NEW ORLEANS, La. – Over spring break, Eastern student Kate Hannon opted not to return home, but instead decided to join the ranks of other Eastern students and participate in an alternative spring break in New Orleans.

Hannon, a junior elementary and special education major, spent her time helping residents of Project Lazarus, the oldest and largest residential facility in the Gulf Coast region that provides assisted living to people with AIDS.

In late 2005, EIU Pride donated its proceeds from its annual Diva Drag Show to the organization.

After Katrina, Eastern also took in eight new students—accepted with only high school transcripts and school IDs—that were evacuated from Dillard University, a university in New Orleans, according to a Daily Eastern News article.

The names of the students were kept confidential to allow adjustment.

Before jumping into volunteering, Hannon was able to visit the French Market, a marketplace in New Orleans that needed to be torn down and rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina.

“I thought it was cool. It was really touristy,” Hannon said.

Hannon said she was glad to connect Eastern with New Orleans again.

Businesses recover

Six years ago, winds tunnels and rancid waters claimed the streets of the once vibrant New Orleans, but the citizens of the once dilapidated city want the rest of the country to know the birthplace of jazz is back.

Hurricane Katrina left more than 1,000 people dead, left multitudes without homes and no real means to recover from the destruction.

Katrina is also known as the sixth strongest Atlantic hurricane and the fifth deadliest recorded in United States history, according to a tropical cyclone report by the National Hurricane Center.

Gennifer Menard, 63, has lived in New Orleans and owned her own store, Paradise Gardens, in the French Market for about 25 years.

Menard said living in New Orleans and working in the market is an education in not only business, but diverse cultures.

“You meet people from all over the world, all over the country—there’s all types: crazy people, smart people,” she said.

Hannon said she also liked the diversity of the market.

“They had a lot of different things like a fruit station and spices,” Hannon said. “And it had different food stations–really authentic.”

Hannon said she was glad to see a lot of tourists at the market.

“I wouldn’t have thought that there was anything wrong with it.”

But, Menard said she does see a difference—no matter how small.

“Everything had changed—there weren’t a lot people that came around. It was a struggle everyday just to keep your head afloat,” she said. “(It was) sad, very sad.”

Before returning back to the market, Menard said she had to resort to wheeling around a cart of just plants during the three years the marketplace was being repaired.

“This is my livelihood,” she said.

March marks the third year that Menard returned to the French Market.

Menard’s and other businesses at the French Market were severely hurt when the Category 5 hurricane struck the city.

Daunted by the task of restarting her own business again after Katrina, Menard said she was able to see the difference in atmosphere when the first Christmas at the marketplace since the storm took place.

“It was the saddest thing because you just don’t realize how many little things that are gone that you take for granted,” Menard said. “And when they are not there—the lights in the oaks for Christmas and people with streetlights and houses with lights—it was a very depressing time.”

Bob Lawyer, 66, said he had his entire neighborhood wiped out while he was out of town in a wedding.

“It was a rough time for a few years,” said Lawyer, a-33 year resident of New Orleans. “But now it’s back to almost completely the way it was.”

Lawyer is a professor at Xavier University in New Orleans, but also maintains a business in the French Market with a friend—whom he said wanted to start a business with him.

“For the most part it’s fun and relatively stress free,” Lawyer said. “I’m not out here a lot; I’m normally here on Saturdays and Sundays.”

Lawyer has been in business for seven years.

Lawyer also said it allows him to showcase and sell his own artistic pieces—his photographs.

“Some I’ve taken 10, 15 to 20 years ago, so I’ve been photographing for a long time,” he said.

Oscar Donahue, 56, said he also enjoys being creative with his own art.

Donahue owns the Oscar of New Orleans cartshop where he makes his own jewelry and sells it for a living also within the French Market.

“As an artist, I’m free to be creative and make stuff and to not ever have to work for anyone else is a real joy,” Donahue said.

As someone who has been with the market for more than 25 years, Donahue said it is a dream come true to have a mass amount of people seeing his work again.

Lawyer said he still thinks people need to be patient with what they expect of New Orleans in regards to structural and economic progress.

“What the storm destroyed in a day, it’s going to take years to rebuild,” he said.

Menard said she is proud of the way the city and its people persevered.

“Just in the last year or so the market here has really started growing,” she said. “Most of the stores have come back and more.”

Lawyer said he is glad to see progress in New Orleans.

“It took the better part of 200 years to build the city and to put it back together will take time,” Lawyer said. “(But), we are on the right track.”

Lawyer said he credits the philanthropy of the younger generations that enabled New Orleans to have the positive growth it has seen.

“It’s college kids who decided to rebuild houses and helps feed people that allowed this city to get back on its feet,” Lawyer said.

A street performer speaks out

Tony Street, 32, is a Hawaiian-born street performers, who plays his drum set on Decatur Street—wearing his graffiti leather jacket.

Street said he came to New Orleans six months ago to see the city even though he does not like the history the bricked pavements hold.

“The architecture is cool, but the history I don’t like—the fact that some say one race is better than the other—we are still suffering those effects today,” he said.

Brad Miller, who is also Decatur street performer, created his own washboard instruments—complete with bells and thimbles—using a French Quarter jump sign.

“I’ve been doing it all my life,” Miller said. “I usually take a washboard and add different things to it and I tend to hit them hard and have to patch them, then throw them away.”

Miller said he enjoys taking well-known songs and incorporating different beats.

Miller sometimes performs with Tony Street as well as a saxophone player that goes by the name Charles “C” the Saxman.

C said the reason why New Orleans has such an eclectic group of street performers is because the natives tend to perform for the love of music instead of making money.

“We do it for the love of music and for the love of the city,” C said. “I love it.” 

Nike Ogunbodede can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].