Sarah Ophelia Plaisance

Sarah Ophelia Plaisance

August 5^th, 2017

Sarah Ophelia Plaisance was like a shooting star, by the time you saw her, marveled at her beauty, and made a wish, she was already gone.  For the 17 days that I knew I carried her, I loved her and was honored to know her, even if most days I didn’t believe she was there.

I have spoken publicly about my miscarriage of her on Facebook, but I wanted to put something more permanent down on paper.  The date of my last missed period was April 21, although I did have some bleeding for a few days in June.  Dr. Hirsh, my OB/GYN believed that her conception date was in June.  Dr. Brown and the ER told us Sarah had stopped growing at 7 weeks, so his date didn’t line up with the June date.  Jay and I believe that she was conceived May 5^th, so she was a Beltane baby, which would have made her about 8 ½ weeks old when I miscarried her. 

The night of her conception was a lovely night.  I had started working on uploading my book that day, and was feeling fine.  My periods have been coming more regular, since I cut mom out of my life last year, and so I wondered if I might be fertile.  I kind of counted days and guessed.  Hey it was Beltane, time for love, sex and fertility, right. 

That month I began to develop breathing problems in my left lung.  It hurt when I laid down at night, I could feel something kind of squeak in my lungs, each breath felt like a rubber band was around me.  And I was exhausted, more tired than I had ever been in my entire life.  We hoped at first that it would just go away.  I was facing my own imposed deadline of trying to be finished with the book by the first of June.  I was tired but other than that I felt good, happy, and my negative thoughts seemed to have stopped.  I missed my period in May, but I thought nothing about it.  This often happens when I am under good or bad stress, no big deal right.  The doctors had told me it would take a team to get me pregnant, and 14 years of unprotected sex, had yet to yield anything. 

My breathing problems continued, as well as pain in my heart.  Of course being a big woman I am always fearful.  After about 6 to 8 weeks of this exhaustion and breathing problems I decided to risk going to the doctor, and being told it was nothing.  My regular doctor was out, so I saw a friend of his, who spent I think a sum total of 3 min with me.  Blood work, ex-rays, and a urine test later, with no pregnancy chaser (cause I told them I could not get pregnant, I wish now I had, or they had at least asked why), and no answers.  They gave me a steroid and an antibiotic, and no explanation to my problem.  Two weeks later I came back, with the same problem.  I saw my regular PCP and he said, “Well your heart is a little enlarged.  I’d like to get you in for an echo, and a CAT-scan right now.”  That was Friday night, Father’s day weekend.  Again I was asked, “Are you pregnant?”  I glared at him and told him, “No way.”  Again I regret that I didn’t say, “Why the fuck not,” and have the damn test.  Maybe she wouldn’t be dead; I’ll never know.

I did not want the cost of going in the hospital.  So we made appointments to see a cardiologist for later in the week.  When I was asked what I wanted to do I said, “I want to talk to Jay.”  So I went to his office.  He said, “You’re going.”  So we went and spent 24 lovely hours there.  For the CAT-scan they tried to put an IV, so they could give me contrast.  I blew all 7 times they tried, had a panic attack in the middle, and finally they had to do it without it.  Nothing there.  I had an Echo.  It took a month for the results to come back and be relayed to me, it was fine.  Blood work all normal, and no they didn’t do a pregnancy test, even though I asked for one.  So Saturday morning the doctor comes in and says, “Well we don’t see anything on the CAT- Scan, your blood work is fine, you’re heart is not enlarged, and since your EKG was okay we think your Echo will be too.  We don’t know what’s wrong with you.” 

Here I was in the same place, in the same hospital, with the same people I was 10 years before, when I had been given the same diagnoses.  I had pain, and no one knew why, or really honestly didn’t seem to care.  I was fucking livid!  And I told him about having been checked in to the hospital all those years ago, about my excruciating pain, and that the doctors said, “Oh it is your hiatal hernia causing you hip pain, and pain in your vagina.”  (I was later diagnosed with IC and pelvic girdle dysfunction.)  This doctor upon hearing this said, “I would see a GI doctor.  It might be your hernia.”  I was so fucking mad, I damn near threw him out of my room.  I turned away from him, he got the idea and left.  I was so mad I ripped off the heart monitor!  Jay had gone to get breakfast for himself.  I was so mad I had to throw something!  So I stripped my bed, his bed, dirty towels and put everything in the hamper.  I packed my stuff, and just waited. 

