The End of the Big Easy

On Friday, our last full day, we also took our last fieldtrip/site visit of New Orleans to the Backstreet Cultural museum. This museum, located in the Trémé (historically black neighborhood located right next to the French Quarter that was originally founded by free slaves in the early 1800s) was dedicated to the study and preservation of the Mardi Gras Indians. Since the freedom of slaves in the 1860s they had decided to celebrate their freedom by honoring the native Americans who had also toiled in servitude with them, but had also helped many African slaves escape. so every Mardi Gras groups of African-Americans don intricate, elaborate hand sewn costumes that evoke the native Americans. It's a very ritualized process  with shouting fights over which tribal chief is the prettiest (actually the term they use). They costumes were amazing to see, and incredible to think of the amount of work that had to go into each and every costume to only be worn a maximum of 3 times.
By Saturday it was mindblowing that we had already reached the conclusion of our time in New Orleans and of our time remaining in the United States. We held an evaluation session, packed and headed off to the airport to voyage to our next destination......BRAZIL!!!!

Random dog thing that appears around town in different colors

Really Cool Museum

Memorial to the unknown slave

So begins the Mardi Gras Indian costume pictures

Many are inspired by native american traditions and art

Each year a different color is selected to make sure everyone knows that this is a new suit.

Very intricate bead work 

One of my personal favorites.

Boots are included in the costume!!

Yup

Each suit is made up of tons of these individual patches on canvas.

Each bead is hand sewn on. The whole process takes several individuals a full year, and the finished suit routinely weighs more than 100 pounds!

The Southern Decadence Festival, America's largest Gay Pride  festival.

Betsy, Ken and Wangui doing the Wobble!

This earned them several beads from the balconies

Hahahaha great look from Danny

Category 1

We were to start feeling the effects of Hurricane Isaac on Tuesday afternoon, so that morning they gave us some time to go out and grab last minute supplies. We had a short lecture (by the head of the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation, it was really really interesting) and then we began to hunker down for the storm. I have to say it was a much more authentic New Orleans experience. It really just started out as a light rain storm with just a little more wind than usual. By the night the winds had started to pick up significantly and places around us started to lose power (we had it flicker 3 times, but each time they were able to reroute the electricity to get to us). In the morning though we had lost power. Matty (Sherrilynn's husband who acted as a co-coordinator while Sherrilynn had fled to California [actually she was starting her new job as a professor at Fresno State]) and I were able to jerry-rig enough power from his rental car to power the internet for about a half hour at a time (before it would overheat). We soon learned that Isaac had decided that he really liked the Louisiana coast and just proceeded to park himself off of it and just dump the region with extended rain and high winds. The storms effects weren't that severe in New Orleans (they were in Plaquemines and St. John the Baptist Parishes however, don't get me wrong this was a crazy powerful and dangerous storm), mostly just a more intense thunderstorm with less rain, less lightning and more wind. The problem however was the length of its effects. The repair crews couldn't go back out to repair power lines (and they now had a lot as more than 85% of the city was without power) until the wind gusts were below 30 miles per hour, this coming from a storm with sustained winds of 85 mph. Needless to say it began to appear we would be out of power for a while (which really meant out of a/c and good food [and trust me, no a/c in New Orleans in August was not terribly comfortable]). By Thursday the storms effects were still there and began to come apparent that we would not be getting power back anytime soon (as we sit on the plane to Sao Paulo there are still vast swaths of the city without power). Luckily World Learning came to the rescue!!!! They realized that this hostel was not a very good place to be stuck (we had taken to holding classes in the living room with 35 of us in there) and booked us 2 nights at the only hotel that was taking reservations, the Wyndam Gardens hotel in the central business district where power had not gone out (the CBD and the French Quarter both have underground powerlines, as we wouldn't want the tourists losing power now would we?). Needless to say we all jumped into showers and then collected for more class in an art gallery owned by friends of Matty and Sherilynn.

Making Tuna Melts!!

