Shannon Bowley, a Bellingham-based artist and photographer, makes a
self-portrait in Waveland, Miss., in November. She was there to do
relief work and to help feed the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Shannon
Bowley courtesy photo
This photograph, taken by Bellingham-based Shannon Bowley three days
ago, shows that though Hurricane Katrina struck over three months ago,
much of the devastation has yet to be addressed.
MARY LANE GALLAGHER
THE BELLINGHAM HERALD
Housemates of two Bellingham artists putting their lives on hold to help with disaster recovery in Pakistan and New Orleans are holding a series of events this week to raise awareness - and money - for the massive work left to do.
Musician Casey Connor has been in northern Pakistan since mid-November, helping a nongovernmental organization, Relief International, find and build shelters for those left homeless by the Oct. 8 earthquake.
And Shannon Bowley, a painter, is helping to feed people in a makeshift cafe set up in a devastated community just east of New Orleans' Ninth Ward.
Connor and Bowley's housemates here want to help by letting local people know about their work. "These disasters are continuing to unfold," said Andrew Connor, Casey Connor's brother. "Just because they've faded from the nightly news, they're still a very big deal."
Bowley, 31, recently sent home some photos of St. Bernard Parish, where she's now volunteer coordinator for the nonprofit group Emergency Communities. The massive devastation in the photos, including a car parked on top of a tree in someone's front yard, hardly look like they were taken months after the storm.
"It looks like the storm was here yesterday," said Bowley, speaking by cell phone while standing in front of her 10-foot-by-12-foot tent in the parking lot of a former off-track betting club. "Except it's worse (now) because there's black mold covering everything."
"There's so much work to be done here to make this place look normal again," she said.
Shannon Bowley, a Bellingham-based artist and photographer, makes a
self-portrait in Waveland, Miss., in November. She was there to do
relief work and to help feed the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Shannon
Bowley courtesy photo
Bowley and the other volunteers just opened their kitchen Monday, serving largely organic food to hurricane survivors and relief workers in a whimsically decorated geodesic dome most recently used at the Burning Man Festival in Nevada.
The kitchen is a respite for the storm-battered residents of St. Bernard Parish, Bowley said, a community about the size of Bellingham that, after the hurricane, floods and an oil spill, now has no habitable homes. The kitchen is on what used to be the town's main drag, where big-box retailers have been replaced by tent cities and trailer homes.
"There's no services, no stores, no grocery stores, or banks or restaurants, or anything at all," Bowley said. "We want to provide a place where community members can come together and hang out."
As more people return to the community, the kitchen could churn out as many as 3,000 meals a day, she said.
"It's important that people understand the scope of the disaster," Casey, 30, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald recently. "It's a complete mess. Three to four million displaced people, many of whom have lost entire livelihoods and many family members. Lost generations of children, utterly devastated infrastructure, etc. etc."
"I'm hoping that the winter won't be as dire as people predict it might," he wrote.
Casey wrestled with whether it was better for him to send money or himself to help in Pakistan. In the end, he was drawn partly because he was able to raise more money from friends and family because they knew he was going, Andrew Connor said.
Casey is keeping an online Web log and photo gallery of his work on his Web site - providing a perspective that's missing, he said, from most media coverage of the quake relief effort.
"Given that most white Americans' perspective on northern Pakistan goes as far as Osama Bin Laden, the Mujahadeen/Taliban, opium and K2, I felt it was especially important for someone like me to go to this 'forbidden,' 'dangerous' place," Casey wrote. "Surprise: It's just another beautiful place on planet Earth populated by imperfect human families doing the best they can with what they have."
"I'm not going around on a cultural-exchange mission here," he wrote. "The focus of my time here is decidedly about relief and rehabilitation, but the side effects of increased understanding and relaxation of fear are probably more important."