DAY 14: New Orleans

Our itinerary originally held that we would make the from from NO to ATL today, but we changed it. We had been planning to visit some schools in the ATL on monday, but none of our arrangements with schools came to fruit, and Jayne (the pastor) told us about some great cultural events happening on sunday. We had a group meeting, and decided to spend the day in New Orleans instead of Atlanta.

We woke, had an easy morning, and went to a songwriting workshop with some local musicians in the afternoon. At the end of the workshop, they invited students to come jam with them. Sam and Indigo got on the stage and rocked out. Sam kept a mean beat and looked a natural drummer.

We came back to the church for dinner with Jayne and her husband Alfredo. Alfredo is mexican and Jayne worked for many years assisting the undocumented become legal or gain rights. they spoke with us about some of the issues they encountered, legal, social and economic for undocumented immigrants.

Tomorrow we are making the drive to Atlanta, where we do have a school visit in the morning on Tuesday. That afternoon we drive to knoxville, back on schedule.

DAY 13: New Orleans

We stayed at a presbyterian church in New Orleans and did work projects there saturday morning. Members of the congregation told us about the immigrant population, and how it boomed during the rebuilding after Katrina. In Harlingen, we had attended an evening conference on immigration that talked about the love/hate relationship our country has with foreign workers, that when it needs labor, it welcomes immigrants, and when the economy slumps, it despises them. New Orleans was an example in action. It needed a quick, able workforce to rebuild almost an entire city, and it drew in many latino workers.

In the later part of the day, we had a big shrimp fry with a former student, Aidan Bellew, who hosted us. We pigged till our guts burst with shrimp, artichoke, corn and taters. After that, we walked around the french quarter, had beignets and coffee/hot chocolate at cafe du monde, and came back for bed.