I love your dimple!

Our short, but full visit to Hattiesburg, Mississippi was full of pleasant surprises. A small world it is indeed...For instance: I meet my host mother Joanna..she shows me her beautiful wood cabin-style house in the woods and introduces me to her adorable pets (two dogs Molly and Belle and a handsome cat Leo), we talk a little bit about where we are from, our families, what we do... all the usual stuff and then as I am from Mt. Clemens, MI - she asks me if I have ever heard of Shirley Muldowney? Why yes I have! As a matter of fact I have actually met her and been to her home when I was child - my Dad did the graphics on her race car and trailer. (For those who may not know, Muldowney is a well-known female drag racer) Turns out, Joanna knows Shirley - Joanna's husband, the late Al Dapozzo was also a  successful racer and happened to be very good friends with Muldowney. What are the odd's of having that kind of random connection with someone?! Crazy!

Saturday was a day off - I'm sure everyone has heard about the recent 8.8 earthquake in Chile. Some members of the SOUL team were worried on Saturday about repercussions of the quake in their home countries. Venezuela (Zuly) was in range to possibly be affected by after-shocks and Rapa iti, French Polynesia (Steve) as an island in the middle of the Pacific was threatened by a potentially serious Tsunami. I am happy to report though that after a day with a little worry, a lot of news monitoring, and successful contact to family members - everything is A-okay. :)

Aside from Steve the SOUL team attended a Dulcimer festival all day Saturday with some of our hosts - and you may wonder what a Dulcimer is. It is an old string instrument originating from the Appalachian mountains and people who still play get together all over the country at festivals to share stories, music, and a common love for the art of the Dulcimer. Who knew? The festival didn't quite turn out to be what we expected. I think we were expecting to hear more jamming and more music. It seems a lot of the time people were just together talking, but as we have no real knowledge of the Dulcimer we didn't have much to talk about. It was still interesting though to hear about the instrument and we also attended a little mini workshop on how to play the wooden spoons which was pretty cool. We also on Saturday visited a faculty art exhibit at the University of Southern Mississippi  (a name you might recognize from the recent Blockbuster hit "The Blind Side" and also as the Alma Mater of NFL player Brett Favre). One of our hosts Betty is a professor of photography there and had some beautiful photos on display at the exhibit that she captured in Sierra Leone. We also met another photographer at the exhibit who works for the university and who came up to me asking if he could photograph me because of my unique dimple on my chin. It was an odd request and one I had never heard before, but I figured why not...when in Rome, right? So he took some photos of me at the exhibit and some photos of  Teele, Zuly and I together which was kind of fun and flattering when I thought about it afterward! It was also a really beautiful day outside which was nice...the weather does slowly but surely continue to get better as we move further south...yay!!

The entire SOUL team and our hosts also gathered Saturday evening at Betty's house for dinner, music and visiting and we were THIS CLOSE to finally watching La Vita y Bella (Life is Beautiful)...a movie we've been trying to watch almost since the beginning of the tour. But, everyone got to visiting and it ended up being too late...we will get there one day, I just know it..."I can feel it in me bonessss!"

Church was awesome Sunday morning! SOUL was basically the entire service and many people told us it was one of the largest turn-outs they had ever had. And the most ironic thing happened! For the second time in just two days...I had another guy come up to me and tell me how great my dimple was. I know my dimple is very noticeable and people may think about it all the time - but people whom I don't really know don't often actually SAY anything about it. Not that I mind, I think it is a compliment? It was just an interesting chain of events. It was another gorgeous day out today. We all went to Susan's house (another one of our Hattiesburg hosts) for lunch before heading out of town and we ended up getting more than we bargained for! First a chance to play with her two really cute dogs. And also my host mom Joanna and her friend Jaimie joined which was a treat in and of itself...but! Joanna and Jaimie are also both professional massage therapists so we kind of got our own little SOUL massage session. It was amazing, they were awesome!

Speaking of Jaimie - she told me a story that I just have to share, because it's one of the craziest stories I think I've ever heard! So she had a regular gray house cat that unfortunately was chased underneath her dryer by dog, had a punctured lung and died. So they put the cat in a box and her husband at the time was supposed to bury the box in the backyard. A couple months later while Jaimie was in her garage a gray cat appeared and started meowing at her like it knew her. It was the same size, color, sex, stature, etc as her other cat and acted as if it knew her - and was also seemingly afraid of the dog from the dryer incident like he knew what the dog had done. The cat was so strikingly similar to her old cat that Jaimie did a little investigating. Come to find out, her husband at the time had never gotten around to burying the box and when they looked inside it, it was completely empty. No cat, no body parts, no bones, no fur, and the box had not forcibly opened at any point either. To this day Jaimie and her family swear that it is the same cat, reincarnate, and they call him Church. Is that not the creepiest/coolest/craziest story?! I love hearing stories like that though...in a way it helps to reinforce the idea that anything is possible - which is always a good thing to believe I think.

Anywho...after lunch we hit the highway, New Orleans bound! We arrived and ate dinner with our new host family where we will all be staying together for a full week, woo hoo :-D It's only our first night here and we have already eaten beignets at Cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter, walked around Jackson square, found the greatest store on Earth (Coincidentally called "Jackie's" ;-)), and walked Bourbon Street. I have high hopes for this week and it is even warmer here than in Mississippi! And the best part is...we all learned about Dulcimer's and what they were just a day ago at a seemingly random festival in Hattiesburg and low and behold, what do we come across today? A guy, in Jackson Square, playing a Hammer Dulcimer like it was his job! (Oh wait...it is his job...) If that doesn't say small world, then I am Hawaiian and my name is Steve Angia.

Peace, love, New Orleans ~ Jackie