Bobby Joe and Amy, cousins who are more like an Aunt and Uncle to me, came in about that time to see me, brought me coffee, and I just cried in Amy’s arms and feel apart.  Here I had spent all this money I didn’t have, to be told, once again, that there was nothing wrong with me.  I asked the Doctor, “Is it psychosomatic?”  He said no.  I had explained to him that being a crazy, fat woman in the South doctors don’t take me seriously.  He had no explanations for my breathing problems, and seemed honestly like I was just another number and he didn’t care. 

We left there and went to Wal-Mart.  Tired of being asked if I was pregnant I bought a test.  I thought, it was be negative, so I bought a cheap one.  They are always negative, so why waste the money.  Jay and I have this system where I pee on the stick and then give it to him.  He doesn’t tell me anything unless it is positive.  But this day he was at work when I took it. 

I took the test and when the results came back positive I said, “I can’t be pregnant.  I don’t get pregnant!”  I called Jay and said, “Hey hunny.  I just took the test and there is a plus sign.  I’m not sure what to do.  Is that good thing?”  He confirmed that it was, and I could hear joy and shock in his voice.

We were both in shock and hesitant to believe it.  We had been through fertility medicine, and when that failed I was told, “Go home and lose a hundred pounds and it might happen.”  We gave up hope and have learned to be contented living without children.  Several of my childhood friends are now grandparents.

We were in shock and tried to not be too happy, because we knew it could be a false positive.  We found an OB/GYN who took high risk clients and when I talked to them on the phone they said we did not need a blood test to confirm.   We told a few friends and family.  We had to wait until Jay’s next pay check to afford the $100 co-pay to see the doctor.  So in the mean time, I read my cards again, and they confirmed it.  The Sun card came up again, just as it had in my reading a few months ago.  I called Mother Mari and asked her to do a reading to confirm my pregnancy.  She read my runes and she was told I was carrying a girl.  I knew that already, but didn’t tell her.  I had asked the sex of the child to my runes, and been told it was a girl too.  So we named her Sarah Ophelia.  What we had always wanted to name her.

I started a group of letters to her, and wrote often.  I fed her regularly, with the best food I knew to give her.  We even began to read to her.  And I rested, which I hated because I had so much to do.  I had cramps most of the time I was pregnant with her, on my right side. 

Some days I believed it, and some days I didn’t. It was too much for me to comprehend.  Even now it seems like it was all a mistake or a dream, but knowing an impossible thing is possible, I think changes you.  I thought of her often and then would forget I was pregnant and go back to what I was trying to do.  I worried constantly how we would feed and clothe her, afford to by her school supplies.  I began to read books on pregnancy, and went to the Thrifty Peanut to buy a few. 

Sunday we took Precious for Swimmy day at the lake.  It started bleeding Monday.  With IC there are times when you can have an irritant and bleed from your bladder, in fact most of the time I have microscopic blood in my urine.  I thought I am just having a flare, but by Tuesday I was passing small clots.  I believed it was coming from my bladder but by Tuesday night I could not tell where it was coming from.  Wednesday was the big day.  Jay took the morning off work to take me to the OB/GYN.  They took me in for an ultra sound, and I informed them I was having an IC flare and was bleeding.  They had never heard of IC.  They could not find her with the belly monitor, so they had to do a vaginal ultra sound.  Now under ideal conditions this is fairly painful for me because of my IC, but I was in so much pain that I was screaming, and biting my hand, and Jay’s hand to keep from screaming more.  I just wanted it over with.  They never could get good pictures.  I think because I was jumping around too much.  Finally the tech stopped and said, “I don’t know what to do.  This should not hurt her like this.”  When I got off the table I nearly collapsed, but stopped myself.  In pain Jay and I hobbled to the bathroom to put on some clean panties and a fresh kotex.  I think I was miscarrying at this point, and that is why I was in so much pain.  My cervix somehow did not seem right, like it was not as strong as it usually was.  I’ve just looked it up, and I wonder if I was already in early labor at that point.

