Our first official day in the city

Tomorrow we are going to start one of my favorite aspects of the trip, the community service.  Our first project is going to be helping aquatic wildlife, by planting in the man-made lake.  I feel like this is a very important project because it helps wildlife and the environment at the same time.  In a more general sense I am hoping that we will be able to work alongside New Orleaner’s; I feel like one of the most essential aspects of the trip is learning and understanding the flavorful New Orleans culture before and after Katrina.  I have learned that the best way to learn and understand a culture is to speak directly to the people who form the culture.  So I am hoping that trough our community service we will be granted permission to understand the ins and outs of New Orleans’ culture.  It is difficult to understand ones limitations, and it is even more difficult to own up to these limitations.  I feel like the hardest part of the community service projects will be to understand and admit when our group cannot help a person.  I suspect that the more people we help will open our eyes to more people that could use assistance, so the more involved we become the more work there will be needed to be completed.  But, because of the smallness of our group and our age I feel like it is very important to understand how much we are capable of doing and not overstepping our potential.  I hope and believe that in the short time that we are in New Orleans we will be granted the opportunity to help as many people as possible and I hope that as we help these people we will be open to learning from them, since there is so much we don’t understand about their culture and lifestyle.