New Orleans - February 23, 2018

Friday, February 23, 2018

We went to Chahta-Ima Elementary School in St. Tammany parish for the second day. 

After breakfast provided for us, we continued in the same classes as the day before. The kids were so excited to see us again, running up to us, giving us huge hugs. We helped the kids learn math, English and Social Studies. If a student needed extra help, the teacher would ask us to help just him/her get proficient in the topic.

At the end of the day the kids had “fish fest”. Fish fest is an event the school puts on for the kids with good behavior. Because of the rain the school played Just Dance on the projector. Just Dance is a dance video game that has you dance with the characters on the screen. The teachers asked us to dance at the front of the gym to show the kids how to dance. We jammed to “What does the fox say,” “24 kart magic,” “YMCA,” and “I got a feeling.”  The kids wore us out in the end. After fish fest, we went back to one more class with our kids and it was time to go. When we left, the kids gave us huge hugs and made plans to come to visit us in Boston. The kids gave us bags full of Mardi Gras beads and a moon pies, as a thank you for the work we did. The teachers stressed to us the importance of our visit, that some of these students do not have a male figure in their lives.  Our being there gave them that even for just two days.

Next we drove through the Lacombe Wildlife Center. We drove through the gate and circled around in a parking lot, where we saw lots of beautiful plants and trees. We also learned that people can do service if they are retirement age, and can park their RV’s there and might even be paid a little bit. This is a fun and interesting way to do service because it involves traveling around the county stopping at national parks. After we drove by the RV’s, we drove down a path where we could go and see the nature. The sign said no trespassing, authorized vehicles only, but Mr. McGonagle does not always follow the rules, and he gassed down the path. Ms. Myers was mad for a split second before taking the risk herself, and before we knew it, we were trespassing. Luckily, the gate for us, and we sped away from the center, heading for the house.

We got back to the house and began to clean. We cleaned the house to make it “better than we left it,” as Mrs. Myers put it. After about 30 minutes, the house was spotless and we were ready to head back to Boston. However, we still had more fun things planned for our short time in New Orleans. Later that night, after eating Cajun fish, we headed across the lawn to a civil rights concert featuring Greg Greenway and Reggie Harris and their program, Deeper than the Skin.  It was really fun because they sung truly from their hearts, and invited all of us to join in. They told their stories and how they feel on racism, which was interesting to hear. After talking and singing, they gave us a 30-minute intermission, where we went out and talked and ate food. We then went back for the second half. After about another hour, Mr. McGonagle began to dismiss people back to the house because the concert was running pretty late, and we had an early day the next day. We came back to the house and passed out. Our long trip in New Orleans had finally came to an end, and we were exhausted.

Wyatt and Daniel

New Orleans - February 22, 2018

 Thursday, February 22, 2018

7:37 A.M. That was the time I woke up to start the day off. As everyone got ready and their lunches packed, we all left for Chahta-Ima Elementary School. 

Chahta-Ima Elementary School serves Kindergarten through 3rd grade in Lacombe, Louisiana. The name of the school changed multiple times throughout the 1950s and after being organized, it was named in honor of Father Adrien Emmanuel Rouquette, who the Choctaw Indians called Chahta Ima. It was named after him because his primary concern was the minorities’ education and well-being. An interesting fact about this school is that it was burned by a student in 1976! After being rebuilt, this school became coeducational and elementary. To this day, it has been renovated and remodeled plenty of times and the school still makes sure to live out the memory of Father Rouquette. 

As we walked into the school, we were immediately greeted by the coordinator (Mrs. Pechon). She was extremely friendly and brought us into a multipurpose room where we laid down our belongings and got settled in. Eventually it was time to leave the room and be assigned to a classroom. We were all hesitant and nervous to be separated from each other, but I got the best class there could be in the school. Jeovany and I were assigned to be in Mrs. Talley's kindergarten class for the day and the kids were sure fun. As soon as we walked in, all the kids greeted us and Mrs. Talley was also ecstatic that she would have us for the day. The first thing we did in the classroom was Mrs. Talley reading a book about Louisiana and a letter for something that had to do with it. For example, B was for bayou and A was for alligator. After that book, it was play time in the classroom. This was a time where I could interact with the kids for once. I met many kids during this time such as Abel, Kelsey, Selena, Wesley, and other students. Activities would range from reading books to playing with legos. Minutes after playtime ended, the kids headed onto P.E. For today; the gym teacher was teaching the kids simple drills in soccer such as dribbling and trapping the ball. The kids had a good time, but there was a special moment for me when I was holding Kelsey's hand on our way back to class and she said to me, “this reminds me of what I used to do with my dad.”  I didn’t know at that time if this meant that her father is not in the picture, as many of the kids in this school don’t have a father figure in their life, but it made me closer to Kelsey that day.  I learned the next day that her father had passed away a few months ago.

