Transcript by Greta Gerstener

Rachel: South Louisiana. We sit on the edge of the Gulf watching the waters rise, getting hotter, wetter, colder, and drier. In the blink of an eye, our streets flood so badly we can't get to school or work, and we've lost another football field's worth of wetlands. But the exciting news is that everywhere you look, we are adapting. Figuring out how to rise with the water, plan better, and listen to nature.

I'm your host, Rachel Nederveld, and this is No Matter the Water, a series of interviews with neighbors across the region who are figuring out how to live with our unpredictable weather.

The loss of moving to higher ground isn't just a house. It's a whole community, the way of life, and the culture. And that's a hard thing to think about, which is why it's important for educators to empower kids with skills they can use to make change, and to give them tools to talk about what's happening, and that can take many forms. In fact, the title for this project comes from a poem about Hurricane Ida by today's guest.

Summer: We have learned a lot from the red fish that can still hang on and adapt no matter what the water, it finds itself in, salty or fresh.

So when the water rises, it does rise in the front bayou right there, but then there's also bayou back there, which is where the levees are.

[General droning noises from inside a car that is driving]

Rachel: I'm in the car with Summer Skarke, an elementary school principal, poet, and a resident of Chauvin, Louisiana. She's giving me a tour of the town.

Summer: But you can get water from this part too.

Rachel: This part too, yeah.

Summer: So it'll come at you from

Rachel: both sides.

Summer: It can, yeah.

Rachel: This area of the state was devastated by Ida in 2021 because of the hurricane's intense sustained winds.

Summer: Montegut Middle and Lacache, they're building a school next to South Terrebonne High School and they're gonna merge those two middle schools together in a brand new school. They're trying to get the schools off the bayou.

Rachel: So there will be no schools in Chauvin?

Summer: Right.

Rachel: Wild

Summer's lived in Chauvin

Summer: My whole life.

Rachel: 47 years. And she has deep roots here.

Summer: Both of my grandparents, my father's mom and dad, I say live way down the bayou. In Chauvin, there's only like one road in and that same road out. So we reference where we live as down the bayou and up the bayou. So that's how you kind of know where people are. So my dad's mom and dad lived way down the bayou. My mom and dad live, and I would call it the middle of the, down the bayou up the bayou next to the Piggly Wiggly and next to Lacache, cause that's how we referenced everything.

My grandfather and grandmother lived in a little house and they had like Spanish moss trees in the backyard, and they lived next door to the local swimming pool, it was a public swimming pool, the public library and the fire station, and a snowball stand. So it was like they had the dream spot when I was a child. Just letting you know on Sundays, like I had it made in the shade.

Rachel: Can you tell me about your family's connection to the land and the water?

Summer: So my grandfather actually quit school when he was in second grade. He was asked to go to the board and spell ship, and he accidentally spelled shit, if that's okay that I say that.

Rachel: Yeah.

Summer: The teacher fussed him and the class laughed, and he walked out the door and never went back. So he started trapping for a living. My father worked offshore and when I was in around middle school he was laid off, that was in like the 1980s when they had all those layoffs in the oil field and so my dad ended up taking all the money he had from working offshore and he built a trawl boat and he actually called his boat the Summerlin. So while I think that's beautiful today, as a child I was like, I guess like, embarrassed that the boat was named after me, and now I think that's the coolest thing ever.

Whenever they would get a catch, they would throw it all on the front deck and then you would have to pick the fish and all out from the shrimp and that was always my job, it was called trier-ing, so you would trier all the like shrimp. Or if like my dad would go out, sometimes he'd come in with the boat at like midnight, so me and my mom and my brothers and like my Aunt and my Parrain, we'd all go down to the boat and we'd all get in a deck in like trier the shrimp and fish and all. So I mean as a child growing up, that was just something that was a part of my lifestyle. We'd go on the trawl boat for a couple of days and catch shrimp out the water, and then my mom would make a shrimp spaghetti inside the boat, like best thing ya ever ate in your life, just letting you know.

Rachel: What did Chauvin look like as a kid?

Summer: The way Chauvin looked to me as a kid is like full of life. So there were trees everywhere and like animals everywhere, flowers blooming, and children riding their bikes along the bayou. It's like it was alive, people were out and about.

