2006-04-24

It's long overdue, long to the point of absurdity, perhaps, but so it is when things get wrapped up. Like moving out of an apartment, and forgetting to use up the credits at your local yoga studio before moving across town, this last email update about the work of Burners Without Borders in the Katrina Zone has been stalled so long that now it has, perhaps, only limited utility. Like those yoga passes, it's now at a distance, a bit more hassle, and yet...still worth it. (tortured analogy, I know, I know...)

In a nutshell, it, or at least our little piece of it, is done. After almost seven months of work, after unloading dozens of cargo trucks of supplies, handing out tons of food, water, medicine, clothes and shelter, after pushing and shoving even more tons of tons of debris from the yards and porches and front rooms of peoples lives, after leveling 60 houses and working around dozens more, after crawfish and moonshine and gnats and living 24/7 with the same people, with new ones arriving all the time and dear ones seeming to always leave, after doing our what started small and ended up something entirely more piece to help out, it's done. Burners Without Borders has wrapped up our volunteer relief project on the Gulf Coast, and has returned our campsite to it's pristine, LNT condition:

Broom clean concrete was all that was left....

Which makes this a good time to say thank you thank you. THANK YOU!!! to everyone that helped make what we did possible. Simply put, without the donations, without your buying our tshirts and sending care packages and calls and every other little thing to let us know we weren't alone and were supported, without all that we couldn't have done it. It's a cliche, till you live it, and then it's just so clear there's no reason to dress it up: the Burning Man community was our partner the whole way. Thank you.

Thanking people is a dangerous practice, because you always forget someone, so I'll limit it to three: Matt Linsday, for getting there first, straight off the playa, and opening the door to burners to feel comfortable coming down; his father Phil Linsday, for delivering his family, tools, talents and reputation, without which we'd have been out of the Gulf Coast way back in October, and finally Richard Scott, who's mind-numbing constancy in the face of being thrown unwittingly into a leadership role, and then continued good nature and self-effacing style kept it all together till the very end.

On April first, we wrapped up our camp, gave away about a dozen pallets or so of equipment and supplies to Pearl*Mart, boxed up the equipment left over to use for our next deployment, and sent a convoy northwest to Gerlach, where our gear now sits waiting in cargo containers for whatever comes next...

Let the hyper-tetris begin: think there was a lot left over after Burning Man? Imagine if your theme camp had been there for seven months... This is virtually the same spot as above, just a few days earlier....

The last weeks were, putting it simply, a blast. Dawn up to long after dark, working with close friends and meeting new ones, ticking off those last projects you'd been meaning to get around to (clearing out a debris pile, say, or taking a proper tour of the swamp we'd been living in ), savoring the sweet bite of the first days of spring announcing the last days of our time together. A partial list of the people who made the last weeks so great: SteveO, Rachel, Linda, Karine, Corey, Jecca, Cowboy, Rebecca, James, Paul (aka Turnout ), Lisa, Shaleen, Caaarmen, Spoon, RIchard, Miss Margaret, Playground, Cathy, Eli, Matt, Ray, Lucky, Chrissie, Marian, Jim, PQ, the Burn Day bunch from One House at a Time, Disaster Corps, and the timely returns of ChAos, Mishka and KK...

A first, and final group shot, in front of the Welcome to Pearlington sign Lisa Benham (L) created as a lasting legacy of our visit there--made entirely from debris, some of the pieces are 100 years old.

There was one hell of a leaving party. It started down at the tent bar (gotta love a place you can roll up on in a multi-ton front end loader and not surprise anyone), with a whole bunch of fried this and boiled that, and a cake laid out that summed up how a lot of the locals felt about our having been there.

Which later became a pretty raucous affair fueled by a fair bit of moonshine, and surprising pieces of art being brought over by locals and other volunteers, to be burned in our fire pit (which stayed going the entire time we were in Pearlington--you can see the smoke billowing out of it in the photo below as it got pulled free ), ....at least one errant marine flare. Fortunately for everyone, if there's one thing burners know how to do it's manage fires--kudos to Paul aka Turnout for going from bud-sippin to fire-wrangling in .02 seconds...

Our excavator pulls the fire pit free, still smoldering nine weeks after being first lit--it was loaded on the truck known as Katrina, and you'll see it again at Camp Katrina on the playa.

