A Space for Peace
A Space for Peace
Laura Pavicevic-Johnston, NPN Service Learner
Uncle Lionel’s token wristwatch glistens from the top of his hand as he keeps beat with the Blind Boys of Alabama at St. Augustines. Hours later, white, red, yellow and black flash in blurs of buoyant color as the dancers of the Kombuka African Drum and Dance Company spin to a mad drum beat.
Such was the scene at the Congo Square Rhythm Festival held on Sunday, September 30th. The festival brought together musicians, dance collectives, poets, chiefs, storytellers and people in a whirl of positive energy.
“When you hear music and perform it transforms you. It’s seemingly magical, but science proves it too. Something changes in you,” says Ausettua Amor Amenkum, a performer with the Kombuka Collective who has organized the event in the past. Get to know Ausettua and you will be moved by her grace, her knowledge, and the power behind what she says. Her hair, if let out, would likely root her to Mother Earth. She speaks with some gravel in her voice, “When you perform, that space has been made better.”
In the early days of New Orleans, Congo Square exemplified transition. Previously swamp lands on the fringe of town, it was a place where African slaves were allowed to come one day a week—largely unsupervised—to make music, dance and trade. Ausettua explains “Through all that exchange, Congo Square was significant to New Orleans as a space for peace.” This year, the festival kicked off at St. Augustine’s Cathedral with a special guest appearance from the Grammy award-winning Blind Boys of Alabama. It was my first time in the cathedral, and as I listened to the Priest, I was also elevated by the sight before me: white people in fancy suits, black people in fancy suits, black people in African prints, white people in African prints, punks covered with neck tattoos, babies and a few people so old they probably couldn’t see any of it. Then again, seeing wasn’t really necessary, because the energy and the sound were everywhere.
Amenkum sees significance in that cultural exchange as well. “Back in the 17-1800’s, when Louisiana was forming, you know it was so harsh. It was rough on the Europeans, rough on the Africans, and rough on the Native Americans. If it hadn’t been for all those people coming together they wouldn’t have survived,” she says. “There was institutionalized racism, yeah, but daily life dictated that you got along.”
During the sermon, as the Priest lamented the woes of New Orleans, I wondered if and how this vibrant energy could be used as a tool. “Music and art help you to tolerate those problems without being hopeless,” says Ausettua Amenkum. “It is the culture that shows you there’s still a way.” As she speaks, she radiates that same powerful energy that can be seen in her dance. “Through that unity, through respect for cultures and preservation, through dancing, and good food, we can pull New Orleans to a better place than it was before.”
Her conviction leaves me doubtless that the soul of our city can comfort the world. And if not, Sunday at the Square elevated me and left me with a deeper understanding of where this unique spirit comes from. Events like this can’t explain the ever growing problems of our city, but they can explain why we all stay, and show us how we can thrive.
Thanks to organizations like the Jazz and Heritage Foundation, the Congo Square Foundation and countless other preservation, dance and music associations throughout our city—not to mention independent artists—New Orleans culture is guarded, preserved, and most importantly, made accessible. Life here isn’t about watching a show- it’s about feeling that show and giving some energy, zest and dance back to that performer. I think we do it here better than anyone.
A fortune teller on Jackson Square once told me that people who drink the water in New Orleans can’t leave because Marie Laveau put something in the river. Perhaps, but I think it’s even deeper than that. There is a soul here that is older than all of us and makes itself known through music and dance; that positive expression has the power to change a space and those in it. That power makes this place better.
Angel Food New Orleans: Stretching the Food Budget and Reaching Out to the Community
Angel Food New Orleans: Stretching the Food Budget and Reaching Out to the Community
Cheryl Napoli, Angel Food New Orleans Coordinator
Stretching the Food Budget and Reaching Out to the Community
New Orleans is a different place since Katrina. One thing really stands out though; everything is so much more expensive! Rents have gone up, utilities have gone up – even the cost of food has gone up. We are paying higher prices at the grocery stores, and our wallets feel it. Of course, while everyone is facing higher costs, not everyone has the same earning power as before the storm. A lot of the businesses have moved out of the area or have downsized to keep up with their own price increases.