We went in to visit with Dr. Hirsh, and she confirmed that I was in fact pregnant.  I cried I was so happy.  I showed her my period dates and she believed that the baby was about 4 weeks.  She wanted me to come back in two weeks and we would do blood tests and all that good stuff.  She was great and I really liked her.  I hope to see her again at least as an GYN.

On the way home, we called the family and told them we were confirmed.  We asked Kenny and Lucy to be Godparents, and they agreed.  I was so happy.  It was a wonderful few hours.  Jay dropped me at home.  There was a lot of blood and I was passing bigger clots.  We didn’t know what was going on.  He looked and said it was coming out of both.  He went back to work and I tried to rest, but I had problems.  I felt like I was having a period, with cramps that went down into my legs.  I had trouble sitting on my pelvis, so I laid down.  I just could not get comfortable, so I ended up laying on a pallet on the floor.  I called Pam and talked to her about 5 and told her I was in a lot of pain, and I just wanted someone to talk to.  We chatted for a while and then I called Lucy, and we began to plan my baby shower.  I told her I wanted to do it around Halloween, “A boo for the Boo,” was going to be our theme.  We talked about my pain and my bleeding and they both soothed my fears that spotting was normal in the first trimester. 

Jay came home and from then till about sunset it seemed to just get worse.  I just could not get comfortable, I could not stand, or walk without pain.  Finally I ended up leaning.  I keep going back and forth to the bathroom thinking I had to poop, but nothing came out.  And there was just so much blood.  I finally was in so much pain that I made him call my urologist and then the OB/GYN’s office.  They both said to take me to the hospital.  At one point I remember backing myself into the corner, because of the look on Jay’s face.  I started crying saying, “I’m sorry.  It will go away.  There is nothing wrong with me.”  I was terrified of another hospital bill and that I was miscarrying.  He called the boys at the fire station. 

The ambulance came down the road, and out of it came our friend Paul.  I cried, that it was him.  He is such a good man, and damn good nurse.  Before he even opened the back door of the truck, I was handing him my paperwork with my meds on it, driver’s license, and insurance card.  Jay was running around behind me packing my bag, tending to the kids, and putting Star and Henry away.  The pain I had been feeling at that time seemed to be coming in waves and intensifying.  At no time, during my entire hospital stay was I told I was in labor and having labor pains.  Even when I asked the nurse again as we were leaving the ER, “Why am I in pain?!”  I was told they did not know.  I had to go and talk to two nurses after words who confirmed that yes sometimes women who miscarry, do so with labor pains.  My pain was coming every 10 min or so.  Just this intense wave of pain, then me screaming, and finally it would subside, long enough for me to feel okay again, and then it started all over again.

I arrived at the hospital screaming my head off.  Once in the ER room the stupid doctor comes up during a contraction and asks, “How are you doing?  Are you on any meds?”  Paul had already given the nurse my list with meds on it and all my info.  I was in no capacity to talk and very pissed off at that point.  I finally was able to say to him, “She has the list.”  And at last the nurse confirmed to him that she had a list of all my medications.  Jay arrived about that time and I am not sure about what happened in the next little bit.  I was given a total of 8mg of Morphine.  That shit is awesome.  Makes you feel warm and fuzzy and forget your problems.  Gods no wonder it is so addictive, and it works almost instantly. 

I was sent for another ultrasound with much bickering.  I told him I had already had one today.  He told me he had no access to those records, which is a lie because it was all done at the same hospital, just a different branch, and all of their records are tied in together by computer.  Thankful this time I was high and it didn’t hurt that bad.  My tech said, “They couldn’t get clear pictures?”  When I told him no he stifled a laugh.  I asked him what he saw, and he answered, “The doctor will have to tell you.”

Dr. Brown came in about midnight to tell me that, “You have a UTI and you are miscarrying.  Your baby stopped growing at about 7 weeks and there is no heartbeat.”

I said, “So she’s dead.”

“There is no heartbeat.”