We may have been unlike anyone they'd ever met, but in spite of how we did things a little different, we left having made lasting friends. On his way out of town, the Fire Chief made a point of stopping by. "This is a small town, and in small towns people do a lot of talking," he said, before adding, "and there's not a single person in this town with a bad word to say about you folks, and in a small town, that's saying a whole lot."

Exodus, movement of jah people...as they say at DPW post playa: "Take out your drivers license, look at the address on it, now go there.."

Someone did some edge of the envelope calculations recently, and reckons we did some where on the order of $1 million in free demolition, debris removal, and community service work in our months along the Gulf Coast. Not bad, not bad at all for something that was never planned.

So the question now, many ask, is what's next? Burners Without Borders will continue, a vehicle for public service. And since charity begins at home, this seems like the perfect time to announce our first project outside the Gulf Coast:

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BWB public service project in San Francisco
Friday, May 5th, Cinco De Mayo, 4pm-dark thirty.
Beach Clean Up, Potluck Dinner, and Bonfire, on Ocean Beach!
The Golden Gate National Recreation Area is considering a ban on beach burns on Ocean Beach, in part due to the debris left behind by so many fires. It was around a San Francisco beach fire that Burning Man began, so what better way to shift into our next phase of public service than by cleaning one up, while gaining support for continued burn access?

We'll clean the beach (needs: nail magnets, trash bags, vehicles to haul it away in ), collect letters from people there in support of preserving the right to have fires on the beach, then have a potluck dinner and, of course, a bonfire.

Meet at the north end of the parking lot on Great Highway, opposite where Fulton meets the ocean. More details to follow....
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Longer term, plans are coming together for Camp Katrina and the Gallery of Burnable Art on the playa. Exact location TBD, we'll keep you posted.

Now, on a final note: other voices are long overdue here, and I asked if any of the people who worked with us in Mississippi would like to share their thoughts. Two replied with the sentiments below, both very different in perspective and voice, yet still somehow similar. Enjoy:


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Jim Jordan, self described art project labor monkey:

In Closing,
Leaving Pearlington was bitter-sweet. Bitter, for the thought that people who live in this community are not able to leave, they are stuck living in a case study of destruction and its aftermath. Sweet, because the trail ahead of me is a kind one; one that has friends and family, projects, cities, rural meditative spaces, and Burning Man. Bitter again for the deaths that we saw occur as a result of the damage that place incurred, from drowning to hemorrhaging to one man we knew well who lost his life the last day we were in town in a trailer fire. Sweet for the difference we made, and the gratitude that we felt from the people whose lives we effected, who let us know that our energy was appreciated.

Leaving Pearlington left me with a sense of abandonment, and thoughts of hope; hope for the future of the lives that we touched as well as our own, while there were so many people we just couldn’t get to on account of the vastness of the situation. With the solace that we did what we were able to do with our humble resources, we left knowing that we helped out a community, and that we necessarily grew within ourselves, though where sometimes, was as yet unknown. Pearlington left a strange afterglow. I am effected by the people that I met while there as well as the sights and rhythms that we at Burners Without Borders fell into. Things like the weekend burns with their high fires and artistic creations that we said farewell to so swiftly after their emerging into our worlds. The rural attitudes, that attested to the Southern culture that we were immersed in, reminded many of us that we were visitors, even if the locals did love us. I remember hearing a lady on our team say one night at a crawfish boil “If this is what it means to be a redneck, then count me in.”

We worked hard out there. Daily, we would go into muck-filled environments to make the place nicer by wading in and scooping out the nasty. Daily, we destroyed people’s homes that they had spent their entire lives filling with memories that were now ruined with sea water and mud. Daily, we would pull lumber from a swath of destroyed buildings so that we could tear out the nails, true up the ends and deliver the pieces to someone building their house. We had to get over the sense of connection to individual items, and attitudes that we would meet at times, while gaining a greater appreciation for certain elements of modern life in a new light.

Moving on from the aid work environment is a trek in itself, both physically and mentally. The physical exit strategy was defined by caravans and carpooling. There were many directions and goals for us as we left. Some were headed for the left coast, some for the right, some would meander in the middle, heading straight for the 80 acre ranch of Burning Man’s, outside Gerlach, Nevada. I left with two friends, one who we dropped off in Huston, the other and I took the better part of the next two weeks to get to LA where I was dropped off as he continued on his trail. The mental registering of finally being in buildings with amenities like beds and running water was simply comedic at first. I remember the first kitchen experience that I had in three months. I was standing in the oversized kitchen in a co-op in Austin that my friend and I had stopped for a couple days at, and I just marveled at the light and the plate ware.

