Moni in Reunion

good riddance (time of your life)

2007-06-26T01:12:00.000-05:00

yes, i know that song has become a cliche. i'm sorry, but i find the title super-appropriate for my last blog from La Réunion. Because, on the one hand, i doubt anyone who's read this blog or communicated with me over the course of the year will be surprised to know that i'm ready to leave. But on the other hand, in many ways i have had the time of my life. I've done things i never expected to do, like paragliding, and setting off across mountain passes in the middle of the night. With Vanessa i've been in the closest thing that i've had to a functional long-term relationship since gradutating from high school ;-) (sadly, that's more of a commentary on my love-life than on my relationship with Ness). I've met some absolutely amazing people. So, to wrap up, here's my inventory of what i'll be leaving behind me when i take that plane on Sunday.

Things i won't miss:
-daily sexual harrassment, incurred just by being female and outdoors
-the ridiculous traffic
-the gratuitous pollution
-feeling nervous about my language abilities
-being an elementary school teacher

Things i will miss:
-the view of the ocean
-hiking
-the saturday market
-tropical fruits
-the weather (ugh, hello NY winters)
-my spanish class
-my children (when they're not being awful brats like my first class yesterday)
-speaking French (and franglais)
-my wonderful friends

and thus ends Moni in Reunion...i'm switching definitively to the new blog.

Au revior, et je vous aime!

short-timing

2007-06-12T01:29:00.000-05:00

I know i haven't written in forever, but that's because i haven't had that much to say. As anyone who's gotten an e-mail from me since Mada knows, basically all i'm doing is reading, cooking, teaching, and counting down my days here. So not really much to write about. That being said, there is one exciting thing going on in my life.

Last week i got a voice mail message from my Spanish teacher, Alejandro, saying, "Monica, i have a friend who's searching for a feminine, anglophone voice. That is to say, i have a job to propose to you." Intrigued, of course, i called him back. It turns out Alejandro's friend Sammy is a documentary filmmaker who made a film about a scientific expedition to study fish populations in the Antartic. The film is going to be shown at a conference in England, so they want a version dubbed in English. Seeing as how 1) I have nothing better to do with my time and 2) I found the whole idea incredibly random and funny, I agreed to do it, and recruited my friend Julian to do the male parts. Last Friday i spent a few hours with Alejandro working on translating the script from French to English, which was surprisingly fun - nice to have a mental challenge beyond trying to come up with lesson plans. And tomorrow we're recording - my first time in a recording studio (except for visiting Sun Studios in Memphis). And we're getting paid 125€ for 1.5 - 2 hours of work (not bad), and will hopefully get a copy of the DVD so i can torment all of you with it! Awesome, right?

Switching gears, here's my schedule/contact info for the summer and beyond. The road trip/getting to New York details are still in the process of being worked out, but that's a general sketch. I'm not going to have enough time anywhere, but if i'm coming to your city and you want to hang out, let me know, we'll work something out.

Schedule:
July 1-12: Dubai
July 12-16: Paris
July17-August 1: Dallas, with probably the weekend of the 28th in Houston
(from this point all dates tentative)
August 2-6: Chicago
Aug 6-9: on the road :-)
Aug 9-11: Seattle
Aug 11-14: San Francisco
Aug 14-17: San Diego
Aug 17-18: Tucson
Aug 18-20: Tucson-Dallas, via Lubbock?
August 25th: Fly to New York.

Contact info:
American cell phone: 469-939-6989 (valid after July 17th)
Address for July and August:
1722 Southampton Drive
Carrollton, TX, 75007
Address as of August 26th, 2007 (excitement!):
D'Agostino Hall
110 West 3rd Street, #0901-B
New York, NY 10012-1074
new blog: moNY

love y'all, and see you soon!

mada photos

2007-05-19T04:48:00.000-05:00

Mada photos are up! With descriptions! Look at them!

Madagascar!

2007-05-16T03:06:00.000-05:00

note: This is not going to be a day-by-day rundown of our trip. That would take forever and probably be really boring. For more detailed stories than this you should check out the photos which i'm currently posting and talk to me when i get home (which will be soon!). That being said...

There is a phrase in Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country that i have always liked and that has stuck deeply in my memory; in describing his native South Africa, he writes that the land "was beautiful beyond all singing of it." Madagascar, too, is "beautiful beyond all singing of it." When people talk about Madagascar here, the topic of conversation is always poverty. But as we drove through the red brick houses set against rolling green hills under the bright blue sky, all i could think was, "surely to live surrounded by this beauty is also a kind of wealth." I found myself the entire trip rethinking my ideas on "poor" countries' "need" for "rich" countries help. Though people there live in material poverty, we saw very few examples of misery, and i think the distinction is important. While i like washing machines and in-home dsl and urban public transportation systems, i'm not sure that if i had grown up without all those things but with the stunning vistas and clearly rich communal life in Madagascar i would be willing to sacrifice the one to attain the other. Of course we were in one of the richer parts of the country, and i would never dream of suggesting that Mada doesn't have it's problems - AIDS, malaria, infant mortality, illiteracy are all serious issues that need to be addressed. But the idea that the Western model is the goal towards which all other countries should be "developing" is seeming less and less valid to me.

Ok, enough philosophizing...what did we DO in Madagascar?

Well...

We walked a lot, in cities and in the countryside.
We sat a lot in taxi-brousses (bush taxis) waiting for them to fill up so we could leave, and then driving from city to city.
We got sick.
We introduced people in roadside restaurants to the concept of vegetarianism.
We went on an 8-hour hike with two ascents and two descents requiring ropes.
We shopped.
We were periphally involved in the aftermath of a murder.
We saw lemurs and chameleons in the wild.
We saw lemurs and chamelons and crocodiles and frogs and turtles in captivity.
We took an 8-hour train ride to the coast, sitting in second class with the region's produce being transported all around us.
We ran out of money a couple of times.
We took our malaria pills every day.
We were pestered often by people wanting us to purchase goods or services.
BUT
We were very rarely sexually harrassed (a change from Reunion).
We made friends with a lot of small children.
We gave out stickers, some money, and once put a 14-ounce can of mixed-vegetables in a beggar's cap.
I took too many photos, and not as many as i would have liked.
We went to one museum and one photography exhibit.
We pretended to speak spanish.
We ate banana fritters from roadside stands, and pizza a little too often, and drank lots of passion fruit juice.
We didn't drink the water (though i did brush my teeth with it a couple of times).
We wrote postcards.
We learned a few words of Malagasy.
We cursed the Lonely Planet.
We were at times tired and bewildered.
We had an absolutely amazing trip.

love y'all

strange days

2007-04-28T04:23:00.000-05:00

I'm with this guy. And i'm not sure if you guys got this particular piece of news over in the US, but limbo doesn't exist anymore.

