French Canadians and other stories

Sign in front of Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans

A different New Orleans

Family portrait in the duck weed

The swamp . . . and alligators out there lurking

A Gill fish
Plantation land is very flat!
This grasshopper/cricket/monster was at least 5 inches long!

Laura Plantation
Eleni in the basement of Laura Plantation

Alex loved this tree. It's next to the kitchen on the Plantation - kitchens were kept far from the main house to prevent fires spreading
A fig tree!
The slave quarters. The man in orange is about to have his picture taken in the doorway.
Inside the cabin
Mom, this photo is for you. I thought you might like the upside down bottles as a garden creator!
Oak Alley
Sonic - it's a drive in we have fallen in love with (not exactly...but we tried!).
Sugar cane. I think it's sugar cane. It was everywhere in Jeanette, Sugar City, LS. So, it's a guess.
I thought I should add some of Alex's artwork. This is one of the character's in the book he is writing!

Saturday, July 5, 2008

We are sleeping in Lafayette, LS tonight. The Internet connection here is not that great, so we may not get this out on time. Oh well! I was on top of things for one day…

I think, Steve Miller, if you are reading this, that you would be mighty disappointed in our experience here in Lafayette. However, the latter part of today was mainly about survival and not collecting cultural observations. Along our route, we’ve tried to blend the two, but even more so today. Today we finally heard the words, “Are we there yet?” and “I want to go home!” They needed a pool far more than a visit to Arcadian settlements and cool music cafes. When we finally coaxed them out of the pool, and lured them back into the car, the skies opened and a downpour was upon us. That changed our plans of meandering through the center of town somewhat and trying to soak up some of the life here. That, mixed with the fact that it’s 4th of July weekend and many places are just plain closed for the long weekend. But, our dreams of finding the perfect Cajun meal were finally dashed when Alex’s desperation for a restroom meant stopping at the whatever open restaurant we were in front of….and so, there we were in the middle of the best Cajun food in the country – eating Mexican food. Really good Mexican food, though!

On that note, or somewhere in the vicinity, it’s probably an appropriate time to mention the fact that we know our rush through the USA is rather superficial. We’re not naïve enough to think that all of these quick and stay a night stops are true experiences.

But, having said that, I already feel as though our time on the road has opened my eyes to so many new perspectives on American history. I know I don’t need to validate this trip at this point and perhaps my sentiments are trite, but we’re learning so much more than any book could teach us.

Yesterday we visited the touristy New Orleans; this morning we drove around the 9th ward. We took just two photos. But, again, this is just our quick visit. Where it the real New Orleans, anyway? We saw houses that were marked for demolition next to houses that were being remodeled. We saw a rusted motorboat, left in the awkward angle that it hit a now deserted shop. We saw scaffolding for new structures on this week when hurricane season begins anew.

We drove on route 90 for a bit, listened to cicadas and thought about buying watermelon from the back of the many pick-up trucks (but just like the Bearded lizard, guitar, and alligator head – where would we put it?). We stopped by some swampland and “hunted” for alligators. We found a couple fishing out of the back of their truck – they had already caught one Gill (we think that is what he said). It looks half alligator and half fish, and, according to the fisherman, all you need to do is fry it. Next to the truck, a father was teaching his two sons how to fish. While examining the dead Gill kept Alex busy (“Can we dissect this?”), Eleni had no qualms of getting in on the fishing lesson. We finally had to extract our loud selves so they could go on fishing in peace.

We retraced our steps a bit and headed to Route 20 North. We left New Orleans the same way we entered – over Huey Long Bridge. Our next destination was Vacherie and the plantations along the Mississippi River.

One of my goals for this trip was to try and see a plantation with the slaves’ quarters intact. Laura Plantation was the perfect setting to do this and learn more about Creole history in Louisiana. The colorfully painted house was built in1805 for French Creole’s who lived in Vacherie during the sugar cane season while the rest of the year they lived in New Orleans. Our tour guide, Pam, was a local, no-nonsense storyteller. She had no patience with children who whined and kicked two kids (and their parents) off her tour. Somehow our kids made the cut (just so I’m not giving you a false impression, know that they were bribed with gum).

Some of the original Slaves Quarters were still standing near the main house; they have been inhabited from the early 1800s up until 1977. Louisiana law stated that a slave home had to be 16x16 feet, and these slave quarters were duplexes of sorts at 16x32. After Louisiana territory changed hands from the French to the Americans, there was an internally created segregation between the slaves that I never considered – French Catholic and American Baptist. Our tour guide explained the Code Noir and the change in perspectives on race in Louisiana. Up until the 1811 Woodland slave revolt in Louisiana, there was tolerance for Free Blacks owning slaves on their own plantations (Lydia, if you are reading this, this area reminded me of our Cane River reading!). Laura Plantation’s other notable claim to fame is due to the fact that the Br’er Rabbit tales passed down from the Senegalese slaves that lived here were retold and made popular by Joel Chandler Harris.

We then drove by the more American plantation that you have probably seen in Gone With the Wind or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, named Oak Alley. This white majestic home was built in 1837-39 and was strikingly different from the more colorful Creole plantation. We took a quick photo before the kids melted (literally and figuratively – it was around 90 degrees and very humid!). And, as we left River Road, we saw the remains of sharecropper homes in neatly plotted rows.

We took Route 20 South and picked up Route 90 West. Oil refineries, swamps, solar powered lights and a sign: “Prison Area – do not pick up hitchhikers.”

Then we took 10 West for a bit of soullessness followed by loads of serendipitous findings on the parallel Route 182 West. My Morin family will understand why I pause to mention St. Cecilia’s Church and School.

One of the towns we passed through, Jeanerette, also known as Sugar City, was this great find on 182, complete with its own museum about Sugar. Sadly, after we got our hopes up about the fact that it also had a playground, we found out it was closed. But, the town was perfectly wonderful as an introduction to Acadia that we didn’t mind all that much (although, we had to search for another non-existent playground). Driving along Route 182 was one of my favorite parts of today, but as you already know; we didn’t get that far on that quest.

My Dad’s family is French-Canadian; they emigrated from France to Canada in the 1600s, their homes were part of the changing boundaries on the Maine and Canada border, and then they migrated to Leominster, Massachusetts in the early 1900s. There is a large pocket of French-Canadians in the area there and my father grew up speaking French. The French-Canadian French, that is. Hence my care about St. Cecilia’s. I was really looking forward to possibly hearing some native Louisiana French-English and finding out more about the Acadians’ life here.

Theirs is a tragic immigration story. The British deported the Acadians from Nova Scotia in the 1700s. Many settled here, became farmers, and raised cattle in this region that became known as Acadiana, and their descendents became known as Cajuns. This area is still dominantly French, but it’s a melting pot of American Indian, Spanish, German and English. They’ve been transformed by the Civil War, yellow fever, the railroad form New Orleans to Houston (still going strong – we had to wait a few minutes at a stop sign for it to pass), horse racing, and … oil.

Had the kids not needed freedom so intensely today, we might have detoured slightly to visit St. Martinsville. Longfellow wrote a poem, Evangeline, to immortalize the reuniting of two young lovers after their expulsion from Acadia. Their statue stands in front of the Church there. Another visit, I guess.

You’ve heard our stories about dinnertime. And here we are…. the way we are today.