Letter to a Katrina Survivor
Copyright 2005 Dr Michael Norwood
This is the dramatic story behind a new website,
www.LettersToKatrinaSurvivors.com, where beautiful letters are
pouring in from around the world giving emotional support to the
millions of hurricane survivors.
With greatest respect for all those suffering, the story
nevertheless starts off humorously. Here goes . . .
When I was 18, I came close to starving to death.
All right, I may be exaggerating. But it was the first time I
was living away from my parents as a freshman chiropractic
student near Atlanta, Georgia.
And the only thing I knew how to cook was rice and beans, which
I would boil together, add salt, and half gagging, literally
force down twice a day.
I would eat the slop outside on my second story apartment stoop.
This way - if you can excuse me for being graphic - when I could
no longer take it, I had a place to spit out the last mouthful
onto the bushes below.
One day while quite literally choking there, I noticed an Asian
student walking into the apartment across the way. In a blatant
case of racial profiling, I said to myself, "I bet that guy can
cook!"
And what do you know, everyday hence, he'd go walking below my
perch, carrying a grocery bag with wonderfully looking exotic
vegetables and spices overflowing the top.
I tracked his movements with the eye of a lean wolf, waiting for
the right moment to make my move.
I don't remember the moment I finally introduced myself to the
Asian student named Antoine, but I'll never forget how abruptly
my life changed afterward.
I went from being half-starved on prison gruel, to suddenly
finding myself feasting twice a day on lavish Vietnamese
cuisine. Tantalizing soups, hot chili dishes, saut