Nawlins, Crawfish and the Elderly

Its almost been a whole month now since I left for New Orleans and returned a week later. I wanted to still update my blog about our trip though because I LOVED it and wanted you all to experience it with me, to the degree that you can by seeing photos and reading stories.

Our schedule looked like this: We drove for 2 days to get to New Orleans, had 5 days in New Orleans, and drove 2 days back. Of the 5 days that we were there, we all had work projects we went to on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Wednesday was our free day where we all could go explore New Orleans during the day time.

There were around 120 of us, and there were around 5 (or 6) work projects. Some were construction projects, light-bulb replacement projects, homeless shelter help, and the elderly daycare. Myself and Jamie (another woman on staff here at PSU) led the elderly daycare project.

Meet Jamie! I love her : ) and really enjoyed getting to know her better this week.



We went to a place called the Kingsley House. The Kingsley House has many different "departments" of their organization, one of which is the elderly daycare. There are around 50-60 elderly that arrive at 9am and get picked up by their caretakers around 2pm, every Monday-Friday.

Check them out at: http://www.kingsleyhouse.org/

Jamie and I were under the impression that it was an elderly home and that we would be able to have the 20 students that were on this project go and visit them in their rooms, look through their photos, talk with them one-on-one, etc. It definitely threw us for a loop when we found out it was a daycare and that all 50-60 of the elderly sit at 4 long tables in ONE large room, ALL DAY, ALL TOGETHER. We hadn't planned activities with enough materials that all 50 or so of them could participate in at the same time. We brought coloring books, paints, nail polish to do manicures, and other small activities to do with the elderly in their rooms if they wanted it, but definitely not enough to do a "mass" craft! Jamie and I just spent most of the first day laughing because we were so underprepared!!



Here's a photo of the whole room with the 4 tables. We put balloons on the chairs because we celebrated 4 birthdays on Thursday!

We ended up playing a LOT of BINGO. They loved BINGO. Although the students were way bored with it, they knew they were serving the elderly by participating in playing and acting interested. Ha! They are intense about their BINGO - just check out this electronic board they have!



We also played Nutrition BINGO one day!





We would give out prizes to whoever won BINGO - they LOVED their prizes! Some got necklaces, candy, peanuts, jewelry, medallions...If they won, they would make SURE we knew they deserved a prize! Ha! Here's some prize winners...

Virginia won bunny ears! She told us to call her "big mouth" because she's "always starting trouble"...haha. She was very boisterous and fun.



We also gave out leis!



After day one, thankfully, Jamie and I were able to run to the dollar store that was near where we were staying and purchase a bag full of crafts and fun things to do with them as a large group. Throughout the week, we ended up doing live music (some girls sang and played piano), we put on a talent show for them, had a couple dance parties (they REALLY LOVE DANCING and were very good considering their age!!), did crafts, gave the women manicures and hand massages, did exercises with them, shared some of the student's testimonies with them, played BINGO, and had a movie showing with popcorn.

Here are some photos from our dance parties:







Here are some other photos just from our time there doing crafts and manicures:











Some highlights of the week at the Kingsley House:

Each day we nominated a king and queen and "knighted" them to court. Before we would go to the house, the students would talk about and nominate a king and queen based on something they saw the day prior. One queen was picked because she was a great dancer, another king was picked because he dominated at a chess game, etc. We would give them the king's sword or the queen's tiara and scepter to hold on to all day! One day, the king actually SWIPED the sword and took it home with him (deliberately!), so Jamie and I had to make another run to the dollar store to replace it with another sword. Don't be fooled, these elderly are very VERY cunning and on top of their conniving game!

Meet some of the Kings and Queens!











Another highlight was watching the students love on the elderly all week and listen to their stories, even if they repeated THE SAME story 18 times in a row (literally, that happened). The students would hold their hands, ask questions, share stories, listen to them and joke with them, dance with them, etc. I think it really touched our hearts far more than it touched theirs. We had so many great laughs throughout the week and fun stories to share with the rest of our group in the evenings. I LOVED IT!!! I definitely left a piece of my heart in New Orleans with them.





