Municipal Internet in Cajun Country
Back in 1997, I was a student living miserably in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Unbeknownst to me at the time, North Louisiana was not part of Cajun Country. I moved there and was soon asking, “Where are all the Catholic Churches, seafood resturants and warm people?” The people in Natchitoches had a strange accent and prided themselves not on how well they could make a gumbo, but how well they could make a meat pie or wreath made of magnolia stems. Like the day I asked my mom why we never ate blackened food, I realized that I’d been mislead by popular media. Not everyone in Louisiana is Cajun nor can everyone in Louisiana cook well.
I wasn’t happy in Natchitoches; I found the Information Systems program at Northwestern State to be ultra-subpar. I wanted to be in a place that was on the cutting edge of technology and North Louisiana was not that place. The thought crossed my mind to do something drastic for broadband but I didn’t take the idea seriously until I asked the TCA cable guy when cable modems would be available. He looked at me and scoffed “Not anytime soon, that’s for sure.” After some prodding, I found out that broadband access would not be available there until 3 years later, in 2000. That day, I began looking around the country for suitable places to live, ie. places that provided cable modem service. After some thought, I decided on San Diego, California.
Fast forward nearly 10 years and I’ve made my way up the California coast, living as far away from Silicon Valley as Kaplan is from Lafayette (22 miles, give or take). Technologically speaking, Cajun Country has progressed by leaps and bounds. Lafayette is one of the first places in the entire US to offer municipal Internet access. While we don’t even have that here in San Francisco, Mountain View, home of Google and one of the towns in Silicon Valley, does provide municipal WI-FI but that project is being funded solely by Google. In a show of awesomeness, the citizens of Lafayette are funding their own damn network and they’ve even faced lawsuits by both Cox Cable and BellSouth to do so.
PBS.org has a special on the courage of Lafayette residents titled “The Net @ Risk: Fiber in Lafayette Louisiana.” You can read more there as well as watch the accompanying video (complete with Cajun accents that can take any displaced Cajun back home instantly).
11 Comments so far
Leave a reply
Thanks for the link to this video.
I’ve just discovered this blog and think it’s one of the best around.
Thanks to Chrissie LaMaire for getting this this site up and going.
Jacques Mistrot
Thanks a ton Jacques! Question: is your last name pronoucned Mee Stro?
Yes Chrissie it is.
Given that you broke it down phonetically correctly, I take you’ve run across it somewhere in the past around Louisiana. I’ve also heard some family members pronounce it a “Miss Stro”.
jacques
I’ve actually not come across it.. just taking a gander at the way we’d likely say it. I’m generally decent with last name pronunciation though I’ve gotta admit, “Gaudet” (Go day) got me first time around.
Haha,
Was just reading your comments Chrissy and saw your comment on my last name. Don’t feel bad everyone gets gaudet wrong, in fact it appears that we’ve been pronouncing it wrong also. When we started going to Nova Scotia (Acadie) the Gaudet’s and other Acadians up there couldn’t understand it either. They pronounce it GawDeh…with a quick deh…
I usually just say this ‘Go Day you know the opposite of Stay Night’. Most get it after that.
Ironically in 1997 I was in Natchitoches (moved from very far north Louisiana),in CIS, thinking, “what is up with all these Catholics and the Crawfish Hole”? Fast forward 10 years and I am now a software developer in Lake Charles and living the “stranger in a strange land” life.
I have given thought to writing book called “A RedNeck in in Cajun Land”. It would contain some humorous experiences I have had since arriving.
Save Our Cypress
The cypress mulch industry threatens Louisiana’s coastal protection and sensitive ecosystems throughout the country. Help launch the new Save Our Cypress campaign today by requesting that Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Lowe’s immediately stop distributing all cypress mulch products.
Cypress forests in the Gulf provide valuable protection from flooding and hurricane storm surge. These same coastal wetland forests are important wildlife for habitat, including threatened and endangered species like the Louisiana black bear.
Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Lowe’s have an ideal opportunity to live up to stated policies of sustainability by stocking and promoting sustainable mulches, like pine straw and pine bark nuggets, rather than cypress mulch.
Please click the link below to ask the CEO’s of Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Lowe’s to save our cypress and help save coastal Louisiana.
actionstudio.org/?go=2567
For our forests, for our future,
Jill Mastrototaro
Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation
Save Our Cypress Coalition Member
(504) 836-7208
jill@saveourlake.org
Chrissy, have you got any November/December entries coming soon?
jacques
Chrissy -
The La. Supreme Court gave the Lafayette City-Parish gov the go-ahead to use city bonds to complete this project!! Whoo-hoooooo!!
LOl I hate that you did not like Natchitoches. The area around ther has quite a bit of charm. Actually the Catholic influence is still felt around there. Especially in such interesting places a s Zwolle and other places. The problem is that Natchitoches is too far away from Shreveport and Alexandria the media never reports on all the shennigans that go on. Thus retarding its progres
I am a native San Diegan who moved to Baton Rouge, LA about 6 months ago to be with my boyfriend (who is attending LSU) and to work at a competitive design/PR agency (Yes, in Southern Louisiana!) Coincidentally, our agency represents a local telecommunications agency who is extremely cutting-edge and waaaaay better than Cox.
My boyfriend is from Chauvin, LA, and although I would never ever live there, I love the people “down the bayou” - the cooking, warmth, camaraderie, activities and charm – it’s a great place to visit. I miss San Diego a lot – the beautiful weather, beaches and dozens of amazing people I met over the years. However, I don’t miss the “beautiful” people, lack of community, impossible home prices and unwelcoming sense you get throughout most of the city. Most people are in “it” for themselves. Believe me, SD is great, but it’s not paradise, it’s just another place to choose to live your life