Yeah, i kinda think we might be coming to the end of the world. Where does one sign up for that spaceship?

In other news, Vanessa and i are leaving for Madagascar on Tuesday morning, and i am RIDICULOUSLY excited. Might get to the internet one more time before then, so if you want a postcard (or a lemur) and i don't already have your address, now would be the time to e-mail or facebook me.

love y'all.

"Un grand ouf de soulangement"

2007-04-25T04:57:00.000-05:00

Here's the very very very good news. In the first round of elections on Sunday, the French recorded their lowest rate of abstention EVER - 15.2%. (Sidenote, i originally typed abstinence, and didn't catch it until after i'd published the blog. lol. that would put a WHOLE new spin on the elections. Tho it would be understandable, the sight of Jean-Marie Le Pen does have the same impact as a cold shower). This is awesome, given that the first round of the 2002 elections were marked first and foremost by the fact that people "stayed away from the polls in droves." Whatever other hang-ups French voters might have, they seem to have gotten over their apathy.

So the horror scenario - Sarkozy-Le Pen - didn't happen, and French voters now have two weeks to choose between Nicholas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal. Wow, wouldn't it be amazing if a major Western nation had a female president? How cool would it be (even tho i prefer Obama to Hillary) If the United States, France, and Germany all had female heads of State by 2009? Dream about it for a few minutes...

...

...

ok, now the reality. Sarkozy's going to win.

And let us now all take a moment to mourn the La Gauche Française (i had originally typed "the french left" and then realized that it sounds MUCH better in the original). In this election there were about 5 candidates that could be classified as "extreme-left." All their first-round scores added together don't equal up to that of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the representative of the extreme right. Add to that the fact that "centrist" François Bayrou pulled a very significant 18%, and the one thing you have to admit is that the American stereotype of the french as cigarette-smoking, coffee-sipping, near communists no longer has any basis in fact. This makes me sad.

In other news, today Vanessa and i failed to fly a kite. Oh, and i put up more pictures, so look at them.

love y'all.

the return of monica's inane political ramblings

2007-04-17T01:25:00.000-05:00

...you know you've missed them.

I've cried about 5 times this week about what happened at VA Tech, and i've been reading Noam Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival and am unspeakably horrified at American foreign policy, but neither of those things are what i want to write about today.

Ok, raise your hand if you know that the first round of the French presidential elections is tomorrow (Sunday the 22nd). Hands down. Raise your hand if you can name more than 1 of the 4-8 major candidates competing in the first round. If your hand was raised for either of those, congrats. If not, don't worry, Aunt Monica went all the way to a tiny French possession in the Indian Ocean just to write an edifying blog entry for you.

The Issues: "Quel campagne nul!"
Monday in the teacher's lounge one of the teachers made a political joke and the principal went off: "what a terrible campaign!" she complained, "there's absolutely no social platform whatsoever." And as far as i can tell, she's right. There are a few stabs at actually having issues in this campaign - people babble occasionally about the 35-hour work week or the problem of housing for the homeless, a handfull of green candidates and environmental activists fight valiantly and vainly to keep global warming in the debate - but mostly it's about things like national identity and personality, and, sadly enough, gender. The major center-left candidate, Segolene Royal, is a woman, and i've heard from a frightening number of French people that this will stop her from getting elected. Sadly, there really are major issues to be confronted here. The European Union is near crisis-point, the environment too, France's economy could use some serious help...but none of these things is likely to be really changed...

The Candidates: "Sarko=Le Pen=Fascist"

the major candidates:
Nicholas Sarkozy (UMP): The center-right candidate, the ultimate establishment candidate, and as certain French people of my acquaintance lable him: "Baby Bush." Sarko was interior minister up until last month, when he quit to campaign full time. Which means that those riots in French cities in 2005 - those were his job to deal with. Result: The Sarkozy laws: lots of police presence in problem neighbourhoods, lots of prison for problem kids, not a lot of real solutions to problems. Oh and yeah, he's known for his close ties to everyone's favourite cowboy president. Finally, Sarkozy he's been moving his policies further right to court voters away from Jean-Marie Le Pen (see below). Basically, i can't stand Sarko, and neither can any of my French friends. But he'll probably win.

Segolene Royal (PS): The center-left candidate and, as mentioned, France's first ever serious female candidate for president. Yay. Unfortunately, that's about the only thing she has going for her. The woman doesn't appear to have an unscripted thought in her pretty head, and the media doesn't help by devoting pages and pages of coverage to her offhand suggestion that every French home should fly a flag on on Bastille Day while writing one article on her actual platform - which isn't terrible.

François Bayrou (UDF): The center-center candidate. Bayrou is an establishment politician running on a platform that French voters are sick of the establishment. He proposes himself as a centrist alternative to the bickering between the left and right. It might not actually be the worst idea in the world, and too be honest he has some truly good things to say in his platform, but my opinion of Bayrou is irredeemably influenced by a French satirical news show, "les Guignols d'info," which constantly depicts him as a dithering wussy who can't figure out what tie to wear without consulting a poll.

Jean-Marie Le Pen (FN): It's painful to have to list Le Pen as a major candidate. He's a right-wing racist who's main message is "France for the French." Anti-european cooperation, anti-immigration, oh, and yeah he eats kittens for breakfast and chubby little babies for lunch.

i'm going to have to cut this short because i'm about to be kicked off of the internet. I'm not even going to get to write about my favourite candidate - the green party's Dominique Voynet. Monday or Tuesday i'll blog about the results of the first round, and why they happened.

Love y'all

The tour de cirques

2007-04-11T02:45:00.000-05:00

What did you do on Easter weekend? Because i spent mine on a four-day hiking/camping trip that included a sunrise climb to the highest point in the Indian ocean, from which i was able to witness a volcanic eruption. Not trying to make anyone jealous or anything...

I was going to do a day-by-day account of the hike, but i realized that a whole lot of it would be "and then we went up" "and then we went down" "and then there was more mud." so instead, here are random highlights:

Friday, in the rain, getting to a picnic spot with a fire going, and Alex, after me telling about my kids drawing dragons on their valentines, coining the phrase "i love you like a dragon," which we proceeded to scream at various moments all through the rest of the hike.

Friday night eating dinner in Kyra and Bridget's tent when JJ called out ot us, "the volcano's erupting!" and looking out to the East to a red glow and plumes of dark smoke...a little later looking up in the other direction to see the entire milky way spread out before my eyes.

Saturday morning, not really having slept in a cold wet sleeping bag, getting up at 4 to climb with JJ, Jonathan, and Rachel to the top of Piton de Neiges, the highest point in the Indian Ocean. Watching the volcano erupting and the sun rising as we tried not to freeze.

Saturday, taking a path (recommended by the tourism bureau) that was marked 5 km and should have been marked 5 hours. Jonathan and i running ahead and doing an hour-and-a-half descent in 45-50 minutes in order to get food for everyone and ensure that we would all catch the bus to where we were supposed to spend the night.

