I really have no idea how to start this blog entry because so much happened in the mere seven days since I arrived in the Crescent City. Finding a certain event to pinpoint and analyze just doesn’t do the experience of being in New Orleans justice. But if I had to choose one thing that unequivocally represents what the city has shown me is the resilience of the population. Not even one of the worst natural disasters in United States history could defeat the folks that I have met. They still dance and sing the jazz of years past as if nothing had ever changed. I remember something I wrote in my essay to get into the DukeEngage program.
“What attracts me to NOLA are the multitude of cultural influences found in the food, the music, the art, and especially, the personality of its population. Although the population was greatly diminished after Hurricane Katrina, the people’s desire to rebuild and their hope in a better future speak volumes on the strength of the city’s spirit.”
Three years later and after just one week embracing everything the city has to offer from dancing the night away with New Orleans natives at the New Orleans Museum of Art to tripping on the cobbled streets of Bourbon Street to preparing pralines with Anne at the Louisiana Culinary School, those two sentences epitomize my feelings about the people I’ve met. They are the type of people who see the glass as half full (with the possibility of the glass magically filling itself to the brim).
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