Past Couple of days

The past couple of days have been pretty busy around the church. Yesterday, my group and 2 other groups went to a meeting that is on Racism. The organization, I believe they are an organization, is called Eracism. The topic for the meeting was I New Orleans a Racist City? It was very interesting just hearing what people had to say. There was this one individuals who talked about how Africans feel like they are better than Blacks or African Americans. This individual also talked about how she has to always has to be second guessing her actions and how she would for at least one day, be white, particularly a while male. In just hearing these things I could see things that I was learning in my social theory course come into play. W.E.B DuBois talks about this idea that blacks have this double consciousness to them and alway have to be second guessing their actions. They have to try to think about if others are looking at them or treat them they way they do because they are black or because of something else. In addition, Fanon's idea of White masks/ Black skin comes into play as well in the sense that Africans have the need to try to conform to the American dream, or rather what is acceptable in the society they are trying to be apart of. In this case, they try to adopt the values and norms of the white society, even though they are still black. In doing so, they feel they are superior to the "African Americans" and put them out. After that meeting/discussion, we came back to the church and to clean up the church. That was pretty interesting because there was a wedding that took place in the church, so we could not use half of the church. We had to wait until the ceremony was finished to complete our task. I ended up taking out the trash and cleaning the trash containers with two friends that I have made Nerman (who is a female) and Danial. That was a pretty interesting experience because we could not find a hose, so we got water from the showers and when I came back Nerman found a hose. We cleaned the trash containers and we discovered that the hose was connected to a white hose and we tried to put them back together but we unsuccessful. Lets just say I got another shower that day. Finally, we put our Berkeley brains into gear and bended the hose, put the two hoses back together and solved the problem. After my group gathered to go to the Bayou Bigalloo (That is probably spelled wrong). It was pretty cool event. They all a lot of food stands and a huge stage. The musicians were awesome. We just hung out there, just enjoying each others presence. We left and tried to catch Pirates 3, but we could not because of curfew. I ended up watching the first Pirates movie, which was my present to a friend of mine.
Today was our free day and we visited the French Quarters. We walked around and ate lunch there. I got to eat alligator again and I will say, it was much chewier than the first time I ate it. After that we walked around for a bit and then went to the Famous Cafe Du Monde and had Beniers (that is probably spelled wrong as well). We got that and there was some confusion after that because we switched people because some of use wanted to go to the Parade and others wanted to go see Pirates. We went to go see pirates and as we waited in the theater, some went to get popcorn and drinks. As they waited, they saw the Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nigan. They got to take a picture with him and came back. The film was pretty good. Anyways, I have to get up early tomorrow. Until Next time.

Ebelio Mondragon