So like the old people, a lot of times they'd sit on their front porch and have coffee and then people riding their bikes or walking would come and stop and talk or have a cup of coffee. If you would go to the snowball stand, she knew the flavor of your snowball, you wouldn't even have to tell her, she knew everybody's flavor of the snowball, 'cause we were just a really small community that just knew each other. You know, your neighbors took care of your kids and you took care of your neighbor's kids and how you knew when you had to come in when the street lights went out, you know? So that's how I remember Chauvin as a kid. It's changed a lot over time, but that's what I remember about Chauvin was just everybody was family.

Rachel: With boats scattered along the bayou's banks, structures leaning on trees waiting to be torn down and shuttered businesses with no plans to reopen, that change is obvious as we drive through town.

Summer: That's where Upper Little Caillou was right here, so they've torn it down and it's nothingness.

Rachel: Oh, wow. Yeah.

Summer: Yeah, so this is Lacache. So like I said, the school is still there, but...

Rachel: What does it feel like to see it?

Summer: It makes me sad when I pass, I wanna go in, like I always just wanna go, like in my old classroom. I don't want to go in, but like I want it to be functioning and it's, it's just not.

Rachel: Wait were you teaching there?

Summer: for Hurricane Ida.

Rachel: So if you went in, it would be your classroom?

Summer: Yeah.

Rachel: How do you talk to students or kids about what's happening with the rising water and the erosion and the storms?

Summer: So to be honest, this is just the way that I feel, I feel that Chauvin people don't talk about it because it's a reality that you don't want, you live it, and so you don't wanna like, stay in it. I feel like it's just something we didn't talk about until it was happening all the time, and I say that because even for myself, I went to a symposium and it was about the wetlands and I was sitting with these engineers from Switzerland and all these places, and I was representing, you know, the boot, the bottom of the boot, education and what that was gonna look like and how it was gonna be different if coastal erosion came and took our land away.ÊI remember them saying, you know, what are you gonna do when your school's not there anymore or your school's surrounded in water, are your kids gonna take a boat to get to school? And I remember them telling me all these things and I got mad and I was like, what are you talking about? Because in my head, as an adult, I could not wrap my mind around what they were telling me cause that was never going to happen. So why are we talking about things that's ridiculous? That's how I felt.

I remember them saying that there was somewhere where they had actually thought about putting schools on barges so that if the water rose, the barge would just come up and then the school wouldn't be affected. I was like, oh, that's a cool concept, you know? They were like, oh, you know, we're projecting this 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now. Five years later, Ida hit, and took out every school in our community and I remember me crying. I cried in front of grown men 'cause I was mad that they were trying to tell me that there was a possibility that they wouldn't have education where I lived, and then it happened and I was like, whoa, they messed this up. They like, I couldn't have handled the truth if they'd have told me five years ago I'd have then really thought they were crazy, right?

Now, we're not underwater, that's not why the schools aren't there. We typically have always been able to prepare for water, but Ida was wind. So I say that, I know you kind of asked me how do you talk to kids about it, I don't know that I do or that I ever really did because it's such a touchy subject and it's almost like something you don't wanna, how do you talk to someone about, that one day the place where you live might not exist, or it might be under water. It's a hard concept to imagine that the house that I live in may not be there one day 'cause it's just water. Even though I've seen things like that happen to some degree, I don't know that I even know how to touch that subject because I've seen that it could be a reality, you know? It's something I don't wanna talk about because it makes me mad.

Rachel: Yeah.

And while it's hard to imagine the large-scale changes to come, the potential for a hurricane to upend someone's life has long been understood. During Katrina and Rita, Summer was teaching at Lacache Middle, the school that's still standing with the ghost of her classroom.

Summer: I told the students, look, we don't know the reality of what's gonna happen. We kind of talk to them like, who leaves for hurricanes? Who stays? And if you stay, where do you go and what do you take with you? And we share stories about, you know, what are your little hurricane traditions? And I had encouraged my students to write uh, journals while they were gone, just write, you know, what's going on each day and how you feel. And I did have some students that after the hurricane and they came back, they had kept journals and they did get up in front of the class and share stories.

You know, writing is a way of preserving culture and history, and so that's what I kind of encourage them to do. What if we leave and we can't come back? I know that seems scary, but it is always a reality or what does coming back look like?

