Dulac Trip

Compared to others in the community I had not done a lot of volunteering.  Yes, I have donated to charity, coached a season or two and volunteered to help move people and participated in community clean ups, but often this role was played by others in my family.  So, when my step son needed chaperones to drive him and 21 of his fellow students from Amherst MA to Dulac LA (24 hours of driving each way) over winter break week, I though this act a way to make up for lost time.

Pre trip

In addition to driving a 15 person bus, I was appointed financier of the Amherst Relief Coalition.  One cold night at the bankers house in the woods, I was given last years’ remainder funds,“ I hope you don’t mind getting this in cash.”  It was a wad.  Few brief thoughts of embezzlement to pay for our startup business, but next day I opened the bank account and made several deposits that week.  The day before, we picked up vans from Marcotte Ford and parked them heading uphill.   

Day 1-Saturday

We woke at 5 am to 3 inches of snow.  The 15 person van nearly spun out heading up the hill from our house.  Shalini made it up with the ford flex, but Ankrish had to run down the hill for his phone charger.  He packed last minute and forgot pillow among other things.  Surprisingly we got there by the 6:30 am appointed time to parents in a snowy parking lot wondering why they were sending their kids off in a van with a scraggly bearded man with a red knit hat.

After stuffing the vans with luggage, sleeping  bags and junk food, we headed off at 7:00 am  South we headed, MA, CT,  NJ, NY, and PA.  We ate lunch in the van at noon and gassed in Hershey PA.  The we drove through Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia.  We hugged the blue mountains to our left, and to our dismay it was snowing with it accumulating on the highway in the hills!!!   One accident on the road led to a little white knuckling, since southern drivers are inexperienced and we had no snow tires.

Entertainment

There was a constant rotation of music being played through the car stereo system.  It ranged from Taylor Swift to Raps about young people who were  “supposed to being going out” and getting drunk and high.  The really offensive misogynist raps were eliminated from the front speaker systems by Shalini.  There was a lot of tweeting going on--and discussions of how to respond to tweets.  One student from their high school tweeted that all the group was doing was going on a vacation with no or little service work.  This made the van group incensed.  After much debate, the appropriate response tweets were made. In addition, much time was also spent by the students playing Social games with smart phones connected over 3g networks were also popular.  Ironically they were sitting next to each other.

Pay it forward

In Hollis VA, while waiting for the other van we had a nice walk on an adjacent campus.  The students were able to get rid of some of their excess music.

Based on previous years’ recommendations we ate at the Hollis Hollywood Restaurant.  I was a little wired from the hypnosis of the road and felt spacy in the restaurant.  Part way through dinner—while sitting at the bar (but not drinking) with Shalini and Patrick (another Chaparone)  we were asked by the owner ask what our group (meaning the groups of high school students) was up to;  she mentioned  a couple in the corner was curious. Being checked out by the locals I mused. After explaining we were the Amherst relief coalition going to Dulac La to help with rebuilding projects, I found myself talking with the couple who were offering to buy all 28 of us dinner.  This was even after they learned our third van of 13 had not arrived yet.  They left their credit card with the restaurant.

Wow.  This unexpected generosity made everyone feel great.  I never realized that others would be so positive to our efforts.  We were caught up in some sort of a pay it forward cycle, where our generosity was being returned to us.

More yarn and a place to sleep.

After dinner the girls needed to get more supplies for the Girls’ and Gus’s knitting projects.  Not sure if I was safe with all the needles in the back.   The rest in the back were working on their spitting (raps).  I was working on mine.

Driving a bus, with a knitter named Gus

Girls in in the back don’t have the knack
They can’t get the flow -- down the road we go
Heading for the bayou, what up with the snow?
Knitters and spitters,  tronic twitters,
Yeah I got the wheel --but not a quitter
Drive on, drive on

We made it to Rural Retreat Virginia to the First Methodist Church about 10:30 pm.  It was snowing when we arrived and I made it up to upstairs where the adults were sleeping and soon was asleep.  After having been on the road for over 15 hours including breaks, I was ready for sleep and was fortunate to get some shut eye.  One chaperone was a snorer.

Day 2-Sunday

 

It was snowing when we woke up.  Quickly, everyone broke camp and we were on our way by 6 am.  The two and half hour drive to an I Hop.  All went well until the music volume contributed to me missing the exit.  Only a 5 minute delay before we joined the other vans for omelets and pancakes.