So now the trek continues, and the road is new. Leaving the environment of Burners Without Borders,points me in a decidedly determined direction. A direction that is both inspired and healthy. I have a new appreciation for what can be done in a day, how many work hours live in one. Simple things are not easily taken for granted, and the bond of friendship seems more valuable. I am grateful to have been able to take the time to work with the friends who are seemingly scattered across the globe at this point, and I am inspired to have a continually profound impact on my world in a positive manner in the actions that I take. The bitter-sweet trail is one of hope for the future, combined with a recognition that it will take a lot of work to see a brighter, more sustainably sound world, because of the fear that our human species is destroying too many of the necessary elements for our survival, too quickly. I can focus on the hope, because it’s both productive and fun. At the same time, I can also be honest about the fear, because it is important to know what is being dealt with. The road leading to the future is a path of yin and yang, with the importance of all elements being recognized. From my experience in southern Mississippi, I think that I understand the power of the human influence more. I hope my footprint will continue to be a helpful one upon this trail, and hopefully it leads me back to Pearlington someday. I would like to see the new friends that are there who are rebuilding and holding tight to their homes. It’s inspiring to see people loose family and furniture and still look to the future as time within to create. It is humbling and empowering.

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Jecca Housman, who joined us in Biloxi and stayed right on till the end. She now lives in Gulfport, MS, with the volunteer-who-shall-not-be-named ( aka: our chief aquisitions officer ), working as an EMT:

I'm just a silly young thing. I try to act all wise and experienced for my age but luckily, every once in a while, something happens that turns everything all crooked and makes me realize how silly I really am. That happened to me this November and I can't tell you how pleased I am with that fact. I was getting quite far away from a happy, fulfilled life before I came to Biloxi. I hated my job, was in a bad relationship, and really didn't do things for other people other than the occasional silly favor asked by a friend.

I initially planned to volunteer for five days. Driving through Biloxi the first time, I was floored. I had no idea it would be that bad. The only thing I'd ever seen that compared was once when I was a teenager and a tornado blew through a shopping center a few towns north of me. It had really, really trashed the K-Mart and some trees. You could see the tornado's exact path, too -- a fifty yard wide path of destruction that went for about a mile. I remember driving around in the bumper to bumper traffic that had accumulated from all the folks driving in for an hour or more to see the damage. It was really big news in Southeastern Kentucky.

Well, Katrina was kind of the same thing. Except, there was no clear path. Everything, everywhere was just fucked. Also, this didn't run for about a mile. This ran for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles. And miles. And it wasn't just a K-Mart that was messed up -- it was K-Mart, and Wal-Mart, and Best Buy, and McDonalds, and schools, and churches, and police stations, and homes. Lots and lots of homes. In about two seconds of taking in the scope of the destruction, I felt like a dumb little girl for using so many excuses to not get there sooner.

And, now, after becoming one of the longer-term volunteers, I still feel a little like a dumb little girl because I took so much more away from Camp Katrina than I gave back. I've cleared some yards and helped some people and done a good bit, I guess, but Katrina changed my life. It put things into a proper frame of reference. It gave me a fresh start. I'm both proud of what I did and embarrassed by how that compares to what was done for me.

I have a new job, a new place to live 700 miles from home, a new relationship, and a new sense of satisfaction and peace that I had been missing for a bit. I have fantastic friends that are all wonderful and interesting. Though I realistically don't think that we'll all be talking and e-mailing every day for ever and ever, I think we're all bonded in such a way that if, in ten years I call someone up and just want to chat, it will still be warm and honest and ringing of true friendship. Those are the kind of buddies that are really blessings.

And, I guess that's the symbiotic beauty of a disaster. It took coming to a place that was devastated to find the tools to do the renovations I needed so desperately. They tell me that BWB is going to keep on going -- the World Shelter that I loved to live in is in storage, ready for future deployment. The only thing I can say to someone that wasn't there is GO next time you hear us fire up the heavy machinary. What you'll get for your effort is too complex to really explain, so just GO.

The only thing that I can say to someone that was there is thank you. You went beyond mending land and buildings to mending souls, mine included. Thank you. I'll see you on the playa, provided I'm not sitting in an ambulance watching the next hurricane.

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Until we meet again on the playa, in San Francisco, or Black Rock, thanks for reading, and thanks again for all the support.

-Burners Without Borders
1900 3rd Street
SF, CA 94158