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Pilot Guide Presenter Justine Shapiro does any thing
but take it easy in the city they call The Big Easy.
The French colony of New Orleans was sold to the Americans
for a mere $15 million  in 1803, when Napoleon was strapped
for cash. Built below sea-level on reclaimed swamp land
the city's complex and multi-cultural history dates
from its foundation on the crescent-shaped bend of the
Mississippi River.
Justine takes a tour of the French Quarter
with Lucille Lobe, who shows her the houses
of the French Creole traders, complete with elegant
European architecture and cottages for the slave-mistress
who entertained the wealthy masters' every need. They
conclude their walking tour in Congo Square, where jazz
music has flourished since the fusion of African and
European beats gave birth to a whole new style.
From the French Quarter Justine takes a streetcar to
the outlying Garden District, the rich,
leafy neighbourhood developed by the Americans who found
themselves unwelcome in the Creole French Quarter. She
pays her respects in the Creole cemetery, where
the climate of New Orleans necessitates unusual burial
practice: as the city is built below sea-level the deceased
must be buried above ground in strange sarcophagus constructions.
The heat of the Louisiana sun cremates the corpse within
a year, and the ashes are merely brushed aside to make
way for the next family member. Among the tombs Justine
locates the resting place of Marie Laveau, the nineteenth
century voodoo queen of New Orleans.
At the Voodoo Museum Justine witnesses a voodoo wedding
ceremony. She learns that although voodoo is widely
viewed with scepticism and suspicion, the practitioners
identify that part of them that needs healing and employ
the charms of voodoo dolls to purge themselves of ill
feeling.
Justine takes an aeroplane to the Jean Lafitte
National Park. When the Cajun people were expelled
from their Canadian homelands in the 1750s by the British
they built their homes in  the Bayou - huge expanse of
marsh and lakes. Every Saturday at the Bayou
Barn there's a Cajun fait dow dow.
Fishing is a major sport popular in the wetlands and
Justine joins an airboat trip through the marshes. Before
returning to New Orleans she finds peace and solace
paddling through the Bearer Terrier Park,
which is thankfully forbidden to airboats, allowing
a host of wildlife to build their habitats undisturbed.
Drives along the Mississippi as far as Vacherie, Justine
visits two wildly different plantations. The beautiful Oak Alley evokes an age of genteel
southern living yet the tour makes no reference to the
slavery which was an integral part of plantation life.
Just a few miles away is the Laura Plantation, run by
female family members for 84 years. Here Louisiana's
racist past is sensitively handled, as Laura the last
president was outraged by her Grandmother's brutal treatment
of her home-bred slaves.
Back in the French Quarter it's Lundi Gras, the day
before Mardi Gras. Justine has been
invited to join one of the 27 floats of the Orpheus
krewe. Lundi and Mardi Gras are the culmination of the
Roman Catholic tradition to mark 47 days before Easter.
Dressed as a jester Justine joins in, throwing strings
of beads to the throng.
In a city delineated by a history of racial and economic
segregation, Mardi Gras is celebrated in another part
of town by Black New Orleansians. Painted as Indians
in a mockery of racial stereotypes, the 'tribes' challenge
their rivals in a fierce competition of song and dance.
On Bourbon Street the next morning, the success of Mardi
Gras is measured in the amount of garbage to be cleaned
off the streets - this year, like Justine's week in
New Orleans, has been a roaring success by all accounts! |