Sunday, walking along the road to the entrance to Mafate ( the circle of mountains with no roads). Managing to get a hitch for Kyra, Rachel, and our packs in a pickup truck. The rest of us, with a huge weight literally off our backs, stopping to play at a playground.

Sunday afternoon, separated into two tents, insulting eachother through the walls as the rain fell outside.

Monday, tired and irritable and sore, but still able to appreciate passing over an amazing suspension bridge, and the proseltyzing hiker who passed us saying, "Hallelujah, vous etes super. Bonne journée, Hallelujah."

Getting to the end of the trail and feeling sick and tired and like a complete and utter ROCK STAR.

So, yeah, it was an AMAZING weekend. And to add to the awesomeness, my camera is back in the world and i have pictures uploading on Yahoo as we speak. YAY.

And in non-Reunion news, i sent in my official intent to enroll and tuition deposit for NYU today. So come visit me in NYC next year.

love y'all

The Parc Exotica

2007-03-20T01:09:00.000-05:00

What follows is an account of a trip Vanessa and i took last Sunday to what we thought was a "Botanical Garden." When i sat down to write a blog entry on it this week, i found that the whole experience was so rich and surreal that i had a need to hand write it first, and when i sat down to hand write it i realized that the only way i could really do it was in third person. So here it is, and i hope you enjoy it, tho, as i said to Vanessa after rereading it, it's a good thing i think i'll make a reasonably good lawyer, because i could never make a living as a writer.

The Parc Exotica

They had been out late the night before, and so it happened that they were in the perfect mood for the visit that took place: tired, perhaps a little hungover, and that Sunday Morning freeling that the world does not quite exist, or that you do not quite exist in it.
The first thing that met them after walking in the gates was a water slide on which a young woman was playing with a small child. Except perhaps in its unexpectedness, this would not set the tone for the entire visit. Walking on a ways they fround a ticket booth, where a creole man, just shy of being elderly, who gave the impression of being taciturn despite having welcomed them several times, sold them their tickets.
The entrance sign directed them up a set of stairs, but there was a ramp to the right with such an alluring air that they decided to ignore the suggested suite de visite. Walking up the gentle slope, bushes on each side, they were both filled with a sense of expectation. "Well this is very..." Vanessa trailed off. "Like a Ray Bradbury short story?" Monica suggested. They had developed a disturbing tendancy to occasionally finish one another's sentences.
Everything seemed reasonably normal in the cactus garden at the top of the ramp, though they were somewhat displeased to discover that the only information provided about the plants was their latin name, and rather pleased to discover that one of the cactii bore the latin name "notocactus." It was on descending a set of stairs, near what appeared to be the back of the park, that they came across a sign post bearing the word "dragon." "That must be the name of that dog over there," suggested Vanessa, pointing to a German Shepard chained up in a grassy area beyond the park fence. Monica was unconvinced. She thought maybe it was a nickname for a particularly large and evil cactus. But a few steps later it became clear - rising above them in slender green glory, born aloft on columns stylized to suggest waves, was a ceramic statue of a Chinese dragon. Curiouser and curiouser.
The next section of the park was a terraced bonsai garden which they drifted through wordlessly until attaining a small hut at the far end containing a wall display of large shining butterflies and a few extraordinarily menacing stag beetles, which Monica tried to avoid looking at. The butterflies all bore labels with things like "FROM S. JAVA" and "FROM BALI" written on them. "They're all from Indonesia," Monica observed, then a beat later, "hold on, why are all the labels in English?" "I reckon this entire display was just stolen whole from some museum in Indonesia," Vanessa responded. It seemed like a reasonable assumption.
They turned a corner, went down a set of steps, and found temselves facing what at first presented itself in Monica's head simply as a jumble of pinkness, then resolved itself into a pile of rose quartz in the centre of a pond, and finally, on closer inspection, into a model of Reunion Island rendered in semi-precious stones. There was nothing they could do but stare in wonder. "Do you know what's sad?" asked Vanessa, "I reckon this was somebody's dream."
It was almost a relief to come to the orchid garden - this was something they had been expecting to see - and they lingered through it, and through a chamber of waxy red anturia, taking pleasure in the simple joy of looking at the flowers. "Do you think they only employee here is they guy who sold us our tickets?" Vanessa mused. "No," Monica replied decisively, "There are four others but they all look just like him; they're the neglected and slightly psychopathic quintuplet sons of the eccentric billionaire who built this place." As if to confirm her suspicion, they came out of the anturium hall to discover that the entrance-way had been built in the shape of a giant gorilla sitting over the door.
To avoid being snatched up and taken to the top of the Empire State building, they hurried down the path to a pond dominated by a malevolent black swan and a small waterfall flanked by a stone crocodile. White and orange koi drifted below the surface, and one floated at the top, its colourless and ravaged corpse in the dark water seeming to embody everything that was sad and strange and broken about that place. "Do you think we should tell them there's a dead fish?" Vanessa asked, but Monica was filled with a sense of the futility of such an endeavour and quickly distracted by the park's next marvel: "What IS that statue? It looks like a rhinocerous on acid!"
By this time they hd come in a circle back to the King-Kong replica and were unsure as to where to go next, but a suggestive gap in a hedge proplled tem past two wooden statues reminiscent of early 20th century anthropological depictions of Fiji-islanders and a fiberglass statue of a man on a turtle reminiscent of late 20th century video game depictions of working-class Italian men, onto an open space filled with empty round tables and covered by two white tents. "I might get married if i could have the reception here," commented Vanessa, at the exact moment that Monica was opening her mouth to say something along the lines of, "wouldn't it be insane to have your wedding reception here?" This was another disturbing trend that they had noticed in thier conversation.
Walking past various statues of Buddha and through a Chinese-style gate, they came into a completely different world - that of the park's attached hotel. Here neat white bungalows and perfectly trimmed hedges encircled a pool filled with happily shrieking children and lazily lounging adults. This was clearly not the place for them, and so they went back the way they had come. To the side of the reception area was the park's restaurant and bar, and by this time Monica was mpore than ready for a cup of coffee, but the building was locked and appeared deserted, despite the fact that the tables on the terrace were set. At the exact moment that Vanessa was daring Monica to steal a wine glass, a man appeared and informed them with words and gestures that they should not be there, and ushered them back through the gap in the hedge. Disappointingly, he bore only the vaguest of resemblances to the ticket-seller.
At this point they were at an impasse - the trail seemed to have ended, but they park quite clearly had not yet delivered itself of all its secrets. Blaming this on their choice to ignore the signs at the entrance, they retraced their steps all the way back, and mounted the previously spurned staircase to find themselves once again surrounded by cactii. Here, at the front of the cactus garden, was a faded and strikingly unedifiying sign explaining the worldwide spread of succulents in the golden age of navigation. At the back of the model of the island, and equally fading and unedifying sign listed the general properties to be found in minerals, and then the specific minerals used in the model, without ever relating the two. At the back of the dead fish pond Monica experienced a mild thrill when a sign indicated an "island of crocodiles," but of course they were statues.
Rounding a new corner, they started walking drown a tree-lined path. Ahead of them was a building that they would soon find to contain more minerals (including a piece of agate the exact colour or a "electric magenta" in a box of Crayola neon Magic Markers) as well as a woman who looked nothing like either of the two previous employees and who asked, surprisingly, to see their tickets. But before all this, suddenly and yet inevitably - as if they had known somewhere deep inside that there was only one thing keeping the experience from being complete - there at the right, in all the glory of the March afternoon, was a brightly coloured Nativity scene, complete with sheep.
After Christ had made His appearance there really didn't seem like anything else could be added to the afternoon. They completed their tour of the mineral hall, made their way back through the park, and out past the now deserted water slide. They passed a young Indian man playing guitar by the side of the highway, and went home.

