Beautiful Disaster

I could never imagine being a slave, let alone treating someone as a slave. I mean a human being is a human being regardless of their race, ethnicity, age, gender, etc. The Spanish period began around 1762, and the French period was before that. Our tour guide said something that stuck with me, he said, "we celebrate when you die, and mourn when you're born."

Now, we talk about how it was a Spanish period. The French Quarter isn't too French. When there were wooden buildings, if a fire broke out, you let it burn out. There was a huge fire in 1788 and the church was rebuilt and part of the Cabildo was partially rebuilt by Don Almonester Pontalba. When he died, his daughter Michaela finished his work on the Cabildo and built the Presbytere. Michaela is one of the toughest women I know of. She refused to believe that because she was a woman that she was incapable of having so much money. Although Michaela was in an arranged marriage, she still owned her inheritance. After the father in law attempted to assassinate Michaela, she lived and he died. I mean, if there was any woman I would like to become, it would be her. She has such this strong will, and refuses to let anyone control her. She ended up developing the square into what it is today. In addition, there are the Pontalba buildings, which are the very first apartments in the United States. Who created them? Michaela Almonester Pontalba. This woman is someone who you never want to mess with.

The very first time I set my eyes on Jackson Square, I felt like I wasn't in America. I almost felt as if I was somewhere in Europe with how it was set up. Considering Michaela's vision of the square was set from a foreign country, she did an incredible job of completing it. The detail on each of the buildings was beautiful. There was so much to look at, and no matter where you looked, there was something for you. The iron that was used was a different iron that was used regularly during the time period. Michaela created the two mirrored Pontalba buildings and knew exactly what she was going to do with them. They were two stories, so the top part was apartments and the bottom part was businesses. I mean Michaela had thought out absolutely everything that she was doing. She was truly an incredible woman.


 Michaela is the same woman who I told you had an affair with Thomas Jefferson and supposedly had his statue face her apartments so he would always be tipping his hat to her. That always makes me laugh because it is totally something Michaela would do. I'm telling you so much about Michaela because I thought she was the most interesting thing we learned on our tour. I mean sure, we learned her story, but without Michaela, Jackson Square would not be what it is today without her.



 In a way, I felt like Michaela spoke to me. She was just so interesting. I learned from her that even though she was a woman, she was nothing less than a man. There was a standard that women shouldn't be able to have authority because we're supposedly less or something and Michaela refused to believe that. Her own father in law tried to assassinate her and she survived. Her will to live was stronger than anything she had. Michaela had all this money that she inherited, but yet she chose to use it for the good. She used it for the people and practically created an empire of her own. In addition to Jackson Square, she added the steeples onto the church.

The tour we went on took us to the cemetery, which was probably one of the neatest things I've ever seen. They call all of their graveyards, the "city of the dead." The reason is because they make the graves look like houses, so that's where they came up with the name. The graves are kept above ground because they don't have enough solid ground. So if the water came up, the bodies would come up. All the tombs have a "basement" at the bottom of their tomb. The remains of the coffin were put in a tagged bag and put in the "basement" with the rest of their family members. This is to preserve space, and keep the family members together. What kind of blows my mind is the fact that the people who are buried are moved once again. To me, I feel like I disrespect the dead if I step on their grave back home since they're below ground. When we were taught how they remove their bodies and put them in a tagged bag, it was kind of hard to believe. I mean, yes it is very smart considering they are conserving space, but I feel like it disrespects the dead since they're moved. This was my first initial thought when I was there, but after the tour when I thought about it, it is their way of life down there. Just as we have ways of doing things up north, they have their ways down here. To the residents here, this is the way they know; it's possibly the only way they know.



The last adventure of the day was the Presbytere. Alright guys, it was possibly the coolest museum I have ever been to in my life. The bottom was dedicated to Hurricane Katrina and the top Mardi Gras. Back when Hurricane Katrina hit, I was 11 years old. To be honest, I don't remember specifics, but I do remember something really, really bad was happening. I remember seeing some of the broadcasts on the news, but not listening to what they were saying, but what was actually taking place. I just remember seeing the videos of the horrible winds and flooding.



As I was going through the museum, I really took my time and read through everything I could. It was really amazing to see the heroes and hear their stories. I really appreciated what they had to say when they were telling their stories. Some of the things they talked about really made me as a person appreciate what I have now and that I have never had to deal with a horrific natural disaster. There was one man who spoke about how he heard a woman screaming and he went to help and found that she was pregnant. The man had never encountered a pregnant woman who was about to bare her child. When he was helping the woman, he realized that she pushed and the baby had slipped into his hands. As he was holding the baby, he asked God to cleanse his hands to make sure the baby was in no harm. After the fact, the man mentioned how even though it was such a horrible disaster going on, something beautiful came out of it. It was a beautiful disaster. There was so much bad happening around him, but yet a life came into the world and that in itself is such a beautiful thing.