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.