Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Day 11: Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Sleep in day!!! It was amazing, once again we had the privilege to sleep in. Our class met at Tulane to discuss finishing work at Jean’s house and other aspects of our trip as closing days approach. Prior to arrival in New Orleans, each student individually chose topics of interest to gain ethnographic and participant observation for a final research paper. Using our own scholarly research and reflective experiences, the paper addresses our driving question that has formed or changed throughout the trip. Before concluding this class meeting we discussed how Sandrine’s Letters to Tomorrow by Dedra Johnson relates to New Orleans’ race and gender inequalities. We talked about the major themes that were found in the book such as patriarchy, oppression, strength and sexuality of women and the portrayal of systemic child rearing.


At 4:00pm we made our way next door to Loyola College of New Orleans for a “mixer”. We got the opportunity to meet with the women’s resource center in which we were greeted by people in that department ready to share their personal experiences, information and involvement in social justice. They were nice enough to serve us delicious goodies and treats, a nice change from our hostel kitchen. As we sat in a circle we all went around and introduced ourselves, our major, and most importantly our main focus of interest in New Orleans in which our feminist ethnographies will be based. The hosts listened to our ideas and enlightened us with more information on New Orleans post Katrina that will strengthen our research papers. This was a really a helpful opportunity to meet such great people willing to share their varying point of views. They truly accepted us as a group and helped us paint a bigger picture of day to day life in post Katrina NOLA.


After our long day at Loyola and Tulane we made our way back to the hostel where we greeted with spaghetti and meatballs, salad and garlic bread. YUMMY! Before bed, most of us are just going to relax and work on our research papers.

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