Books - Book Review - The St. Bernard Fire Department in Hurricane Katrina - Michelle Mahl Buuck

This book counts as my LONG book selection in the 9 for '09 Book Challenge.
I usually read books that are 250-300 pages; this non-fiction work is 352 pages.

Before I review this book, I need to provide some background information. St. Bernard Parish is east of New Orleans and borders the 9th Ward. It has two oil refineries, a major sugar refinery, and a fishing industry. Some of its earliest settlers came from the Canary Islands in the 1700s. There were many plantations during the 1800s. The Battle of New Orleans, the last one during the War of 1812, was actually fought in what is now Chalmette, St. Bernard Parish, not in New Orleans.

The residents of St. Bernard have a real sense of place, so much so, that very few ever left it; I believe their sense of place is even stronger than those in New Orleans. Because of that fact, and that their accents sounded similar to people in Brooklyn, we in New Orleans made fun of the Chalmations or people from Chalmette. However, since the Katrina, I haven't heard one Chalmation joke, which is good thing.

The Katrina-caused levee breaches flooded 80% of New Orleans (equivalent to 5 Manhattans), but it caused MORE damage in St. Bernard: 100% was indundated! The author, Michelle Mahl Buuck writes, "What happened was the worst case scenario for the Parish of St. Bernard. While waterways border St. Bernard on all four sides, leeves had broken on three of them. Hurricane protection leeves along the Mississippi Gulf Outlet (Mr. Go), the Industrial Canal, an portions of the federal Mississippi River Leeve belong Meraux were breached and had failed."

(Mr. Go is a man-made shortcut from the ports to the Gulf of Mexico. Residents had called for its closure for many years, but the Corpse of Engineers just didn't heed their warnings. The Industrial Canal breach first flooded the 9th Ward and then moved to St. Bernard. Storm surges in St. Bernard are estimated to have been 25 feet (7.62 meters). )

Buuck's purpose is to tell the Katrina story from the Fire Department's point of view. There are many photos included in the book, all contributed by the firemen.

I heard about this book from a One Book, One New Orleans event from last year. It was a panel discussion of "Why St. Bernard Matters." It also marked the first time that I had been in St. Bernard Parish since the Katrina.

One of the panelist told me, before the talk, that the Mounties arrived first in St. Bernard, and I was hoping that something was mentioned Buuck's book.

The first photo in this work is a satellite view of the five command centers of the parish: Domino Sugar Refinery (closest to New Orleans, in Arabi), Parish Government Complex, Civic Center, Chalmette High School, and St. Bernard High School (SBHS). If you are not familiar with the area, it's a great one to keep referring to.

Everyone knew there was going to be some flooding, but not to the extent that it happened. Firefighter Rodney Ourso recalls what he saw at SBHS: "There was a deer, struggling, swimming across the football field..You don't see that everyday."

During the height of the storm, the Domino Sugar Refinery, a sturdy, brick building built in early 1900s, began to move! "...the partition, cinderblocks were actually vibrating, moving back and forth by an estimated 4 or 5 inches." (10.2 to 12.7 centimeters)

All communications were lost, and each command station were on their own. A lot of improvisation happened to try to save and ration the little food and water there was, later rescue the living from rooftops using boats, repairing boats without power tools, cure the injured, provide some sort of toilet facilities, plan evacuations to the Mississippi River, etc. The firemen also had to keep focused on the job and not think about all that they had lost. They had no homes to go back to, no fire trucks, no fire stations, no nothing. In some ways, their trauma was worse than the 9/11 firemen. The ones who survived had homes and stations to return to.

The most vivid description for me was the efforts of the firemen in trying to prevent staph infections and foot rot. Some of their techniques reminded me of what Xavier and Elijah did (to keep their feet dry) during WWI in Three Day Road.

But, after battling heat, hunger, thirst, and trying to keep people calm for many days, help finally came: THE VANCOUVER URBAN SEARCH AND RESCUE TEAM! District Commander Buuck expressed what a lot of the St. Bernard residents felt. Although they were happy to be saved, "to have a foreign government send people down here and get here before our own government makes me feel that I'm not an American."

With the fourth anniversary of 8/29 quickly approaching, I felt that I needed to read this book. Although I didn't go to St. Bernard a lot, I knew that the people there had suffered as much as New Orleans residents because of the devastation caused by the Katrina breeches.

