January 4th, Learned

And we off again! However today we were blessed with a beautiful day. The sun was shining and there was enthusiasm being displayed among my classmates. Our first stop of the day was to catch a ride on the trolley cars. As we arrived at the waiting station there was a sign posted a change in route for the streetcar. 

This change placed us walking to our destination to Basin Street Station to participate in the New Orleans Cemetery Tour.
We began our tour in the visitor center. While we were waiting for our tour guide to arrive, we were given the opportunity to shop in the gift shop. And there it was a ledger bag available to for purchase. This ledger bag will help organize my personal belongings every day. Our tour guide began by hearing the history of New Orleans by viewing a very large digital map that was on display. Our tour was to learn the history of the cemetery's.
Many years ago, there was a large epidemic of Yellow Fever that had taken thousandths of lives. During the tour our tour guide pointed out an old white church called Our Lady of Guadalupe located across from cemetery number one. The Yellow Fever victims had their funeral service located here and then was taken directly across the street to the cemetery.

The first cemetery that we toured was called the St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. At this cemetery we learned about the head stones that consisted of the deceased were located above the ground level due to water level in New Orleans. New Orleans has a unique elevation with parts of it being below sea level. There are no trees in this cemetery, but it requires the warm sun. The sun helps the transition stages of decaying the deceased bodies.
Some of the head stones can house unlimited bodies. Here are few pictures of the stones in this cemetery.

My next experience was the tour of Congo Square

Congo Square is in New Orleans also known as the Heart of America. This is the Black History of famous American musicians for example Louie Armstrong. It was very interesting to learn the history of up makes up CONGO SQUARE!!!