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Learned, Most Shocking, Missed

Learned:

           The following are some of the highlights and interesting aspects of my trip to New Orleans. The Cooking School was really interesting. Using the local markets and talking with the community members really opened my eyes to starting line of people making local food. Visiting and learning about the levee and dam systems also changed my view on New Orleans. I now realize what people meant when they stated “New Orleans is underwater.”  You can’t really visualize the water levels, elevational complexity/subtlety, or challenge of this city without being there. Learning about their levees and standing on top of them really gives you the true understanding of the city below the waterline.

Most Shocking:

To add to the disbelief of water levels, the 9th Ward was an extreme manifestation of all of these factors. The poverty, low elevation, levy failure, and destruction that took place really changed my perspective on the people’s situation.

Missed:

           There was little we missed during this trip. And if we did miss anything, I didn’t/wouldn’t have known. The only portion of this trip I would have like to have learned more about centered around the Cooking School and culinary arts. I had an amazing experience and learned a lot, but I wish I learned even more about the recipes and key techniques. We learned about the culture and food, but putting the two together was very insightful. I learned elements of Cajun cooking, but mostly took away that a ridiculous amount of seasoning salt will cover you most of the time. Prior to this, I thought there was more to cooking southern food.

What I Wish I Would Have Know About NOLA

The Service learning trip to New Orleans was an amazing eye opening experience. For the more part, all of the essential amenities were met by the class but there are a few items of information I learned from attending. My personal experience with New Orleans was strongly swayed by the amount of allergies I had. I became sick with a sinus infection which dragged on through the entirety of the trip. If you are planning on going on this trip, enter the trip well rested and if needed lots of allergy medication. Other aspects of the trip, I was very happy with my rain boots. A good “pro-tip” might be to bring foot insoles to place inside your rain boots. Also having a quiver of power bars and cliff bars were handy. If you don’t get car sick, I would recommend blogging in between stopping points as you drive from stop to stop. You can always take more pictures. At minimum I took a photo at every stop, but it was an easy way for me to document and remember everything that we did in a day.

Building a Garden

At the southern most point of Louisiana, we stopped by a dying Cypress Forest. At the farthest point in the Mississippi, the salt water is seeping into the land, due to subsidence, which is causing the Cypress to die. We also noticed a lot of oil refineries and Oil Business in this part of Louisiana.

Aquaculture and Community Garden

Awsome day helping out at the Capstone Community Garden ! We helped do a bunch of random activities such as prepping the house for paint, weeding, gardening, and help build the aquaculture. The aquaculture uses catfish tank which feeds into the plant tank that takes out all the nutrients and cleans the water; this is brought back into the catfish tank. The food produced goes to the local community that is mostly in poverty.
We also met up with local env lawyers and news reporters that talked about the events surrounding the hurricane.

French Quarters

Today we started at the New Orleans  School of Cooking. The group picked fresh food from local market and prepared an appetizer, soup, salad, entre, and dessert. My group prepared the shrimp jambalaya entre with rice, peppers and vegetables. Everything came out delicious and was an amazing experience.
The rest of the day was left to explore the French Quarters. The light drizzle kept it interesting as visited this historic area of town. The music, food and culter are quite different than any other cities.

Jean Lafitte

First day of the trip visiting Jean Lafitte National Park. We saw a lot of aligators and snakes.

Dr.A

He is lecturing ! Wow ! I can’t take any new photos of Dr. A because my phone is dying.

Test Post

Patrick’s test post.