 

Our next state was Tennessee, and then on to Alabama.  We stopped around 1 and went to a Walmart.  With my beard and flannel shirt I fit right in.  The woman at the deli was friendly and offered me a free chicken drumstick as a sampler.  I was talking with her and some old boy, who was picking up lunch for his wife and his 3 children, joined the conversation.  I decided to take a meal of fried chicken and potato wedges.  My new friend gave me three times the amount of chicken and a 50 cent discount for a $3.50 total. 

The rest of the day was long. We crossed through Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and finally Louisiana.   I bought a Swamp People hat at the gas station in Sidel.  We voted to skip dinner with the other two vans who had stopped.  We then took the lead, crossed lake ponchartrain, past new Orleans, and through the bayous to the Dulac community center.   We ate left over truck food, and then made our way to the bunks.  Afterwards,  I told everyone to cease talking a go to bed at 11:30.

Day 3-Monday

 

I woke up early for a jog with other morning joggers.   The sunrise by the bayou was inspiring.  Houses on 11 foot high stilts, “bumba” shrimp boats parked on the docks.  Then the dogs came out in force and started chasing us.  One brown baby rottweiler was particularly annoying.  I ended up kicking it in the head when it was going for my ankles.  We changed our route after that.

We were assigned to helping women Barbara in Houma by installing wood panel up on her ceiling of her mobile home.  On the 40 minute drive there we saw grave yards above ground, a smoke and gas shop, magic cash casinos and gas station, a jail, and bail bonds shops.

 

The smartest thing I did as project overseer was making sure a 16 year old, whose Dad was a contractor, was on our team.  Without clear instructions, we started taking down the foam ceiling, but realized we needed to put the wood on top of it.  We bought duct tape to repair the celling.  Then we started putting up the panels up by nailing it into the ceiling along the wooden studs.  This was laborious, and not working out.

We called up the Dulac organizers and got a nail gun.  Only adults could use it—so I had job security. We started figuring out what we needed to and were beginning to make progress.  The kids really took ownership of the project.  They were measuring and cutting boards, quite carefully.

Dinner was cooked at the community center by Bosco, who was a very talented chef. He  made  fantastic red beans and rice.  The secret to good cooking is taking time.  His beans cooked for 5 hours.  Shalini tried hard to get the recipe from him to no avail. 

After talking with him we found that the 4 foot eleven inch cook has produced a cooking show, gets invited up to the Minnesota Cajun festival for playing spoons on a wash board as well as for cooking.  He also was a stand-up comedian--he picks on people taller than him. 

 Day 4-Tuesday

After morning activities of Jogging and eating frozen waffles, we returned to Barabara’s house and continued with our ceiling work.  The work was going much better with the nail gun!   A few measuring crises, but we started to make progress.

Having been inundated to the rap music during the trip, I wrote a rap (or some strange form of poetry) for my (and now your) amusement.

Down here in the Bayou, with a trigger and gun

Crew is working hard, yet they’re having fun
Scales for measuring, no time for leisuring
Snapping, powering, the tools are empowering
Time for rejoicing, together we are hoisting
And then I nail it, nail it, nail it with my gun.

 

Cajun food cooked well is a treat and today was a great eating day.  Barbara wanted to feed us to pay us for our hard work.    Crawfish soup and ham. 

 

Tonight Bosco made dirty rice (spicy rice with sausage) covered with beans—seems like I am using my flexitarian eating edict more than usual down here.

Later that night, Patrick the Chaperone hosted a cheese party.  We sampled four different varieties of cheeses.  This kids love it as did I.  Amazed I have room after all I ate earlier that day.

 

Day 5-Wed

Everyone was slow getting up, so I jogged solo today.

Wednesday people were a little worn down as we continued to work on Barbara’s house.  The project was expanded to building a half wall for the kitchen, putting in base boards, and putting strips of wood on ceiling to hide the seams. 

Barbara made us a meal.  As I was told, people down here love to feed people.

Our crew was left with many tools, but not many instructions.  We struggled with miter cutting corners for crown molding.     

Back at the Dulac Community Center,  Shalini had been doing some painting (her first time—which she later demonstrated), and organized and ran a store full of donated clothing.

Dinner was out at Nancy’s Seafood shack in Houma.  Patrick bought a round of gaiter bites as an appetizer.  Spicy, chewy chicken like meat—Not bad.   For dinner Damon (chaperone) ate two pounds of crawfish (minus what he generously shared with others).  Everyone got something they liked.