love y'all

La Réunion zoologique

2007-03-17T06:34:00.000-05:00

Note: This entry would be MUCH better with pictures. Unfortunately, i'm still experiencing camera issues.

When i was telling people this summer that i was coming to Réunion, i would generally describe it as being off the coast of Madagascar, and the people who didn't respond, "you mean like in the movie!?" would often say, "oooh, are there lemurs!?" Well no, we don't have lemurs - the island's a little small for indigenous large mammals, but that doesn't mean we can't have plenty of fun with our fauna, as was made abundantly clear to me this week:

Episode 1:
Last Sunday was apparently "let your farm animals roam free day" on the island. Vanessa, Karen and i went for a hike and were surprised to discover upon returning that an entire heard of goats had taken over the picnic site where we'd left our car. Then driving home there were about 5 cows grazing - by the side of a highway OVERPASS. Bad francophone joke: Last Thurday was "La Journée de la Femme," last Sunday must have been "La Journée de la Ferme."

Episode 2:
Yesterday morning i wandered out to the kitchen, stuck a mug of water in the microwave to make tea, and picked up the box of muesli off the shelf. Thinking that it was getting low and that i'd have to buy a new box soon, i started to pour myself a bowl...and saw a tail starting to come out of the box. That's right. There was a flattened, crystalized LIZARD that had apparently been COOKED INTO my muesli. As in, it had clearly not just gotten into the cereal on my shelf, but had been in the box when i bought it, and while i was eating a good 3/4 of it. This is not the first time this has happened - Vanessa found a lizard in one of my muesli boxes while i was in India. I'm thinking about going to the newspapers - in November people found a mouse in a can of beans and it was headline news here for a week. And i have GOT to find myself a new breakfast food.

Episode 3:
Yesterday when i was at Jonathon and Katie's place about to go surfing with Jonathon, two birds had wandered into their house and couldn't get out. Katie and i watched, clueless as to what to do, as the poor panicked things hopped around their kitchen and fluttered aimlessly up and down their steps. I'm actually not sure if they ever got them out.

So there are my wildlife adventures for the week - e-mail me and tell me yours!

love y'all

No more excuses

2007-03-10T03:32:00.000-06:00

They have opened up a new free cyber center in my town, with blogs unblocked, so i no longer have any excuse not to update. So if i am not updating frequently enough you have every right to yell at me. And please do. In long and frequent e-mails and/or letters that also include updates on your life, book recommendations, and (in the case of snail mail) jars of salsa made in Texas with roasted tomatoes and peppers.

What should i tell you about my life since i last updated? How about i describe my morning today?

I woke up around 8 and went into our common room to have a mango and the last cup of cardomom tea that i'd brought back from India for breakfast. After showering, Vanessa and i took my locally made straw shopping bag and went to the market, where we wandered the stalls comparing prices on peppers and limes, buying tomatoes, potatoes, and pitayas, a cactus fruit endemic to Reunion that is neon pink and spiky on the outside and either magenta or white with little black spots on the inside. After we'd taken care of our groceries, we flanner-ed briefly through the sovenir/non-food side of the market, joking about potential birthday presents for Vanessa's brother - my suggestions of Hawaiian shirts (joking) and spice mixes for making flavoured rum (serious) were eventually rejected. But i did find a five euro pocket knife, which makes me happy.

After the market, we separated at a roundabout with a bust of Ghandi in the center. Ness walked home with the groceries, i walked in the other direction to the local temple of the Hindu Goddess Kali, where Tamil lessons are offered on the weekends. I was a little early for my meeting with the people offering the classes, so i wandered around the temple grounds, reveling in the peace, the sunshine, the bright colours, and then sat down to read the copy of The Sound and the Fury that i'd checked out from the library.

When the man who organized the classes arrived he led me to a low open building, where the woman who gives the lessons was leading a small group of men and women in learning to sing Tamil-language Hindu devotionals. The class seemed quite good at it, and also looked to be having fun, laughing and smiling when they made a mistake. While we looked on, the organizer explained to me how the classes worked - for a flat monthly fee i could do as many classes as i liked - in language, singing, dance, indian cooking...only the first and last of those appeal to me, but it still seemed like a good idea. With about 10 minutes left in that class, the organizer interrupted and asked if the teacher would sing for us before the session ended. A few minutes later she began. It was absolutely lovely - the kind of music you would hear in an Indian art film, accompanied by images of women in saris in rice paddies. Everyone in the room was clearly captivated. Outside the sun was shining on the temple and the palm trees. And i remembered why i had decided to spend a year travelling.

I love and miss you all

loopholes

2007-03-03T06:48:00.000-06:00

so there's this room in the library that has extra computers and you're not supposed to be able to access the internet on them. But you can get on the internet through microsoft word. And then the blocks that are on the internet on the other computers don't apply so... I CAN UPDATE MY BLOG! YAY! (not sure if i can get pics up this way, but i'll try.

So the hurricane came back after i updated last, and we ended up having two more days stuck inside the house, during which Vanessa and i went slowly insane. At one point i built a fort using Ness' bedsheet and two of our dining room chairs.

And then we ended up with a week off of school, so even though we could leave the house we still didn't have that much to fill our days with, and by yesterday were just about dying from boredom. I feel better today - don't really know why, maybe because i know work starts again next week. Oh, and they managed to fix the bridge, so we don't have to move, thank god.

In other news, today i made guacamole with two avocados off of a tree in my garden. How awesome is that?

Miss/love y'all

Gamede

2007-02-26T02:44:00.000-06:00

So this weekend i experienced my first cyclone. Yeah, that's right. Cyclone Gamede struck the Ile de la Reunion this weekend.

Friday at school all the other teachers could talk about was how the cyclone was coming. You could look out at the ocean from my school and see the waves getting choppy...

