Louisiana: Part 3, Sweat Equity & LSU Basketball

Tuesday we had another day of work on site, and I spent the day painting again. We also got to meet some of the future homeowners. The way Habitat for Humanity works is that it doesn’t just give away houses for free, it sells them at below market price and with affordable financing, making no profit. Future homeowners, once selected, have to put in a number of hours of “sweat equity” working on site. They also have to spend a number of hours working on their future neighbour’s houses before work is started on their own home. Homes are built in a cluster, and with all the homeowners helping to build each other’s houses, it’s intended to provide a little community of support.

After work, the trip leaders had planned a “study night” for us. I had brought zero study materials with me, knowing that I wasn’t about to waste valuable adventure time. You can study anywhere; you can only do Louisiana things in Louisiana.

Fortunately, the other trippers felt the same way. A couple of the guys suggested we go to a basketball game at Louisiana State University in nearby Baton Rouge, and the entire group decided to go.

It was a lot of fun to see LSU and compare it to campus life at our own university. Sports games at my home university are pretty low-key, whereas this game had a huge audience, all decked out in the school’s colours of purple and yellow, and many of the audience members seemed to be alumni. They had their own jumbotron to show us close-ups of the game. There was even a brass band present, that would leap into enthusiastic playing whenever there was a break and the cheerleaders jumped in.

Cheerleaders during the break. You can see the band, “Bengal Brass”, along the top middle:

After the game, our whole group was allowed onto the court to take pictures! I’m still not sure how this happened or why we were allowed to do that, but it was awesome.

Finally, we wandered around the campus for a while, enjoying the beautiful architecture and large courtyards, before heading back to Lafayette for the night.