Sunday, September 04, 2005
Tango People Are Good and Decent
Someday soon someone from New Orleans may show up in your city, your country, your home town.
Before hurricane Katrina, we all had lives like yours. Homes, jobs, banks, cars, clothes - all the happily taken for granted creature comforts that human beings produce.
Most of those people we know, and most are tango people, have been "phoning home", which is one another, via the godsend of the internet.
Most are finding a place to be, a new city, or town to live in. Some are with family, going back to where they came from before New Orleans, or going to family who may have left New Orleans, or going to far flung relatives who have never been to New Orleans. You can substitute friends, for those who do not have extended family. Some don't even have that much in way of human support to go to, so they are on their own.
Each person we have been in touch with is doing this:
- find a place to live (cheap hotel, trailer, family home, friend's couch).
- find a way to communicate that you are okay.
- find a way to make money to survive.
- find a new job in the new location.
Some say they won't or can't come back to New Orleans, so these people will now become a part of a new place, a new community, and some may become a part of your tango communities.
Please don't judge their decisions, or the place they have come from.
Some of you are very angry with Alberto and myself for daring to try to go back to work.
Maybe you do not fully realize that teaching tango is our everyday 9-5 job that feeds and clothes us and like any job allows us to live. Maybe because tango doesn't seem as weighty as being a truck driver or file clerk or teacher or any other job or profession, you get confused. True, tango is fun. AND more true, tango is our work, our job and our joy.
Many or you are offering homes and jobs to the displaced people of New Orleans. Some of them may even be tangueros.
For us, many gracious and good tango people in many locations are sending us offers (or keeping and honoring the dates of jobs we had before katrina) to do a class or workshop in their cities, while offering us a place to lay our weary heads.
We need to work, to survive. Life does not stop because of any tragedy small or big. Food needs to bought. The rented car needs gas. The mortgage still needs to paid - and not only by us, but by thousands.
Comparing and judging degrees of pain and suffering is very mean and very small minded and very un-tango. Don't you think we want to rip open the tv screen and go in there and embrace those people and tell them they are valued?
So please do not be angry, galled or upset that we need to and want to work, and that good and decent tango people are offering us work, and hence promoting those workshops. You don't have to like us, or agree with us, or even respect us. But please let us live.
We do not have a home. We do not have our city. We do not have our job in our city.
We do carry our job of teaching tango with us. And it is hard to concentrate on our job now. It is hard to teach a class when you feel so awful, but by the end of the class, we feel a little better, a little stronger, a little more connected to living life.
We are simply trying to have some dignity and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.
We know tango people (and really all people) are good and decent.
Thank you.
Valorie
More than ever,
La mariposa del tango
Before hurricane Katrina, we all had lives like yours. Homes, jobs, banks, cars, clothes - all the happily taken for granted creature comforts that human beings produce.
Most of those people we know, and most are tango people, have been "phoning home", which is one another, via the godsend of the internet.
Most are finding a place to be, a new city, or town to live in. Some are with family, going back to where they came from before New Orleans, or going to family who may have left New Orleans, or going to far flung relatives who have never been to New Orleans. You can substitute friends, for those who do not have extended family. Some don't even have that much in way of human support to go to, so they are on their own.
Each person we have been in touch with is doing this:
- find a place to live (cheap hotel, trailer, family home, friend's couch).
- find a way to communicate that you are okay.
- find a way to make money to survive.
- find a new job in the new location.
Some say they won't or can't come back to New Orleans, so these people will now become a part of a new place, a new community, and some may become a part of your tango communities.
Please don't judge their decisions, or the place they have come from.
Some of you are very angry with Alberto and myself for daring to try to go back to work.
Maybe you do not fully realize that teaching tango is our everyday 9-5 job that feeds and clothes us and like any job allows us to live. Maybe because tango doesn't seem as weighty as being a truck driver or file clerk or teacher or any other job or profession, you get confused. True, tango is fun. AND more true, tango is our work, our job and our joy.
Many or you are offering homes and jobs to the displaced people of New Orleans. Some of them may even be tangueros.
For us, many gracious and good tango people in many locations are sending us offers (or keeping and honoring the dates of jobs we had before katrina) to do a class or workshop in their cities, while offering us a place to lay our weary heads.
We need to work, to survive. Life does not stop because of any tragedy small or big. Food needs to bought. The rented car needs gas. The mortgage still needs to paid - and not only by us, but by thousands.
Comparing and judging degrees of pain and suffering is very mean and very small minded and very un-tango. Don't you think we want to rip open the tv screen and go in there and embrace those people and tell them they are valued?
So please do not be angry, galled or upset that we need to and want to work, and that good and decent tango people are offering us work, and hence promoting those workshops. You don't have to like us, or agree with us, or even respect us. But please let us live.
We do not have a home. We do not have our city. We do not have our job in our city.
We do carry our job of teaching tango with us. And it is hard to concentrate on our job now. It is hard to teach a class when you feel so awful, but by the end of the class, we feel a little better, a little stronger, a little more connected to living life.
We are simply trying to have some dignity and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.
We know tango people (and really all people) are good and decent.
Thank you.
Valorie
More than ever,
La mariposa del tango
