IT IS UNDENIABLE the amount of charisma the city of New Orleans has. It's personality shines with color and vigor that captivates the mind and entices the imagination. All your senses get overwhelmed as you walk though the elaborate and crowded streets. The smell of Cajun home cook'n seeps tantalizingly out of every open restaurant door making your mouth water. Music flows through the streets with ease, hitting your ears with a perfect balance of delicate beauty and immense power. More sounds of people laughing, singing and screaming for joy come forth as the nigh grows older. Even on a seemingly ordinary Monday night people can be seen playing and dancing in the streets, harassing cab drivers and throwing beads in the air. The people of New Orleans have learned how to make every night count, and to party like there will be no tomorrow.
To an ignorant mind this could be a life of true bliss and happiness, for an informed one, this is a life that is only a mask. No one could forget the horrors that emerged from Hurricane Katrina but New Orleans sure makes you try. Neon signs and family bright happy colors try to hide and distract from the graffiti X marks on the fronts of houses. X's with numbers that show dates, people found and people dead. They try to cover up the fact that many houses still lay vacant and are in denial that some may always be. Denial that there is a reason for that. Denial that the reason is because New Orleans is a ticking bomb. Katrina was a horrible occurrence. Not only because of the events that took place but because it is destined to happen again. The city is sinking, drowning itself.
New Orleans is beautiful, mesmerizing and hypnotic. It draws you in a warm embrace and holds you there. Like a mothers hug, it keeps you feeling safe and ignorant to whats around you. Those who stay away are wise, but what about those who came back? Before this trip started I would have called them fools. Now that I've drank the sweet nectar and breathed in the culture I can say, I don't blame them.
But I do hold them responsible.
To an ignorant mind this could be a life of true bliss and happiness, for an informed one, this is a life that is only a mask. No one could forget the horrors that emerged from Hurricane Katrina but New Orleans sure makes you try. Neon signs and family bright happy colors try to hide and distract from the graffiti X marks on the fronts of houses. X's with numbers that show dates, people found and people dead. They try to cover up the fact that many houses still lay vacant and are in denial that some may always be. Denial that there is a reason for that. Denial that the reason is because New Orleans is a ticking bomb. Katrina was a horrible occurrence. Not only because of the events that took place but because it is destined to happen again. The city is sinking, drowning itself.
New Orleans is beautiful, mesmerizing and hypnotic. It draws you in a warm embrace and holds you there. Like a mothers hug, it keeps you feeling safe and ignorant to whats around you. Those who stay away are wise, but what about those who came back? Before this trip started I would have called them fools. Now that I've drank the sweet nectar and breathed in the culture I can say, I don't blame them.
But I do hold them responsible.