Part 5 of Zeitoun is more of an epilogue. It starts off three years later in Fall 2008.
Weird things have been happening to Kathy. She thinks that she is losing her memory. She'll be doing something, and then she won't be able to remember what to do next or why shes doing it. She went to doctors for testing. One said she might have multiple sclerosis, but overall the tests suggested post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Since Zeitoun was released, the Zeitouns had stayed in seven different houses and apartments. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) gave them a trailer. This trailer caused more problems than it was worth. When they installed it, they didn't connect it to water or electricity. It was supported by cinder blocks four feet off the ground, do they couldn't get inside without steps. Even if it hadn't been so high up, they didn't have the keys to get inside! Kathy called FEMA and, after weeks if waiting, they delivered some stairs. They still didn't have any keys though. After another month went by, a FEMA inspector finally dropped of some keys. But when he saw the trailer he told them that it wasn't safe to use because it was leaning. FEMA wasn't really being very helpful.
By 2007, the Zeitouns still hadn't used the trailer. It had been in front of one of their properties for almost fourteen months. It was decreasing the value of the building. Kathy continued to call FEMA asking for it to be picked up but no one ever came. Finally, Kathy wrote a letter to the Times-Picayune telling the story of the trailer. The morning the letter ran, a FEMA official called to get the address and they took it away. I guess they either felt bad about causing so many problems for the Zeitouns, or they didn't want people knowing how unhelpful they had been.
The Zeitouns' problems never end. They didn't feel the need to sue anyone over Zeitoun's arrest, but their friends and family thought they should. Kathy found the name of the arresting officer (Donald Lima) and filed the lawsuit in his name. When their lawyer tried to contact Lima, he found that he wasn't a police officer anymore. The other officer, Ralph Gonzales, was from New Mexico. He was contacted and told his side if the story.
He was asked to go to New Orleans to help after Katrina. Gonzales was asked to help with a search of a house that was currently occupied by four men that had been suspected of looting and drug dealing. When they got to the house, the men were arrested. They didn't take any evidence, just arrested them and drove away. But if that was the reason they were arrested, why were the men told they were suspected of being al Qaeda?
When they finally found Lima, he told them that after making his rounds one day, he saw four men leaving a Walgreen's with stolen goods. They put the goods in a blue and white motor boat. (I remembered that Todd had found a blue and white motor boat and was using it to help people. Maybe the thieves abandoned it and that was why he had found it.). Since Lima had rescues with him, he couldn't pursue the boat. Two days later he saw the same motor boat outside a house on Claiborne (Zeitoun's property). He gathered a team and they went to arrest the men. Lima said that he wasn't sure what the men had stolen, he didn't see anything customarily sold by Walgreen's at the house, and no stolen items were recovered. This made no sense to me at all. If they didn't find any stolen items and if he wasn't sure it was the same men, then he shouldn't have arrested them!
Even more problems presented themselves a few days after Zeitoun was released. When Kathy and Zeitoun went to retrieve Zeitoun's wallet, the assistant district attorney told him that he couldn't have it back because it was still being used as "evidence". When they argued, he told them that they couldn't have it without the permission of the DA. When they walked out of the station, they saw the DA. Kathy asked him why they couldn't have the wallet back. The DA said there was nothing he could do. Kathy saw that there were reporters nearby so she said (loudly), "You arrested my husband in his own house, and now you won't give him his wallet back? What's going on here? What is wrong with this city?" (Eggers 326). This basically summed up what I felt while reading about the Zeitouns' hardships.
Everything that happened to the Zeitouns was completely unfair. It's unbelievable that something like this could happen. Kathy thinks that it is amazing (and I absolutely agree with her) that just calling someone's wife to let them know that they had seen their husband and that he was alive could be considered an act of heroism to the people he was kind to.
Overall, this was an excellent book. I learned a lot about Hurricane Katrina and it's aftermath that I didn't know before. If anyone asked asked me if they should read Zeitoun, I would definitely say yes!
