Do kids still get off three days of school for Mardi Gras in South Louisiana? I remember I couldn’t believe that children in other states didn’t get this huge holiday.. I mean, as kids, you look forward to Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mardi Gras and Easter. They’re really missing out (though they probably get off 3 days earlier for summer

My mom sent a really helpful link from the Time of Acadiana. Check it out of you are in the area: Mardi Gras 2006 in Acadiana - Get Busy.

Oh also, I made a Mardi Gras AIM Buddy Icon if any of you are in the celebratory mood.

Happy Mardi Gras, everyone!

I’ve often heard the term "Cajun French" but I can’t recall ever hearing the term "Cajun English" until I came across the PBS series "Do You Speak American?" Come to think about it, that’s a great way to explain how most Cajuns speak. I know from experience that a lot of the things we say in English don’t make much sense to people outside of South Louisiana. Here are a few phrases that come to mind:

- "Getting Down"
We use this when referring to someone getting out of a vehicle. For example "You gonna get down with me to buy some groceries or you gonna stay in the car?" You may have noticed I skipped an "are" in that phrase. We skip plenty of words too. Most of America interprets ‘getting down’ as dancing or heavy petting. This can be a problem at times as it was for my friend Ryan. He was in Tennessee with his wife, Nichole and her friend, a Tennessee native. Nichole went inside of a resturant and was taking awhile so Ryan looked at his friend and said "She’s taking awhile. I should check on her. You wanna get down with me?" and the friend started screaming at him. She thought he was putting the moves on her! He was able to calm her down but only after Nichole helped clear things up. This is a translated French term.
- "A gum"
This one baffled me.. a friend of mine was stuffing her face with spearmint gum so I asked her for some. "Can I have a gum?" She looked at me like I was crazy. "What do you mean?" "What do you mean what do I mean. I just asked for a gum." "Oh! You mean a piece of gum." Silly technicalities. Mmm now I want a gum.
- "Save the dishes"
I don’t even know how to say this in English. Saving the dishes is what you do after they are washed and dried..like, when you put them in the cupboard. "Put them away" is perhaps how other Americans say it. You can also save the clothes after they are folded.

Here are some other things you’ll hear in Cajun English
- Starting sentences with "mais." Ending sentences with "me"
Mais, I don’t know, me.
- Ending sentences in "no."
You call any, bruh, or no?
- Ending sentences in "yeah."
Man, that hurt, yeah.
- Making an entire sentence into one word
howsyamomanddem? (slurring is required when speaking French)
- Leaving out words or slightly changing the meaning
Where yall gone?
You heard about Holly Beach?
- The use of "Yaille" (ryhmes with pie)
Pooh yaille, Awe yaille
- The use of "tee." Tee means little in French. You can use it in place of "Jr." or in place of "bruh."
Tee-Tom is nuts!
Aw bruh I know. His brother Danny is even crazier.
Ay tee! You better watch it, that’s my cousin.

I believe you can hear some of this in the duck hunting MP3 I made in 2004. And in the video we made in Holly Beach in May 2005. If any of you Cajuns have any more, let me know. I’ll start a big collection and post it on RealCajunRecipes.com as an article

Baw baw baw. People think that New Orleans is the only city that exists in all of Louisiana. And they’ve somehow forgotten that Mississippi and other places were demolished by Katrina too. Just about everything you hear or read about hurricanes is about Katrina or New Orleans so it was refreshing to see that Miguel Bustillo wrote an article titled "Hurricane’s Forgotten Victims" recently in the Los Angeles Times that addresses just that. The summary reads: Four months after Rita and a world away from New Orleans, the ‘Cajun Riviera’ is still in ruins. Many fear they’ve been lost in Katrina’s shadow.

I wanted to thank the LA Times for giving some air time to Holly Beach and Rita victims wrote the following Letter to the Editor.

I’d like to thank Miguel Bustillo for bringing attention to the forgotten victims of Hurricane Rita in his February 6th editorial. I was born and raised in Vermilion Parish and spent many summers in Holly Beach. I first saw the size of Rita and her path which led right to my hometown while having dinner at Natalee Thai in Los Angeles. When I got home, I tied on my Holly Beach crabstring and beach shell necklace to feel some sort of solidarity with my friends and family back home. I knew they were on the "bad side" of the hurricane but hoped for the best anyway. My fears were confirmed when I picked up the LA Times and saw Holly Beach on the front cover, completely destroyed. The town was listed as Cameron in the caption but I knew without a doubt it was my family’s favorite beach.

Hurricane Rita destroyed so many of my friends’ homes but when people in California ask about my accent and I tell them I’m from Southwest Louisiana, the question that always follows is "Did Katrina destroy your family’s house? Did you live in New Orleans?" I tell them "No, my town barely felt a breeze when Katrina hit" and as I see them breathe a sign of relief, I follow up with "But a lot of people I know lost their homes in the flooding caused by Rita." They almost look baffled. How can this be? Even activists seem to have forgotten that all of the Gulf Coast was hit, not just New Orleans. Just two weeks ago I went to a political rally in San Francisco and repeatedly heard mentions of New Orleans and Katrina but never Rita or the Gulf Coast. I tried to do my part; each time I heard Katrina, I yelled back "Rita" and everytime I heard "New Orleans" I yelled back "Gulf Coast."

I thought after Rita hit people would realize that New Orleans isn’t the only city in South Louisiana. Sadly, I was mistaken. Just about everyone, even politically aware activists, has forgotten about the destruction that Rita caused in Cajun Country and the government’s following failures. I’m grateful that Mr. Bustillo and the LA Times have not. I hope to see the Los Angeles Times continue to report about victims of Hurricane Rita just as it has continued to report about the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Chrissy LeMaire
San Francisco, CA
(Formerly Kaplan, LA)

Here’s to more media coverage in the media on Holly Beach, Erath, Delcambre, "The Islands" and all of the other places affected by Rita and Katrina.