Glorys

Today when we arrived on the site we found a beautiful (yes, beautiful) FEMA trailer was on the lawn in front of the house to the south of ours. It had come sometime between the time we left yesterday and this morning. (FEMA works by night?). Anyway, we were very curious, but most of us went right to work. Sue and I went over to "have a look". That is when we met Glorys.
Glorys lived two doors down on the other side of the house that now had the FEMA trailer. She saw us and came over.
"Do you know who delivered this trailer?" she said in greeting.
We told her we did not, but it had come since yesterday.
"Well, I need to talk with them. They ran over my lawn again. Last time they were here to clean the alley and they broke my sidewalk! I am getting a little annoyed!"
We told her who we were and what we were doing.
"Are they coming back?"
We didn't know.
"I guess the trailer means she, (meaning the lady in the FEMA trailer house), will be coming back," said Glorys, "I am so glad."
Glorys had been living in the neighborhood for about four years before the storm. She has been working on getting her place re-habbed for several months. She said she finally took care of the weeds and tall grass at the house near hers because it just looked too bad to bear. She has a gentleman friend from North Carolina who is very handy. The drywall is up inside and they are ready to move appliances in and paint. She has planted a poinsettia garden in her backyard to replace the one destroyed in the storm.
On her door is posted a sign that reads: "Car or no car, I sleep here". There is no furniture in her home currently mostly because scavengers and looters still haunt the neighborhood and have broken in her door several times. The arrival of the FEMA trailer next door and us working on our house is a hopeful sign for her.

She knew our residents. They had lived there for thirty years or so. Others had been in the neighborhood for forty to fifty years. Gentilly Woods was built for the GI's when they returned from WWII. Now they are all gone, not just because they of age or infirmity, but because Katrina drove them away.

The house next to ours, a cute little green cottage, left to decay since the storm, was donated to some unknown person by its 74 year old resident. Nothing has been done there.

Glorys takes it all in stride. "You do what you have to do," she says with a slight shrug and smile. "I might just buy that little place across from me. They want $20,000." It is gutted and ready for someone to take care of.

Glorys is moving on and coming back. One our of thousands is a poor ratio. When will the tide turn? Or has Katrina and her sister Rita convinced those thousands that they should not return?

The city sleeps on it for now.

R