New Orleans

Good morning everyone, today we are having the famous New Orleans breakfast with cafè au lait (mixed coffee and chicory) and beignet at Cafè du Monde! Buonissimo!!!

Did you know that Louisiana was originally French and that was purchased by the United States in 1803? The population is considered Creole, which indicates the mix between Europeans (mainly French and Spanish), Native Americans and Africans. To better understand how the society was organized over here we are now going to visit Laura’s Plantation (there are many of them around New Orleans, you can either go on an organized tour or by car, it takes between 40 and 80 minutes to reach one).

We are face to face with places, stories and people, that have seen despair, tortures, physical and psychological violence, in one word slavery. We are looking at these huge pieces of land, we are feeling the sun burning on our skin (and it is only May), and we cannot help thinking about these human beings obliged to work all day long in the fields under the sun for a cruel owner… how can a person own another fellow man, how can someone consider himself superior to another person, and worse to another race. I wish all of this could be in the past, but instead these are issues that in many different ways we are still facing today, because of ignorance, power and money. That is why it is important for us to always address, at least in our own small world, racist and unjust behaviors.

Back to Downtown, we are now going on a city tour, which will also bring us outside downtown in order to have a look at districts that have been restored after Hurricane Katrina. People had to leave the city for like 3/4 months…

And this is the dinner that eventually destroyed my stomac…