In New Orleans, human spirit overcomes horror
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-09-06 20:50

On a devastated street corner in a gritty New Orleans neighborhood an impromptu shrine stands as testament that even during the horror visited upon this city by Hurricane Katrina, kindness is not forgotten.

Made of bricks from a nearby building destroyed by the storm, the improvised structure protects a body that lies covered by a white sheet.

A cross fashioned of two pieces of wood found among nearby debris marks the site as a grave, albeit a temporary one. On the sheet covering the corpse are written the words "Here Lies Vera, God Help Us."

Before locals built this shrine, the woman had lain dead on the street. Her body was bloated and brutally distorted, untouched and ignored for almost a week by authorities who were working slowly to evacuate the thousands left homeless.

Since Katrina and the floods that followed hit New Orleans, the city has been struck by unexpected hardships.

Looting was rampant, refugee camps became the scenes of rapes, murders and robbery. Many lost everything and lacked even food and drinking water.

But as the worst appears to have passed and most of those left stranded have been evacuated, acts of kindness abound.

Dmitri Kachkov, a 35-year-old man who uses a wheelchair due to extreme physical disabilities, knows about hardship -- his family became refugees from Russia in 1997 and moved here.

When Katrina made them refugees again, they expected to sleep in their van. Just before the storm hit, Kachkov and his parents drove north and took refuge in a roadside truck stop.

Then a stranger -- Diana Cantello of Gramercy, Louisiana -- invited them to stay at her home.

"My mother cried at such unexpected hospitality," Kachkov said. They spent nine days and nights at Cantello's home, where a mother and her two children had also been invited to stay.

"Then yesterday it was my mother's 69th birthday and they baked her a cake and bought her small presents. My mother never expected such kindness, especially during this disaster," Kachkov said on Monday after his family returned to Metairie, Louisiana, to see how damaged their rental apartment was.

Near the Kachkov home is Drago's Seafood Restaurant.

Since the storm raged more than a week ago, five employees of the upscale eatery have lived on the premises to protect it from looters who have destroyed businesses across the city.

Then on Monday the restaurant reopened, serving charred chicken on pasta with a Cajun marinara sauce and ice-cold water -- a rare luxury in this city in recent days.

The food was free to anyone who wanted it.

"We have decided that we will serve free food as long as our resources last, probably until we give away $20,000 of free food," said owner Klara Cvitanovich.

Cvitanovich, 66, who came here from Croatia in her youth, was also shipping food out to poor neighborhoods.

"I can honestly say I have lived the American dream, and now I have to give something back," she said.