A Wealth of Experiences

Author’s Note: The following events were written as they were occurring. As such, they were written in the appropriate tense at that time. The following events occurred on January 11, 2019.

I cannot believe that today was our last day at Saint Jude (SJ). I woke up and got out of bed at around 6:00 AM and switched into my clothes for today. Shortly after, I folded my bedding and towels and, along with an old pair of boots, dropped them off at the center’s donation table where these items will get cleaned and donated to the homeless. Today was also our last “real” class day for the trip (there will be a meeting on Sunday) and our first day not working on the Smith residence.

Once the class packed up their things, we boarded our cars and enjoyed a private tour of different parts of the city of New Orleans. We drove along the extensive levee and flood wall system which is intended to protect the city of New Orleans from catastrophic flooding. The plan was to visit a local cemetery which has a Hurricane Katrina memorial, but the cemetery was closed. During our tour, we stopped by the shore of Lake Pontchartrain and took photographs of the mini ocean crashing in front of us. We could see the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway to our left and the I-10 overpass to our right, but we could not see the other side of the lake! After about a few minutes taking pictures along the lake, we headed back towards the Seventh Ward to grab coffee at Fair Grinds. One of my classmates was interviewing for a leadership position with her sorority’s national office so we hyped her up and left her alone to complete her interview. While I was enjoying my Italian soda and butter milk balls (basically giant doughnut holes), I overheard one of my professors talking about a shooting that occurred in the Seventh Ward yesterday. I later found out that this shooting occurred within about two miles of where we were working; I was not happy to find that out. While my classmates were finishing up their coffee and breakfasts, a couple of us walked a couple buildings over to explore the local market. While there, I purchased an Arizona green tea and some Toblerones to snack on as my other classmates were looking for King cakes to purchase and ship back to California. In the end, they purchased some drinks and off we went to Rebuilding Together’s (RT) warehouse in Saint Claude.

LEAD 485 has been a class at Chapman since 2008 which has traveled to New Orleans almost every year since (except 2009, 2012, and 2018) to work with RT and rebuild houses in New Orleans. Every year, Chapman students paint a section of the wall with some doodles and the current year that class took place. Oddly enough, there was no 2017 painted on the wall, so one classmate stepped up to paint 2017 on the wall in red paint, in addition to a painting of people on a ladder. I followed after my classmate and painted 2019 underneath 2017 in Black paint with a Red boarder. Just like that, we left our mark in New Orleans and have paved the way for future Chapman students to come rebuild even more houses. We took pictures with our AmeriCorps volunteers and exchanged contact information with them prior to leaving for Tulane University in the West Side of New Orleans. We spent about an hour and a half exploring the Student Union and eating lunch there, basking at the campus and reflecting on the past week. One graduate student took the opportunity to explore the university’s multicultural center, as well as the programming board, and got to connect with staff at these departments. She plans to take these insights back with her as she works on shaping the future of the Chapman University Program Board. At about 12:30 PM, we left Tulane and headed to the Lower Ninth Ward.

We drove over the Industrial Canal and entered the Lower Ninth Ward, a working-class neighborhood which was hit hardest by Katrina. As of 2019, the neighborhood is littered with empty, overgrown lots with nothing more than the foundations of the houses that formerly stood on those lots, as well as some newly built houses and a couple monuments to the infamous Hurricane. Our first stop was the Living Museum, a small museum located within one half of a Double-Barrel Shotgun House near the main bridge. The small museum features exhibits on the history of the Ninth Ward, segregation, socioeconomics, and of course, Katrina and its aftermath. The exhibits echoed the same sentiments we had previously discussed in our classes: that Katrina was made worse due to faulty engineering by the Army Corps of Engineers, poor evacuation planning by Ray Nagin, and disorganization from FEMA. I noticed that there was a lot of blame placed on those in authority for the events post-Katrina. The museum, however, was one of the few sources of information that lauded Kathleen Blanco’s efforts to recover from Katrina. The museum’s exhibits argued that race was a contributing factor to the tragedies that occurred post-Katrina in regard to people being forced to stay at the Superdome despite inhumane conditions, and blacks getting shot by white residents of Jefferson Parish. There was an exhibit that caught my eye showing two different headlines about looting: one headline from the Associated Press reported on black people looting a grocery store while another headline from the AFP, a different newspaper, reported on white people finding bread from a local grocery store. The argument made was that the mainstream media was racist but what I saw was two different publications describing similar events with different people in different ways. My classmates and I would continue discussing this on the car ride back to SJ to pick up our belongings.