 

Day 6 -  Thursday

This was to be our last day of work.    Back at Baraba’s with a saw with a guide, the kids quickly made strips.  After figuring out a few gun malfunctions, we finished the molding and started putting up the seam strips.  Patrick left with the Girls in morning for a Swamp tour.  The guys and I finished off the place and were rewarded to a great lunch of barbeque chicken, baked beans, and corn bread.

 

We made it back to Dulac and then were able to take the last swamp tour—a boat ride from the end of the caillou in the channels of reeds.  A local fisherman at 4-point took 6 people at a time in his fishing boat.  A fun, fast ride through the channels.  There were some houses (fishing camps) only accessible by boat.  Several Pelicans—both brown and white.  Early in the day, some groups saw Dolphin.  Very peaceful out there—the wind blowing as we whizzed over the water felt refreshing and cleansing.

Captain Howie had caught some speckled trout earlier that day and invited us for dinner.  Dave (chaperon who arranged the trips) said we had dinner cooked for us, but invited him to dinner back at the community center.  Captain Howie agreed and brought his fish he had fried up nicely.

Prior to dinner, Shalini had arranged for the Chief of the Houma tribe to join us for dinner along with John (Head of the Dulac Center and a Houma councilman).  This was an interesting event.   As Shalini had noted, “I never met a real live Chief before.”  The chief (an elected position) was responsible for the 17,000 Houma Indians in the area.  He has been struggling trying to get recognition for the tribe by the US government.  (We later learned that the reason they had not been historically recognized was because they had not fought with the US).  Much of his talk was about the political struggle (The kids were tired and bored.  They also were rudely playing with their phones—a lack of maturity).  Those of us who were listening learned that they have a very sophisticated Hurricane warning system in place.   Also, historically their tribe had been set up as a matriarchy.  Their language is a blend of their traditional language and French.  This was also distinct from Cajun French.

 

Following dinner, we held a talent show in the gymnasium.  There was singing, dancing, and rapping.  It was a fun evening.  As Ironic G, I gave my rap.  Other than messing up the first line and starting over, I got through it.  Our van group sang the song “this van is on fire” substituting in our lyrics (not particularly well received).  The real show was Shalini who brought the audience up on their feet with a rendition of the power of love.  The kids ended the night by all dancing on the stage to DJed music.

Back in the community center, everyone wore marti gras beads (given to us by Barbara) and participated in the making of a Harlem Shake.

Day 7 –Friday

Today people got to sleep in—however Shalini woke me up early thinking it was my birthday (a day early).  She miscalculated since she was off electronics for most of the time.  The night before it had rained, but lightened up for the packing of the vans.  We took some last snaps and then were off to New Orleans. 

We had lunch in the Garden District and Checked in at the Annunciation Mission. 

 

Then we made our way to the French Quarter.  We made stops at Café Dumont, Jackson Square, a voodoo shop and quick trip down Bourbon street.  It was had just turned dark and was tough keeping track of our sub group.  An early dinner at restaurant at Chartes and St. Lous.

Much confusion on what different groups of people wanted to do.  Many wanted to walk around, which was very difficult to chaperone.  Others wanted to shop.  Shalini and I elected to take a small group of students to  the Perservation Hall Jazz concert for the 9 oclock show.  Sitting front row on the floor, we had a very intimate musical experience.  The Jazz  instruments together seemed like waves crashing on the shore at different intervals.

Day 8 – Saturday

That night I did not get to sleep until 4.  There were a bunch of college students also staying at the mission who were making a lot of noise running around.  One dream from 4 to 6:30.  I was pissed off at the students, and a little worried about the drive ahead.  A lot of coffee.  Shalini gave me a birthday card, also signed by some of the students, and some clothes she had purchased from her store in Dulac.

Louisianna, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennesse, Virginia.  Two and half hours away from Rural Retreat, we stopped at a place that was a 4 star country cooking dinner.  They advertized, bone sucking good ribs.  I had the chicken, the world’s best mac and cheese, green beans and a roll.  Shalini brought me a piece of spice cake with a candle.  Good meal.  But definitely could not eat like this every night.

Patrick took two girls for pizza which caused some delay and drama about who was going to ride in what van.  Everyone was getting tired.  Interestingly, the drama kept me awake for the last leg that day.

Day 9 – Sunday

We drove off at 5:50 am.   In Virginia after 2 hours of driving we stopped at McDonalds, and then 2 minutes later at waffle house to meet up with Patrick’s van.  This left us behind the other vans the rest of the way.  Then we drove through West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.  Back at the Amherst High School parking lot by 6:30.   Some drama arranging van drop off, but it was over.  We were home safe.