Saturday we woke up to wind and rain and were unable to go to the market, but the town seemed reasonably alive, so i tried to go to the library to work on law school financial aid applications, but the library was closed. The weather worsened throughout the day, and we lost power for about 30 minutes in the evening.

We woke up Sunday morning to spotty electricity, no running water, no phone service, and no tv. Luckily the electricity stabilized pretty quickly and the water came back in the mid-morning, though i'm still skeptical about drinking it.

Today phones and the tv are back and most businesses are open but schools are closed. We weren't actually directly hit, so damage is pretty limited, but there's one major issue: a bridge in between where i live and where i work is severely damaged and may not be reparable for 2 years. Worst case scenario, Vanessa and i would have to move to the other side of the bridge. (My brilliant mother's comment: "well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.")

So yeah, that's my adventures in tropical living story for today. A couple of adventures in foreign languages stories to round out this entry:

The French verb for "to eat" (which i want to do right now, actually) is "manger." The French verb for "to miss," in the context of "i miss all of you very much," is "manquer." Recently i was talking to one of my classes about Texas and a kid in the back raises his hand and asks me what we eat in Texas. But like i said, he was at the back of the class, and it wasn't exactly quiet, and maybe i was feeling just a tad homesick - in any case, what i heard was "what do you miss about Texas?" and what i replied was, "my family and friends of course!" Yeah, that got their attention.

Secondly, a couple of weeks ago went hiking with a bunch of other english-speakers and somehow we ended up right in the middle of a MASSIVE group of french/creole hikers of all ages. We continue along in their midst speaking English, and somehow they assume 1) that we're German and 2) we don't understand any French or creole. So we're all walking along together, they're talking about us as if we don't know what they're saying, and we're playing along by exercising our severely limited German vocabulary ("weinerschnitzel?" "Schize!"), until finally, after a good half hour of us being ridiculously entertained by all this, near the very end of the trail, they figure out both that we speak English and that we know French, and the entire group just stops and cracks up. It was brilliant. But the most brilliant part of it was approaching them at one point on the trail and actually hearing a group of French people utter the 20th century's most feared French phrase: "les allemands arrivent!" ("the Germans are coming!")

ah life abroad.

Love/Miss y'all

Back to Normal*

2007-02-02T01:01:00.000-06:00

*When normal is understood as intense heat, crashing waves, tropical fruit, and being what feels like millions of miles away from the rest of the world.

So once again, it has been a long time since an update. This time i have a legitimate excuse though, I was in India for most of January, and reluctant to abuse my relatives' willingness to let me use their internet. The trip was very nice, if a little bit too hectic and a little bit too filled with food. The weather was perfect, and it was great to see the family. Several of my cousin's have kids that are too cute for words, and so i particularly enjoyed playing with them. And of course, the other thing i particularly enjoyed was getting to see my parents, who met me there and actually came back to Reunion with me for a few days. It was wonderful to spend time with them and to get to show them around my island, even though their time here was too short.

They left on Sunday of this week and school restarted on Monday, so since then i've been adjusting back into the routine of the school week, as well as trying to combat the homesickness that my parents left me with by catching up on my e-mails. So if i owe you an e-mail - don't worry, it's on its way. I've also been enjoying the piles of new English-language books that i brought back from India:-D, as well as exercising to try to get rid of the new weight that i also brought back from there. And i think i'm going to start a once a week basic Spanish class, because the part of my brain that stores languages is clearly not being challenged enough (or because i'm a masochist).

Molly Ivins died this week and that makes me sad. But Florida's switching to paper trail voting and that makes me happy.

oh, and GO BEARS!!!

Love y'all

FINALLY AN UPDATE

2007-01-02T01:24:00.000-06:00

right so it has been a ridiculous amount of time since i updated and a coherent account of the month of December would take forever. Instead i'm going to provide a series of fragmentary details of everyday life in La Reunion/stream of consciousness-esque meditations. Enjoy!

This morning i had a mango and a passion fruit for breakfast because i was out of muesli, and when i left the house and walked down the main street, three overripe orange mangos were splattered on the pavement, filling the surrounding air with their scent.

Lately ants have taken themselves to drowning themselves in our bathtub.

Reunionnais LOVE fireworks. Every festival is an excuse for a fireworks display, and people have been setting off personal fireworks in the neighbourhood arround our house every night since Christmas Eve.

Yesterday we went on a hike to a waterfall and i went swimming in the incredibly cold water. When my friend Alex got up the courage to go in, everyone cheered for her. I said, "hey, no one cheered for me when i got in," and JJ replied, "yeah, but it's expected of you Monica." That was one of the nicest things anyone's said to me in a while.

About 1 in 10 cars that i see on the streets belongs to a driving school - this is a frighteningly automobile-based culture.

An "Americain" at a Reunionais snack bar is a sandwhich with French fries and ham. No one knows why.

The road to our house is unpaved, and a continual stream of wather runs across it. Every time i walk down the road, bathing birds fly up out of my path.

love y'all

Read This!

2006-12-03T05:19:00.000-06:00

This is a little long, but i think it matters, so bear with me.

So i know this is supposed to be my travel blog, and that i should be writing about how we celebrated Thanksgiving out on my friend's deck watching the sunset over the ocean, and how i went paragliding last weekend, and how Vanessa and i went swimming on a forbidden beach, and about the picnic we had on the beach yesterday for my friend Alex's birthday, and posting pictures of all of those things. And i will do that, i promise. But last week was a rough week for me for reasons completely unrelated to my life on the island, and that's what i want to write about today.

Four things i've read or seen over the past few weeks were heavily on my mind:
1) Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam. This is probably old news to a lot of people since the book came out in 1999, but i just finally got around to reading it. It examines the ways that "social capital" - the tendency to associate with others, both for formal reasons like political activism, and informal activities like just hanging out with friends - has been steadily declining in America. It creates an extremely disturbing picture of Americans as increasingly self-centered and disengaged, and suggests that this problem is getting worse with each subsequent generation.
2) Confessions of An Economic Hitman by John Perkins. The story of an American business man who worked as an energy consultant to developing nations, encouraging them to build up foreign debt. This is controversial, but even if one refuses to take it at face value, it still raises some important questions about how blissfully (read: ignorantly) we in the developed world prosper off of the suffering of others.
3) The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende. This is a work of fiction, but it chronicles the rise and fall of Salvador Allende in Chile, and taken in concert with the previous work leads to some pretty disturbing questions about US involvement in South America.
4) The Road to Guantanamo. I've learned that there are plenty of people back in the States who haven't even heard of this film. Again, there are certain questions of bias, but again, no matter what it's pretty clear that some of the actions of the American military in Guantanamo are just plain wrong. I have spent a fair portion of my life in other countries; i have been confronted numerous times with the stereotype of the ugly American; i have studied or even witnessed many of the political, social, and cutural problems facing our nation; i have never been shy about criticizing the things i dislike about American people or the American government - but i have always, always, ALWAYS loved my country and been incredibly proud of all of the good that we have done, that we possess, and that we believed in. I have been ashamed of the actions of the Bush Administration often, but i have NEVER been ashamed of being American. Until i saw Road to Guantanamo. And that made me sadder and more angry than i can possibly express.

