Mississippi Moments

Monday, June 18, 2007

"I thank God for the health and energy that enable me to pursue an active ministry of work and service."--Edna Mary Gagnon, SNJM

Remarks and Remarkables from this weekend and from this day up till now...
I fell asleep before we even took off and I woke up 20 minutes as we were descending into Memphis. Best plane ride I have ever had.

I enjoyed people watching at the Memphis Airport while I waited to be picked up. I am back in the land of sculpted, carefully coiffed and colored hair, toenails, and faces. Also plenty of quality but understated accessories. Notice that this is Memphis and not Dallas. Very little big hair and blue eye shadow here.

We visited historic Memphis on Saturday. The Memphis Cotton Exhange Museum and then we took the tram over to Mud Isle River Museum. They offer a great deal for teachers to do a previsit. It was full of the history and significant influences, people, etc. of the lowere MS River valley. I learned a lot of new words. We are doing a unit on the MS River this year at the Learning Center.
We walked near historic Beale Street where the Juneteenth Festical of Freedom was in full swing with blues bands, vendors, barbeque everywhere, people. Of course, we went into the historic Peabody Hotel to see the ducks swimming in the fountain in the lobby, but they had already been escorted upstairs to their private suite until the next day. At dinner, we were agreeing to the importance of families to gather not just at times of loss, crisis, or sadness but at joyful, relaxed, and surprise times. It was something to think about.

I found a really good book on Medgar Evers and a cup of tea for my first night in Jonestown. It is pleasantly warm here, in the mid 80's and very humid, more so today than yesterday. We had some summer thunderboomers yesterday and some "sheet rain"...not the worst I've seen. It cleaned everything and made the earth smell sweet. We went to church at Immaculate Conception in Clarkesdale. Not much has changed except the choir has beautiful choir robes now and the new pastor is from Vicksburg, MS. Sr. Teresa describes him as perfectly amiable and a "Bubba-type". I will need to find out what this means. We worked all afternoon at the JLC preparing materials and lessons for this week. I have hte blessing to work with a teacher from Atlanta. Her name is Miz Joyce and she is exquisite, funny, energetic, and deeply caring. She is also a quilter and showed me this unique, beautiful quilt she brought to work on here in Jonestown. Sr. Teresa's kitty is fat and happy...and ornery. He likes shoes which is not good for mine. Sr. T and Joyce are hooked on a British serial called the "House of Eliot" and were disappointed last night when the thunderstorm interfered with tv reception. They got it back online. I thought we were going to have serious challenges if it hadn;t been corrected posthaste.
I also got to tour the J Fitness and Health Club. There are new machines, ceiling fans, plastic yellow tableclots hanging from the ceiling that give it a much different look than the last time. I will go to aerobics after soccer, basketball, dance, and cheer this afternoon. Get this body and mind back in shape.
Our first lessons withe children went well. We worked on transportation vocabulary, spacial geometry with clay, and landforms of the MS River. They love the rhythmic exercises with beanbags and we can't wait.:) My coffee cup with the caribeener (sp?) fascinates the heck out of the kids but I will not go without coffee. I learned some of the rules down here for twosquare and will look forward to actually being able to understand it tomorrow. Off to Girls to Women....I love feeling like I am doing meaningful work. Things are just so down to earth here. And I am very thankful for Jungle Juice.

1 Comments:

  • At 3:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    So glad to read you are there safe and well!
    i miss you nearby but am glad to share as long as i can have you back before too much shit hits the fan.
    love you

     

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