john amato

the entire amato clan decide to do something special this weekend. dr, being the ultimate college student, led the movement to go to the goula over his spring break to visit kt. pants and he scheduled flights together, pat took a day off and chuck and i followed suit.

this visit was so much more amazing than when dr and i went down earlier this year. the goula community really came out in full force. they are very special people. the world would be a much better place if we followed their example of kindness and generosity.

kt’s guardian of the south, ms. janie, moved her family out of the house for the week to allow our entire family to stay comfortably together. and she made us an excellent meal tuesday night too. on sunday a decent sized group of goulans gathered for the afternoon and dinner to welcome us. you should have seen all of the desserts. dr started the weekend strong that night with an appetite that rivals the edge. i was truly impressed.

we mixed things up sunday by going to the local gator farm. it was a nice side trip. we got to ride around on one of those big fan boats and our guide actually gave us a pretty solid explanation of the difference between gators and crocs, what happened during katrina, gator processing, and a bunch of other things. other random tidbits of the trip: gramma drove down friday night and hung with us until sunday. he resumed all driving duties while with us. as the parents are wont to do, we went to a casino in bilox on monday night. kt, dr, and i went to a show and the buffet while the parents gambled. dr and i ate a disgusting amount of food. i’m still kind of full. seriously. it was completely awesome. so was sonic and thunders. pat took the red eye home on monday. chuck and i came home the next night. because of the weather, our trip took 3 hours and we didn’t get home until 3:30. not fun.

the highlight of the trip, of course, was kt’s students. i can’t believe she’s teaching them anything really. they’re carazy! we hung out in her classroom quite a bit, with chuck sharing teaching responsibilities. kody is still the king, brice is my new brother, blake is quite the dancer, the white chicks love the palm tree hairdo made famous by kt, and the girls still can’t keep their hands of dr at recess. i have some videos that will explain some of this better.

to wrap things up, i need to reiterate how amazing the community of pascagoula is. kt is extremely lucky to have been placed there. the entire area was devastated by katrina. i was very surprised to see that they are still very far from being whole again. many houses have not been rebuilt, there are visible remnants of foundations, and the people are still very emotionally scarred. it was all very interesting to learn about and see firsthand. i hope i get to visit many more times.

as always, i took plenty of photos. they are on my flickr page divided into convenient little sets. check them out!