St. Bernard Parish is recovering at a faster pace than New Orleans. The Domino Refinery recently celebrated its centennial and it has been modernized. The deadline to repair or demolish homes has passed, and those who wish to still own the property must maintain them. (In New Orleans, some abandoned homes have pools with fetid water from 8/29!) The Civic Center now holds events like graduation; it flooded up the first balcony level. The schools are slowly rebuilding. New residents, such as Liz McCarthy, are helping in the rebuilding. (She won a CNN 2008 Hero Award.)

And the Fire Department has reopened some of its fire stations and more are being planned to reopen. It recently received FEMA money to replace all the fire hydrants in the parish.

Many times, when I was reading this book, I felt as though it was fiction and other-worldly. I had to keep saying to myself, "It's real but incredible!"

The reality struck with Shane Lulei's answer to Buuck's question, "Is Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath the worst thing that you have been through?" Lulei's answer really shows his sense of duty. " We lost our whole community, and we don't know what's going to happen next. But my family and friends are all safe. As far as I went through, this is what I'm trained for; it's my job."

Stuff - Literacy Event - One Book - One New Orleans

For my June event for the 2009 Mini- Challenge, I selected - Promote Literacy.

I am a volunteer for One Book, One New Orleans. The first phase was recommending and then reading books for the September - October 2009 reading period.

I (yes, moi) nominated Sara Roahen's Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table! And it won!

It's a small slice of the various types of foods that you can find in New Orleans and where you can find them.

This book is suitable for all ages. As a adult, I discovered other places that serve my favorite foods and learned the history behind the food.

For adult literacy readers, the chapters are self-contained, so that the new readers can tackle one or two chapters and not lose the sense of the book.

High school students can enjoy reading about what makes this city special.

Even children can read about the sno-balls (snow cones) and compare notes.

We met with the author the other night at dinner, and she was excited with some our preliminary plans and made suggestions for others.

I don't know how much we can achieve in the time frame and how much things will cost, but I am hoping that we can do most of them.

I know that I will have a fun October and early November as a participant!

I will give you updates as soon as I know them.

Plus, if you have any ideas, please leave a comment! We are still in the planning stages and have time for more ideas.

Books - Book Review - A Year of Pleasure - Elizabeth Berg

For me, Elizabeth Berg is a quiet writer. She writes about women, not famous ones nor rich ones, and follows them through life changing events that unfold slowly in the novel.

Bette is on a road trip from Boston to the Midwest. "..my mind seemed to uncrinkle, to breathe, to present to itself a cure for a disease it had not, until now, known it had. Rather than the back of an airline seat or endless, identical rest stops on the interstate, I saw farmhouses in the middle of protective strands of trees, silos reaching for the sky, barns faded to the soft red of tomato soup.."

Her beloved husband had died, and she was totally lost. During their happy marriage, they hadn't needed many friends. Now, she was lost. What to do next? All the plans she had made with John were now useless.

Bette moves to a small town near Chicago and slowly recovers from the shock of the death and starts to plan her future. And, she wants to enjoy life, a piece at a time.

Part of the pleasure is to slowly return to the personality that she had when she was in college.

This novel is sad in certain portions, but Bette soldiers on, with some setbacks.

Even though I may never experience widowhood, Berg does a great job in showing what a widow would probably experience.

Books - Book Review - The Last Queen - C. W. Gortner

BookGirl tempted me with this book! I had to find it and read it!

I heard about Juana La Loca at home only. She is another daughter of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. Their other daughter, was Henry VII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

Since I was educated in North America, I knew more about Catherine. I was always in disbelief of how Isabella just forgot about her in cold England and did nothing to rescue her. And now finding out about Juana, I have a worse impression of Isabella and hope that she is never made into a saint, because she doesn't deserve it.

Juana married Philip, the ruler of Flanders. She didn't want to go there and leave her beloved homeland. Just after she heard the news and realized that her mother would never change her mind about the marriage, she felt, "this world I loved so much, it would not mourn me. It would not even feel my absence. It would continue on, agelessly indifferent in its beauty, it's wall absorbing the echoes of its departed."

At first the marriage does become a love match. But power and money start getting in the way. Juana finds out that she can trust no one. The story grips you in a way that I just could not put down this book, even to get enough sleep so I wouldn't be a zombie at work the next day.