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Zeitoun Reflections: Part 4
I was right, Zeitoun, Ronnie, Nasser, and Todd were arrested! There were five men and one woman, each armed with M-16s and pistols. They forced the four men into the boat without telling them their rights or the reason they were being arrested. They didn't even get a phone call! I thought that was completely unfair. They can't just go around arresting people without telling them the reason! But apparently, the officials believed the four men were al Qaeda. Unfortunately, all of the evidence seemed to pointing against them. Nasser's duffel bag contained ten thousand dollars in cash. He said it was his life's savings. Todd had $2,400 in cash, MapQuest printouts, and a memory card. Todd's job (and he wasn't lying because Zeitoun knew this) was delivering lost luggage from a nearby airport. It never says directly, but I'm guessing that the MapQuest printouts were to the houses the luggage belonged to and the money was his most recent pay. He said that the memory card contained pictures that he had taken of the flood damage. I didn't think that he was lying, but the soldiers weren't buying it.
Zeitoun, Nasser, Todd, and Ronnie were then taken to an outdoor prison called Camp Greyhound. They were kept in cages at all times. Only Todd had been told why they were arrested. They were charged with the possession of stolen goods, but the soldiers that passed by still called them Taliban. The guards treated the prisoners like animals. When the prisoners disobeyed the guards, they were pepper sprayed or shot with a beanbag gun.
They were taken from Camp Greyhound to the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center. Nine days after they were moved there, a missionary came to talk to the prisoners. I thought that this must be the same missionary that had called Kathy because Zeitoun gave him Kathy's number. When he was called in for questioning the next day, Zeitoun asked the official to call Kathy. I wasn't sure if they would. So far nobody else had cared enough to listen to him
A few hours after Kathy had gotten the call from the missionary, a man from the Department of Homeland Security called. He told her that Zeitoun was in Hunt and all of the charges had been dropped. When Kathy called Hunt though, she was told that there was no one there by the name Abdulrahman Zeitoun. Kathy called their lawyer and sorted everything out. He set a court date for Zeitoun's hearing. Kathy had forgotten to ask where the court was and she couldn't reach the lawyer, so she called the New Orleans District Attorney's office. The recording gave her a number in Baton Rouge. When she called that number (this seems like a lot of trouble to go through for a court address), the woman told her they didn't have a court set up. Kathy then asked to speak to a supervisor and he told her that the location of the court hearing was "private information". She argued that it was not private information because it was a public hearing! The next person she talked to said the same thing. I felt exasperated just reading this so I can't imagine how Kathy felt!
When she finally found out where the court hearing was (it was at Hunt), she gathered witnesses to go to the hearing. They waited all morning and were finally told that the hearing was canceled. It sounds to me like they're trying to make it so Zeitoun can't get out without posting bail. Zeitoun however refuses to do this so Kathy and Zeitoun's cousin Adnan, went to find the act of sale for their property. They used their property as bail instead of paying the $75,000.
When Kathy went to get Zeitoun, they drove away as fast as they could. Zeitoun kept turning around to make sure no one was following them. I know that they were doing that so the people in charge wouldn't change their mind, but I think it made them look very suspicious. Even so, Zeitoun was free and everyone was happy. Ahmad was so relieved and Yuko got the kids out of school early so they could see him. I thought that maybe their troubles would finally be over.
Zeitoun, Nasser, Todd, and Ronnie were then taken to an outdoor prison called Camp Greyhound. They were kept in cages at all times. Only Todd had been told why they were arrested. They were charged with the possession of stolen goods, but the soldiers that passed by still called them Taliban. The guards treated the prisoners like animals. When the prisoners disobeyed the guards, they were pepper sprayed or shot with a beanbag gun.