I asked if I would have to have an abortion, and he told me, “No, you should pass it in the next day or so.  You won’t even know.  It’s just a little clump of cells.” 

I asked him, “So I killed her, because I didn’t believe I was pregnant.  My negative energy, and somehow my body killed her, with too much worry, too much stress.”

He just looked at me confused, and then at Jay who told me, “No you didn’t kill her.”

I was loaded up with antibiotic and sent home.  It least the UTI explained why I was peeing blood.  We stopped to fill our prescriptions and have a snack.  We got home about 2 in the morning.  Jay left for work a few hours later, but came home early to be with me.  That morning I passed something that was about 6 inches long, and my pain stopped not long after that.  In it I could recognize an umbilical cord and a tiny little right leg, and the rest I couldn’t.  It was a mash of cells.  I know y’all think I am gross for reaching my hand in the toilet to retrieve it.  But I could not stand the idea of my daughter’s finally resting place being my septic tank.  I wrapped what I found up in tissue, and gave Jay a chance to look at her.  Then I wrapped her in pink tuile, circled her with dried flowers and herbs just as I had so many fur babies before her, folded it all up and tied it with a black ribbon. I rocked her for a few minutes, sang to her, and cried.  Holding her felt no different to me then holding any other child.  And I knew in that moment that I really have been a mother for more years then I care to count.  She was just a different species.  And her life was no more and no less important than my other children.  Jay and I walked out to our little grove and buried her in Holda’s Well.  The same place we had buried Punka so many years before. 

I’ve spent the last three weeks or so resting.  The first week I bled so much I didn’t know I had that much blood in me.  I made calls to my PCP and OB/GYN who were sad to hear that I had lost the baby, but unless I was soaking a pad an hour that I didn’t have to come in.  I have not seen a doctor since I was in the ER.  It took a week for all the pain to go away and two for all the blood to stop.

I have been exhausted, board out of my mind and frustrated for the last few weeks, until this week when I have finally be able to work a normal schedule.  You clean up after the dogs, wash clothes, write, do dishes, repeat.  My breathing has returned to normal, and after talking with a nurse friend of mine, she believed that it was related to the pregnancy.  That the baby was putting such strain on me that it was aggravating my asthma. 

I have been very open about the miscarriage and losing Sarah.  I posted on Facebook the morning after, and received wonderful comments, messages, and phone calls.  I think this honestly helped me get through this.  I was struck by the number of women who opened up and told me about their similar experiences.  Making those phone calls to Beau, and my family were some of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  It reminded me of when Momma Muriel died. 

Friday I posted to my yarn group and told them they had all asked what they could do for me, I said I need hugs.  Our attendance had been low lately being that its summer, so I asked if they would all please come to our regular meeting.  And several of them made a point to show.  It was very healing for me to sit with them and talk about all of this, and to listen to them tell their stories of losing their own babies.

I called a cousin who had been through a similar experience.  She had delivered an 8 month old stillborn.  She was told she could never have children.  She has PCOS to, and erratic periods so she thought nothing of missing them for so long.  She had no symptoms of pregancy.  She told me point blank, “I went to a dark place after my child died.  I will not let that happen to you.  So if you need to call me and cry and scream, I am here for you.”  I think we spent an hour talking on the phone, and it was wonderful. 

Jay has been wonderful through this all.  He has been my rock through both hospital visits, and the grieving process.  I have yet to see him cry though and that worries me.  I think he has just not been doing it in front of me.  I am continually asking him, “How are you doing with all this?” and he says, “Good baby.”  He told me in the ER that night, “I don’t care if we lose the baby.  I just can’t lose you.”  I told him, “I’m not going anywhere.” 

The other day when I cleaned her grave and showed him, he got a little teared up and sad.  I think now that I am better, he might be able to process all this a little more.  That is her grave on the picture above, circled in white quartz stones. 

