By Richard Esquivel
 
I'm post-French Quarter wandering, mold infestation cleaning, Maison Bourbon Jazz Club loitering. While I'm not as tired as those who gutted houses yesterday I still woke a little bit fresher in mind and feeling that quaint fogginess that comes with a bit of work done the day before. I can't really summarize too well what I've seen here, looks up towards sudden vistas, listening to a home-owner talk about his home that was waterlogged for 2 1/2 weeks.
 
I came here wanting to see what happened to the city after the storm and I'm finding the city very much after the storm. It's still very much here. The French Quarter, undamaged during the storm, is still the French Quarter, and Bourbon Street...is definitely still Bourbon Street. The Lower Ninth Ward, while further along in development, looks like a place where people used to live but don't any longer. The damage wasn't restricted to the projects or similar housing but homes, real homes, in the Ninth Ward area. Any one of these homes could have been my mother's house. I've been thinking what she would have done had her home that she worked hard for been caught in a flood. If we'd crawled out, she would have left and built her life again somewhere else. I think I'd still be visting helping build back the homes and swinging through the French Quarter to hear some jazz.