Rachel: After Katrina and Rita, a national reporter visited Summer's classroom. They were working on a piece about whether the kids realized the severity of the changing landscape around them.

Summer: She asked them a question, and I guess I had never thought about it, and she said, are you staying or are you going? The kids just kind of looked at her and they were like, what do you mean? She said, when you get outta high school and you go to college, or you start in the workforce, is your intent to have that job and stay here, or is your intent to leave and never come back?

So all the kids just got kind of really quiet, it was heavy, and I don't think anyone had ever asked them that, do you wanna stay or do you wanna go? And she was able to kind of work them to start sharing about, this is what I wanna be, but I don't wanna be here or this is what I wanna be and I wanna be here to make this place better.

So I was teaching eighth graders at the time, and at that point in the year they were scheduling, or it was close to scheduling, for high school. I think that it did play a part in some of their thinking about, do I wanna go to college? If I do go to college, what am I going to college for?

Rachel: This became something Summer regularly talked to her eighth graders about when it was time to schedule high school.

Summer: There's jobs that are here that people could have that would make a difference here, and some of it was about coastal erosion or biology work. It got them thinking in other directions besides just the typical things that, you know, being a trawler or being an oysterman, or being a doctor or a teacher, you know, just those jobs that everybody just kind of does. Whereas like, let's branch out and think about other things that actually could help to save the community you live in.

I choose like I want to be here and I guess it's because I want my community and the children in our community to have the benefits of a good education and to have strong leaders and to have role models and people they can look up to, to say like, just because I'm from Chauvin doesn't mean that I can't change something or save a piece of the world, or stop coastal erosion. You know, I wanna give them hope that you can be from Chauvin and still do great things. Because sometimes I feel like that's not always the dream. The dream is just, you know, you live along the bayou and you have a happy little life and you're simple and that's good and it is and that's okay too. It's okay to just, to just be, but if you want to make a difference, you can do that too, even though you're from here.

Rachel: Getting kids to think about jobs that can help their communities is something that's made its way into curriculum as well. There are a variety of different programs that create and make available lessons for kids to understand the role of weather and nature in their communities, and to get students thinking about jobs that tackle common issues like flooding and coastal erosion.

Summer: People in this area developed a curriculum that we have in Terrebonne Parish in our school system. They will go into the elementary schools and middle schools, and they do wetland coastal erosion days where they do projects with the kids and show them different things about coastal erosion.

But on the high school level, they provided a curriculum. There are two lessons, like huge lessons within the environmental science in Terrebonne Parish. So one day I observed one of our environmental science teachers. They had clay, they had a blow dryer, they had water, they had like metal tins, and they had to create a levee that was big enough so that when the water rose, that it wouldn't go into the land. They used the blow dryer as the wind of the hurricane, which was super cool. So the water couldn't splash over or they got a lower grade and that is actually where kids have those conversations about hurricanes and levees and moving and hurricane preparation and categories of the hurricanes, and how do you know when to leave and stay.

Rachel: Can you grapple in your head what it would mean to move and what that would entail and what that would be like?

Summer: My boys might have kids and then I don't know that I would want to move, 'cause then I'd want to be here for their children. We're not at that point yet, so I definitely would not leave, anytime.

Rachel: You can't even pretend.

Summer: No, I can't, because a lot of times my husband always says, oh, well I would move somewhere and live somewhere else. Like he'll just say it and I shut him down. I'm like, I'm not talking about that, and maybe it is because my parents will never leave Chauvin. They're rooted here and I'm not going to leave them, I still live next door to them. We haven't cut the umbilical cord just yet.

Rachel: I'm guessing you've met people like this. People just don't understand why you wanna live here. They're like, Ida came, you guys just need to move. Why rebuild? What is your response to that?

Summer: It's peaceful and it's quiet. What I'm gonna say is gonna sound probably ridiculous, but the world is like really loud. I don't know how else to explain what I'm trying to say, and it doesn't feel safe all the time, but Chauvin just does. It's special, like being a part of the Bayou and just, I say swamp, but just the, the trees and the land and the sun coming up in the morning and going down. That's just what it is to me. It's home and I don't wanna be anywhere else, even though I have to go through a hard time, at times to like overcome mother nature because we still overcome. I get that there might be a point where we can't, and that's the part I can't talk about.