The cards tell me that another child is imminent, and I hope so.  At least now we know it is possible, something we didn’t know before.  So I am taking my prenatal vitamins, and doing deep breathing exercises to try to keep my root and sacral chakras open and cleared.  Preparing to become a vessel for the next child.  I told Jay last night, that maybe Sarah came to open the door and clean me out physical, emotionally and spiritual, to prepare me for the next time she tries to come into our world.  Jay thought it was good that I could look at it like this.  I saw my councilor on Monday, and shocked as she was about all this news she said, “Ilsa you realize that if this had happened a year ago, you would have been a basket case.”  I agreed.  My life is in order now.  I am who and where and what I want to be in this life.  It took a long time, and as hokey as it sounds, I think I am ready now. 

Ilsa

Louisiana - a short history

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It occurs to me that some of you may be dialed up to this blog, from other parts of the country or world, and don’t know much about Louisiana or why it is the why it is.  For those of you who did not have Coach Morvan in 8^th Grade Louisiana History, I would like to give you a short history lesson.  Don’t worry, you will like it. I promise!  And you will not be tested on this material.

First I want you to think of the shape of Louisiana.  It’s kind of like a boot.  Anybody who has ever been to Louisiana, to visit or live here, understands that we are a kind of crazy all unto ourselves. Our state has a beautiful culture, and I am not just talking about Cajun or Creole peoples here.  Louisiana is unique in that it was colonized, and please forgive my use of that word, from the bottom up.  Most states in the US were colonized from east to west.  That happened, but only in Northern Louisiana. 

A bit of a geography lesson first.  Louisiana is all old alluvial flood plain.  We are stuff that has been deposited from eons of the Mississippi River’s and it’s tributary’s silt deposits.  So this leaves Louisiana with a high water table. You can’t dig too deep around here without hitting water, especially in South Louisiana.  This is why people are buried in crypts like you see in New Orleans.  Those are actually above ground or very shallow vaults.  This is also why coffins are tagged in South Louisiana.  We get a hurricane and people get washed out of their graves.  Tags tell you who they are, and what cemetery they belong to.

Louisiana is still evolving.  The Mississippi had changed her course many times, always flowing to the path of least resistance.  It was not until the levee systems were put in, that we began to try to hold her in.  Flooding was part of her annual thing and why the land is so fertile.  Today this is part of the reason we are losing our coast line, by holding her in, we are holding back her silt to deposit and make new land. 

Most of Louisiana is not very high above sea level.  New Orleans is actually a few feet below.  When she flooded during Katrina, you could see what she is really supposed to be like.  We have drained and changed that land over the years, until it is what it is today, to allow more people and more commerce.  The hill I write you from is about 250ft above sea level.  Built long ago, I am sure by the deposits of the Red River.  The highest point in Louisiana is 535ft at Mt. Dristkell, not far from Ruston, in North Central Louisiana.

The tribes were of course here long before the Europeans arrived.  The first peoples learned to function in all Louisiana’s vast and different eco systems, swamp, prairie, forest, and wetlands.  The people of Watson Break were an older civilization then Poverty Point.  They go back 6000 years. They were “The earliest known evidence of settlement in the New World, predating both Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids.” (Garvey and Widmer, Pp. 4). 

Most of Louisiana’s first peoples were mound builders, they were very different from the Plains tribes were all taught about in school.  These people were hunters, gathers and farmers.  Some of the first people of Louisiana were Tunica, Opelousas, Natchez, Tchoupitoulas, Attakapas, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Acolapissa, Chitimacha, Houmas, Caddo, Natcheans, and Biloxi.  The Cherokee came in later, as they ran away from the Trail of Tears.  Each of these tribes had their own language, as different to each other as French is from English, and German is from Italian.  There is not just one single “Indian” language.  Most of these tribes, other than the Caddo, who I will talk about in A Brief History of North Louisiana, have had problems with federal recognition.  No recognition, no programs and no assistance for the tribe.  The reason is that the United States only recognizes tribes that have treaties with them.  Many of these tribes had treaties with Spain or France, and so were never recognized officially by the US.

The Spaniards were the first Europeans to see Louisiana in the early 1500’s.  They were exploring these lands that were new to them.  The Spaniards had started with the Caribbean.  Remember there are no maps at this time, no satellites, so they were kind of fumbling around in the dark.  They hit Florida and wanted to see what it was attached to.  They were also still looking for the fountain of youth. 

