With a week off recently, I decided to go and see one of the cities high on my list of places to visit in North America that I hadn’t already been to – New Orleans.

Descriptions of New Orleans had always intrigued me, with a strange mix of quasi-European culture and architecture, voodoo, black magic, monsters and music. I never got an opportunity to go before Katrina hit in 2005.

A few weeks ago, with a week off I decided to head down to the city. I had heard that most of the French Quarter and historic districts like the Garden District and Esplande Ridge were rebuilt and tourists were welcomed and encouraged, so it seemed a good time to go.

Upon arriving and spending a few days touring the historic and restored areas, I boarded a bus and did a Gray Line tour of the post-Katrina damage.

Why did I choose to take the tour?

It felt important for me to do.

It is impossible to think of New Orleans today without thinking of Katrina, and my decision to come and visit New Orleans as a tourist was partially influenced by the fact that I wanted to support the city with my tourism dollars. I wanted to see what Katrina had done, and understand how far along the city had come, and how far it had to go. To do that, I needed to get out of the French Quarter and see the parts of town that were most effected.

The tour, conducted by a woman whose house was severely damaged by Katrina, was excellent. I wouldn’t say that I “enjoyed” the tour, but it was very moving. As I got off the bus at the end of the tour, I was both touched by the stories and signs of lose, but buoyed with a sense of hope, to see that people are returning and are rebuilding.

As you point out, Amanda, there is a point that gets crossed – were I in New Orleans in the days and months after Katrina, I am not sure I would have gone to see the damaged areas. Now, however, as things get rebuilt ever so slowly, there is a shift in the perspective, from one of morbid fascination to one of hopefulness.

I wrote the following after seeing the Tribute in Light at the site of the World Trade Centre in New York City on the fifth anniversary of the September 11th attacks.

“Not sad thoughts of what was lost, but happy thoughts of hope. How I still love Thanksgiving and not hate it because of my mother’s death. How the people of Hiroshima cheer for their baseball team and not think of the horror of the A-bomb. How three fire fighters laugh and smile at the memories of their friend, and not dwell on the way he died. How we all have the power to live through the bad events in our lives, and somehow take something positive from it.”

I was holding out for a longer, thoughtful comment at the end of the series, but I just spotted this movie in the listings for the Berlinale film fest, and thought it might interest you. (I’m assuming you read German, having lived here).

I think most often the people who fly into disaster zones have good intentions, but they severely overestimate their own abilities in terms of helping out. The best image I can use to explain this is Sean Penn wandering New Orleans in a rowboat in an individual rescue effort – and then having to be rescued himself, wasting resources on someone who should have stayed out of harm’s way.

Of course he wanted to help – but striking out on your own when you have no special skills only makes things worse.