Living as Refugee Poets from New Orleans
I moved to the US in 1988 to go to graduate school. In 1999 I lost my parents in Belgrade, Serbia, and my country was destroyed that decade. Now, on the eve of becoming a US citizen I am a refugee uprooted by Katrina, from my home in New Orleans.
I had married, had a baby son, and gotten tenure at Xavier University of Louisiana. In August I passed my citizenship exam and on September 3rd I was supposed to take my oath...then we had to evacuate. We took a few of our belongings and left town on Saturday before the storm hit. After a week in a motel in Natchitoches, northwestern Louisiana, where we saw the prices of gas rising by the hour, after the news of flooding got worse, we realized that we could not go back home for a while and took an offer to stay at some friends' weekend condo in Asheville, North Carolina. It took us three days to get here, and now we're settling in. We don't know how long we will be here. We don't know how long it will be before we are allowed to see our home and our offices.
Our friends are scattered all over the US, and we're still looking for many others. I have located only eight members from my department. If you read this anyone of you, please let me know where you are and if you're OK.
My son had just started daycare for the first time. He misses it and the toys we had to leave behind. He cried this morning thinking of the blocks at home. We missed a birthday party he would have been invited to. Happy Birthday Albert, your third!
No, I am not writing poetry. I am still in shock. However, I am talking to people on the phone, e-mailing a lot, and writing in my journal.
How does one organize a life away from home, away from the routine? We have to or we'll go crazy. We can't just sit and think about what we may have lost all the time. But we're hoping that some of our books are still OK. Our son keeps us busy for one!
So, I am looking for the following: Vondra Richardson, Richard Collins, David Lanoue, Thaddeus Babiiha, James Shade, Michael Hill, Bonnie Noonan, Leslie Richardson, Katheryn K. Laborde, Ronald Dorris, Vivian Wilson, Lena Anderson, Anita Harris... and Chris Chambers and Laura Tuley. I hope that you're OK.
I had married, had a baby son, and gotten tenure at Xavier University of Louisiana. In August I passed my citizenship exam and on September 3rd I was supposed to take my oath...then we had to evacuate. We took a few of our belongings and left town on Saturday before the storm hit. After a week in a motel in Natchitoches, northwestern Louisiana, where we saw the prices of gas rising by the hour, after the news of flooding got worse, we realized that we could not go back home for a while and took an offer to stay at some friends' weekend condo in Asheville, North Carolina. It took us three days to get here, and now we're settling in. We don't know how long we will be here. We don't know how long it will be before we are allowed to see our home and our offices.
Our friends are scattered all over the US, and we're still looking for many others. I have located only eight members from my department. If you read this anyone of you, please let me know where you are and if you're OK.
My son had just started daycare for the first time. He misses it and the toys we had to leave behind. He cried this morning thinking of the blocks at home. We missed a birthday party he would have been invited to. Happy Birthday Albert, your third!
No, I am not writing poetry. I am still in shock. However, I am talking to people on the phone, e-mailing a lot, and writing in my journal.
How does one organize a life away from home, away from the routine? We have to or we'll go crazy. We can't just sit and think about what we may have lost all the time. But we're hoping that some of our books are still OK. Our son keeps us busy for one!
So, I am looking for the following: Vondra Richardson, Richard Collins, David Lanoue, Thaddeus Babiiha, James Shade, Michael Hill, Bonnie Noonan, Leslie Richardson, Katheryn K. Laborde, Ronald Dorris, Vivian Wilson, Lena Anderson, Anita Harris... and Chris Chambers and Laura Tuley. I hope that you're OK.
posted by Biljana D. Obradovic at 6:41 PM
4 Comments:
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Apprentice contestant has stripper/death row past
On NBC's bio page for The Apprentice contestant Alla Kosova Wartenberg, the 31-year-old Russian immigrant is described as fulfilling the American dream.
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Hi Biljana my heart goes out to you.
Vondra Richardson is living in Houston. I don't know why you would be looking for her when she was obviously incompetent and rude when it came to doing her job. She has a past fraud history so I am surprised that she managed to work at Xavier with her financial mismanagement past. She already got reported to FEMA for falsifying information and claiming additional money under different aliases.
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