At one time, Spain owned most of the southern half of the US.  This include: California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana and Florida.  The tribes had no roads; neither did the first settlers and explorers.  They used the river systems like highways.  Spain and France would flip flop for years in who owned Louisiana.  In fact the Spaniards owned Louisiana longer then the French did. 

Discovers and explorers came and went, killing tribal people along the way with disease, weapons and dogs.  In 1682 LaSalle lead an expedition that traveled down the Mississippi.  When they reached the Gulf they planted a cross and a column and claimed the river, and everything drained by it, for the King of France.  Little did they know how much land they had claimed.  This claim would eventually become the Louisiana Purchase and made up all or part of 13 states. 

LaSalle tried a few years later to colonize Louisiana.  He set out with 4 boats.  He missed and hit Texas.  Only one person of the compliment that include 350 settlers and the explores men, survived.  Almost as if Louisiana did not want to be colonized.  Louisiana remains a land that is difficult to tame.  She is still a difficult mistress.  It is always feast or famine around here.

Now the French already had settlements in the New World in Canada, but in the 1690’s they wanted to try again to colonize Louisiana.  This time they chose an old boy named Iberville to do it.  The establishment of a colony was necessary to make the claim stick.  They made the first colony in Biloxi, Mississippi, and used this as their base of operations.

The French were a little different masters to the tribal people of Louisiana.  They helped each other out in the beginning.  Had it not been for the tribes’ generosity, Louisiana may not exist as we know it today.  Many a French soldier turned native and went to live with the tribes.  Many took tribal wives as well. 

The first colonists were fur trappers, fortune hunters, and criminals, (Garvey and Widmer, PP. 22), some from Canada and some from France.  Louisiana ain’t changed all that much.  We are still full of criminals and fortune hunters. 

So in 1714 Louisiana finally got it’s first real settlement and town.  A feller named St. Denis, founded Fort St. Jean Baptist and the town of Natchitoches on the Red River in what is central Louisiana.  They chose this spot to trade with the Spanish in Texas, and the tribes as well.  They also could get no farther up the river, because of the great log jam.  Natchitoches is the oldest, continuously occupied (by Europeans), city in the Louisiana Purchase.  New Orleans would not be established for another 4 years, and it would be washed out by disease and flood several times, before it finally had a permanent settlement. 

It was here at Fort St. Jean Baptist on May 29^th, 1755, Jay’s ancestor, Jean Baptisite Mathieu Plaisance would marry Jeanne Marguerite Toutin.  We know a few things about this first Plaisance.  He was of course Catholic and was a native of Pau, Lescar, France.  He came from the southern region of France called Plaisance, literally meaning pleasant.  He probable came from a large family of boys.  Under French law, only the first male inherited.  By custom, the second son often went into the priesthood.  Any boys born after that, would have to find a way to make their own fortune.  Jean Baptisite was the name of the saint who protected the family.  In fact the name Jean / John has been used in this family for over 300 years.  His friends probable called him Mathieu, the French version of Mathew.  I do not know at this time if he was a settler or a soldier at the fort.

There are still Plaisance’s in the Natchitoches area, 260 years later.  Jay’s Great – Grandfather moved up here to Shreveport, around the 1900’s.  He had been a police officer in Campti, and came up here to work.  Jay swears he is Cajun although he speaks no French, and has no Cajun customs.  He just has a French last name, of which he is very proud.  In doing Jay’s genealogy, we also found that there were several tribal ladies, who were married into his family.  We believe them to have been Caddo Adai.  We also know that there were a lot of Spanish that intermarried with his French side. 

It is said Louisiana has some of the most beautiful women in the world and there is a reason for that.  In the early days there were not a lot of ladies around.  So finding a suitable wife could be difficult. If it walked like a woman and talked like a woman, and of course was Catholic, they married them, or took them as loves.  So we became this beautiful mix of French, Spanish, Native American, and African-American, with a little German and Italian thrown in for good measure, a gumbo of peoples. 

