Another Story

It is THE big week in New Orleans! Starting yesterday and continuing on until Tuesday next week we will be celebrating MARDI GRAS! I cannot wait for this week end.  IT has been so hyped up by everyone we know and now its finally here.  I will fill you all in on as much as i can next week :)

We do get Monday and Tuesday off next week because the city basically shuts down but this week was still a full work week.  The parades started last weekend and we have been able to catch a few but the bigs ones start tonight!

Almost everyone i know is super excited, but there are a few New Orleans old timers who have a 'been there, done that' attitude. They are the best ones to ask about where to go and what parades to see.  It has been a pretty busy week at work as well.  A lot of rain makes for a lot of laundry and warm showers.  Also a lot of clothing requests and sock needs.

I met James today.  Well i had talked with him briefly yesterday but i got a chance to sit down and really talk with him today.  James has been in prison for the past 10 years and was released about 3 days ago.  When i chatted with him yesterday he was very polite but a little stand-off-ish.  Today was the same and i figured out why.  Emily asked me if i could go in the back to find James some cloths and toiletries (to help him out a little).  I walked up next to him to ask him his size and immediately his body language changed.  He turned his shoulder so that he was looking at me square but slightly farther away and he wouldn't look me in the eye for very long.  He told me he had just been let out of jail and was overwhelmed with everything going on... I wasn't sure what 'everything' meant until he started talking about lunch yesterday.  He said that the Sisters had offered him seconds of the ham sandwiches that were yesterdays lunch.  He said he was shocked that there were so many lady's at the center, stunned that there was HAM sandwiches, and unable to handle the fact that there were seconds: no one had offered him seconds in 10 years, let alone seconds of ham.  I realized his stand-off-ish presence was because he was not used to talking to a lady or being helped by anyone.  He even told me so.  He said that there were some women who worked in the jail sometimes but he had not spoken to a lady in a long time.  There was so much in the past three days that was overwhelming him because he was not used to being back in society... He was having to re-learn or remember a lot of the social norms and feelings.  After a while he relaxed a bit but i had to change my body language and eye contact to make him more comfortable.  Instead of leaning in to have a conversation with him i straightened up and kept a bit more distance. I tyred to make as much eye contact as possible when i was talking but did not hold the eye contact for too long.  I brought him into the office so that we could do some research on programs that he might join to help him find a job, a place to live, and such.  When we were inside he was overcome with emotions which made him teary eyed.

In the end he relaxed enough to smile and have a nice conversation with me about where he was from, his family, his education, his past jobs, and such.  We found a program for him to look into.  And he was really thankful for the help that the HTC gave him.  I am sure we will see him again.  My hope is that he is able to calm down before something bad happens and he ends up back in jail... It made me think a lot about our prison system and whether or not it really is rehabilitating people?  If James comes out from being in prison for 10 years and is completely overwhelmed by society then is society really helping him by putting him in jail?  I have a lot of questions. Not too many answers.  I am not making any judgments about the system we have.  It's just that Jame's situation has made me question a system that i have never questioned before.

With Love