Community

This last week I've actually been able to sit down and watch the local news. I'll admit that television is no place to really rely on to receive information for anything, but it does provide a means by which I can observe how the people of the area live and work. While watching the various newscasts, I heard one word used again and again, "community".

Is everything a community?

The people here are more than happy to help their neighbors, and are very grateful when others from outside of the area come to help rebuild the region. The communities I am more accustomed to back in southeastern Virginia are smaller and their concerns seem to only lie where the members of their "community" (church, etc.), and occasionally will fall outside that group when something catastrophic occurs. Here the community is much more broad and that may have a lot to do with the fact that many people have left the area and not returned, making those who have (either by choice or no other alternative) remained a closer group who all have the same interest; returning the coast to what it was prior to Katrina.

It is certainly refreshing to see so many people caring for each other in these times of self-obsession, and I hope that I can take some of the spirit of this area with me when I leave.

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