In the event that I ever do have to move for whatever reason, I don't know that it will ever be home. It will be someplace I am living and I will do what I have to do to survive. But like this will always be home to me, there would always be a pull for me to be here. I like that living here has made me resilient. I like that living here allows me to help my neighbor or be a part of my community. When I travel, I think people are nice, I think people are friendly, but not like Chauvin, nice and friendly, it's different. It's what helped me to be who I am. It's what built my character. It's what makes me lovey, like I love and I think it's 'cause the people around me love.

Rachel: And though Chauvin has changed in many ways since she was a child, a lot of the parts that make it so special are still there.

Summer: One of my boys, he went away to college and he came home after like a few months of being away and he said he was mad at me and I was like, for what? And he said, because you made me believe that the world was a good place, and that I didn't have to have my guard up. He said, because we live in this community where it's safe. I went to a school where everybody's parents took care of me, I trusted everyone. He said, and you didn't tell me when I left that I had to protect myself and he said, so it took me a few months to realize that this ain't Chauvin. So that was such a powerful message for me, and it also was beautiful that he understood the love and support and care that he got from our community, and the place that we live, that the world everywhere isn't always like that.

Rachel: This is all a lot of stress, how your home is both changing and staying the same and not knowing how long it will even be there. Luckily, Summer has poetry.

Summer: So I write poetry, that is a form of therapy and healing for me. It's how I release what's going on inside of me or like it's my view or vision of what the people around me are going through. Poetry for me is not sitting down for hours trying to think. It just comes and it's, it's quick and it makes you feel good. It was a release of all the things. I like poetry because it's a beautiful way to express grief or loneliness or tragedy or love or whatever it is you're trying to express, poetry is just a beautiful way of doing it. And I think it's because a lot of times when it is written, it's out of a place of, I've been holding and now I'm releasing.

I read poetry sometimes for events, you know, they ask a poet to come, so sometimes I will write a poem about an event and I'll go and read it. I like when I shared the one I wrote about Ida, there was a few people in the audience who I noticed got emotional, and so that for me makes me realize that I'm not alone in my feelings and that my words were able to bring someone to a place of emotion, I think is like a beautiful gift.

Rachel: I asked Summer to read a part of her poem, "High Tide at Robinson Canal," about the closing down of all the bayou schools in Chauvin.

Summer: Little girlsÕ names on their DaddyÕs boats
Castanets in every little boysÕ hands
no need for winter coats
Working on our summer tans

No matter the weather
We were taught toÉ FLOAT

But one by one we started to Fall
Way Down the Bayou where we lost our soil
And then another Schoolhouse went down
And the community started to break
There is only so much pain that a small town heart can take

People moved out
And we were hanging by a thread
Praying the seasons of hurricanes would not bring dread

Then it happened,
Ida stopped in and took what little was left
Did anyone even bother to charge her with Theft?

We were robbedÉ
At night with our doors unlocked and wide open
But Grandpa always said we should never stop Hoping
For better days, sunny skies and a slice of old lady pies

What happens to a small town when there is no place for their schools?
They gather together because they ainÕt no Fools
And they eat
and they laugh
and they share all the lessons they learned

From the school houses that now sit like earthly urns
If the Love of a teacher,
is where TRUE learning begins
Then, Chauvin would take the win
Again and again and againÉ

Rachel: ?Thank you for listening to this episode of No Matter the Water, which was produced by Rachel Nederveld and Associate Produced by Jillian Godshall
Production support and story editing by Laine Kaplan Levinson with editing help from Theo Balcomb
Aaron Thomas did the Sound Design & Mix
Our music is by Richard Revue and Cover Art by MakeMade
Thanks so much to our guest Summer Skarke, and to everyone who has helped make this project possible
A special shout out to The Current for their support, especially Christiaan Mader and Johanna Divine
You can learn more about the topics in this episode and hear the rest of the series at nomatterthewater.com
Funding for this project has been provided in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, South Arts, Acadiana Center for the Arts, the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Lafayette Economic Development Authority, the State of Louisiana, Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and ArtSpark
No matter the water is a production of Ga De Don and The Current Media