Big Test in the Big Easy

Maps don't tell the entire truth when one tries to feel the cultural texture that is the fabric of America. I've lived in a lot of places, but N'Orleans has a vibe all its own, a place where music is a the single most powerful adjective in its language of soul spiked with suffering. I'm making my first observations of this city as an outsider, and honestly that's the way it'll probably be when I leave. But even on the outside, you can feel the pulse of a place.
My name is Apurou, and I'm originally from the East Coast but I've truly grown up in Kansas City, the place I've called home in all my travels and where my extended family has lived for generations. I'm anticipating a September Peace Corps departure to the South Pacific, so I felt after graduating from KU (Rock Chalk JayHalk) I'd do some meaningful work here in N'Orleans, a place I associated more with swamps and jazz than acutal people. I still have so much to learn from this place, but I feel fulfilled and hungry being here. I was apprehensive in my initial days of being here. N'Orleans is a place where if one's going to flourish, ambiguity and grey make up for a lot; where collective memory is just as much of history as documented fact. This isn't the America I know, but it's special in its depth. We had a project recently where I remembered why I came here; help is help, no matter what the surface looks like. I am really excited for the coming days, and I'm sure at the end of my time here, I won't be the same author as I was when I got here.
Either way, I hope you grow to love N'Orleans as I am. Peace.