Down the Bayou

This past Saturday, the New Orleans YAV community drove down to Bayou Blue for our monthly community service day. Colleen had organized us to help out some families in her church community who needed assistance around the house. We started out at the Beavers' house where they were working on transforming the back house into livable quarters so their grandson could move into the main house. We were expecting to help with the construction but ended up mostly talking to Irene and keeping her company. She is a lovely and spunky 83 year old woman who made us all laugh.

She started out by giving us a grand tour of her house, pointing out all the woodwork that her husband had made. It was quite impressive - desks to tables to chairs - all made by hand! She also had the original gas lamps from the church before they had electricity. Her house was full of cool antiques and history including a beautiful cuckoo clock from Germany, cast iron banks and old photos. I loved hearing her stories, her family history and her triumph over cancer not once, but twice.

Shameless selfie with Irene and Alex

Anna Leigh in her construction zone helping measure the wood to be cut

Lining up the wood ceiling panel to be nailed in

Me on a ladder looking busy and important

After a quick lunch, we headed over to help Shirley, who is confined to a wheelchair and needed help picking fruit off her orange and kumquat trees. When I arrived at her house, we spent the first hour just talking. She told us about her family showing us countless pictures, gave us a tour of her house pointing out all her Mardi Gras decorations and finally took us out back where she has 15 orange trees and 2 kumquat trees.

Mardi Gras decorations! This was just the fireplace...

Orange trees!

Unfortunately much of the fruit had froze due to the cold front that had come through the previous week so many of the oranges needed to be picked and disposed of. Louisiana is not accustomed to cold temperatures let alone those below freezing so both people and nature were shocked by the cold. It was interesting when Shirley was telling us about how each tree produces a different kind of orange. Some were sweet and others were more tangy or sour. Some of the sweeter oranges had a thicker skin which had protected them from the cold so we picked those and ate them right off the tree. Delicious.

Alex and Sydney disposing of the oranges that died during the freeze. Looks like Alex got a slam dunk!

Cool gecko that found a patch of warm sun on an orange

Me eating an orange right off the tree. They were insanely delicious.

Now the best part of my day was after we filled up a container of oranges we went inside and got to juice them! I have never had orange juice more fresh. We juiced a few different types of oranges - Louisiana Sweet, Blood Orange and another type - and they all tasted drastically different. We all took turns using the juicer and tasting each of the different juices. Shirley was so happy to be sharing her oranges with us and sent us home with 6 plastic grocery bags full of them! Needless to say I have oranges for days.

Shirley showing us the ropes!

Me juicing the Louisiana Sweet oranges...notice more Mardi Gras decorations in the background!

I got the sense pretty quickly that our service day wasn't about hanging ceiling boards or picking oranges but more about being present and listening to both Irene and Shirley share their stories. They were both elated to have a group of young people that just wanted to sit and spend time with them. It is days like this that make me stop and appreciate the little things in life that bring SO much joy. I think we often take for granted how important it is to be listened to and stop what we're doing and just be. This is extremely difficult and doesn't make an interesting picture (like me squeezing oranges) or doesn't really make that great of a story (we just sat there and talked...the end?) but I could easily argue it is one of the most important things you can do. I left Bayou Blue full of joy and content with the day. 

Lesson from the Journey: Alex can (kind of) juggle!