No Greater Gift

The Independent / TheInd.com ^ | 12/21/2005 | Shala Carlson

[caryatid]

The destruction and despair wreaked by hurricanes Katrina and Rita were unprecedented. So was the generous response of the residents of south Louisiana.

They came from all walks of life. Mechanics, sales clerks, bus drivers, business owners, college students, schoolchildren. They came from every neighborhood, some alone and some with family.

[. . .]

Rarely has this region been more mobilized, more unified, more sure of what needed to be done. This was a chance to put that much-talked-about and often-practiced Cajun hospitality into high gear. What took place, on every level, was extraordinary — enough to make Acadiana volunteers The Independent Weekly’s Persons of the Year.

[. . .]

Here are some of those Acadiana stories.

[caryatid]

This is a very, very long read ... but well worth the time it takes! There has been far too little attention paid to the good folks of South and Southwest Louisiana who have rallied to the support of each other and have been picking up the pieces of their shattered lives so admirably.

The conclusion of the article follows:

It would be quite a grand romantic notion to believe that Acadiana responded the way it did because we are uniquely situated to understand unexpected exile. We live with the everyday echoes of Acadie, the constant awareness that our vibrant culture was born out of a historical diaspora. But perhaps this response of ours is grounded in something else. “This thing keeps getting reinforced because we keep responding the same way,” Barry Ancelet says. “A roof blows off in the neighborhood, and you go to help put it back on. That’s what we’ve always done.”

And that’s what we will continue to do. “It’s just the kind of community we have here in Acadiana, and I mean community in the biggest sense of the word,” says Trahan, who is in the process of transitioning the United Way from relief to long-term recovery operations. “We’re just kind of can-do people. We’re not going to wait to be rescued by somebody else. We’re going to get in there and do what it takes to take care of our own.”

The story of Acadiana in these waning months of 2005 has been the story of how it took a village to save a suddenly scattered city, the story of how individuals just helping in their own simple ways can change the currents of catastrophe and bring hope into the midst of despair.

“It’s a wonderful story,” says Trahan. “It’s a story that’s still being written.”

[caryatid]

An inspiring article about the good folks in South and Southwest Louisiana. It is a very long read ... but well worth the time it takes.

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