They were taken from Camp Greyhound to the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center. Nine days after they were moved there, a missionary came to talk to the prisoners. I thought that this must be the same missionary that had called Kathy because Zeitoun gave him Kathy's number. When he was called in for questioning the next day, Zeitoun asked the official to call Kathy. I wasn't sure if they would. So far nobody else had cared enough to listen to him
A few hours after Kathy had gotten the call from the missionary, a man from the Department of Homeland Security called. He told her that Zeitoun was in Hunt and all of the charges had been dropped. When Kathy called Hunt though, she was told that there was no one there by the name Abdulrahman Zeitoun. Kathy called their lawyer and sorted everything out. He set a court date for Zeitoun's hearing. Kathy had forgotten to ask where the court was and she couldn't reach the lawyer, so she called the New Orleans District Attorney's office. The recording gave her a number in Baton Rouge. When she called that number (this seems like a lot of trouble to go through for a court address), the woman told her they didn't have a court set up. Kathy then asked to speak to a supervisor and he told her that the location of the court hearing was "private information". She argued that it was not private information because it was a public hearing! The next person she talked to said the same thing. I felt exasperated just reading this so I can't imagine how Kathy felt!
When she finally found out where the court hearing was (it was at Hunt), she gathered witnesses to go to the hearing. They waited all morning and were finally told that the hearing was canceled. It sounds to me like they're trying to make it so Zeitoun can't get out without posting bail. Zeitoun however refuses to do this so Kathy and Zeitoun's cousin Adnan, went to find the act of sale for their property. They used their property as bail instead of paying the $75,000.
When Kathy went to get Zeitoun, they drove away as fast as they could. Zeitoun kept turning around to make sure no one was following them. I know that they were doing that so the people in charge wouldn't change their mind, but I think it made them look very suspicious. Even so, Zeitoun was free and everyone was happy. Ahmad was so relieved and Yuko got the kids out of school early so they could see him. I thought that maybe their troubles would finally be over.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Zeitoun Reflections: Part 3
When those men burst into the house, I thought that Zeitoun, Robbie, Nasser, and Todd were going to be arrested. When I read the description of the book, it said that Zeitoun was arrested. That hadn't happened yet, so that was immediately what I assumed.
Kathy however, jumped to conclusions and was sure something terrible had happened. He had promised to call every day at noon and he had kept his promise up until then. So when Zeitoun didn't call, Kathy was very worried. And It didn't help that Zeitoun's family kept calling her to ask if she'd heard from him. After a week had passed without Zeitoun calling, Kathy finally told the kids that Zeitoun had called and he was fine. At first they were skeptical, but eventually they believed her. She didn't want to lie to them, but she wanted them back in school. I don't think she should have lied to them, but she didn't want them to arrive on their first day of school thinking that their father was dead and/or missing.
After another week had passed, they still hadn't heard from Zeitoun. Kathy started to do some research to see if she could find any evidence that her husband had been found. She read that there were foreign mercenaries in New Orleans to help restore order. She became engrossed in the number of guns and soldiers there were in the city. When she found that there were Israeli commandos in the city, she jumped to conclusions. She believed that one of the mercenaries had shot Zeitoun and were trying to act like it never happened. I think that she shouldn't jump to conclusions so quickly. She tried to believe that Zeitoun was alive because there were also a lot of American troops in New Orleans.
She went even further to find that there were 5,750 Army soldiers, about a thousand state police officers, SWAT teams armed for urban combat, four hundred Customs and Border patrol agents and officers, four Maritime Security and Safety Teams, Coast Guard tactical units, five hundred FBI special agents, a U.S. marshals special-ops team, ans snipers. The fact that there were so many guns and officials and mercenaries, makes it sound like New Orleans had become the center of a war zone. I didn't realize that the amount of crime was so high, that it required hundreds of mercenaries and law enforcement officials.
A few days later, another hurricane was approaching New Orleans. Hurricane Rita was expected to hit on September 21. Rita caused Mayor Nagin to prolong the reopening of the city. This part surprised me because I didn't know that another hurricane hit after Katrina. I thought it as just Katrina causing damage.
The day Kathy learned this, she also learned something else very important. A missionary called to tell Kathy that he had seen Zeitoun. He was at a jail called Hunt in St. Gabriel. Kathy wanted to know more, but that was all the man knew. He said that if he talked longer he could get into trouble. I wanted to know why Zeitoun was in jail. Did the reason have anything to do with the men that broke into the house? And why wasn't the missionary supposed to be calling?
