Lower Nine- Day 1

Being a site leader for this trip, I did a lot of looking ahead, planning and searching about the area that we were going to see. I wanted the group to be able to voice any of their opinions about where we went and what we saw, so one of the first things I did was to set up a Facebook group. We were able to communicate points of interest as well as finalize trip details before departure. No one had really ever been in the areas we were traveling to and everyone seemed open to pretty much whatever. Before the trip I did have a few expectations, but nothing very large. They were things such as wanting to interact with the locals as much as possible to be able to get a "real" feel of the area. Secondly, I wanted to get to listen to as much live music as we could get our ears around. We departed Saturday morning with five people in each van. Everyone slept on the way down and the drive was very relaxing. I loved being able to see how not only the physical features of the land changed, but also the population and race of the areas varied. It was also very interesting to read the billboards. It was very apparent which states we were in by what was written on them all. When we stopped in Memphis on the way down, we first stopped at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. Because of the day and time of arrival, we were unable to get a tour or do any volunteering, but we dropped off a check for about $400 from the St. Joseph, Ost CYO church group. I am an alumni of the group and my mother still currently is the sponsor for the group. They had recently done a fundraiser and when I told her we would be passing through she just gave me the check in case we could do something special with it. We then ventured to Beale Street which was full of bars, local shops and restaurants. We ate at the King’s Palace and were able to hear some authentic live jazz and ate the best seafood I have EVER had! The band that we listened to consisted of a pianist, a percussionist and a singer. The lady vocalist was obviously from South America or another country because of her accent and her appearance. She interacted with the crowd successfully and had a really great voice. Her unique voice was complimented by the pieces they performed, of which many were familiar. She used a lot of onomatopoeias in her performance, which we were not used to and thought was pretty funny. From there we traveled to our destination in New Orleans and were welcomed by our wonderful host, Mr. Darren. He has the biggest heart of anyone I have met in a very long time. God Bless him and all of the other volunteers that we have met.