MOUNT VERNON - Seven Cornell College students in an upper-level French class are headed to Louisiana on Thursday, Sept. 15, for the Festivals Acadiens in Lafayette, well to the west of areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina but a haven for evacuees from the New Orleans area.
Cornell French professor Jan Boney, who was raised in Slidell, La., has been taking her classes the 1,050 miles to Lafayette for seven years. They enjoy the festival’s Cajun music, dance a lot, eat well, meet the people of Louisiana and converse with other French-speaking people. Squeezed into their van this year will be donations of socks, toiletries, backpacks for elementary school students and duffle bags and soft-sided or collapsible luggage – the latter a need identified by a Cornell administrator whose parents live in Baton Rouge, where many evacuees have relocated at least temporarily.
Boney’s students, on the first day of class Sept. 5, discussed the pros and cons of the journey, which had been a planned field trip for their course, “Francophone Cultures of North America.”
“The overall message I heard was that Francophone culture is what the course is about. Students want to go help if they can but also experience and support a culture that has been challenged a bit,” Boney says.
She plans to have a Cornell counselor talk with the students before departure, offering advice on ways to interact compassionately and respectfully with evacuees they might meet, and tips on how the students can process their own emotions.
“One of the most important things we could do would be to listen if they choose to talk about their experiences,” says Maria Neis, a junior from Iowa City. “This trip is different from every other trip that Cornell French classes have taken to Louisiana, because of the relief efforts. That we not only get to use our trip as cultural experience but as a means to help is just great.”
The class has reserved beds at a Lafayette hostel where Boney traditionally stays. Space is available because evacuees have moved on, or people who planned to attend Festivals Acadiens have canceled. Maintaining the flow of tourist dollars to Louisiana is another reason Boney didn’t want to cancel the trip. The class plans to return to Iowa on Monday, Sept. 19.