Kathy however, jumped to conclusions and was sure something terrible had happened. He had promised to call every day at noon and he had kept his promise up until then. So when Zeitoun didn't call, Kathy was very worried. And It didn't help that Zeitoun's family kept calling her to ask if she'd heard from him. After a week had passed without Zeitoun calling, Kathy finally told the kids that Zeitoun had called and he was fine. At first they were skeptical, but eventually they believed her. She didn't want to lie to them, but she wanted them back in school. I don't think she should have lied to them, but she didn't want them to arrive on their first day of school thinking that their father was dead and/or missing.
After another week had passed, they still hadn't heard from Zeitoun. Kathy started to do some research to see if she could find any evidence that her husband had been found. She read that there were foreign mercenaries in New Orleans to help restore order. She became engrossed in the number of guns and soldiers there were in the city. When she found that there were Israeli commandos in the city, she jumped to conclusions. She believed that one of the mercenaries had shot Zeitoun and were trying to act like it never happened. I think that she shouldn't jump to conclusions so quickly. She tried to believe that Zeitoun was alive because there were also a lot of American troops in New Orleans.
She went even further to find that there were 5,750 Army soldiers, about a thousand state police officers, SWAT teams armed for urban combat, four hundred Customs and Border patrol agents and officers, four Maritime Security and Safety Teams, Coast Guard tactical units, five hundred FBI special agents, a U.S. marshals special-ops team, ans snipers. The fact that there were so many guns and officials and mercenaries, makes it sound like New Orleans had become the center of a war zone. I didn't realize that the amount of crime was so high, that it required hundreds of mercenaries and law enforcement officials.
A few days later, another hurricane was approaching New Orleans. Hurricane Rita was expected to hit on September 21. Rita caused Mayor Nagin to prolong the reopening of the city. This part surprised me because I didn't know that another hurricane hit after Katrina. I thought it as just Katrina causing damage.
The day Kathy learned this, she also learned something else very important. A missionary called to tell Kathy that he had seen Zeitoun. He was at a jail called Hunt in St. Gabriel. Kathy wanted to know more, but that was all the man knew. He said that if he talked longer he could get into trouble. I wanted to know why Zeitoun was in jail. Did the reason have anything to do with the men that broke into the house? And why wasn't the missionary supposed to be calling?
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Zeitoun Reflections: Part 2
As water from the breached levees rushes into the Zeitouns home (which, might I add, is three feet above sea level!), Zeitoun carries what he can upstairs to the second floor. He tries to save everything and anything of value because they recently canceled their property insurance. While reading this, I couldn't help but think about all the other ancient houses that are being destroyed by the water. So many years of history and family possessions are lost because of he hurricane. Zeitoun predicted that it would take years, a decade even, to rebuild the city...and he was right. Seven years later and the citizens of New Orleans are still rebuilding!
Since it was so hot the second night, Zeitoun takes a tent and a mattress and sleeps on the roof. All night he listens to the barking of hungry and abandoned dogs. I just can't understand why people would leave their dogs behind. They could have at least left food out for the dogs!
By morning, the water stopped rising so Zeitoun went back out on his canoe. He saw one of his clients, Frank, and they both went to look for Frank's car. They could see his motorcycle under the water and it looked like "a relic from a previous civilization" (Eggers 107). I thought that that was an eerie way to describe it, but I agree. After finding Frank's car completely submerged, they passed an elderly couple that they promised to get help for (the canoe only seated two) and they went to look for someone else who could help them. On their way, they found another elderly woman who was trapped inside her house. Zeitoun and Frank went to look for help for her too. They waved and shouted to ten different fan boats, but every single one ignored them. All of the fan boats had military personal on board, so why didn't they stop to help them? They found out later that it was because of the motor. The only reason Zeitoun was able to hear the calls for help was because his canoe was silent. For this same reason, a fishing boat saw the men and helped them rescue the woman, the first couple they saw, and another couple.
Meanwhile, things were just not working out for Kathy at Baton Rouge. Her siblings and mother just didn't understand why she had converted to Islam. Even though they didn't understand, they could have at least respected her decision! She couldn't take it anymore, so she packed up all their things and got the kids in the car to drive to Phoenix to stay with her friend Yuko.