So with all of these things in my head, not to mention the articles i read in the newspaper every day, i was both feeling angry with myself for hanging out on a tropical island and playing with small children instead of being out in the world trying to fix things and at the same time feeling completely overwhelmed by the magnitude and number of the world's problems; i felt entirely powerless, like i could work all my life at trying to make things better, but never really do a thing, and i was depressed all week.

But here's the thing. I have NEVER subscribed to defeatism or nihilism, and while i don't know if the world is perfectable, i do absolutely believe that it can be made better, and that that can happen through the actions of ordinary people. Whatever problems of racism and sexism still remain in the United States, they are better because ordinary people joined in the Civil and Womens Rights movements; whatever instability still remains in Eastern Europe, the lives of millions are better because ordinary people rose up against Soviet Oppression in the 80s. And these are just two examples; in the vastness of world history there are many, many more - we've done it before and we can do it again.

And in the 21st century, successful attempts to make the world a better place are going to have to incorporate new mass communications tools. So i'm going to use the tools available to me - this blog - to do what i can do while i'm stuck on my isolated tropical island. And here's what i came up with:

The average American watches 28 hours of television a week. (That statistic comes from 1998, but i see no reason to believe it's done anything but gone up).

So i am asking if everyone who reads this blog will do three things:

1) Spend one hour/week that you would usually spend watching tv volunteering. One hour. Pick a cause, any cause. Cook at a soup kitchen, pick up trash, work for a political party - even if it's the Republicans. Just do something that you think will help fix the problems that are important to you.

2) I don't believe an American exists who actually believes that our government should torture innocent people. But it's happening as i type this. Why? Because we are uninformed - we don't pay enough attention to what's going on to exercise the control over our government that is our democratic privelege and responsibility. So i'm asking that everyone spend one hour a week that you would spend watching entertainment programming, watching the news instead. Or better yet, turn off the tv entirely and read a newspaper or seek out alternative news sources, apart from corporate media. We are a part of the world, and can't escape the effect that world events have on us. Being informed is just plain safer and smarter.

3) Spend half an hour a week that you would spend watching tv talking to a friend or family member who's far away, or writing a letter or an e-mail. Yeah, i know this seems like a shameless plea for more letters. It's not, i promise. But seriously, i'm sure everyone knows the pleasure of opening a mailbox or an inbox to an unexpected personal note, and how much just chatting with a friend can brighten our days. I know that i like those things much better even than any episode of the Daily Show that i've ever seen, and that's saying a lot.

So there we go - three simple things, and you've done something to help the world AND you're still left with 25.5 hours (aka MORE THAN A DAY) of television a week. I know that in a large way i'm probably preaching to the choir - most people who read this are caring, informed and involved; a lot of you are in non-profit jobs and a lot do volunteer work - and let me just take this moment to throw out a shout-out to my dad, who does amazing ESL volunteer work every week, and who recently took a week off from work to go help rebuild New Orleans. I'm incredibly proud of him and inspired by him, and i don't tell him that enough. But still, as much as i know that you are all wonderful, active people, i'm willing to bet that there are a fair number of you who share my nagging feeling that i could be doing more. And i'm not exempting myself from this challenge. I'm going to find volunteer activities here on the island, and i plan to write more e-mails to more people, and follow world news more closely.

What happened to the "Random acts of Kindness" and "50 Simple Things You can do to Save the Earth" movements? We need to bring those back. In the midst of my depression last week i thought about what my mother would say to comfort me, and i realized that she would probably quote Mother Teresa: "We cannot do great things; we can only do small things with great love." So that's what i'm asking of everyone, because if enough of us do small things, they will build into something great.

i love y'all.

gaaaaah

2006-11-21T01:20:00.000-06:00

so i just spent FOREVER putting photos up on facebook because i thought they'd be visible to anyone, but it turns out you do need a facebook login to see them. The good news is that everyone can now have a facebook login if you want it, so if you want to see my photos you can create a facebook account and then click the link at right.

longer post later.

love y'all

better

2006-11-15T03:10:00.000-06:00

So i had hoped to put up a bunch of pictures today, but it's taking forever and i've already been at the internet cafe for hours so i'm going to put it off. But i did want to let y'all know that things have been much better since the last time i updated. I'm close to working out all my bureaucratic issues, and am feeling much better about my social situation. In addition, i'm very close to being done with my law school applications - today i sent completed applications to 5 schools - i have 3 more that lack bits and pieces and i need to get my last recommendation in and send those and then i'll be DONE!...and then the waiting starts :-/. But yeah, things are going well. Vanessa's in St. Denis doing training for the week, which means that i get to try and bond with our other roommates. Monday we watched Final Destination 3, which turns out to be a terrible movie in any language. Today for the second week i'm going to go to a Mourangue class. Mourangue is the local martial arts style - a lot like capoeira. The class is open to all ages, but its almost all little kids, which makes it really unintimidating. And this weekend we're heading back up into the mountains with a big group of English teachers - the plan is to do a six-hour hike on saturday, spend the night in a bed and breakfast, and probably get a bus back. I WILL remember to bring my camera!

Love y'all

trouble in paradise

2006-11-04T06:03:00.000-06:00

I know it's been a while since I updated, but i haven't had a whole lot to report - most of the past couple of weeks have just been taken up with school, settling into the house, and trying to get things organized to apply for law school next year. But now i need to do a little bit of venting, because there are four things bothering me quite a bit right now:

1) Sexual Harassment. Since i don't have a car, i have to walk quite a bit to get to my schools. Yesterday i had to walk for 45 minutes, and the ENTIRE way i was subject to an unending series of whistles, cat-calls, and car horns. I was already not in the best mood, and it really didn't help to feel completely objectified the entire way. It drives me crazy that I'm expected to endure that kind of thing, just because i happen to be female and in a public place.

2) Discipline. I had to send a kid to the principal's office yesterday and i feel terrible about it, but the thing is, my ability to enforce discipline is really limited, both because i don't really have the vocabulary for it in French, and also because i have literally no training in classroom management. I'm not supposed to be having to deal with entire classes completely on my own, that's why i'm a teaching ASSISTANT - but this week one of the English teachers was absent all week, and they just made me take her classes by myself.

3) French Bureaucracy. On Monday i have to go all the way up to St. Denis to visit a doctor in order to get medical clearance to get my "carte de sejour" - the French Green Card. I should have had this doctor's appointment last month, but the people who are supposed to be helping with all my administrative stuff are essentially clueless. It's really frustrating.