In all novels, I like to read about the daily living conditions. There are mentions of "toilets" and of how Queen Juana had to "spread dried lavender on the carpeted floor of my tent to keep our environs feel of louses." She traveled by horse from Galicia to Castile, but she did it in style.

This historical novel is a great introduction to the other ruler of this great royal family, a forgotten member, who seems to be remembered by madness only and not what she did while in power.

Books - Book Review - Three Day Road - Joseph Boyden

This novel is the first of my Canadian reads. I recently got a certificate and bought mostly Canadian works.

I am not familiar with the Great War as much as WWII. So, when I can learn about WWI, I jump at the chance.

The title refers to the length of time that it takes to get from the train stop to Xavier Bird's home in northern Canada. And the road is not really a road; it's mostly waterways and stopping on land to rest for the night. And, it's also the journey of recalling the past, exorcising the ghosts, and getting ready for the present.

Xavier Bird is the nephew of Niska, a Canadian Oji-Cree. She can see into the future and is also a healer, of both the body and the spirit.

She tells some of the story in the novel and other times, it goes back to Xavier, relating what he saw and thought while in Europe. Then, it goes back to the present, the journey they are both making back home.

Xavier mostly grew up in the wilds with Niska. He did make friends with Elijah, who was educated by nuns in a school that forced the Cree and other native people to be separated from their families and culture.

However, Elijah managed not lose his language and learned hunting skills from Xavier. However, Xavier really does not have a strong command of English and depends on Elijah to translate for him in Europe, until Xavier becomes fluent.

I don't know how in the world Elijah hears about WWI, but he convinces Xavier to sign up. They end up in the trenches of Belgium and France as snipers.

Xavier is the more thoughtful of the two. When they receive orders to leave "this quiet place of Saint Eloi and marched down there as reinforcements. Words. The rumours fall like rain here."

Boyden describes the horrible living conditions in the trenches. In order to battle the dreaded trench foot (when "the feet are black and swelling"), Xavier and Elijah "wear the tall mocasins I made a long time ago back in Canada. They dry quickly and allow our feet to breathe.."

Waiting for the next battles can be monotonous, so Elijah signs up for burial duty. But, "before he leaves a corpse, Elijah tells me that he has taken to opening each man's eye and staring into them, then closing them with his calloused right hand, letting a strange spark of warmth accumulate deep in his gut..Before they go to their place, Elijah, he says, the spark fills his belly when it gnaws for food."

This novel shows how two men can love each other as brothers and how sometimes painful decisions have to be made to show the love. It also relates the horror and boredom of WWI. I also learned more about ceremonies that are practiced by the Cree and wonder whether they are still done today.

Even though I read this book very quickly, I had to slow down in certain parts. Boyden writes Xavier's English in a not-quite-right way. Considering that Xavier didn't really learn the language until he went off to war, it was a great literary device.

I will recommend this novel to my book club and hope to start Boyden's award winning novel, Through Black Spruce very soon.

Books - Book Review - In the Time of the Butterflies - Julia Alvarez

Selection for May: Read a library book.

Yes, I know, it's a little late for May, but why not?

(P.S. I goofed on this challenge. I had two selections for May, so I need to move this to the October challenge.)

I borrowed this book from the New Orleans Public Library to read for the International Fiction Book Club of New Orleans.

Alvarez' book concerns a group of siblings living in the Dominican Republic durint the time of the dictator, Trujillo.

I knew absolutely nothing about this period in Dominican History, so I liked that aspect of the novel.

It also is Alvarez' telling of the resistance of the Mirabel sisters against the dictator. They had comfortable lives as young girls, but there was always a current of fear. In a school play, which Trujillo attended, the sisters were afraid of being too beautiful. Trujillo liked young girls, and he would take them for a bit, until he got tired of them or they became pregnant.

Trujillo not only imprisoned people and had them executed, but he was able to make everday life miserable.

The oldest Mirabel sister finished law school and was ready to start a practice. However, Trujillo was able to have some paperwork revised, and she never was able to work in her profession. She railed and ranted but was powerless to change things.

In 1959, Patricia had a sense of foreboding. "My eighteenth year of marriage, the ground of my well-being began to give a little. Just a baby's breath tremor, a hairline crack you could hardly see unless you were looking for trouble."

