What happens in New Orleans stays in your heart

In our last couple of days in New Orleans we had a great celebration with some of our partners in the community over at the Duchesne House. The Sisters (Mary Pat, ML, Maureen, and Diane were very gracious to open their doors), students and advisors all helped with preparations for the celebration. It was a success and a way to say thank you to everyone for allowing us to be in their community. Kids from the Freedom School came over first and enjoyed seeing their finished mural. Then later in the evening our friends from the community arrived and made the evening a truly blessed event.

On Friday we went about 30 miles out of the city to experience a bayou tour with our boat captain Ted. The environmental issues of New Orleans are complex and the marshes, swamps, and bayous all have an important environmental relationship with the state of Louisiana. With his Cajun roots and straight talking style, Captain Ted was a wealth of information. We also had a chance in the final evening to go the Spotted Cat (a local jazz hotspot) and were treated to a surprise visit when jazz legend Uncle Lionel Batiste came by and took pictures with us.

On the final day, after a tearful final reflection and big hugs we brought the students back to the airport and everyone made it back safely. As an advisor to this trip I think I speak for all of us when I say that it was a privilege to experience this with such a great group of individuals. Everyone had open hearts and minds and left a piece of themselves in New Orleans. Chris Williams, a local community leader, said it best during our community celebration, “being in New Orleans is about building relationships.” The students not only built relationships but they also built lifelong friendships.

The advisors to the trip stayed a few more days and were able to see the Super Sunday events. During Super Sunday the Mardi Gras Indian tribes travel in parts of New Orleans to show their intricate suits as a way to honor their past, present, and future. These suits often take a year to design and complete and so beautiful that the best compliment you can make is, “your suit is so pretty.”

After a powerful week of being immersed in the various communities of New Orleans, Captain Ted said it best when he said, “what happens in New Orleans stays in your heart.” It is tough to summarize what this week meant to us because I would imagine if our experiences and memories had to be collectively visualized it would look like a mosaic. When you zoom into a mosaic there are numerous fragments that individually mean something and unique from the next piece but when you take a step back our mosaic of experiences creates a collectively meaningful design. Thank you to all of your for your support and encouragement and thank you to the current and past students for your work in New Orleans.

Big Love in the Big Easy

It has been a very full few days learning about the city, meeting with residents, meeting with community members, and being involved with community-based projects. We had a great tour with Brandon who gave us an inside tour of Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis. Brandon discussed the importance of the Catholic Diocese of New Orleans, which after the Louisiana Purchase, was the largest Catholic Diocese in the United States. We even went all the way to the bell tower and view Jackson Square through the clock tower. A view not many people experience. The dining experience in New Orleans is always a treat and one day we had lunch at Café Reconcile. Café Reconcile is not just a place to eat but is a program designed to take youth and help them turn their lives around. Youth from the community are trained in all aspects of the hospitality business and in turn have turned the food at Café Reconcile into award winning cuisine (check out their website link on the right hand side).

Everyday the students work in an afterschool program right across the street from where we are staying. The program is called the Children’s Freedom School and modeled after the program started by the Children’s Defense Fund. The students get involved with youth in a learning environment that promotes academic achievement, leadership, and empowerment. Every night the students come back with great stories of working with the Children. In addition to the tutoring, the USD students and children collaborated on a mural to highlight the main them of the school, “Harambee” Swahili for “Let’s Pull Together.”

The last couple of mornings before the students tutor at the school we worked with an organization called the “4^th World Movement.” The goal of the 4^th World is to alleviate poverty and they were founded in France. In New Orleans we helped them with their street library project. Teams of volunteers host literacy and art days in various communities using mobile art and library supplies. Our job was to build an art display, a mobile library unit, and easels. Although we have never built these before, the team did an excellent job! And by the way the students also revitalized two community gardens for the 7th Ward Community Center.

Tonight we are hosting a block party and inviting all the community members and kids we have been working with to celebrate our last evening together! We have had powerful evening reflections and I wanted to share the following reflection written by Jared:

“Going through college, we get a lot challenges that face us on a daily basis, whether it is deciding what major we want to end up pursuing or what step we want to take next… There is a lot of self-analyzing and procrastinating going on up stairs in the cerebral area of a college mind. This NOLA (New Orleans) immersion/service trip has been a time to put away all our daily routines and constant anxieties, and step into the unknown. From traveling around French Quarter, eating beignets at Café Du Monde, talking with the locals about their experience in New Orleans with some of the challenges they faced post-Katrina, tutoring local elementary students at the Freedom School, getting a VIP tour of the St. Louis Cathedral, and working with Fourth World Movement to build the community… These are just a few of the social and service activities we have done in the past 4 days that have had such a huge positive impact on our group’s interaction with the community and tasks at hand. As we continue to grow as group and within the community, we would like to thank you for your support on making this eye opening experience a reality. P.S… We love it when you post comments on our blogs, keep them coming!”

We were treated to some very special things on Sunday. We started off the day going to mass at Saint Augustine Church in the Treme area. Treme (the area we are living) is one of the first cities in the United States where freed slaves were allowed to purchase their freedom and property. It is a wonderful part of town filled with a rich history and we are fortunate to be staying the area. St. Augustine Church is also one of the oldest black parishes in the United States and the mass was uplifting and energizing.

After a quick lunch we heard that the Keep It Real Social Aid and Pleasure Club was going to host a second line. If you are not familiar with a second line, this New Orleans tradition goes back a long way and tied to very important social justice issues. This history goes deeper than what a blog entry could capture but we were fortunate to experience this on second line Sunday. Second lines are more than just a parade, they often pay tribute to someone or help raise money for a good cause.

We closed out our Sunday with going to Tipitinas to learn Cajun dancing. You cannot be a wallflower because the experienced Cajun dancers will take you and teach you how to dance. The quote of the night was a man who took Becca and said “you better have a camera because this girl is going to fly.” And she did!

Today the students went out into the community and will be working with the Children’s Freedom School to work with local youth and serve as tutors and mentors. We are also going to talk with local Mardi Gras Indian Chief David Montana to discuss more New Orleans history.

A major purpose of our trip is not just about the direct hands on service, but also to learn about the history and culture of the city. We do this because we know that in order to be in community we need to learn from the community. We take a year to prepare for this trip and the students take a class in the fall semester to prepare for this experience. Each year the students build on the relationships built the previous year and as our supporters and loved ones we want you to know that we deeply appreciate your generosity and love because we could not have done it without you. This week is often just the beginning and we encourage you to continue to ask questions when your family member returns from this trip! Enjoy the slideshow, you can also click on the photos to enlarge and go through one by one.

Finally arrived at Duchesne House

After a long flight we arrived in New Orleans at 12:30am safely and soundly. We wanted to say thank you to all of our supporters because there would be no way this trip could have happened without your love, support, and generosity. We hope you find this a useful blog in keeping up with our daily adventures. We encourage you to post comments as your encouragement will keep us going!