D-Week 2&3: Lessons From Detroit

These past two weeks have been so great! My awesome friend Taya visited me, we met in NOLA in February but she is from Milwaukee which is oddly only 6 hrs from here. Then my dear friend Alyssa visited us for a week. Taya and Lys followed me around to all my volunteer endeavors - soup kitchens, urban farms, bakery run by ex-convicts, Habitat for Humanity, Hostel laundry, and gardening in our own back yard! This is the exciting life I live. And after two weeks of aggressive volunteering, I have not much to report about the actual volunteering. I feel like I am in a constant state of observation. There is so much to take in here, and I really am having trouble drawing any conclusions about myself or Detroit, and I frankly  have no desire to. I'd rather conclude when my time in Detroit concludes two months from now.

But what I do know, is that Detroit is so super awesome fantastic. I can't really explain sufficiently how similar D is to NOLA. It's kind of insane. I ate beignets and drank chicory coffee this weekend, and when I drive to the East Side of the D I feel like I'm in NOLA east, except there are fewer Saints players living there. There's more blight, and the blight has been blighted for longer than NOLA's blight. People living in houses that look like they are half demolished, there is plywood over the windows. But, as dead as people consider Detroit to be, it's very much alive and on it's way up from what I see. There are so many initiatives to meet the needs of people, and lots of development in certain areas. BUT there are still lots of needs and areas (the East Side) that are just devastated and depressed. Jen is doing research to figure out why there are over 40,000 homes without running water in the city - a public health disaster. The functional illiteracy rate is almost 50%. So the city is sort of unlike any other. I really can't explain the personality of the city, and being here only 3 weeks has made me consider the comparison between NOLA and D and why cities that are so similar feel so different. It also makes me question the state of NOLA's recovery - NOLA "feels" more recovered but how much of that is just experiencing the positive vibe of the city and its people and how much is actual recovery? Detroit has also made me consider my own presumptions and value of people's backgrounds and how "hard" their life has been, where they are from, their job, etc. Like NOLA, D seems pretty divided on racial lines, and also on socio-economic lines. So what can the solution be to get the entire city out of debt and moving forward? Jen's nun said it best: there are so many people to help, so what can you do? You start with the person in front of you. Oh, the life lessons from Detroit.

Anyway, on to something more concrete: pictures!

Historic Corktown neighborhood. The houses sort of look like NOLA except NOLA is better :-/

View of Detroit from Renaissance Center

Eastern Market

Beignets in Detroit is a yummy thing.

Sassy

Michigan Central Station. It has been deserted since 1988 but waning since after WWII. I can see it from my window.

Watching the Redwings game at a bar down the street. We lost to Chicago in OT

Renaissance Center from below. Very impressive!

Sliders and $3 cocktails!

The view on a beautiful Saturday from the porch outside our room.