Baton Rouge

I think there are days you’ll remember forever. For me, yesterday was one of those days.

Racquel and I spent the morning with Mrs. Destiny Cooper and her student, Leroy. The four of us loaded into her car and together we toured various parts of the city; from the well-manicured lawns in the shadows of extravagant houses to the less desirable parts of town where children pedaled past homes with boarded up windows. We saw it all.

“You know you’re in a black part of town when the city bus passes through your neighborhood,” said Leroy, as he pointed out the areas all too familiar to him.

It didn’t take long for us to see how quickly the quality of life changes as you drive through Baton Rouge.

“We’ve only gone about a tenth of a mile and look at the difference already,” said Destiny Cooper.

During our tour we also experienced the infamous Baton Rouge traffic that we’ve been hearing so much about, bumper to bumper cars made it difficult to get around the city. While steering around a wreck that was on the side of the road, Destiny Cooper said a 15 minute drive can often take twice as long.

We took a break from the tour and the traffic to pick up lunch from Tony’s Seafood.

Racquel had been eager to try crawfish. So she, Mrs. Cooper and Leroy bought a least ten pounds of the tiny, red creatures. Personally, I can’t handle food that still has eyeballs, so I passed and went for catfish…you can’t ever go wrong with that.

Leroy guided us to a local park where he and Mrs. Cooper taught Racquel some “crawfish etiquette.” In my opinion, it’s hard to imagine any form of etiquette when you’re ripping off a little creature’s tail and sucking out the meat and juices.

Post-lunch, Racquel and I interviewed Leroy, Brittany, and other students who’d been in Mrs. Cooper’s creative writing class. These students saw a monorail as a solution to not only transportation problems, but also to crime and the community divide they believe exists in their community.

A perfect example of how technology, when applied the right way, may be able to rebuild the world, or in this case, the city of Baton Rouge.

-Courtnee