Well, no more houses gutted, but plenty more memories. We had a day off of work today and spent the day exploring the French Quarter.
There is a museum here that we went to that had a photo exhibit on Katrina. My favorite part was a section that had photos from a group of high schoolers. They were involved in a photography project that aimed to tell the story of the tragedy from youth. And they told some powerful stories with their photos. One caption read, "After we evacuated, I remember staying up with my sister on a school night in our cold bedroom in a house on the bayou. We would laugh so hard, even though the challenges we were going through were so difficult."
I'm so impressed by the spirit and hope that the people here possess, despite the horrifying tragedy that they're dealing with. It really speaks volumes to the power and resilience of the human spirit.
The rest of the day was chock full of good food, good music, a great presentation from a couple of Bucknell alums, an Imax movie on Katrina, and many laughs. At nighttime there was a Christmas caroling event in Jackson Square. A large number of people united for an hour of singing by candlelight. It is very strange for us for it to be Christmas time while it’s 70 degrees outside. Yesterday as we worked in Bay St. Louis in gorgeous weather with the sun beating down on us, it was a very strange sensation to be listening to Christmas music! It really helped me to realize that Christmas is a celebration of Jesus coming into the world and you can do that in any type of weather. I'm really starting to enjoy getting into the Christmas spirit in such a new setting.
Well, tomorrow morning will come awfully quickly, since it'll begin at 6 am, such an ungodly time for a college student, not to mention being on break!! So it's time to hit the hay. Tomorrow I'll try to get some pictures up of our back-breaking work of gutting houses!!