Finally, it was lunch time and all of the BC High students met back in the room. There was lunch made for us by the principal and other people and it was lovely. After feasting on that delicious food, we all talked about how our day was going so far. Everyone had different stories because most of us had different grade levels. For instance, in the third grade, Wyatt and Dan were helping kids learn fractions, adjectives, and other things, while Jerry and Paul were helping out in the first grade and editing paragraphs for each kid. Shortly after lunch ended, it was nap time for kindergarten, so Jeovany and I decided to play with other kids outside in the playground. There were many things to do such as football, basketball, running, and even cooling in the shade. The bell rang, and it was time to go back to Mrs. Talley's class. When we came back, the kids and I started to set up snack time and birthday cupcakes for Seth who turned 6 today. His mother and uncle came to support him and we all sang happy birthday to him. It was such a great time and everyone was so happy. As time passed on, it was 3:30 p.m. and it was time for the kids to go home. Immediately as we walked out, Kelsey held my hand all the way up until she got on the bus and I had to say bye to her. Thank God I would have the chance to see her one more time before I left for Boston. 

For the last hour, all the BC High students would help out with the 21st Century Program. This was where we would help students ranging from elementary to middle school with tutoring in all subjects. For me, I was assigned to help Rylee in the 6th grade with her vocabulary. She was a smart student and at first she was struggling with memorizing the definitions and part of speech for the words, but she started to get the hang of it. Eventually, the hour flew by and I was shocked because the day had gone by so fast. However, relief came to me as I would have a second day to do this.

Naod

(and at Chahta Ima, they treated us AMAZING, with lunch cooked by Mr. Marlbrough and loads of snacks!  THANK YOU!)

New Orleans - February 21, 2018

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

With Fr. Kammer

We kicked off our final day visiting the city of New Orleans by waking up at 7:00 sharp and making some sandwiches for lunch.  Our chaperones, Ms. Myers and Mr. McGonagle (with the help of the Center for Ethical Living!), supplied us with some great food, including American cheese and honey smoked ham. At 8:30, we started making our way to Loyola University over on St. Charles Ave, New Orleans, Louisiana. We took the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway there, which took about 30 minutes to cross. There, we were greeted by Father Kammer, SJ. He brought us on a brief walk through the beautiful campus, and into the chapel. We sat down and he enlightened us on the many underlying problems that preceded and were worsened by Hurricane Katrina, such as poverty and lack of jobs, the housing authority, the criminal justice system, public education, health care, and the challenges faced by Latino newcomers. 

After our talk with Father Fred Kammer, we headed to the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana. I myself had heard about how powerful it could be but just the concept of a plantation in the form of a museum, focusing on the slaves instead of slave owners, brings along a lot of thoughts and emotions. There was a book on display at Whitney called “Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters” which I vividly remember reading as a kid and it brought back a lot of memories and concepts as far as the importance of character versus selfishness. We have seen that character dynamic here a lot in New Orleans with the amazingly welcoming environment. Everyone received a tag with a slave to focus on right before the tour, a replica of which could be seen around the plantation at some point in the tour. As the tour continued, there were memorial walls with quotes of horror and difficult distress through unimaginable times and famous images of slavery to accompany it. We toured the Big house and were shown the swamps runaway slaves would have to go to if they were attempting to reach freedom. We got to walk around slave cabins and just the fact that multiple people had to share them made the visual made the experience surreal. A slave Jail was also present that would hold 12 people which was absurd because there was simply no room for that many people. What has been commonly taught to us in class was a very different to the point that none of us knew what to think. America is known to have no conscience about the ugly side of its history but today was a chance to see and explore that side.

At Whitney Plantation

After an eye-opening tour of the Whitney Plantation, we made our way back to the house. Here we were greeted by Rev. Deanna and we had a brief, but impactful discussion on everything we’ve seen so far down here in Louisiana. After that, we all walked to the Unitarian Church right next to where we were staying. We enjoyed a scrumptious potluck with members of the community and all had a great time. In my opinion, there was no better way to end off an already great, and stupendous day.  The food was very good and coupled with the very wise men and women who were also the cooks made for a great night.

Potluck dinner with NSUU community

Paul and Jeovany