A few days before the trip many of us had just finished up our last exam and were experiencing the typical finals fatigue. By choice we stayed at the library for too long and ingested inhuman amounts of caffeine. For law students those two weeks are the most difficult weeks of the year.
Before she leaves for her vocational training classes in the morning, Ms. C has to drop off her three year old daughter at daycare and then take her five year old son to kindergarten. Because her classes finish late, Ms. C's sister picks up the children for her and watches them until Ms. C comes home. She says that the only reason she's able to participate in the program is because she has someone who can help her with her responsibilities. Those who aren't as blessed to have supportive family or friends have to forgo such opportunities so they can tend to their immediate needs.
Ms. C is a determined and ambitious woman. She has lost her home and belongings to Katrina, but she continues to persevere. She is participating in a vocational program to be trained as an electrician so she can eventually afford an apartment for her and her children. Her hopes of escaping the FEMA trailer park are fueled by her health problems, her children's health problems, the crime and danger to which they are exposed, and a general desperation for maintaining her dignity as an autonomous woman and mother.
But this isn't so easy. She has gone through ten case workers in the last two years and they have all been unresponsive to most of her complaints and questions. But what frustrates her most is her own lack of information. Ms. C has heard rumors that FEMA will be shutting down her trailer park in a month but she doesn't know if this is true and where she'll go if this occurs. She's read that her headaches and her children's nose bleeds, coughing, and asthma are all caused by the formaldehyde in the trailer walls but she doesn't know if FEMA will be held accountable for this. She sees lawyers going around the park talking about filing a class action suit against FEMA, but she doesn't know what this means and if it will help her. She saw her neighbor's trailer being hauled away the other day and she doesn't know if her trailer is next in line for eviction.
Somehow, she hasn't let this frustration make her feel powerless. She calmly lists the things she needs from FEMA. She says she needs help with the medical bills. And she needs FEMA to respond to her concerns about repairs to the trailer and about assistance with relocating. But what Ms. C needs most of all, is for FEMA to know that she is more than Lot Number 25; she is a person who has a name and a heart- a heart that aches at the sight of her child's blood and at the sound of her child's wheezing.
Ms. C gets up early every morning and conquers her fears of being trapped and powerless. She is a woman of great dignity who finds strength in working hard and hope in planning for her children's future.
Ambreen Tariq
Crystal, DJ, and Mike at A-1 trailer park
