Where Am I?
I recently heard a reporter on a national news network refer to one of the hardest hit areas of New Orleans as "ward Nine." He went on to explain that it was a residential area, made up of lower to moderate income families who lived in modest homes. After he gave this rather non-descript view of the area, he said it may have to become a flood plane to protect the rest of the city.
Greater minds than mine will figure this all out, but before they decide to give this area back to the marsh, I'd like to tell you a little bit about it.
Home of the Y'ats:
First of all it's the Ninth Ward, not Ward Nine. And, to those of you who speak New Orleans, it's the home of the "Y'ats" (whose traditional greeting is "where y'at? How's ya mamma and nem?") I spent a lot of my childhood in and around the Ninth Ward so I'd like to tell what's really there. I learned to swim at a New Orleans Recreation Department Stallings pool on Poland Avenue when I was in the second grade.
I used to go with my mother and my Aunt Julie to a bakery outlet store somewhere in the Ninth Ward that sold day old bread cheap to buy stale French bread for "Pain Perdu" (Translation: lost bread or French Toast)
I went to high school in the Ninth Ward. Most of the buildings of our high school pre-dated the civil war, and once my friend Jean and I spent a whole week in detention for sneaking into the attic to read diaries from young girls who lived at the school with the nuns during the Civil War.
Along the Mississippi River there are two identical houses built in the early 1900's they are made to look like steamboats and are wonderfully unique. I have a friend who grew up in one of the "steamboat" houses and I got to visit often.
My husband's grandfather was a United States Congressman from New Orleans in the 1930's. His grand old home in the Ninth Ward was converted into a hospital in the 1950's. I guess it's gone now. I don't have the heart to find out.
This Side of the Ninth Ward:
Just above the ninth ward is the St. Roch area, home to the St. Roch Cemetery, where hundreds of 1800's Yellow Fever victims are buried. I remember the St. Roch Market, where I went as a child with my Creole grandmother to buy fresh seafood for gumbo. There were large wooden hamper baskets filled with fresh seafood from nearby waters. In the hampers were handmade signs that read, "Fat Crabs" or "Female Crabs fresh from Lake Pontchartrain." The market was filled with wonderful smells and friendly faces, both black and white, neighbors who came together to share news of the neighborhood and recipes while seafood cooked in large pots all around.I remember the smiling face of a black man whose name I have long since forgotten. He always let me taste a claw from the batch of boiled crabs he had just taken out of the boiling pot. "Mind you child, It's hot!" he would tell me.
Our Neighbors in St. Bernard Parish
Below the Ninth Ward is St. Bernard Parish where the Battle of New Orleans was fought in the War of 1812. I used to go crabbing with my three sisters on Bayou Bienvenu every summer Wednesday morning nearby. The people of St. Bernard Parish are some of the strongest people on the face of the earth, and even though they have been devastated, I've no doubt they will return and re-build.Sacred Ground
Maybe all or some of these areas will be turned back into marsh. But, it will always be sacred ground to me.