Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans
Dear Friends,
I've been back in America for about 9 months. I no longer gasp with amazement at the enormous open freeways, cry in frustration at the complications of trying to cook a pot of spaghetti, or delight in the feeling of wind on my knees while I walk down the sidewalk in a skirt. The hard months of culture shock have mostly passed, though I still marvel at the luxury of an enormous grocery, relish the privilege of visits with my siblings, and sometimes the pictures of Bangladesh that hang on my walls make me tear up, wanting nothing more than to slip into a sari and ride a rickshaw through the incredible heat of early summer in Dhaka.
Most of the last 9 months has been spent in New Orleans where I am pursuing a Masters degree in Public Health. It is wonderful to be here. Most of the students in my program have lived overseas, and it's fun to hear of their experiences and compare the solutions they have been taught to what I learned in Bangladesh. The academic coursework confirms things I know, explores consequences I haven't considered and challenges me in new directions. With an emphasis in Monitoring and Evaluation and Reproductive Health, I'm learning how to find the people that need the most help, how to help them improve their situations, and how to measure the program's successes and difficulties. I'm learning to use computers to find the most probable ways to help people and make the most use of the resources that are available. It's hard, but a nifty kind of hard that is gratifying even as it is challenging.
New Orleans is a fascinating place to be, even aside from school. The city is a study in contradictions. The spontaneous Sunday marching band parades, the epitome of the exuberant New Orleanian spirit, pass in front of abandoned collapsing houses whose owners couldn't return after The Storm. The conservative Presbyterians fill the rows of the church in their Sunday Best - yellow sport coats with red shoes, or purple hats. The lady behind me in choir complains about the black people in the city, yet lives in one of the most integrated, mixed income neighborhoods in America. The middle aged couple dancing at a free concert which plays in one park or another every week might sit down next to me and tell me how they are quite sure the concrete in their neighborhood is poisoned (from the standing water post-Katrina)because the frogs and mosquitoes no longer bred in the basins. Hedonistic tourists flock to the French quarter for Mardi Gras, but in residential areas the floats, toys and neighborhood barbecues are community affairs the whole family enjoys together. There is so much energy, and so much depression; so much suspicion of outsiders and so much hospitality; so much sun and so much rain.
"This pound cake recipe usually calls for 4 sticks of butter, but with my high cholesterol, I've modified it to 3 sticks of butter and one stick of oleo." Miss Marigny is one of the leading matrons of her neighborhood, and one of the ladies I got to interview for my job. I am currently working with a group that collects family recipes in Faugburg Treme, the first neighborhood in America where black people owned land. In the 1950's it was a cultural hot spot, teeming with
jazz musicians and cooks who entertained tourists in the fashionable French Quarter. Since then it has fallen on hard times. Poverty and gang fighting are problems that trouble the neighborhood and the families who live there. Post-Katrina, whole blocks are still deserted, while the remaining families are still chasing down federal "Road home" money. My team and I have been interviewing older women, compiling a cook book of traditional Treme foods, working with a nutritionist to make them more healthy, and holding cooking demonstrations to revive interest in traditional "slow foods." We hope that one day these women can generate both income and community pride by catering their oyster and artichoke soup, bell pepper casserole, pound cake and gumbo.
This semester is almost done, and by mid-May I will be half way to completing my Masters degree. I am still looking for summer opportunities. I need an 8 to 12 week practical experience for my degree, and I hope to find it in a summer job internationally, or else a volunteer position in Thailand. I have one semester left, and in December I will graduate from this program; I already dread learning the sentiment behind the line "Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans," but at the same time I can't wait to implement the things I've learned in ways that will make a difference.
I've been back in America for about 9 months. I no longer gasp with amazement at the enormous open freeways, cry in frustration at the complications of trying to cook a pot of spaghetti, or delight in the feeling of wind on my knees while I walk down the sidewalk in a skirt. The hard months of culture shock have mostly passed, though I still marvel at the luxury of an enormous grocery, relish the privilege of visits with my siblings, and sometimes the pictures of Bangladesh that hang on my walls make me tear up, wanting nothing more than to slip into a sari and ride a rickshaw through the incredible heat of early summer in Dhaka.
Most of the last 9 months has been spent in New Orleans where I am pursuing a Masters degree in Public Health. It is wonderful to be here. Most of the students in my program have lived overseas, and it's fun to hear of their experiences and compare the solutions they have been taught to what I learned in Bangladesh. The academic coursework confirms things I know, explores consequences I haven't considered and challenges me in new directions. With an emphasis in Monitoring and Evaluation and Reproductive Health, I'm learning how to find the people that need the most help, how to help them improve their situations, and how to measure the program's successes and difficulties. I'm learning to use computers to find the most probable ways to help people and make the most use of the resources that are available. It's hard, but a nifty kind of hard that is gratifying even as it is challenging.
New Orleans is a fascinating place to be, even aside from school. The city is a study in contradictions. The spontaneous Sunday marching band parades, the epitome of the exuberant New Orleanian spirit, pass in front of abandoned collapsing houses whose owners couldn't return after The Storm. The conservative Presbyterians fill the rows of the church in their Sunday Best - yellow sport coats with red shoes, or purple hats. The lady behind me in choir complains about the black people in the city, yet lives in one of the most integrated, mixed income neighborhoods in America. The middle aged couple dancing at a free concert which plays in one park or another every week might sit down next to me and tell me how they are quite sure the concrete in their neighborhood is poisoned (from the standing water post-Katrina)because the frogs and mosquitoes no longer bred in the basins. Hedonistic tourists flock to the French quarter for Mardi Gras, but in residential areas the floats, toys and neighborhood barbecues are community affairs the whole family enjoys together. There is so much energy, and so much depression; so much suspicion of outsiders and so much hospitality; so much sun and so much rain.
"This pound cake recipe usually calls for 4 sticks of butter, but with my high cholesterol, I've modified it to 3 sticks of butter and one stick of oleo." Miss Marigny is one of the leading matrons of her neighborhood, and one of the ladies I got to interview for my job. I am currently working with a group that collects family recipes in Faugburg Treme, the first neighborhood in America where black people owned land. In the 1950's it was a cultural hot spot, teeming with
jazz musicians and cooks who entertained tourists in the fashionable French Quarter. Since then it has fallen on hard times. Poverty and gang fighting are problems that trouble the neighborhood and the families who live there. Post-Katrina, whole blocks are still deserted, while the remaining families are still chasing down federal "Road home" money. My team and I have been interviewing older women, compiling a cook book of traditional Treme foods, working with a nutritionist to make them more healthy, and holding cooking demonstrations to revive interest in traditional "slow foods." We hope that one day these women can generate both income and community pride by catering their oyster and artichoke soup, bell pepper casserole, pound cake and gumbo.
This semester is almost done, and by mid-May I will be half way to completing my Masters degree. I am still looking for summer opportunities. I need an 8 to 12 week practical experience for my degree, and I hope to find it in a summer job internationally, or else a volunteer position in Thailand. I have one semester left, and in December I will graduate from this program; I already dread learning the sentiment behind the line "Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans," but at the same time I can't wait to implement the things I've learned in ways that will make a difference.
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