Final Project Example 1

Phoebe Mellen

Spring Break 2009

New Orleans Seminar

Final Project

A Series of Reflections

The Sun Over the Levee

The sun setting on the levee, the cause of so much turmoil and fear,

A sun setting on a time of destruction and pain that will mark the history of New Orleans forever.

A sun setting on the days of Katrina.  Katrina left scars on the hearts of New Orleans inhabitants. However, the sun is setting on the tragedy and with each day, Katrina becomes more a piece of history than a problem of the present. With each house gutted, each house painted, each life restarted, people have begun to close this chapter and start anew.

A sun setting on a time of confusion, homelessness and wandering. As people trickle back to their homes in New Orleans, the sun sets on their days of evacuation and wandering. Families are reunited where they once flourished, reunited from being scattered across the country. The days of homelessness and dislocation are beginning to come to an end.  

This day is ending and the city rests peacefully in wait of a new day.

The sun rising above the levee,

The sun rising over New Orleans, conquering the pain that the levees brought. A sun is rising on a new day and new life. With each sunrise comes a new opportunity to rebuild, a new day for a family to return and another step closer to restoring New Orleans.

The sun rising and shining through the anguish.  The beams reflect the unity that kept New Orleans together in the wake of the storm.  The Jazz music, the Cajun culture, the love of the Big Easy that keeps the heartbeat of New Orleans alive.  Even the levees could not keep another day from coming. Even the levees cannot restrain the city from living again.

A new day dawns and new growth abounds. The sun rises on a hopeful city.

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

During the short time I spent in New Orleans, I was able to experience a great amount of the culture.  I feel grateful to have been able to fully participate in many aspects of the city’s customs, from the food, to the jazz music, to the dancing. From the second I got to New Orleans, the radio was abuzz with jazz music. The street corners, the cafes, and the clubs all were alive with local music.  I began to see the music as the heartbeat of the city, pumping life into all that listened and renewing the spirits of a devastated city.

Jazz was abundant in New Orleans before Katrina.  It was the hallmark of the city.  Even after the storm, the jazz is still everywhere, from the street corners, to the jazz clubs, and in the hearts of the citizens.  While Katrina may have wiped out neighborhoods and broken families apart, the music lives on.  The music lives not only in New Orleans, but also in the hearts of the displaced citizens, scattered all the way to the  far corners of the country.  The jazz is something that Katrina could not extinguish. To me, it embodies the hope for a prosperous future of the city.

Hearing the jazz music inspired me.  It reassured me that the city would not be destroyed by this tragedy, but it would strengthen and prosper once again.  Seeing the couples dancing and hearing the performers play opened my eyes to the true New Orleans- the New Orleans I hear people rave about.  The performers poured their hearts into their music for the audience to enjoy.  The dancers seemed carefree as they took advantage of the tunes and spun around the dance floor.  The music gave me the chance to see first hand the love people have for the city and for the culture, and the love that keeps New Orleans alive.

It is the music that washes away the dust of Katrina. It is the music that draws people back to New Orleans and that kept people strong and hopeful during the beginning of rebuilding. It is the music and zest of New Orleans that keeps people strong as they rummage through the rubble that is left of their homes and begin again from scratch.  The notes seem to connect the various walks of life in the city under one tune and works as a thread to keep the city united.  Ultimately, it is the music that reassures me that New Orleans will not be restrained, it will grow and live again.

There are few things pure in this world anymore, and home is one of the few.

We'd have a drink outside, maybe run and hide if we saw a couple men in blue.

To me it's so damn easy to see that true people are the people at home.

Well, I've been away but now I'm back today, and there ain’t a place I'd rather go. –O.A.R.

Home is where the heart is.  There’s no place like home… There’s no place like home.  Home is not the place, it’s the people.  Many people have tried to capture the idea of home into words.  To me, nothing can do home justice.  Home is a place. A place where I am most comfortable. A place where I have grown and changed. The place where I feel the most myself.  But home is also more than a place, it’s the people.  Home is my family, those who support me and love me.  Home is my friends. Home is the jokes we share, the memories we have of growing up, the good times and the hard times.  Home makes me who I am.

