FOREST LEAVES — Sept. 21, 2005
BY CHRIS LAFORTUNE
STAFF WRITER
Errika Crespo was living in east New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina slammed into the city Aug. 29. Now she's living with family in River Forest.
"I like it," said Crespo, enrolled at Roosevelt Middle School in the village. "All the people are friendly."
School has been an adjustment for her. The building is bigger than her school back in New Orleans, she said. She also has to get used to the town and how to get around.
But class has been interesting, she said.
"Some of the stuff I learned at my other school, but other stuff I didn't know," Crespo said. Catching up on Chinese exclusion in 19th Century America is one area she is just learning about now.
"It's been fine," she said. "It hasn't been that hard."
Crespo is District 90's sole student from the Gulf region, Superintendent Marlene Kamm said. Crespo started at Roosevelt on Sept. 12.
The district is ready to accommodate anyone, Kamm said, though space is tight.
"Obviously for us, it depends on the grade level," she said. "If a grade level comes in really high, and all the sudden we get five at that grade level, it may be problematic for us."
Crespo left New Orleans the morning of Aug. 28 with her mother, Geraldine Herrell. Herrell, who was in New Orleans when the city last flooded from a hurricane about 40 years ago, decided to heed calls for evacuation before Katrina arrived.
"I was there when they had that, and I knew what it was," Herrell said. "That's enough to frighten you there, and they were talking about a category five storm coming in. I just felt like we needed to leave."
A good thing, too. A friend of the family, not realizing they had evacuated, visited the house after the storm. It was under water.
Herrell and Crespo first headed to Brookhaven, Miss., to stay with a cousin. They stayed there eight days before coming to River Forest to live with Herrell's sister, Clotia Abbey Mensah.
"I decided to come up here and be around her, to be close to somebody knowing that you've lost everything you had down there," Herrell said. "At least I'd be close to somebody I can talk to."
Crespo is working as a manager for Roosevelt's basketball team, keeping track of team statistics. School social worker Esther Brodsky helped arrange for that.
Residents and community agencies have offered help to Crespo and Herrell since they arrived, Brodsky said.
"Errika's mother is very resourceful and had already registered with the Red Cross when I got involved," Brodsky said.
The two have needed the help. Crespo said she had very little clothing when they left New Orleans.
"My mom had a suitcase," she said. "I had a sack of clothes."
Herrell said she plans to go back to New Orleans to see the house and what became of it. But she has decided she does not want to move back to the city.
"I would be afraid," Herrell said. "The first hard rain that came, you'd be scared this was going to happen again. I'm so glad I did get out, because I can't swim."
Staying in the Chicago area would be fine for Crespo. She wants to attend college in the city, she said. She likes the stores and schools.
She will miss New Orleans' seafood and Mardi Gras. She was in the band back home and was supposed to be a drum major in school. But she isn't planning on joining the band here.
"We played hip hop music in New Orleans," she said. "Here, they don't."
Crespo would like to go to college on a scholarship in basketball, she said. "If I don't get that, I want to be a scientist. A chemist."
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