New Orleans... What can I say. I bounced in and rattled out but in between I discovered a rich, colorful culture that steals all hearts but those of the most devout goodie goodies. I found music, food, tom foolery, and an enduring spirit that has a way of escaping explanation.

     I pulled the "Tour-toise" in on thursday morning after a full day of rest and ex-modernism in the De Soto National Forest. The pitted roads battered the old girl's bones as I bounced down N. Claiborne making my way to Audubon Park where I hoped to find a suitable parking area. After a quick re-con I found a long stretch of clear parking a block from Audubon's green space and a few more to Tulane U. I spent the day biking the area and soaking up my first taste of New Orleans. The houses where massive. The people possessed an air of arrogance and I immediately reconsidered my choice of parking. After some friendly coaxing from Officer Melody of the New Orleans Police department, I found my way to a more suitable locale. The Tchopaculis Wal-Mart. The location could not have been better to stage an all out exploratory operation of New Orleans. Every angle was reachable on bike. I road down Bourbon Street, caught the Smoking Time Jazz Club on Royal, and made it over the bridge to the lower 9th Ward. The city was buzzing in the throws of Jazz-fest. Tourists where stumbling down the streets with plastic hourglass-shaped mugs full of fermented something-or-other, and the artists cast their nets hoping to secure a chunk of change for their freedom. I took advantage myself and was successful in making enough dough to offset my meager indulgences. Got to give credit to my good pals at "Pal's Lounge" off N. Rendon for the business and for my first impression of a Ginger-rita. And for my second and third.

     After a weekend that stretched till Wednesday, I got to work finding the story of Sustainability in New Orleans. My first shot took me to the offices of Global Green, a massive non-profit that runs a responsible rebuild program in New Orleans as a small segment of their global involvement in bettering life on earth. Next I found a winner, lowernine.org. Lowernine.org is one of the more grass-roots oriented campaigns in New Orleans's Lower Ninth Ward which was washed away in Hurricane Katrina's wake. Among other reconstruction initiatives, lowernine.org is building a community farm in effort to not only supply fresh produce to a community that six years post-katrina is still without a grocery store, but also to simply show activity in a spookily quiet part of town. From what I gather there where too many promises, too much hipe and a frantic scrambling to rescue a community built on a hundred years of hand me down houses. Many properties didn't have deeds, they where just passed from one generation to the other. When Katrina blew through and the insurance agents swarmed in, the ensuing confusion splintered an already fractured community. In the beginning the Non-profits formed a coalition to divvy up the projects to boost their good deed meters (and to do some honest humanitarian stewardship). In the fray, dollars swirled in the sky above the wreckage and the non-profits, building contractors, politicians, and others schooled like hungry mackerel on a cloud of pinkies. Meanwhile residents, mostly displaced, heard all kinds of good intentions. And some of those good intentions are taking place. Slowly. There is work being done. And slowly residents are moving back to the overgrown lots and tainted soil. Outflow from a nearby oil operation settled in the soil of the lower ninth ward. Laura and her teammates at lowernine.org painstakingly amended the soil on their pair of leased lots dubbed the Lamanche Community Farm. With so many of the residents of the community spending their insurance money just to live jobless and homeless elsewhere, few residents can afford to come back and rebuild. That being said, I was surprised to see that foreigners, church groups, and college kids made up the majority of people working to rebuild the community. It seems like the people of the community itself are struggling to unite and help themselves. More on the community farm below.

          One project in New Orleans that really caught my attention was the Free School Network. A group of cool cats has formed a volunteer-based multi-disciplinary school which holds free classes on topics such as planned parenting, bicycle mechanics, and music appreciation. The concept of volunteer-based community education seems radical but incredibly sensible. With the current state of our educational system it would be remarkable if communities began taking it upon themselves to pass on the skills they have learned through their lives. Frank, one of the founding members, hopes the school grows with this in mind "everyone is a teacher and we are all students". For more information on the Free School Network click here.

    So after a failed attempt to find an Art opening and being rudely shoved by a less then appealing, ignorant woman who I simply asked for directions, I rattled out of the Big Easy. Literally. I lost a shock sometime while merging onto route 10 and bounced like a custom car nut with a hydraulics equipped Riviera till my exhaust pipe ripped loose and began dragging on the chopped up asphalt. I was able to swing the rig from the passing lane onto the shoulder before the pipe fell loose of the chassis, which would have undoubtably caused a ten car pile up. After reattaching the nine foot long piece of 4 inch steel pipe with some eye bolts and good wishes I limped to the Prarieville Wal-Mart, the perfect location to swap shocks, replace the rear differential gasket and find a block party at Spanky's. Thanks New Orleans, it was real.

    P.S. I hope the cajuns who where flooded in order to spare the greater cities of New Orleans and Baton Rouge from the mighty Mississippi, receive a personal invitation from the fortunate towns to come enjoy their hospitality till the clean up begins.

Jazz, Meet Community Farm from Byron Banghart 2b4theWorld.com on Vimeo.

Here's a little taste of New Orleans. First we catch The Smokin Time Jazz Band then we meet with lowernine.org to check out their plan to turn two empty lots in the lower ninth ward into a thriving, lush, community garden and gathering space.