Before reading Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers, I had no idea the trouble people had leaving their homes and the psychological impact of that. After the flooding of the city, Zeitoun rides through his neighborhood in a second hand canoe just to check things out. He soon realizes that many of his neighbors have stayed behind. Zeitoun helps many of the older residents of his neighborhood to safety. Surprisingly many have stayed behind. I did not understand why they did so at first. But when I realized that many of these people have lived here for years, even decades. If they left, they knew there was a big chance they would never see their houses again and all of their belonging may have been lost. For the elder residence in their 70s and 80s, the chance of never seeing their house again. You can tell many of them are thinking this in the way that they pause and stare at their house before departing on the boat taking them to rescue; trying to soak in as many details and memories as they can before they never see that house again. Knowing that rebuild could take years and they may not have had that many years left, seniors leaving their homes would have gone through great distress.

Likewise, those who already left their homes and were waiting at freeway passes and designated rescue areas were feeling the psychological impacts of the storm. Leaving your home with your most prized possessions on your back and waiting for rescue from a government that seems more concerned with looters and restoring order than safely getting people out of danger can be a very damaging event. Your trust in your government suffers, as does your mental health. It may be hard for us to understand how some of the “refugees” stayed behind when there was a threat of a category 5 storm, but this threat of storms/hurricanes is a yearly event. Also, most of us have not had to pack u all we could carry and leave everything behind. Which sentimental items do we take along and which do we leave behind? Just think about that. Think about the 10 most important things in your life, now think about how many of those would things would fit into a suitcase. Most of us pack more for a vacation than the evacuees of hurricane Katrina did when they left their houses for good.

Reversely, Zeitoun leaving would have a worse psychological effect than if he were stay. While staying after the storm, Zeitoun helped many people, animals and homes that may have been destroyed by the rising waters if he had not helped. Zeitoun believes it was Allah that had him stay; Allah had a purpose for Zeitoun in the city and it was helping people. Zeitoun knows that had he not stayed behind, some of his neighbors may be dead and the dogs that he fed in neighboring houses would have been dead for sure.