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The Hijab
Camp Greyhound is the massive temporary prison complex that housed Zeitoun and his three acquaintances, before they were transferred to a state prison. The complex is built in only a couple of days, immediately after the storm. Housed in the train and bus station, it is strikingly efficient—especially compared to the chaos of the rest of the city. In some ways, this efficiency reflects the skewed motives that, Eggers argues, characterized law-enforcement and legal response to the storm—emphasizing security, order, and militarized action rather than search and rescue. Camp Greyhound thus symbolizes both the extraordinarily well-coordinated militarized response to Hurricane Katrina, as well as a deeper malfunction: the breakdown of other systems, like the legal and judicial systems, which are meant to ensure people’s basic human rights, even in times of crisis.
Camp Greyhound Quotes in Zeitoun
The Zeitoun quotes below all refer to the symbol of Camp Greyhound. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Part 4: Tuesday September 6
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When Zeitoun and the others entered the main room of the station, immediately fifty pairs of eyes, those of soldiers and police officers and military personnel, were upon them. There were no other civilians inside. It was as if the entire operation, this bus station-turned-military base, had been arranged for them.
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Part 4: Wednesday September 7
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Who did this work? Were there contractors and laborers working around the clock on a prison days after the hurricane? It was mind-boggling. It was all the more remarkable given that while the construction was taking place, on September 2, 3, and 4, thousands of residents were being plucked from rooftops, were being discovered alive and dead in attics.
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The ban on phone calls was, then, purely punitive, just as the pepper-spraying of the child-man had been born of a combination of opportunity, cruelty, ambivalence, and sport. There was no utility in that, just as there was no utility in barring all prisoners from contacting the outside world.
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Camp Greyhound Symbol Timeline in Zeitoun
The timeline below shows where the symbol Camp Greyhound appears in Zeitoun. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 4: Friday September 9
...and the others are told that they’ll be moving out of what they’ve called “Camp Greyhound.” Zeitoun is handcuffed to another prisoner and told to board a simple old school bus....
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Part 4: Sunday September 11
...of the men had been brought to a makeshift court in the office at Camp Greyhound with a judge and at least one lawyer, were told their charges, and offered a...
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Part 4: Friday September 16
...was set at $50,000, 100 times the usual amount for bail. She was brought to Greyhound and then to Hunt’s sister prison, and was only freed with the help of a...
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Part 5: Fall 2008
...leaving Walgreens. Lima filled out paperwork for the arrest and drove the suspects to Camp Greyhound. Later he saw the maps, cash, and memory chips laid out on a table, and...
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Camp Greyhound grew famous after the storm, and Amtrak clerks still show visitors where prisoners were fingerprinted,...
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...after Zeitoun’s release, after he had recovered somewhat, Kathy insisted that they return to Camp Greyhound to recover Zeitoun’s wallet, which contained his ID. Nervous, Zeitoun drove to the Greyhound station...
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