Before leaving the Living Museum, some of my classmates got to meet Leona Tate, one of the first three black girls who integrated into an all-white public school in the Lower Ninth Ward. I happened to be reading some biographical information about Ms. Tate while my classmates took pictures with her in front of me. I had a suspicion that I was standing near Ms. Tate but did not realize it was her until after the fact. I’m honored to have been in the presence of such an historical figure. We then boarded our cars and drove across the main road to visit the rebuilt flood wall protecting the Lower Ninth Ward from flooding, or at least it is supposed to. We explored the spot where the flood wall failed, causing flooding that drowned the Lower Ninth under up to 15 feet of water, causing homes to free from their foundations, and the deaths of hundreds. After exploring the wall, we boarded our cars for the last time and headed back to SJ while diving deeper into the ethics of looting and the question of whether the Katrina response was racially motivated. Once we arrived at SJ, we grabbed our bags, donated our remaining food supplies, packed the cars, and headed back to the Hotel Saint Pierre to check in for our final three nights in New Orleans. We were all paired with the same roommates from day one, settled in, and headed over as a class to the Louisiana State Museum to explore their Hurricane Katrina exhibit. I have to say that this museum did an excellent job at presenting the events of Katrina in a neutral and highly interactive way, featuring old news clips, biographies of local heroes, and keeping the blame to a minimum while presenting the facts. This museum did a great job of telling the story of Katrina and its aftermath, as well as presenting the resilience of the residents of New Orleans in the face of adversity.

We had about an hour of free time which we spent by watching a jazz band perform near Jackson Square, and exploring the French Quarter. While waiting for dinner at Café Amelie, I visited a stationary store where I found some sealing wax and a sealing stamp with an elephant imprint. I’m looking forward to sending snail mail with actual sealing wax now! Once 5:30 PM struck, the class and I sat together and enjoyed dinner at Café Amelie. I ordered a salmon cake as my starter and ahi tuna as my entree. At one point, my table began telling vivid stories about altitude sickness and bad Airbnbs, while I told the story of how I lost my passport in Japan and got it back. The energy at the table was lively and I was feeling like king of the world. At one point, I got into a conversation with one classmate in particular who suggested that I become a motivational speaker as I hyped her up prior to her interview. I said that I am not interested in becoming a motivational speaker because what I said was true and that I meant it. She responded that she could tell and that’s what hyped her up, stating that I was insightful. Earlier in the week, she randomly said that she liked me (as a friend) so I told her that I liked her to and hope to hang out and keep in touch once we return from New Orleans. Shortly after, I began telling a story on how I found a bracelet with a friend’s name on it. I was hesitant to reveal the name of the person I was referring to (this is the person who inspired me to create this blog) but I did any way and found out that she knew who she was. Small world. At this point, I was discussing with my table different temperament and interaction styles from the team building class and while describing my style, someone suggested that working at startups might be a good career choice for me. Through my conversation about temperament and interaction styles, I suddenly realized how different people interact, something “…I noticed today that I missed until today” (Coles, 1993, p. 25). I also gained deeper insight into a better career path for the near future. At this point, there were several conversations going on and they all blended into incomprehensible gibberish. It was time for me to head out and go back to the Hotel and rest.

Because I do not quite remember where these details occurred during dinner, I received a complement from a classmate about my memory to which I complemented her on achieving the highest final score on Dr. Res’ Lead 101 final in the classes’ history. There was also a point where some students and I were coming up with things to do for my birthday on Sunday. We were thinking of going to Preservation Hall and grabbing dinner at a restaurant in the French Quarter, which sounds like a mighty fine way to celebrate the birthday.

I experienced a surprising amount of emotions today. I mostly felt anxious and found my cynicism coming back as I was losing the connection I had with my classmates. Somehow while at dinner, that connection came back through intimate conversations and energetic story telling. I also learned that sometimes, you have to share what you want with others in order to get it. Early on in the trip, I shared that my birthday was coming up and I wanted to celebrate it with the class. Now, it looks like it’s going to happen. Today was an overall great day and I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.