Next Stop, Romania for Sam and Noelle LeBlanc
Next Stop, Romania
By Errol Laborde
Photographer Jeff Strout
When I last saw Sam LeBlanc, he was on his way to the Chamber of Commerce’s annual luncheon at the Downtown Hilton hotel. As a past Chamber chairman, LeBlanc would have been expected to attend the meeting, where on that day a new chairman, Audubon Zoo chief Ron Forman, spoke about his vision for the metro area. As chairman, LeBlanc had fought the good fight for the city and the region, but on this day I suspect his mind was elsewhere. As our paths paralleled, LeBlanc told me that he and his wife, Noelle, were just days away from leaving the city for extended Peace Corps service in Romania. His region was becoming global.
Sam and Noelle LeBlanc, a couple that had it all, are now living the spartan existence of volunteers, taking their civic skills to a region where reform has had to be secondary to survival.
Working through a mutual friend, we were able to make contact with the LeBlancs, who provide this month’s cover story – a firsthand account of their first days on the job in Romania. Primitiveness is defined differently these days. The good news is that we were able to e-mail LeBlanc; the bad news was that contact was sporadic, limited to occasions when he could get to a town where one of the few connections was available.
As I recall from my brief conversation with LeBlanc that day, the life he and his wife are living now is not that of some rich Americans out to spread goodwill to the natives, then jaunting off to Paris for the weekend. Their travel away from Romania will be limited, and there was even question about the flexibility of having a rendezvous with family during the two years that they will be away. (Their service ends in May 2005, though they do not plan to return to New Orleans until June or July of that year.) There is no glitz to the life that this prominent New Orleans couple has undertaken. They are doing the quiet, meticulous work of nation rebuilding.
From their perspective in the Balkans, an area that gave birth to the term "balkanization" as a synonym for fragmentation, the problems in New Orleans must seem so trivial. Our local economy, to us feeble, must seem like a charging bull. We live in a nation where we can vote out our politicians, but we do not have to overthrow them. We may choose to vote, but we do not have to be told what democracy is.
When Sam LeBlanc returns to New Orleans, he will see that there have been many changes at the Chamber since he left – a new name, a new direction and a clear mission of creating more jobs. Everyone wants to improve his or her little spot in the world. Blessed are the places that can do so. •
September 2003 - Vol. 37 Issue 12
