"Refugee in my own country"

While she hated the term, that is how one local woman described how she felt. After being tossed around the country waiting for her FEMA trailers (which she got about 11 months after Katrina) she is very happy to be in a house on the same spot of land where her house once stood. Although Pearlington is far from what it used to be, people seem to be clinging on to whatever little pieces of the town that they can. It's so sad. It is home, but it's not. It's not the same. It's Katrina. People are still living in FEMA trailers and MEMA cottages 2 and half years after Katrina. There are still so many abandoned buildings and homes. How can people move on when there are these constant reminders? Everywhere there are reminders.

Despite this, I feel that the people of Pearlington are very resilient. They try not to dwell on what they lost, but thank God for what they do have. It would be interesting to study what factors contribute to this resiliency. I think that strong family ties have contributed to this resiliency. Often you will see one or two trailers parked outside of a house that belongs to siblings of the homeowner. And people have told me that they rely more on their family member's generosity than that of the government. In other cases that's all they had to rely on. So this makes me wonder, what if Katrina had happened in another part of the country where so many families do not live in the same state?

Pheobe