            Hurricane Katrina left the homes of thousands in ruin.  Upon walking into the lower ninth ward, I did not know how to react because it did not look like a neighborhood. Prior to going to New Orleans, I had heard so much about the Lower ninth ward, but I was surprised at what I found.  I found nothing. No homes, no people. Just grassy fields. Most of the houses had been cleaned up and some were beginning to be rebuilt.  The emptiness made the reality difficult for me to grasp.  Seeing the x’s marking the dead and the houses boarded up and abandoned in the Upper Ninth ward was easy for me to comprehend. The hard evidence was there which I was unable to refute. On the other hand, the emptiness was hard for me to understand.  The nothingness left me puzzled, as I could not imagine a neighborhood in this barren place.  There seemed to be no trace of life there, making question if there ever was.

Walking up and down the streets opened my eyes to the reality as I looked more closely into the emptiness. The stoops and remains of doorframes that lined the streets were the only reminder of the neighborhood that once stood. The remaining steps of a family’s home peeked out of the tall grasses and wild bushes and left me wondering where they were now. The twisted metal of doorframes and the foundation of porches were the only traces left of children playing in the street and the place that so many people called home. The fond memories of what I call come came flooding back to me and I wondered how I would cope if I lost it all.

Since senor year of high school, I have associated this quote by OAR with my home. I used to listen to it in high school with my best friends and to this day every time I hear it, I think of my memories with them and how much they mean to me.  I have no particular love for Philadelphia, but it is the friends and memories I have made along the way that keep me rooted there. The juxtoposition of this quote and the picture evokes many different emotions from within me.  While I think about the fond memories I have from home, I reflect on the broken home and lost memories of someone else. The quote reminds me of times of happiness but the picture overwhelms me with sadness. My goal was two directly compare the two feelings by placing them side by side; the happiness of home and the sadness of the destruction. 

It is this idea of home that made me feel so accomplished over my week in New Orleans.  I was able to bring someone’s home back to him.  The tiring work of scraping and painting restored the dignity of Leo and Gloria’s home.  With each scrape, I scraped away the pain of the hurricane and the reminders of their suffering.  With the strokes of my paintbrush, I was able to rebuild someone’s home and change someone’s life.  It is in that that I feel most accomplished.

We don’t know who we are until we see what we can do.

When I applied for the New Orleans Seminar, I never thought I would get in.  I figured tons of people applied, and nothing would make my application stand out above the rest.  When I received my acceptance, I was overwhelmed by surprise and excitement.  I have always wanted to go to New Orleans to help in the Hurricane relief effort and this seminar seemed like a great chance to do so.  As it turns out, not only was it a chance to go to New Orleans, but it also came at the perfect time.

Originally, I thought the only reason I was going to New Orleans was to do service for the city.  Little did I know, I was in for a lot more than I bargained. I left with much more than just the paint splatters on my sneakers; the trip was a profound growing experience for me.  While my friends were all in Miami on spring break, I was with thirteen strangers in an unknown city tediously scraping paint, and I would not have wanted it any other way.  The trip reaffirmed my confidence as an individual, and refocused my ideas for my future.  I finally saw what I am capable of doing and found what makes me feel fulfilled.

I applied to the seminar alone and was a little apprehensive about spending a whole week outside of my comfort zone.  But in getting to know the 13 unique personalities in our group, I learned a lot about myself.  I remember Jeff saying that he was a little uncomfortable doing a home stay, and that’s the exact reason why he wanted to do one.  You learn things by pushing yourself.  I feel like I became a more confident person over the course of the week. I became more confident in expressing my feelings about the Hurricane disaster and presenting my knowledge about the political issues.  I felt like I was able to hold my own in academic discussions going on and also hold my own at the top of a ladder scraping bits of paint for hours on end.  I was confident in learning a new type of dance and discussing the disaster with my home stay family and other people I came into contact with.  I made thirteen new friends and countless memories.  Over the course of a week, I feel like I grew more than I had in the past year.

By evaluating what I have done in the past and what I can do in the future, I have come to better know myself. Talking to Eileen and Valerie made me reevaluate the plans I had for my future.  Eileen is exploring service options after college and Valerie is looking to continue on to medical school. Ultimately, I hope to go to medical school after college like Val, but our discussions made me consider pursuing service first.   Now may be the only chance I will have to be young, to travel around, and to spend a year or so doing service and once again push myself outside of my comfort zone. From painting Leo’s house, to seeing the community organizing work in Broadmoor, I have seen what I am capable of.  I have seen what I can do physically with a paintbrush and the opportunities I can seize to help intellectually. 

My experiences in New Orleans have opened a new chapter in my life have refocused the lens of my future.  The experiences I have had and the people I have met I will take with me beyond this seminar and beyond Notre Dame.