While Zeitoun was checking on one of the houses he was renting to a man named Todd, he learned that the land line was still working. The box was above the water line and had not been damaged by the flood. He called Kathy and he promised her that he would call every day at noon.
Before when I heard about Hurricane Katrina, I knew about the flooding and how it had caused a lot of people to be homeless until everything was repaired. What I didn't know, was about all the crime that occurred. Every time Kathy turns on the radio or the television or goes onto the computer, she sees reports of gangs shooting innocent people and robbing abandoned houses and shops. It's amazing what people will do when they know there's nothing to stop them.
Another thing I couldn't understand was why the soldiers wouldn't help Zeitoun when he told them about a couple who needed to be evacuated out of their home. He paddled over to the soldiers that were standing on top of a building, but they just pointed their guns at him and told him to go to St. Charles. When Zeitoun got there, they told him that they would go help, but they didn't even ask for the address or location! When Zeitoun asked if he wanted the address, the officer just said, "Yeah, sure, give me that," He acted like he didn't even care! And apparently, he didn't. He said that he'd be there in an hour, but four hours later Zeitoun went back to make sure they had been evacuated, and the pastor and his wife were still there! He saw Todd again, and this time he had a boat. It says that Todd didn't even hesitate to help them. They had to depend on their neighbors to be kind and helpful in desperate times instead of the people who had been sent there to do that. It just doesn't make sense!
A few days later, Zeitoun went to the house he was renting to Todd to see if the water was still working. Surprisingly, it was. Zeitoun showered and then called his brother in Spain. Just as he was hanging up, Nasser told him that there were some men who wanted to know if they needed any water. He went downstairs and the men - all armed - burst into the house. I don't think they were handing out water...
Since it was so hot the second night, Zeitoun takes a tent and a mattress and sleeps on the roof. All night he listens to the barking of hungry and abandoned dogs. I just can't understand why people would leave their dogs behind. They could have at least left food out for the dogs!
By morning, the water stopped rising so Zeitoun went back out on his canoe. He saw one of his clients, Frank, and they both went to look for Frank's car. They could see his motorcycle under the water and it looked like "a relic from a previous civilization" (Eggers 107). I thought that that was an eerie way to describe it, but I agree. After finding Frank's car completely submerged, they passed an elderly couple that they promised to get help for (the canoe only seated two) and they went to look for someone else who could help them. On their way, they found another elderly woman who was trapped inside her house. Zeitoun and Frank went to look for help for her too. They waved and shouted to ten different fan boats, but every single one ignored them. All of the fan boats had military personal on board, so why didn't they stop to help them? They found out later that it was because of the motor. The only reason Zeitoun was able to hear the calls for help was because his canoe was silent. For this same reason, a fishing boat saw the men and helped them rescue the woman, the first couple they saw, and another couple.
Meanwhile, things were just not working out for Kathy at Baton Rouge. Her siblings and mother just didn't understand why she had converted to Islam. Even though they didn't understand, they could have at least respected her decision! She couldn't take it anymore, so she packed up all their things and got the kids in the car to drive to Phoenix to stay with her friend Yuko.
While Zeitoun was checking on one of the houses he was renting to a man named Todd, he learned that the land line was still working. The box was above the water line and had not been damaged by the flood. He called Kathy and he promised her that he would call every day at noon.
Before when I heard about Hurricane Katrina, I knew about the flooding and how it had caused a lot of people to be homeless until everything was repaired. What I didn't know, was about all the crime that occurred. Every time Kathy turns on the radio or the television or goes onto the computer, she sees reports of gangs shooting innocent people and robbing abandoned houses and shops. It's amazing what people will do when they know there's nothing to stop them.
