Operation Eden

I added Operation Eden to the NOLA section in the sidebar a few days ago but I should really call your attention to it because it is an amazing and important blog. I learned about it from pastordan in the comments at Body and Soul.

Operation Eden is by Clayton James Cubitt, who is a commercial photographer, based in Brooklyn but originally from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Since early September, he has been in NOLA and around the Gulf Coast taking incredible pictures of people and places and writing strong accounts of what he sees and about what has been happening to his mother and younger brother, who were living in the region and lost their home.

The latest post is about Pearlington, MS, another of the many devastated communities that have been abandoned by the US government.

Here's the message he wrote just before departing to find his family.

My mom grew up poorer than poor in New Orleans, in a shotgun shack on McKain Street, with nine people living in three rooms. Christmas was Toys for Tots, dental care was having their teeth removed at Charity Hospital. Through it all they stuck together, and slowly over the course of years managed to work for a slightly better life, even if it was still below the poverty line, or the very shaky bottom rung of middle class. My mom raised me and my little brother alone, working three jobs, and I promised myself I'd take care of her when I could. This March I was finally able to make good on that promise, when I used my life savings to buy her a humble trailer she had fallen in love with in Mississippi, and gave it to her for my birthday. It was the first thing she'd ever owned, aside from junker cars. She named her humble trailer "Eden", and was as happy as I've ever seen her, which is pretty damn happy.

Then Katrina came. Now she's lost it all. The trailer, nestled between Bay St. Louis, MS and Slidell, LA, was submerged under over twenty feet of water when the storm surge came ashore. Thankfully, my mom and little brother were in a shelter in Kiln, and true to form, having volunteered in battered women's shelters and homeless shelters hew whole adult life, my mom spent the four days she was in the hurricane shelter helping the elderly and sick. Yes, I'm saying my mom is a redneck Mother Theresa (in fact, Theresa's her Confirmation name). Anyway, "Eden" has four feet of muck and dead shrimp and carp from Pearl River in it, and it's molding and ruined. My mom's now homeless, squatting in an evacuated home in Slidell. All she's got is the clothing on her back, and a few family photos she managed to grab. My little brother, 13, has nothing for school, and no medication for his asthma.

I'm going down tomorrow to pick her and my little brother up, to bring supplies, and to survey the damage. The rest of my family didn't fare much better. My aunt's home was destroyed, as was my cousin's apartment. So many memories lost, they had so little, and now they have nothing. And my family's just one of thousands just as bad off, if not worse. At least they have their lives.

Anyway, I'm the lucky one, having gotten out of Southern poverty years ago, and now it's all on my shoulders to help them rebuild. It will be a tough job, but I'm tough, and my people are tough. We know now, as always before, we can't count on the government to come to our rescue, or show care, so it's all just friends and family taking care of this business of rebuilding. And we're all friends and family now.

I thank you so much for the love and support, and I swear, when we rebuild my mom's Eden she's going to invite everybody down for a Cajun crawfish boil! It won't be fancy, but it will be fun, and good times will roll again.

-Clayton Cubitt, 9/7/2005

Some other posts you might want to read:

•Charity Hospital

•Katrina Hero

•The Contents Of My Mom's Life

•You Are On Your Own

•A Homecoming