Reflecting...

I’m back in Berkeley and finally able to sit alone in the quiet library and process my experience. “An amazing experience,” I say to all the friends, family members and classmates who have asked. And it really was.
Leaning over a cup of steaming hot coffee one day in my kitchen back home in San Diego, my mom explained to me grace. She described it as what connects people—strangers, even—in an inexplicable way. A beautiful binding force that brings us together. My name, Hannah, means “Grace of God,” and it was in New Orleans that I felt like I was consciously experiencing for the first time this beautiful force after which I am named.
When I asked Pastor Gary of Good Shepherd what he thought was going to turn the situation in New Orleans around, he pointed at me. Then he pointed at all the others in our group, milling around and talking to Church members before the service on Sunday. He told me that people in New Orleans feel like no one cares about them, and he spoke of the need for compassion from those outside of the disaster, the need for advocates for the victims of Katrina.
At some point during the trip I realized that is why we were there. The most important thing that we were able to do in New Orleans was show solidarity with those affected, and to bring back with us the commitment to see through to the finish the rebuilding effort in New Orleans. For me, our trip to New Orleans was filled with vivid images that will remain in my mind. The lower ninth ward, where homes were moved completely off their foundations, entire neighborhoods completely decimated. The black water line on my cousin’s home indicating the 8.9 feet of water that her lake view neighborhood had soaked in for days. The image of Jean’s friend leaning against the doorframe uncomfortably telling Jonell and I of the three days she spent trapped in her home in waist-high water without food or drink until a boat finally came to rescue her. And then there’s the picture I have in my mind of Jean, sitting on the stoop of her porch next to the thorny, dead remnants of her beautiful red and white rose bushes and telling us of days when her now silent neighborhood was a vibrant community full of life.
These images and experiences were too powerful to forget. Going to New Orleans was an amazing experience, one in which I experienced the grace of God through connections with others. It’s an experience that is not yet over, because it was one that implanted in me the resolve to continue in the fight for New Orleans, for as long as it takes.

--Hannah Reed