Another thing I couldn't understand was why the soldiers wouldn't help Zeitoun when he told them about a couple who needed to be evacuated out of their home. He paddled over to the soldiers that were standing on top of a building, but they just pointed their guns at him and told him to go to St. Charles. When Zeitoun got there, they told him that they would go help, but they didn't even ask for the address or location! When Zeitoun asked if he wanted the address, the officer just said, "Yeah, sure, give me that," He acted like he didn't even care! And apparently, he didn't. He said that he'd be there in an hour, but four hours later Zeitoun went back to make sure they had been evacuated, and the pastor and his wife were still there! He saw Todd again, and this time he had a boat. It says that Todd didn't even hesitate to help them. They had to depend on their neighbors to be kind and helpful in desperate times instead of the people who had been sent there to do that. It just doesn't make sense!
A few days later, Zeitoun went to the house he was renting to Todd to see if the water was still working. Surprisingly, it was. Zeitoun showered and then called his brother in Spain. Just as he was hanging up, Nasser told him that there were some men who wanted to know if they needed any water. He went downstairs and the men - all armed - burst into the house. I don't think they were handing out water...
Maps
This is Syria, the native home of Zeitoun.
This is Zeitoun's ancestral home of Arwad Island.
This is a street map of New Orleans, Louisiana.
This is a map of Uptown New Orleans where the Zeitouns live.
Zeitoun Reflections: Part 1
For my second blog, I'll be writing about the book Zeitoun (pronounced zay-toon) by Dave Eggers. It's about a family that lives in New Orleans and their struggles during and after Hurricane Katrina.
This book is a little different from other books I've read. For starters, it's a true story. Abdulrahman Zeitoun and his wife and four children are real people. The book isn't written in chapters either. There are five parts and instead of dividing each part into chapters, it is divided into days. For example, Part I starts on Friday, August 26, 2005 and ends on Tuesday, August 30, 2005.
First some background on the Zeitouns. Most people just call Abdulrahman Zeitoun by his last name because his first name is too hard for most people to pronounce. Zeitoun is from Jableh, a fishing town in Syria. He has thirteen siblings - thirteen! His oldest brother (Mohammed) died in a car crash when Zeitoun was six, one of his other brothers (Ahmad) lives in Spain, and the other eleven live in Syria. He grew up sardine fishing and then became a sailor. He came to the US in 1988 and married Kathy Delphine a few years later. Zeitoun was born into a Muslim family and Kathy converted to Islam. They have three girls and a boy. Zachary is the oldest at fifteen and is Kathy's son from a previous marriage. Their girls names are Nademah, Safiya, and Aisha. Nademah is ten, Safiya is seven, and Aisha is five.
The days leading up to the hurricane are normal for the Zeitoun family. Zeitoun and Kathy own and run a contracting business called Zeitoun A. Painting Contractor LLC in New Orleans, Louisiana. Zeitoun and his workers went to the various jobs they had. They knew that a tropical storm near Florida had recently become a category one hurricane and was headed towards New Orleans. At first, Kathy isn't concerned by the storm, but when it grows to a Category 3, she becomes worried. She tries to persuade Zeitoun to leave, but he stays to watch over the house and company while Kathy and the kids went on to Baton Rouge to stay with Kathy's two sisters. I thought that Zeitoun was pretty brave to remain in New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina was a Category 5 storm with 150 mph winds by the time Kathy reached Baton Rouge and the mayor of New Orleans had also just issued the city's very first mandatory evacuation. But he felt that if stayed, he could fix leaks before they became too serious. He also wanted to protect all of their belongings since they had recently canceled their property insurance.
At 11:00 at night on August 28, Zeitoun got his first taste of Hurricane Katrina. Leaks started in the bedrooms and the hallways. The master bedroom window broke "as if a brick had been thrown through the glass" (Eggers 83). Last year's Hurricane Irene was only a Category 1 where I live, but that had still prompted my dad to board up one of our larger windows and to cause the two large pine trees outside our house to shake. Luckily nothing was damaged at my house, but if I thought Irene seemed bad, I can't even begin to imagine what Katrina was like.