There is help out there, though. Community Church New Orleans hosts Angel Food New Orleans, a discount grocery program. The program can increase your purchasing power by providing good quality meats and vegetables at a discounted price. Every month you can purchase a box of food worth $50 – $75 for only $26. The menu includes frozen meats, vegetables, and several pantry items. The best part is that there are no qualifications for acceptance, no limits on quantity and no application process.
While the menu changes every month, it is the same high quality food that one could purchase at the grocery store. There are no government surplus commodities, no second-hand items and no damaged or out-dated goods.
How does the program work? People order in advance every month before deadlines, and then pick up food on specific distribution days. For example, November’s deadline is Monday, November 5th, and the pick up on Saturday, November 17th. Orders are taken Monday through Thursday at Community Church’s office at 430 Maine Street in Jefferson. The office is one block from Causeway, in the front corner of the old Jefferson Shopping Plaza. Cash, money orders and food stamps are accepted at this location. You can also order online at www.angelfoodneworleans.com, using credit or debit cards.
Community Church New Orleans started hosting the program in June 2006 as a way to reach out to the community. “It has always been the heart of Community Church to help people. After the hurricane, we knew that we had to do something that would be an ongoing blessing to the community. After looking at the biggest needs in the community, we decided that a discount grocery program was really needed,” says Pastor Shawn Johnson. “This is just a great way to help people. Every time we hear someone say, ‘if it wasn’t for Angel Food I couldn’t have paid my bills’, we know it was the right decision.”
Try it out yourself and you will see just how much it can help you to stretch your budget. For more information, please contact Community Church New Orleans at (504) 846-4466 or angelfood@communityno.com. For the most recent menu and additional information about the program, visit the Angel Food website at www.angelfoodneworleans.com.
Something about New Orleans
Something about New Orleans
Folwell Dunbar, Holy Cross Neighborhood Association
My wife and I have left New Orleans numerous times. Going against the practical advice and desperate pleas of family and friends, and defying logic, we’ve always returned. It would be easy (and a bit cliché) to say it was the music, food or architecture that drew us back. Truth is, it was something else, and I’m not exactly sure what. My mother, a character culled from the pages of a Tennessee Williams’ play, used to blame it on some unexplainable ethereal force. “Even Marie Laveau,” she would say, “couldn’t peg a voodoo pin to it.” My father, the quintessential southern gentleman, says, “The city is like an old familiar chicken coop. Eventually, we all come back to roost.” My doctor diagnosed it as “dementia induced by the balmy subtropical heat.” We were incapable of responsible decision-making because our gray matter had been reduced to a lumpy, swamp-like roux. A lay meteorologist friend of mine quickly retorted, “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity, stupid.” Another friend of mine, an entomologist, had an easy answer: “The place is just crawling with bugs. Swarming termites and marauding fire ants, cockroaches the size of pterodactyls and mosquitoes capable of carrying off small bovine, what’s not to like?” Then there are the transplants, people who came down for Jazz Fest or Mardi Gras and never left. While dancing to the Iguanas at Café Brazil or drinking a Pimm’s Cup at the Napoleon House, these people slammed headlong into a geographical soul mate. It’s as if they were abducted by aliens who just happen to live on a much cooler planet. They buy a shotgun double and rent out the other half, take a few classes at Tulane or UNO, acquire a taste for chicory and seersucker, and, eventually, join the “confederacy of dunces.” Like so many other Big Queasy “char-ac-tuz” (Listen to Dr. John’s rendition of “Basin Street Blues” for the proper pronunciation), they become part of the ethereal force my mom couldn’t quite put a finger on.