 

Jay’s BFF is a guy named Kenny.  He is Creole.  He is descended from the Creole community outside of Lake Charles.  It’s funny.  Jay and Kenny look so alike, except that Jay looks more white, and Kenny looks more mixed.  On several occasions, I have approached the wrong man, thinking he was the other one.  We know there has got to be common ancestor around there somewhere, but as yet we have not found them.

So you are going to hear these two words in Louisiana, Cajun and Creole.  Originally Creole meant anyone born in Louisiana of French or Spanish decent.  The word has changed over the years.  Creole in Louisiana has no relation to the persons or language by that name in the West Indies.  Most of the time, in Louisiana when we speak of Creole, it is in relationship to a unique ethic group with our state, and area.  These persons were and are a mix of African-American, French and/ or Spanish.  They were early “Free People of Color.”  Many of them even owned slaves.  They continue to have French traditions and customs.  They have for centuries lived in over 100 small endogamous communities, scattered threw out Louisiana, many of them still in existence. One of these major communities is outside of Natchitoches on Cane River.  Another one, is the one Kenny ‘s family is from, outside of Lake Charles.  Now make no mistake, these are not just mix persons or mulatto.  This is a culture with it’s own language, history, food ways, and customs.  They are just another part of what make’s Louisiana so wonderful!

Cajun is a term that is often applied by other persons not from Louisiana, to anyone who is from Louisiana.  That is incorrect.  Cajun is a bastardization of the word Acadian, which means “of Canada.”  Acadia was the French name of what we now know of as Nova Scotia, in Canada.  In the 1750’s the British living there, decided they wanted the French, to swear allegiance to the British crown, and denounce their Catholicism and become Protestant.  They refused.   Some left, and some were thrown out of their homes.  Many left carrying only what they had in their hands, and set sail for Louisiana.  They settled over, the next few years, into the bayou country and worked the land.  Some say so they would never again be found to be expelled by anyone, and some say they just wanted to be alone. 

From this Cajun culture we have those who speak a 17^th century version of French, with a lot of Spanish words thrown in, as well as some tribal and African words as well.  You have this wonderful music that also has a heavy German influence to it.  This tremendous food, that comes from living off the land around them, and what they could grow where they were.  Rice became a staple, because South Louisiana was too wet to grow potatoes, west of the Atchafalaya Basin.  The peppers and the heat came from the Spanish.  It was something they learned from the tribal people.  Peppers and hot food makes you sweat, and when you sweat you are cooler.  We also know now that peppers have antibiotic properties to them. 

So today you have Cajun country, which makes a triangle from Lake Charles in the South West corner of Louisiana, kind of close to Houston, over East to New Orleans and then up to about Alexandria, in the middle of the state.  This includes Lafayette where I would go to school at ULL, then USL, from 1994-1996. 

When I met my first roommate at USL, she was from so far back, and her accent so thick, it took her 3 days to convince me she was not a French national.  Some people there had a thicker French accent, come more of a Cajun, and some just plain Southern.  It was defiantly an interesting place to live.  After two years there I came back with an accent and love for hot spicy food.  You learned quick there to like spicy food, or you didn’t eat.  Even the pizza sauce was special made for the area, and was spicy.

It is hard to say exactly when you pass into Cajun country.  For me, it is when I can’t pronounce the names of the towns on the signs anymore.  My Cajun friends used to laugh at me because I could not say anything right.  They did not believe that anything north of Alexandria, was even part of Louisiana.  It was just America to them, and not part of who they were.  This creates all kinds of problems in our state government and we will talk about that in a bit.

Cajuns also have a distinct accent, which I am sure many of you can try to imitate.  They also say strange things like:

“How many channels does your TV catch?” = “How many stations do you get on your TV?”

“Go open the light.” = “Go turn on the light.”

“We going to get down and go make Groceries.” = “We are going get out of the car and go into the grocery store.”

“Che’” =a version of Cheri, a term of love and affection

“Boo” = a term of love and affection

“ça suffit” = Is that enough?

I do.  I think that’s enough for one night.

Ilsa

This article could not have been possible without the help of :  Louisiana: the first 300 years, by Joan B. Garvey and Mary Lou Widmer, Garmer Press, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2001.

 And my good buddy Ryan. Thanks Y’all!