It was a bit of a assembly line production

Even without power we still ate well

Some of the drains on the street clogged which led to some minor street flooding (6-8 inches)

I had bought a raft at Wal-Mart in case of emergency. Ken decided it was an emergency. He attracted quite the crowd of locals and onlookers driving by who would stop to take photos.

About a block from our Hostel

That might explain why we don't have power

Betsy and Ken in front of the big tree

The adventurous "Hurricane Hunters"

Mardi Gras beads, an empty bottle of rum and flooded streets. Not that i'm stereotyping....

Thought this looked cool

Traffic was surprisingly  not that much of a mess even with most of the city without power  and no stop lights.

This was kinda terrifying. The side of a brick building just kinda fell off.

Yeah that used to be a wall....

This tree took out three power lines and a car (its on the other side)

Me pretending i'm artsy

YAY!!! A hotel!! With electricity!!!

Downtown kept power but wasn't immune to the damage

The national guard was called in to help with the police.

Having soldiers with automatic rifles patrolling the streets was a very foreign feeling in an American city.  

They had a very strong presence, especially in the downtown areas.

Great sign

On the day after the Hurricane the Aquarium was open free of charge to the public (if you want absurd amounts of fish photos, just let me know)

Whoops!

Flooding in Armstrong Park (next to the French Quarter)

I really can't explain this picture. I took it downtown in the French Quarter less than a block from  Cafe Dumond (the most touristy part of the city)

Here Comes Isaac!

On the weekend I spent a lot of time sleeping. But I also got some time to head into the city to see the French Quarter the famous tourist neighborhood of New Orleans and home of the infamous Bourbon street. We were far more interested in Frenchmen Street which was home to some of the best local Jazz clubs in the city.

                By Sunday it was starting to become clear that we soon were going to have a problem. A problem named Isaac. Originally forecasted to hit Tampa, Isaac had begun drifting west, and some models now showed it going on a beeline for New Orleans. The problem was some models didn't. There was a lot of uncertainty in the forecast and we weren't really sure what to do (the two evacuation plans called for Houston [which some models showed getting hit by the hurricane] and Mobile [which other models showed getting hit]). So we just kinda continued about our normal schedule. By Monday, it had become very apparent that Isaac was going to make landfall and almost a direct hit on New Orleans. Luckily it had some trouble strengthening and was only forecast to hit as a category 1 hurricane (the new $14.5 billion were supposedly designed to withstand a direct hit from a category 3, just like the previous system [we swear it'll totally work this time]). As we wandered around the French Quarter Tuesday (as part of our Neighborhood day where we would explore certain neighborhoods with locals from that area), it was eerie and quiet. The normally packed streets were devoid of people except those boarding up their windows (some with plywood some with metal bars, although the French Quarter had no looting post Katrina [and actually very very very few places did, this was one aspect that the Media really really had overblown] this was in part due to the very high insurance policies that insurance companies would have had to pay out had there been looting. The insurance companies decided that instead it would simply be cheaper just to hire mercenaries to patrol the French Quarter and threaten to shoot any looters [quote "and unlike the police officers, they actually would have"].

            

Pretty Church in the French Quarter

French Quarter (architecture is actually Spanish)

Cafe Du Monde!!!

Tasty!!! But not as good as funnel cake

The same church from the other side

Pretty bridge to Algiers

New Orleans is still the US's largest port

This sight happens a lot in New Orleans, Beautiful nice building next to an empty falling apart one.

Cool factory by the river near where we stayed.

Danny and Wangui enjoying some smooth jazz at a club

Enjoying an outdoor art festival

I want this (it was surprisingly comfy)

oohhh Pretty lights!!

Boarding up stores in the French Quarter before Isaac

It was interesting to see all the different styles of how to board up. There is no kit that does it for you. It's all improvised and homemade.

Some stores were still open.

And some street performers working

A scarily empty Bourbon Street (really this is scary, this street is ALWAYS full of people) 

One of the local residents we talked to showed us the beginnings of the boat he was building (yes, that is a door)

Sandbagging to prevent flooding