Rita! One highlight of my week was Rita. Although she couldn't talk and couldn't feed herself and could only occasionally open one eye, she really left an impression on me. I'm not sure if it was her gold earrings that she wore each day or the fact that she graciously would open her mouth every time I would put food near it...I just really enjoyed sitting with her, and would make sure that I got to be the one to feed her her snack each day : )

Meet Rita : )





Jimmy. No one, NO ONE, who went to the Kingsley House could forget our dear friend JIMMY!!! Jimmy is 72 (72!!!), barely reaches to my shoulder in height, and would constantly dance - and when I say constantly I mean it! He danced and danced all day. Even when it was silent in the room and someone would be sharing a testimony, Jimmy would get up from his table and dance in the corner alone. I loved it! He was so alive and vibrant for his age - and a lot of our students tried to mimic his dance moves, which we labeled, "The Jimmy". When we had our dance party, Jimmy was the one teaching the guys how to do some dance moves! I miss him already!

Meet Jimmy!





Jimmy liked the ladies and frequently called them "girlfriends"...



Here he is teaching some of our guys how to dance!



Each morning the elderly would do devotions! Different women and men would get up and read out loud a chapter of scripture from the Bible or would sing a hymn that everyone would sing along with. It was incredible to see that most of the elderly had a relationship with God and loved praising Him, even after all these years and the devastation of a hurricane.

As for other things during the week, I got to have a lot of great conversations with some of the girls on the trip. I met a few new girls that I hadn't known before, and got to have some great talks with some of the girls in my Bible study that came on the trip. One of my favorite nights was when the students were working on a Bible study and then breaking into groups to discuss it, and we had our usual staff meeting during that Bible study - but this one night we relocated our staff meeting to a cafe and had a delicious dessert called "binyays"...I have no idea how to spell it but that is how you say it. And they are basically like funnel cakes with powdered sugar and you dip them in COFFEE! It was really good and was fun to go down to the French Quarter as a staff team and leave the students behind (haha)...all the students were like, "What?? Where are they going??" And we just told them to keep working on their studies : ) When we returned, the students were still in their groups discussing the studies - our students are so responsible!

Here is the cafe:



Here's some photos of me with my Bible study girls!







Some other photos of the harbor and my time on our free day:













I must make a little section dedicated to the food. Dad, I'm sure you're wondering what I ate : ) I took a photo of one of the night's meals - it was a Red Fish...really delicious!



The other nights they would cater in food for our dinners that were reflective of New Orleans' tastes. Red beans and rice, cajun chicken, meat pies, green beans, pasta... it was really good.

In regards to the destruction and devastation of the city, I got to go and see the 9th Ward, which was totally destroyed. However, it was so cleaned up, that you could barely tell there were houses there at one point! Apparently Brad Pitt is behind a project to build new houses there (I think 12?) and he is donating them to families in need through an application process - solar roofs, energy saving features, high off the ground...it seemed pretty cool and they look really modern. You could tell that the people had definitely been affected by the hurricane though and that many families are still dealing with the trauma of the event and having to completely start their lives over again. It made me thankful for the physical items I have in my life - I can't imagine having to replace EVERY thing you have owned. Just even thinking about how much it would cost if ever I were to lose my suitcase and have to replace that small amount of clothes and toiletries...That is NOTHING compared to what these people had to replace with ALL their clothes, appliances, HOMES! It was an eye-opening experience to say the least.

Let's see. What else. OH yes. I hurt my toe! On the night that the staff team walked down the French Quarter for the desserts at the cafe, I somehow missed this massive "no pedestrian" sign and walked right into these metal (painful) teeth that are put in place to pop tires in the event that a car tries to leave the parking lot without paying...Well, let me tell you, that if your toe hits one of these (and for those of you who know, it is THE toe that had the infection from my pedicure...ugh) it will gush blood. I was bleeding so much that two of the guys on our staff team had to run to get paper towels and the other guy ran to a CVS that was on the corner (thank God!) and bought neosporin and bandaids. It has healed up nicely, but it was quite the ordeal and I had to laugh and take photos because I apparently didn't see the caution : )





Yikes!

I hope this update gives you a small glimpse into what we experienced. I am so thankful for the opportunity to get to go to New Orleans and experience a different culture and some incredible people.