4) Friends. I'm really lucky to have found Vanessa - we're extremely well suited and I really enjoy her company. But in the larger group of assistants i still just kinda feel insecure and like i haven't really found my place. A lot of them are really nice, but i'm finding it hard to get close to people. It makes me really appreciate the surfeit of wonderful people I was so lucky to have around me in Chicago and Dallas.

Yeah. So even though i still love it here, and am still really glad i came, it's not entirely perfect...and it would definitely be improved if people came to visit me!

Love y'all

Requiem

2006-10-27T02:25:00.001-05:00

Spc. Nathaniel Aguirre, age 21

If you are a praying person, please say a prayer for my high school classmate Nathan Aguirre and his family and friends.

And also please say a prayer that someday all relations between people of different countries, religions, and races will be like the experiences i'm having here instead of what Nathan and too many others experience in Baghdad, and everywhere else in the world where hatred and misunderstanding have been allowed to triumph.

And whether you pray or not, please do anything you can to make that a reality.

Love y'all (i mean that)

send me stuff!

2006-10-25T06:06:00.000-05:00

I have an address!

IYER Monica
30 Lot. Vayaboury
Rue de la Cayenne
97410 St. Pierre
Reunion, France

In other news, this weekend was mildly insane. Friday we had a bunch of other assistants come down from St. Denis and St. Giles. We all watched the St. Pierre Divali parade - lots of drums and girls dancing garba raas and fireworks. Then we invaded Vanessa's and my favourite Thai resto, and finally went out dancing til almost 5am.

Then the next day Vanessa and JJ and i headed out on one of our famous night hikes, into Mafate, where a local music festival was happening. JJ rented a car and we had to drive across the island, from St. Pierre to St. Benoit (see map below), which was really lovely, and then parked near the pass into Mafate. We started hiking at 8pm, got to the festival at 10, and the music stopped at 2am. For the rest of the night we sat with a collection of random people around a drum circle, half making friends, half trying to avoid people who we didn't want to be friends with. When the sun rose we started back out to the car, and ended up hiking with two French guys to whom we gave a ride. The hike back was really rainy so we were all wet and freezing most of the way down, especially since we kept having to use the air conditioner to keep the car windows from fogging up.

We were exhausted, and i don't think we really recovered until today, (Wednesday) as Vanessa and i both fell asleep at 10 o'clock last night and didn't wake up til 9.

I'll try to put up more pictures soon - keep those e-mails coming, and now you can send me snail mail too!

love y'all

a rainbow over St. Leu

2006-10-20T07:40:00.000-05:00

more pictures to come!

The waterfalls at Langevin

2006-10-20T07:34:00.000-05:00

...with bridget and JJ after our plunges from the cliff ;-)

worth a thousand words...

2006-10-20T07:28:00.000-05:00

views from the airport in St. Denis

un peu de la geographie

2006-10-16T06:21:00.000-05:00

I realize that a lot of my posts would make more sense if you had some idea of the geographie of the island, so i have provided you, out of the kindness of my heart, with a map, along with some notes on key places:

St. Denis: The capital, where i flew in and stayed for the first week.

St. Leu, on the west coast: Where i work, and also the surfing and paragliding center of the island. The first day i went to school i was driven around the city by three different people, two of whom felt the need to point out "the wave" of St. Leu. The world surfing championship was held there two or three years ago.

St. Louis: or rather, just above St. Louis in La Riviere is where i live now. It's an old sugar cane center that has a reputation for being kinda sleepy and kinda poor.

St. Pierre: "The capital of the South" is the only city with real nightlife on the island, and it's where, today, vanessa and i decided to rent rooms for the next nine months in a house near the center of town with 4 french boys. YAY!!!!!!!

Les Cirques: Cilaos, Salazie, and Mafate are the large rings of mountains that make up the center of the island. Cilaos is where we went hiking last week; Mafate is where we might be (potentially foolishly) doing a night-hike tonight.

Piton de la Fournaise: THE VOLCANO!! :-D.

so now you can have a better idea of what the hell i'm talking about - Enjoy!

love y'all.

hikes!

2006-10-13T07:29:00.000-05:00

So it's only been a few days since i last updated, but they've been pretty amazing, thanks to my current roommates who are much more energetic and in much better shape than me, and thus push me to new heights. :)

On Wednesday we went for a long hike in the mountains, down one side of a "cirque" (a circle of mountains) and up the other...when i say long i mean long by my standards - a couple of hours - which is apparently nothing to a "real" hiker. Also, in British and Australian English, hikes are referred to as "walks" and going hiking is called "doing a walk." I find these terms mildly deceptive, as walking is something i like to do around cities with something calorific in my hands. But yeah. It was BEAUTIFUL and i felt great. We waded through a stream at the top of a waterfall, and saw a cute little red bird, and were presented with many stunning mountain vistas. The "walk" ended in Cilaos, a lovely mountain town where JJ teaches, and where they are right now in the middle of a lentil festival - basically your standard street fair except with half the stalls selling locally grown lentils and local wine.

We had just gotten home from our walk and were all pretty much exhausted and ready to fall into bed when JJ's phone rang and it was Cesar calling to say "pack your things, i'm picking you up and bringing you to my place to spend the night so that tomorrow we can get up at 5 in the morning to go see the volcano." And even though we were all ridiculously tired - we were going to see the volcano!

So at five o'clock the next morning we drove an hour and a half up into the mountains, and then walked for another hour and a half or more across a barren field of lava, above the clouds, climbed up the peak of the volcano and were presented with the view of a tiny new eruption happening right before our eyes. It was pretty amazing. I can't believe the number of things i've done and seen in just the past two weeks. It feels like years since I left Dallas.

I miss you all.

love y'all

longest week ever.

2006-10-10T03:06:00.000-05:00

Good lord i can't believe it's only been a week since i updated. And i don't have a whole hell of a lot of time, so i'll make this quick.

Last Tuesday: Visited my schools for the first time. Found out i have 3 schools instead of just one. Even though everyone was super-nice to me, ended up feeling very lost and alone. Sent out an e-mail to other assistants begging for company and got invited to spend the night at a house with 6 other assistants, which turned out to be a mixed blessing, because they we're so settled and happy that it only served to accentuate my state of flux.

Wednesday: MUCH MUCH MUCH better. Meeting of all the language assistants on the island. I found a place to stay while i look for a permanent place, lots of potential roommates, got to spend all day talking to people...it was such a relief.

Thursday: School. Just observed classes.

Friday: Moved into little tourist bungalow in St. Louis (in the south of the island, much much closer to school than where i had been staying), with JJ (John-James) from Oxford, and Vanessa from Tasmania who i will probably live with all year. That evening had dinner at the apartment of a Reunionais English teacher, Cesar, who took us to a Jazz club in St. Pierre.

