IRIANCE: By Carolyn Moss

Iriance’s eyes opened wide with awe and amazement, “You went to the 9th ward. Did you go to the east side?” She asked in wonder. I didn’t know if the lower 9th ward was considered the east side but I assured her that I went across the canal to the eastside but I had to cross the St. Charles bridge since the Claibourne/Robertson bridge was closed.

The 9th ward is a war zone in varying degrees of annihilation adjoining small touches of rebuilding. The emptiness of the lower 9th by the Industrial canal levee now that the debris is removed overwhelms. It is a barren land. Brad Pitt’s pink houses briefly adorned the landscape but provided an almost garish contrast to the bleak surroundings.

This wasteland is home to Iriance, a fourth grader at Andrew Wilson Charter School. It is what she knows and desperately cares about. In one breath she cannot talk about it without mention of killing and robbing and helicopters coming to retrieve people who have been shot. But, in the next breath it is home, that complex, emotional concept which somehow connects people and land and life.

Somehow I struggle as I compare her wasteland home to the excesses of Bourbon Street in the wonderfully European, slightly shabby chic French Quarter. On the same day, hours apart, only several miles away, but a lifetime separated. Beautiful and yet like a showy peacock strutting next to a peahen. Both important and vital to the survival of the species. But in this case the peahen has been horribly roughed up. Never was she showy, but always was she vital, producing the life, supportive background of the city – not rich, not wealthy but present, ever informing, ever shaping and reshaping the city whether it wanted it or not.