Off the Beaten Track

We put down the Frommer's and headed to less-touristy Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans' for a day with Hands On New Orleans.

The city's rebuilding efforts are evident.

We ended up hunched in a hot elementary school hallway scalping old paint for seven hours. Our hands throbbed. Our fingers kept a claw-like shape until manually straightened.

What struck me most about the experience was that the neighborhood reminded me of a school in North St. Louis I used to visit weekly. I could just as well been back in Ms. Maclin's class dressed as the Cat in the Hat on Dr. Seuss' birthday. Maybe that's one reason why New Orleans' story struck a chord. It's that universal recognition of others in our own experiences. And our need to reach out.

Here's the story I penned for National Geographic Traveler's Intelligent Travel blog.

Death in New Orleans

Death sleeps in New Orleans, tucked in with a jazz funeral lullaby. It seems only appropriate to talk about the town's tethering to the spirit world before examining its modern soul and rebuilding following Katrina.

Marie Laveau's remains lay within a plaster tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. Her grave

is one of the most visited in the United States.

She is  New Orleans' voodoo queen. With her name comes the tales of cures she brought sickness and hexes she made to enemies. In Martha Ward's biography of her "Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau," she is portrayed as that eclectic mix of good and evil, multi-cultural heritage and religious hybrid of which the town is known. Laveau was a Creole who lived in the early to mid 1800s. Her ancestry ranged from French to American Indian to African American. 

To me, she was one of our country's first feminists. She, a woman of color, married a pedigreed husband from French lineage. She kept her name, even named her daughter Marie #2. 

She carved her own spiritual path, mixing Catechism with African spiritual traditions that resulted in her version of voodoo. She led upper crust women into Congo Square, where they writhed and twisted "like snakes," according to historical references. But she was so mythical it is hard to distinguish her good deeds in helping with cholera epidemics to the vengeful deeds she passed along to clients who had an axe to grind.

Tourists leave Mardi Gras beads at Laveau's tomb. A few have carved "XXX" symbolizing favors they are asking the queen. Her decomposed body lies among the stone, plaster and marble tombs, among other prominent families from Old New Orleans. Today's voodoo priestesses and curious travelers keep her memory alive.

Saints March In

I will never comprehend the loss of human life nor the sheer hell residents along the Gulf Coast faced over those days. I, like many others, have only my limited, yet vivid, experiences of New Orleans. So many stories — both real and myth — to tell.

Hurricane. That word meant something entirely different the last time I was in New Orleans.

Hurricane then was a hazy, pinkish, rum-laced drink downed by the glass at Pat O'Brien's. A few of those and Bourbon Street became a surreal fraternity - the brass instruments playing an intoxicating, ethereal tune; the party buzz growing as the crowd swelled. It was an atmosphere oscillating between revelry and debauchery, an exciting and mischievous mix.

Anyone spending a bit of time there has a tale to tell of the eclectic, ethnic-rich place. It's a wacky, wonderful world.
Where else would a Jackson Square performing clown take you to listen to raw jazz with locals and then feast on late-night soul food? Where else do you wait outside while your sensible, law-student friend gets his fortune told by a psychic? Where else could you chase a muffaletta with a beignet? Where, but the Jazz Fest gospel tent, does a choir move one to tears while clapping and dancing along? Where else is crawfish considered a delicacy? Where, but there, do the vibrant colors of people and their backgrounds meld so haphazardly right, just like dangling, metallic Mardi Gras beads, available to all who show up.

The soul of New Orleans lives on. And we arrived on a sunny afternoon last week, ready to see for ourselves the resurrection.