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Two personal stories, one from
2005 and one from several years past, will help to convey
the way an outsider experienced Mardi Gras in Mamou.
In 2005, I was pacing up and
down a rural road east of Mamou, waiting for the courir to
arrive. About 150 feet behind me, I could overhear snatches
of a conversation in French between a man and a women
sitting in a car. "C'est un photographer," the man said at
one point. "Il comprend pas." From what I could gather, he
was explaining that I was in a quandary because I had been
sent to photograph something I didn't understand. He was
right, of course: I didn't really understand what was going
on. I think his attitude toward the ignorance of outsiders
is good. The people of Mamou preserve their traditions
and culture for themselves, not to cater to tourists or get
media coverage.
A few years ago, I was in the
parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly Supermarket waiting with a
number of Mamou residents for the courir to make its first
stop on the way toward the countryside. With the courir less
than a half mile away, I managed to lock my keys (and my
camera) inside my car. I was about to smash a window to get
in when a woman came up to me and said that she would try to
get help from her cousin who was a sheriff's deputy
escorting the courir. I followed her toward the road,
but meanwhile, someone else had located the manager of the
Piggly Wiggly, who had an unlocking device, so that by the
time I walked back to my car it was open. I grabbed my
camera in time to take some photos as the courir arrived.
I was amazed at being able to get my car unlocked in less
than five minutes on Mardi Gras Day in Mamou, but I
shouldn't have been. That kind of helpfulness and generosity
occurs all the time in the small communities in Acadiana,
including on Mardi Gras Day.
--David Simpson, LSUE |
