Outside New Orleans for the first time since we came in on the train, leaving the ebullience of Nola.  Our first stop was the Hansen's disease museum in Carville.  What struck me most was the comprehensiveness of the community.  People with this disease were so stigmatized that out of a hospital grew a self-sustaining, insular community.  It's kind of inspiring to see what they made of it and their lives on the property, but still, I can't get past the people suffering from this disease being cast off from society, all because the disease they had was so misunderstood.  Staying at his location was partially for their own peace of mind; aside from receiving treatment, knowing they were going somewhere where they wouldn't be judged, and where the risk of violence against them was removed had to be a relief.  Still, that peace of mind is sought because much of society treated them so poorly.  Patients did their best to maintain their humanity in response to the lack of humanity shown by so many, and that sense of normalcy, and of community was tremendous in terms of coping with everything they were facing, whether internal or external.

From more of a medical/healthcare perspective, there was a lot to take in.  There was, of course, archaic ideas and treatments that show the ignorance of the time, both with Hansen's disease and medicine in general.  There were also the advancements.  The discovery of the first truly effective treatments with Promin, the adaptations to combat symptoms and physical deformities, and even the improved treatment and care of the neuropathy that comes with diabetes.  Those were all great things that came from a bad situation.

Sites like this are necessary, despite Hansen's disease being nowhere near as prevalent, damaging, or stigmatized now as it once was, because people always need to be reminded of how damaging ignorance and fear can be, and how stupid we're left looking.

Our next stop on our trip outside Nola was the Whitney Plantation, and if what I wrote about the Hansen's disease museum seems limited, it's largely because Whitney Plantation ended up overshadowing it in my mind.  The first thing I notice about Whitney is the beautiful land.  I pictured this gorgeous landscape being filled with slaves, and pain, brutality, heartbreak, and a degree of hopelessness; I couldn't reconcile the juxtaposition.  The memorials to the people who lived and died as property were moving, and makes some people's calls to move on from slavery, and let go, more laughable.

I teared up twice while at Whitney; when we were in the church, and again when I stepped up to and looked in the holding cells for slaves going to auction.  Inside the church it just hit me that this place and many places like it were refuges to so many post-slavery, physical and psychological wounds still new and raw.  The holding cells hit me when I looked in and saw a metal cross hanging in there.  The contrast between the cell and the church, but this similarity of the cross just hit me like a ton of bricks, and my eyes started welling up.

I kept trying to use my imagination to really picture what this place and life was like, to gain that empathy and to best understand the perspective of the people who once actually lived all of this history.  I feel like I have to push myself to really feel in order to make the lessons stick.  The lies being told, and the ignorance it took for people to treat other people like animals and property, and for that to become a cultural norm, yet keep enough humanity to live and care for friends and family is unbelievable.  People absolutely need to learn about this history up close and personal, because words and pictures don't do it justice.  Even being at this place, it all still feels so abstract, because it's just so hard to believe.