At the invitation of the Cultural Arts Council of Houston/Harris County, WITS writers spent a number of afternoons at the George R. Brown Convention Center working with young Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Writers led workshops in journal making and personal essay writing for the children at the temporary shelter. WITS has found that providing opportunities for young people to write and talk about traumatic events can help them progress in the healing process.

He did not smile. He was not interested. It's just that there was nothing else to do. Jamal sat next to me on the floor of the George R. Brown Convention Center. I was there with other WITS writers to lead a writing workshop for the kids. We were having trouble drumming up participants, and one of the writers was telling a story to get their attention. A half a dozen little girls came right over. Around six or eight years old, they were more easily distracted by the promise of a "scary" story.

Jamal listened, as best he could. He was restless and rocked back and forth on his heels. He was African American and couldn't have been more than nine. He wore jeans, tennis shoes, a donated tee-shirt. There was nothing unusual about his appearance. He was wiry and strong. His face, however, stays with me. His face was aged. Noticeably. He had a look in his eyes that made him seem thirty-five. I kept looking over at him as the story wound to its end. It was anger mixed with fatigue. That is what filled his eyes and gave his face a disturbing maturity.

After the story, which he pronounced flatly "not scary," Jamal walked with me over to a round table we'd commandeered for our workshop. We'd brought blank notebooks, drawing paper, pens, and pencils. We thought we'd help them get started on a journal if they were interested. The little girls happily began to decorate their notebooks and describe their experiences to the other writers. Jamal did not smile. He was not interested. It's just that there was nothing else to do.

I asked him question after question to try to get him started. Was he from New Orleans? "Yes." Was he here with family? "Yes." Who was he here with? "His mother and little sister." Was it scary?... long pause... "Was what scary?"... (He still does not look at me. He never made eye contact with me the entire time we talked.)

The storm? Was the storm scary?

(he waited)

"No."

I was going to give up. I was prepared to fail. The room—the city—the entire hurricane Katrina thing—was so steeped in the impossible; what difference could one more failure possibly make?

Then he started to talk. He was not going to write; I could tell. So I grabbed a pen and opened his journal and took dictation.

"We were driving around and around. It was me and my mom and my little sister and my mom's boyfriend. We were driving around and around and then we went in a circle and my mom started to get mad. It was hot and she was yelling and he was yelling and we just kept driving around and around. And it was getting dark. I think we were lost. We finally made it to my grandma’s and picked her up."

At this point, the chronology of his story becomes confused. I am not sure whether the next event happened that night or the next day or the following day. It did not matter to Jamal.

"They pointed a gun at my grandmother and told her to get on the bus. And she had a stroke."

Then he starts to cry. He doesn't know where his grandmother is. He doesn't know if she’s alive. He doesn't cry long. When the few tears stop, he looks around the table. He sees the other kids are doing some drawing. He picks up some colored pencils. He doesn't smile. He is not interested. It's just that there's nothing else to do.

Reprinted with permission from Writers in the Schools.