Before Gulalek Charyyeva, an international student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, ever saw a Mardi Gras parade, she saw the aftermath.
During her first weeks in Lafayette, she noticed beads tangled in tree branches and scattered along sidewalks. At first, she was confused. Why would people throw plastic necklaces into trees?
“I had heard about it from peers,” she said. “Everyone kept saying, ‘Mardi Gras is coming,’ but I didn’t really understand what that would look like.”…