The next day Zeitoun went outside to inspect the damage. There were windows broken and downed trees everywhere. There were eighteen inched of rain water on the ground, so Zeitoun went out and paddled around in his canoe for a little bit. He decided (and I agree with him) that he probably shouldn't be doing that. There were downed power lines everywhere and he didn't know what would happen if he touched one with his aluminum canoe. He goes back to his house and falls asleep. He dreams about his family's ancestral home of Arwad Island. The book describes Zeitoun and his brother Ahmad as children exploring the beaches, chasing seagulls, and looking at the ships. Arwad used to be a military possession for the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Achaemenid Persians, the Greeks under Alexander, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Mongols, the Turks, the French, and the British. As a result, plenty of stone walls and battlements were scattered around the island. There are two small castles on the island that can be explored. It sounds like such a beautiful place, that I actually really want to visit there now.
Unfortunately, his dream is interrupted by a "dissonance" that is a wall of lake water rushing through Uptown.
This book is a little different from other books I've read. For starters, it's a true story. Abdulrahman Zeitoun and his wife and four children are real people. The book isn't written in chapters either. There are five parts and instead of dividing each part into chapters, it is divided into days. For example, Part I starts on Friday, August 26, 2005 and ends on Tuesday, August 30, 2005.
First some background on the Zeitouns. Most people just call Abdulrahman Zeitoun by his last name because his first name is too hard for most people to pronounce. Zeitoun is from Jableh, a fishing town in Syria. He has thirteen siblings - thirteen! His oldest brother (Mohammed) died in a car crash when Zeitoun was six, one of his other brothers (Ahmad) lives in Spain, and the other eleven live in Syria. He grew up sardine fishing and then became a sailor. He came to the US in 1988 and married Kathy Delphine a few years later. Zeitoun was born into a Muslim family and Kathy converted to Islam. They have three girls and a boy. Zachary is the oldest at fifteen and is Kathy's son from a previous marriage. Their girls names are Nademah, Safiya, and Aisha. Nademah is ten, Safiya is seven, and Aisha is five.
The days leading up to the hurricane are normal for the Zeitoun family. Zeitoun and Kathy own and run a contracting business called Zeitoun A. Painting Contractor LLC in New Orleans, Louisiana. Zeitoun and his workers went to the various jobs they had. They knew that a tropical storm near Florida had recently become a category one hurricane and was headed towards New Orleans. At first, Kathy isn't concerned by the storm, but when it grows to a Category 3, she becomes worried. She tries to persuade Zeitoun to leave, but he stays to watch over the house and company while Kathy and the kids went on to Baton Rouge to stay with Kathy's two sisters. I thought that Zeitoun was pretty brave to remain in New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina was a Category 5 storm with 150 mph winds by the time Kathy reached Baton Rouge and the mayor of New Orleans had also just issued the city's very first mandatory evacuation. But he felt that if stayed, he could fix leaks before they became too serious. He also wanted to protect all of their belongings since they had recently canceled their property insurance.
At 11:00 at night on August 28, Zeitoun got his first taste of Hurricane Katrina. Leaks started in the bedrooms and the hallways. The master bedroom window broke "as if a brick had been thrown through the glass" (Eggers 83). Last year's Hurricane Irene was only a Category 1 where I live, but that had still prompted my dad to board up one of our larger windows and to cause the two large pine trees outside our house to shake. Luckily nothing was damaged at my house, but if I thought Irene seemed bad, I can't even begin to imagine what Katrina was like.
The next day Zeitoun went outside to inspect the damage. There were windows broken and downed trees everywhere. There were eighteen inched of rain water on the ground, so Zeitoun went out and paddled around in his canoe for a little bit. He decided (and I agree with him) that he probably shouldn't be doing that. There were downed power lines everywhere and he didn't know what would happen if he touched one with his aluminum canoe. He goes back to his house and falls asleep. He dreams about his family's ancestral home of Arwad Island. The book describes Zeitoun and his brother Ahmad as children exploring the beaches, chasing seagulls, and looking at the ships. Arwad used to be a military possession for the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Achaemenid Persians, the Greeks under Alexander, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Mongols, the Turks, the French, and the British. As a result, plenty of stone walls and battlements were scattered around the island. There are two small castles on the island that can be explored. It sounds like such a beautiful place, that I actually really want to visit there now.
Unfortunately, his dream is interrupted by a "dissonance" that is a wall of lake water rushing through Uptown.
Monday, August 13, 2012
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