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I had to leave my students behind. Much of inner city New Orleans is filled with indigent or low-income families with no transportation. These people didn't stay in the city, for the most part, because they were "attached" to their homes. Most have little to attach to and no money or means to leave. Instead, many either rent one side of a shotgun double house or "stay" in one of the city's five huge housing projects. And that's where I had to leave my students: on the second floor, in their neighbor's apartment in the Lafitte Housing Project.
Dwight and Dwan, twin brothers who just turned 17 years old, first became my students at one of the lowest performing middle schools two years ago. Their individual stories are sad before Hurricane Katrina and maybe too intensely painful for the average parent or reader. But their reality was to call Children Services themselves last Friday when they came home to find their circumstances unlivable, once again. That day, they asked if they could live with me, but it wasn't possible Friday. We agreed to meet on Sunday and plan their future. Hurricane Katrina made all that impossible when I evacuated Saturday night.
We spoke several times trying to coordinate how to drop-off food for the storm but officials issued a curfew by 7 p.m. on Saturday night making that impossible. I asked their neighbor to take them to the Superdome, but she said it was a bad experience two years earlier when they evacuated for a tropical storm and that they trusted God.
We spoke at 4:00 a.m. and the storm hit Monday morning at 5:00 a.m. We spoke a few hours later and I haven't been able to reach them since. From a hotel room in Houston, I sit tortured in front of the TV hoping to see a shot of their building or a face. The news just reported that the Orleans Parish Public Schools would be closed for the next two to three months. What I want to know is ... will my students be alive?
Diana Boylston
THEY FOUND ME! ( See the original story I wrote after evacuating New Orleans )
After evacuating at 1:30 in the morning and sleeping on the side of the road, my husband and I headed to a hotel in Houston, TX because it was the nearest place that allowed our two dogs. Glued to the television, I looked on in horror at the faces of the people I left behind. With the rest of the world, I stared helpless and in disbelief as the neighborhoods where I was raised went under water, the schools where I taught were destroyed and the young people (the most vulnerable victims relying on adults to make decisions to keep them safe) lost more in those days than some will lose in a lifetime.
It was a very long six days before my mobile cell phone rang. The twin brothers, my students who just turned 17, FOUND ME! Dwight and Dwan called the cell number that I give all my students in case they ever need me – and they reached me despite all the phone problems we continue to have in Louisiana. Before they called, I already realized how much I needed them. Much has happened since the first day I wrote. I've received over 100 e-mails in four days asking me to let everyone know when I found the boys and offering prayers and words of encouragement, for which I'm deeply touched and forever grateful. A few jobs were even offered once word got out that our schools would be closed for a year.
NBC's The Today Show read the story I posted on nola.com, called to interview me and then came to the hotel to film the interview. The BBC World News Radio also interviewed me and I was happy to report that my students called from the first shelter where they were taken in Arkansas. Their usual cheery greeting (Hello Ms. Boylston!) quickly became somber as they confirmed one of my greatest fears…they were trapped and one of the thousands stranded at the Convention Center.
Dwight said he almost died in the frequent human stampedes. "What did you do when everyone started to run?" I asked. "I ran," he said, "or else I would have been pushed down and they would have trampled me too. But don't worry Ms. B., I didn't step on anybody." When Dwan got on the phone I asked him if, while these terrible things were happening (both boys spoke of witnessing death and extreme violence) he remembered that I love him. "Yes Ms. Diana, but I didn't think I'd see you again. I thought I was going to die in there. "Dwan," I asked, "if you would have died in there, what would you have wanted people to know?" "That I love everybody," he answered. "Everybody?" I asked. " You don't know everybody." "Everybody Ms. Boylston. I love everybody." I stood there wondering how they could live through these atrocities and still love "everybody."
I did many radio interviews during those next two weeks and was thrilled when the BBC and The Today Show split the cost and flew me to the second and final place the boys ended up…in a church camp in Kennett, Missouri. It seems that one of the volunteer bus drivers who picked them up from the Convention Center was also a pastor at a church in Kennett. When the Arizona shelter was crowded, the pastor offered to take the family (their mom went with them to the convention center) and give them a place to stay. We surprised my students and the reunion was recorded. The next day I took them to school and talked to their new teachers to address the boys' special needs.
After not being able to go home for three weeks, my husband and I finally returned to find a 50 ft. tree lodged through the roof, creating a 4' hole in my ceiling. As I stared at the huge cracks in the walls, almost certainly creating structural damage, I couldn't help feeling as though I was one of the lucky ones. They'll be a lot of discussion about whether this seemingly unnecessary tragedy will serve as a wake-up call. I can't say.
I love being from the south, and though my heart is sometimes heavy these days, people of New Orleans do have a certain spirit that's hard to put into words. Dwan has words though. He loves everybody. My future, however unknown, will include finding a way to tell my students' stories. Someone has to speak for them.
©2006 Diana Boylston