sweet sixteen in Zimpel Manor

Today begins the sixteenth week of our household's complete existence, and my last week in New Orleans before the holidays. We're still getting the same questions about our household being a bad reality TV show or if we've all synched up yet, but we've come a long way.

Our first time all together, at orientation:


Our first meal all together, at Zimpel Manor:


And now? We received our first compliment in response to announcing we all live together, when we went out for wine and cheese a few weeks ago at St. James Cheese Company (where I clearly had a beer with my soft cheeses, thank you). The awesome woman behind the counter celebrated how joyful we were and how awesome our household must be.

She's not entirely wrong. We certainly have our fair share of bumps in the road (this is, after all, New Orleans, and if you've never driven here... I don't necessarily recommend it*). They are new every morning, with additional layers and nuances as time goes on and we discover more permutations of our quirks. However, for a household of eight people, we function reasonably well. I don't believe any of us are starving and we have yet to go over on our grocery budget. We rarely if ever need to wait for a shower or toilet. Even the thermostat wars are really more like peace rallies. We all pretty much point to the same night when we clicked as a domestic unit of sorts: the night Alyssa tried to be my wedding planner.

Since then, we've reached new levels of householdery. For one, we have received mail addressed to Zimpel Manor. Granted, it was from our boss, but who cares. Furthermore, we can now all pretty much identify whose clothes are sitting in the dryer. And speaking of clothes, this happened last week, on the same day, completely unplanned:



(photos courtesy Kalyn)

I mean, it was only a matter of time till Hot Dog Johnny's happened, but even Anna Leigh and Alyssa's shoes looked similar. We may not be totally in synch in the way that most people mean when they ask that question, but we're clearly on some shared wavelengths around here.

Happy Sweet Sixteen, Zimpel Manor, and many more!



*Fun fact: The roads in South Louisiana, especially New Orleans, are terrible. I've heard stories about this being related to the Federal government holding infrastructure money hostage until states raised the drinking age to 21, but whether that's true or not, subsidence, poor drainage and Live Oak roots sure do wreak havoc on the roads here.

out of the fog

It's hard to remember that it's December when it's still pretty consistently warm enough for t-shirts. I mean, it only just became fall, like yesterday, when a cold front dropped the temperature by 40 degrees and dropped about 1/4 of the cypress leaves:


At home, I usually have my Christmas concert to snap me out of November mode (I love Thanksgiving!), but the weather and the fact that my work has been quiet for the past week or so has really kept me in this foggy bubble with little regard for the upcoming holidays.

Then it was actually really foggy this morning out in bayou land. Visibility approximately 50 feet:


And this at 11:30 or so was a vast improvement over the conditions when I drove out to Bayou Blue before 8AM. 

I decided to combat this oblivious aloofness by listening to Christmas music all day. I'm not usually one for songs about Santa, but this one added a little boogie to my ride home from the bayou and a little Advent into my heart:



Wishing you and your loved ones peace and joy this Christmas season.

Audubon Aquarium of the Americas

I've been having one of those weeks when I don't have much to show for my work. On top of that, my new friend from the Episcopal service corps, Lindsey, had taken today off to come plant trees with me, which was cancelled on account of that neato cold front that swept across the continent today.



So even though I felt like a bum and didn't want to get dressed or leave the house, when Lindsey suggested we go to the aquarium, I agreed. For one, she's cool and generally has good ideas. Second, she found a great deal on Living Social: half price admission! And I knew I'd enjoy it once I got there.

I was right. That place is SWEET.


penguins!


parakeets!


sting rays!


nettles!

And lots of cool fish and an enormous albino gator and some cute otters and some other cool fish and sharks and stuff! I found this display rather curious--



I guess those oil companies can pat themselves on the back for funding a nice tank that shows how oil rigs can form interesting habitats for all sorts of creatures. They left out the part where the oil leaks kill wildlife or how the construction of said rigs destroys wildlife habitat in the first place, etc. etc.

I find it interesting how many oil companies are getting away with murder in the Gulf. Conservation groups and local residents are having trouble holding them accountable for the damages they have caused along the coast. The government doesn't want to hold them responsible, because oil brings so much money into the state... BUT at what cost, exactly?


But, stepping off my Wetlands Advocate soapbox, the aquarium was pretty cool. I can't remember the last time I went to one. Good change of pace in an otherwise pretty quiet week in my little world down here in South Louisiana.