I thought I was a certain kind of person, until (this life changing event happened)

I believe the closest I have come to experiencing a true self was when I traveled to New Orleans to do Hurricane Katrina relief work. I have never been so at peace and so real. I was free from almost all media influences, with the exception of the radio which we listened to when driving to our work sites. While I was there I did not wear any make-up and I wore my worst jeans and t-shirts with work boots. I did not feel self-conscious at all (which would have definitely not been the case back home). Going to New Orleans and seeing the immense destruction and hearing people’s stories about how their lives had been so drastically changed really put things into perspective for me. No longer did it matter what my outward appearance was. No longer did I feel constrained to act a certain way and not in other ways for the sake of impressing others. I realized how much of a waste of time it was to put on a show for other people, especially for those so removed from my life, though so many of us put on the best shows for these people. For once…I just was.
As we entered this different world- a world of broken dreams, no running businesses, no people on the roads or sidewalk, no electricity, no running water, and FEMA trailers for those who were lucky- we seemed to have gotten quite confused. Over the week-long trip, many student’s made comments like, “I can’t wait to get back to the real world.” I admit to saying and thinking this myself, yet as the days went by, I realized more and more how this world we were in was more real than any world I had ever been in. I don’t know what is more real than people in need, than nature at its worst, than life, and better yet, than death. This was the real world. The “world” we knew that existed at home- a world of comfort from having a roof over head, living family members, television, hot showers, and People magazine- was a false reality.
As much as the New Orleans trip focused on helping others, I feel that the trip ultimately became largely focused on myself as well. In New Orleans I grew tremendously as an individual. I learned a level of compassion and understanding that I never new existed within myself. I learned how to do things selflessly. I learned that in a matter of seconds all the material things I value could be gone. I learned that in a second, the people I love can be taken from me. Ultimately, I learned where my priorities lie and it was not in my possessions.

I guess my experience in New Orleans could be labeled as a "carnivalesque" expereience (Bennett 2005, 148). As Bennett writes, as taken from Bakhtin, a carnivalesque experience (as it relates to tourism) is " a means through which individuals can temporarily reinvent themselves, playig with identities and engaging in forms of 'carnivalesque' behaviour impermissible in their normal everyday lives" (148). My not caring about fashion or material possessions, my enjoying working 9 hour days in the grossest and most unsanitary environment imaginable would be thought of as "impermissible in...normal everyday lives."