Two days before Katrina hit, my wife and I fled to the “high ground” of Avery Island. We watched from a distance in disbelief as our city was battered and beaten about. We, like others around the world, were incensed by the slow response and human folly of it all. It was utterly surreal.
For the longest time, we considered leaving. San Francisco, Charleston, Key West, Charlottesville, and a slough of European and Latin American cities made the initial cut. We listened to people far more rational than us and we swallowed the poison of one pragmatic argument after another. And then, two days before the mayor said we could return, we were back.
When people ask me what it is that keeps us here, I think of George Harrison and simply say, “Something.”
Folwell lives two blocks from Desire, a levee away from the river, and a short stagger from the French Quarter.
New Orleans Kid Camera Project
Letter to the Editor
Sweet N’awlins Rain
Sweet N’awlins Rain
Maesto Teacher
by Priscilla Baca y Candelaria, 2003
Voice
Give them voice
Child’s song, poetry
Value their pearls.
Read, Regurgitate
Read, Question
Read, Write
Write, Voice
Rights ,
Voiced
Poetas have been Politically persecuted
By the powering factions
Because we dare have voice
Many martyrs leave their voice
Floating, dancing
From pen to paper
Script
Whispering caresses of love
Shouting orgasmic lust
Spouting political rhetoric
Of ones soul
Maestro teaching voice
Amendments
Silenced
Contoured
Masked
Ridiculed
Waves of poetas speak
Shout out
With ink and pen
We need no more Martyred sons
Ancient shores claim far to many
Warring acts of destruction
Always leaving fathers asking
For children to be brought home
Voice
Spoken
Voice
Heard
Speak.
Incommunicado
Incommunicado
by Jean-Mark Sens
The age of absence never closes its parenthesis
voiced dreams in cables and fiber optics distill conversations
great cusps of satellite dishes like becoming Virgins gape at inviting callers.
All gone in smokes the signals from mountain to mountain
prayers of dissipating cloud-Gods reverting to the sky,
the telegraph with its helpless show of chopstick arms
and transitional voices passed into hair-thin, copper wires
from ear to ear re-amplifying at each end imperceptible delays of a split present,
and to no avail the posted signs of a red crossed cell phone around public buildings.
Talkers go to and fro, along pathways, lawns, crossroads
somnambulists of a great heart’s murmur in cars and airport terminals–
each so far and each so close to the ones they don’t talk to
absence never joins the long curved lines from pole to pole
sometimes two parallels bridge a touch of hands, light, vibrating
and yet each will repeat their parting
messages left on fridges
“will be back later,” “3 leeks, 2 carrots,” “Anna, forth and back, I love you—”
“Don’t forget the beer,” “Gina has been delayed,”
a magnetic puzzle of crossed words on vinylled metal,
halos of voices trapped in ice cube trays, breathed hue in the crisper.
After Katrina’s flood, curbs dotted with vertical white coffins
Frigidaire, G.E., Coolbreeze, all strapped, duck gagged, graffiti that yelled
crying out to the world passing by Keep Shut! Cash Inside,
Gamy Gumbo Yummm, N.O.P.D. Kills, Bad Breath ….
King Wells’ Thankful Throne
King Wells’ Thankful Throne
Elizabeth Falcon, NPN Neighborhood Liason Director
Many people have good reason to be thankful for King Wells, and you could see that as he stood in front of the City Council surrounded by friends and family to be recognized by the City Council and Mayor’s Office. Councilwoman Stacy Head honored him, and thanked him for “improving the quality of life for so many in Central City.”
Mr. Wells was recognized for fourteen years of service at the Central City Economic Opportunity Center (EOC) as Deputy Director. He was a key player there in developing the Handleman project, which is now home to affordable rental housing for families and senior citizens, as well as Non-Profit Central.
He considers one of his greatest accomplishments that for “any organization that wanted to get involved in the process, we provided the leadership.” This helped to “create a climate for other non-profits to come work in the area and for other foundations to come in and fund in the area.”
