Hey everyone!

Currently I am on the last day of my “spring break.” It was not nearly long enough (spent most of it eating real food and sleeping), but I am excited to go back and finish up my last two months in Americorps. My team has been assigned a project in Nashville TN. In Nashville we will be working at an Easter Seals camp for people with physical and mental disabilities. We are all very excited to be taken out of the Gulf due to the emotional and physical stress, and are also thrilled to be in Nashville. There are many country music fans on my team and they plan to stalk the stars. Personally, I’m just excited for the barbeque.

So we finished up our project in Louisiana last Monday. We finished up one trailer and made a lot of progress of Mr. Terry’s house. Mr. Terry is a crawfish fisherman, and gave us another crawfish boil on our last day. He was our one of our favorite home owners because he would work right beside us and tell stories. He would also bring back strange creatures from the pond where he fished and wave them around in our faces (he brought a wood duck, and the fattest snapping turtle I have ever seen).

We got to experience a lot of Cajun culture. I took Cajun dance classes with a few of my teammates. We worked at a Cajun food cook off. Also, everyone cooked for us. In Delcambre, the town was so tightly knit that they knew everyone. If they found out you were working on someone’s house they would come by the next day with a Gumbo, or po boys, or some other Cajun dish. The food was incredible and the people were so welcoming and kind. Mr. Glenn, the neighbor of Terry, took us on his shrimping boat and taught us how to shrimp.

Overall, it was a good project for learning about the culture, but not as much for the work (very unorganized). The real highlight of the project was tutoring. Every Monday and Wednesday, we tutored at Ms. Kay’s tutoring center. I got assigned 3 second graders. There were 2 boys and a girl. They were adorable and “wicked smahhhht.” This tutoring center was set up so that the students had a place to go after school instead of the streets. It is also a motivational center for the students to get their homework done.

Well, I need to go catch my plane back to Charleston!

Miss and love you all, keep writting!

Love,

Alena