For weeks now I have been craving fried chicken. I just wanted some good Southern cooking. What can I say, you can take the girl out of the South and put her in Israel, but you can't take the South out of the girl. In lieu of this, a few friends and I, who were also craving fried chicken, decided to have a fried chicken cook out. What an adventure it was. Joey and I did the frying, and Rob did the grilling. It was a sight to behold and so tasty. I'd never had whiskey battered fried chicken. Yum!
Our cookout just so happened to coincide with the anniversary of the landfall of Hurricane Katrina, which 9 years ago deeply impacted my life and the lives of everyone in New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It's funny to look back on Katrina while living in Israel. My life has changed so much in nine years. What I remember most about Katrina was not the experience of the hurricane itself, but rather our drive to Las Vegas, my experience at school there, and then my final return to Slidell where so much of my day to day life had changed.
In the end, I was extremely blessed. Although we could not get a FEMA trailer, we were able to get our home redone in just a few months, where for others it took almost a full year or longer. I was blessed because I was able to go back to school soon after my return. While the hours of the school day were a bit odd, I was still in the company of many of my friends and that part of my life slowly returned to normal.
The most difficult moment for me was processing that the elementary school I had attended for 10 years had been damaged severely and its original buildings would most likely be torn down. A place I had called home was gone. I still remember the fried chicken we would eat in the cafeteria at OLL, the gumbo, biscuits, and powdered double chocolate cookies.
Home for me was one thing pre-Katrina, and a very different thing afterwards. Home was something I could no longer take for granted, especially while I was stuck far away from home in Las Vegas. Katrina was a turning point in my life, as I believe it was for many of my peers, and for so many people affected by the storm. The tastes and smells of home became more distinct, and my longing for them became stronger. My attachment to the place of my birth, New Orleans, and the South, became stronger. For all I know, that's probably the reason I research Southern Jewry and more specifically natural disasters and epidemics. It was also a turning point in my spiritual development.
It took a long time to deal with the emotional fall out from an event such as this. However, 9 years later, these wounds have healed and only vague scars remain. As a 15 year old, I had to figure out why God did this to me and my
family. It took a long time for me to come to a theological
understanding of my experiences and to come to terms with the aftermath of the storm. The memory of the events of Katrina and the days and years of rebuilding that followed are a very present part of who I am. They are seared into my memory. Although a lot of my memories are negative in relation to Katrina, I also think about the beautiful ways in which my family and community came together to rebuild. We returned to the tastes, smells, and sights of home and tried to rebuild a better city, a better home together. As a sit in my apartment in Jerusalem, remembering Katrina, I long for home. For me, our fried chicken cook out was just a little taste of home. Gumbo, red beans and rice, and cornbread are next!