Those who have worked with Mr. Wells recognize him for his dedication and his personality. “He is a people-person,” says Pricilla Edwards, who worked with him at the Central City EOC, “and he works tirelessly to get the job done.” Michael Darnell joined him on stage at City Hall, and remembered that, “in every meeting you were the person with the steady hand.”
Mr. Wells also helped start the Central City Partnership. In 1993, he and others saw the need for a collaborative effort to revitalize Central City in what he calls a “community mobilization.” Ms. Edwards describes the Partnership as a “holistic view of a community that includes clergy, schools, social services, [and] anything that makes up a community.” The Partnership advocates for residents and supports them. It was based on a model that existed in New York where “anyone who wants to participate has an opportunity to sit at the same table and work on the issues.”
Mr. Wells’ involvement stems from his belief that “the more that people do for themselves, the better our democracy is.” He also demonstrates this through his leadership in the Pontilly Neighborhood Association, where he is President. He says that “neighborhoods should make their own decisions.” For this reason, he helped begin the Pontilly Disaster Colaborative, which is now directed by Audrey Browder.
Mr. Wells was modest as he stood at City Hall. “I really appreciate my friends in Central City for pushing these [awards] for me.” But those around him had other things to be thankful for. “I am thankful for his dedication to our agency and his dedication to uplifting the staff,” said Ms. Edwards. Ms. Browder says she is thankful to Mr. Wells for “mentoring me and encouraging me.”
She also recognized his leadership as a “strong black man in our community.”
When asked what he is thankful for, Mr. Wells responded, “I have been adored in 40 or more years in this business.” Although he has retired from work, Mr. Wells is unlikely to stay still for long. As he told me when I first met him, “I’m retiring from work, not from life.”
Letters from the Editors
I confess: On Election day, I could not help but be thankful. Along the neutral grounds the signs, smiles and barbeques were genuine. Louisianans have taken stock of the political harvest and they are ready for change. A seasoned cynic or pundit would call me naïve or “Pollyanna.” What about all the corruption?
Yet I resist the temptation of pessimism. The country has seen the resiliency of New Orleans’ neighborhoods and takes pride in Louisiana’s spirit – approximately half of all the registered voters in Louisiana cast their votes on Saturday. Seeing the enthusiasm and candor of those who voted and those who urged others to raise their voices leads me to believe Louisianans will not stay on the sidelines in the coming years. As one impassioned resident from Parkview told me, “In New Orleans, civic participation is not a spectator sport.” Working with NPN and the Trumpet for over a year has taught me many lessons, and perhaps the most impressive one is the depth of people’s determination to succeed. I appreciate those who have followed their words with action and I am thankful that we have worked hard to share our successes. Now, over this we can all break bread. Thank you for supporting the Trumpet.
Gill Benedek
Programs Director, NPN
My being thankful in the midst of these disarranged times for my hometown may seem strange, even foolish. Yet it is during this time that I step out of myself and I reflect on where I was, and how bright my future is NOW. As I sit writing these words, I hear my maternal grandmother singing a familiar song that I heard her sing many times in her uptown kitchen as she cooked teacakes and biscuits. I never truly understood the words until I was much older: “How I got over, How I got over… you know my soul looks back and wonder how I got over.” The idea of getting over is to think beyond what you see in front of you. Not in a cunning or dishonest manner but instead becoming more informed, equipped and resilient to the opportunities presented before you. I think about how not even a month ago I was one of five persons living in a one-bedroom house and now I am in a home of my own participating in the rebuilding of a city that I love. Reading this issue, I see that the city is filled with love – just check out Jessica Kinnison’s story about rebuilding in Broadmoor starting on page eight, or Marcia Wall’s inspirational stories of community thanks on page twelve.
It is these words of thankfulness that plant seeds of hope for me, that New Orleans will one day be a city of aspiration and inspiration, and that all things are possible when all peoples BELIEVE.
Timolynn Sams
Executive Director, NPN