Saturday: Cesar took JJ, one of the other American girls, Bridget, and I up to the mountains to swim in waterfalls...it was incredible. We jumped about 45 feet into a lagoon and were really really impressed with ourselves. That evening we went back to the jazz club.

Sunday: Went with JJ, Vanessa, and Cesar to watch Reunion play Madagascar and France play Italy in beach soccer, then came back to St. Louis to have apertifs with our landlords, Phillipe and Rachel, who are super nice.

Yesterday: My first real day of teaching. Nerve-wracking as hell, as at one of my schools i'm basically introducing a bunch of six year olds to the english language, all by myself. It was so scary.

But overall, things are good. A two-week vacation starts tomorrow, so we have lots of time to prepare for classes and find a permanent place to live. And life in the bungalow is quite cozy...we have fun conversations about our lives and politics and culture and teaching and the differences between American and British and Australian language and culture. So yeah...will try to update sooner and more coherently next time.

Love y'all.

the adventure continues

2006-10-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

First things first: i have a telephone and it doesn't count against my minutes when i receive international calls. So, if you have a decent international calling plan, or just think i might be worth splurging some time, CALL ME!!: 011.262.692.09.03.68.

All right...now, my promised impressions of the island:

1) It's beautiful. Like, beautiful. You stand on a street corner here in St. Denis and in two directions you see green mountains rising above you and in two directions you see the road sloping down to a sparkling ocean. There are flowers everywhere...bouganvilla and hibiscus and oleander and dozens that i can't name. So yeah, it's kinda amazing...pictures to come once i've found a way to connect to the internet with my own computer.

2) Globalization happens. The central shopping area in St. Denis is kinda like if the central shopping areas in Bangalore and Paris had a tropical love child. Apparently, 6 years ago the Western stores weren't here, but they've moved in with a vengeance. St. Denis has Lacoste, L'Occitane, Mango (an upscale Spanish clothing chain...kinda like Europe's edgier answer to the Banana Republic), and even a branch of Fauchon (Parisien gourmet supermarket). And, to my great chagrin, there are 6, count them, SIX McDonalds on the island. Sigh.

3) People are ridiculously nice. When i met with some of the other assistants, almost everyone had a story like mine about un reunionais who had helped them in a similar way. Maybe it's the fact that there isn't a huge amount of tourism, so dumb tourists are a novelty rather than a regular annoyance, but i've never heard of a place where the populace in general was so willing to be kind and helpful to lost american idiots.

So yeah, those have been the most striking things so far. What have i done?

Well, friday i met some of the other assistants here in St. Denis...everyone seems quite nice and i'm looking forward to getting to know them better.

Saturday i took the bus down to the south of the island (two hours each way) for a picnic with a bunch of English teachers and assistants in the South, and that's where I met my potential new roommate...her name's Vanessa Lea, she's from Tasmania, she's a vegetarian, and she seems very nice. Now if we could just find a place to live...

Sunday i took a walk in the morning, and bought a fruit salad (chopped pineapple and something i thought was avocado that wasn't, with salt and chilis) from a vendor and an orange brioche from a boulangerie and ate breakfast by the seaside, and then i had planned to go home and spend the day reading...and a little while after i got home was surprised with a new French roommate, Marjorie, from Lille, who doesn't speak any English and so provides a very good opportunity to practice my french (or make a complete fool of myself, but let's look on the bright side).

Today i discovered that there's nowhere on the island where one can exchange american travelers checks, then discovered that pretty much every two bedroom apartment in the city where we want to live was rented in between Thursday, when the classified ads came out, and today, when i called them. But there are two four bedrooms that sound nice, and there are two other girls, bridget and kyra, who might rent with us, so let's hope it all works out...

love/miss y'all

Finally here

2006-09-29T04:57:00.000-05:00

disclaimer: i'm using a french keyboard which drives me crazy, so if there's a q anywhere that an a should be, don't blame me, blame the international community's inability to standardize technology.

ok, i'm a little short on time, so how about if i just tell the story of my trip now and then later, when i have more time (and there are more of them) i'll tell you about my first impressions of reunion.

Allright - the first legs of the trip, from Dallas to Toronto to Paris, were pretty standard. And in Paris i had a nice hour or two with Malkah walking around our old neighbourhood and getting a crepe at our favourite crepe stand.

But by the time I got through security at Orly, the length of the trip and the enormity of the undertaking were starting to get to me. I slept most of the ten hour flight from Paris to St. Denis, but whenever I was awake I felt rather scared and lonely. But things were better when I landed; i managed to get directions in French, and once I got on the shuttle to the city center and then on the bus in the direction of my hostel the beauty of the island really lifted my spirits.

BUT...ok, so the deal was: i had to take one bus out of St Denis, to a city near my hostel, then switch to a local bus line to get to the hostel itself. So i take the bus to St.Paul, get out at the bus station, and to to the information desk of the local bus line to figure out exactly what to do.

The young man behind the desk looks at my hostel information and calls the listed number to find out more...he talks to someone for a few minutes, gives them my name, and then looks up at me: "il y a un probleme" he says. It turns out that the hostel where I was supposed to be staying is closed for repairs, and they were supposed to have found other accomodations for all their guests, but someone had messed up and they didn't have a place for me.

Eventually, the woman from the hostelling agency found me a place at what is basically the french equivalent of a ymca in St. Denis. And two more bus rides and several blocks walk dragging my suitcase later, i have a room and a shower to myself, and internet access.

So now things are ok, but for a while it was super-scary. There i was, all alone with two heavy suitcases in a completely foreign country, with no place to go. Many times on the trip between St. Paul and my new hostel i felt like crying, but each time i reminded myself of the kindness of the man at the bus station in St. Paul and was able to stay calm. Not only did he make sure i was found a place to stay, he also kept me from panicking, cracking jokes while we waited to hear from the hostelling agency and letting me use his computer. Before i left the States, there was a fair number of people who warned me about the amount of caution a girl traveling alone should have, about the people who might try to take advantage of me. But there i was, entirely vulnerable, and for no reason but that it was the kind, human thing to do, that young man helped me solve my problems, asking nothing in return.

So i'm not really scared anymore, because i have a feeling that there are a lot more kind basically decent people like that man out there than there are the kinds of predators i was warned about. And i'm still a little lonely, but i'm going to go right now to meet some of the other english-speaking assistants, so maybe we'll take care of that too.

In any case, je vous aime!

Goodbye summer

2006-09-24T21:41:00.000-05:00

Today was my last day working as a cashier at Half Price Books. I was sad, but happy to have found a summer job that i could be sad to leave. Does that make sense? Essentially, it was a great place to work and i was really lucky to be there. Three days and counting.

love y'all.

T - one week

2006-09-20T08:54:00.000-05:00

In seven days i'll be venturing off into the unknown. Thanks for joining me.

Love y'all.