This is great introduction to this time period and will help you to understand some of the background of Junot Diaz' The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Books - Book Review - The Opposite House - Helen Oyeyemi

This novel fits the Cover category of my reading challenge, 9 for '09.

It's really interesting. When I first bought the book, I thought it was a London Street. But turning it upside down, I think that it's either a street in Havana or in Lagos.

Most probably Havana, since there are ancient Fords and other American cars parked on the street.

Maja is a double immigrant. She was born in Cuba. Her father was a professor and her mother was his student. They left Cuba, "young man Papi with his unkempt Afro and tortoise shell spectacles. Once he had finally achingly understood that Castro's Revolution was not his", they moved to Germany first and then London.

Maja's mom became pregnant with a son in London. And as she got older, she went deeper into Santeria, the voodoo of Cuba. Maja's dad can't accept his wife's beliefs.

It is also the story of Yemaya Saramagua, who travels between London and Lagos, by using a door and not an airplane. This part was confusing to me, because Yemaya seems to interact with Maja's friends also (or was it just in the dreams?)

Besides telling the story of Maja's feeling of not belonging, this novel also gives an overview of the immigrant experience in this century. Maja meets up with Magalys, a childhood friend from Cuba.

Magalys feels that "... sometimes it just doesn't feel like anywhere over here. I look at maps and stuff and none of the places seem real. I thing that what happens when you dont' belong to a country though - lines are just lines, and letters are just letters and you can't touch the meaning behind them they way you can when you're at home and you look at a map and you see, instead of a place-name, a stretch of road or an orchard or an ice-cream palour around the corner."

I need to re-read this novel and I might recommend it to my book group to see whether I can other insights with a second reading.

The portions of Yemaya's story were confusing to me. And, it's a refreshing telling of the Cuban experience. I am most familiar with the stories of the early Cubans coming to the US in the 1960s. Since this family left later, the feelings are different.

Books - Book Review - The Long Walk - A True Story of a Trek to Freedom - Slavomir Rawicz

This work counts as my Distance choice in the 9 for '09. Omsk, Russia, which is the nearest city to Siberia on the distance calculator to New Orleans is 10,459 kilometers or 6499 miles.

This is a memoir of Lt. Slamovir Rawicz, who was captured by the Russians and sent to Siberia in 1940. He thinks that his crime was being a Polish officer and resisting the Nazis. He believes that he was in one of the last calvary battles of the 20th century, against the Nazi tanks.

After spending a year in prison, he and other prisoners traveled from Moscow, across the country, and got off Lake Baikal. Then, they were taken by truck toward the Artic Circle and then walked and walked. Once they arrived, they had to build their own huts. They were given axes to cut down the trees and 3 meals a day: bread, coffee, soup, and a warm drink for the night.

Rawicz got a few more grams of bread by making skis for the Soviet Army. Then, he got the plum assignment of fixing a radio of the commander.

He plans an escape with 6 other men: Anton Paluchowcz and Sigmund Makowski (the Polish Army), Eugen Zaros (Yugoslavian clerk), Anastazi Kolemenos (Latvian landowner), Marchinkovas (Lithuanian), and Mr. Smith (a US Engineer who was building the Moscow subway). All the men spoke Rusian, which was useful in the first leg of the walk.

An excellent map in the front shows the route: across Lake Baikal, and the Kentei Mountains, Mongolia, the Gobi, into China, going through Tibet, but bypassing Lhasa, crossing the Himalayas, and into northern India, where Mr. Smith's English skills finally came into use.

They left with no food and found food on the way. Rawicz was the only one who wasn't a city person and he knew how to hunt and fish a bit. They were given food by villagers and no one denounced them.

They also found a young girl, Kristina Polanski, a Polish Ukranian, who was running away from a labor camp.

The BBC made a documentary, doubting the veracity of the memoir. However, a couple of things indicate it could be true.

• Circassian villages had wooden bowls, that were treated like gold. The bowls "can't be made in these mountain districts.They are fashioned with great skill from a special kind of hardwood which does not crack." And, ".. man will sometimes trade two yaks for one of those."

That's a tiny fact that really can't be made up.

• The author continued to be plagued by nightmares, despite living a quiet life in England after the war.

This work is an interesting read in the struggle for freedom and what people will do to gain it.