A Waif in Paris

The boys have returned. They left 2 young African kids and came back full of American air. They are huge- it was a bit stunning, even though we'd been video chatting the entire year. I hadn't gotten a good sense of their growth. Mohamed is a bona-fide teenager, with a crack in his voice and a half inch on me. It's not just the natural growth that comes along with age, but that certain kind of weight that comes along with being in America.

I have seen many friends take off for the promised land and a sign of their success comes in the way of a few extra pounds. I'd often thought it was a normal result of finally getting enough food and vitamins, but now I have a completely different perspective. My years in Africa have shown me what a difference all the processed, chemicalized, contorted food has on the human system. The boys will be going through a detox period, for sure. To say nothing of portion size.

In the meantime, Mohamed was just as stunned by Mbalia and I. "Have you lost weight? You need to eat some chicken. Mbalia needs some chicken." Apparently chicken is the cure all. I probably have lost a bit of weight since they last saw me. I was still nursing then and sporting some of my baby fat. And Mbalia has sprouted up like a little weed, complete with Mowgli legs, long and thin. Even I am sometimes taken aback by how fragile she appears. But she is strong and I know tall thinness runs in my family so I don't worry too much. She eats as much as any toddler (that is to say super finicky, only occasionally ravenous. She does love her sauce though, and I try to make sure whatever she is eating is healthy.)

At our first dinner together, I was busy feeling like a skeleton in my skin. Ousmane, Mbalia and I appeared as waifs, hardly taking up space at the table. Mohamed felt the same way, remarking, "You guys are so small."

Our main grocery items are fresh fruits and vegetables. And rice. There is the occasional pasta dish, sometimes fresh bread from the bakery, but overall, I know all of the ingredients to everything we eat. I forget how loaded American grocery stores are....the multitude of choices, pre-packaged, processed, ready to heat and ready to eat prepared food. (Though the boys swear they didn't really partake of any of this. Knowing their dad, it really was rice and sauce all the way. Along with trips for fast food burgers. And that backpack full of Reese's, Starburst and Jelly Fish they smuggled back on the plane? An anomaly....surely.)

Being in Paris gave me just a taste of this. (We actually did Paris on a budget and my only experience eating out was at a little Congolese dive fresh out of pondu but full of plantains and fish.)  My initial trip to the grocery store was a bit overwhelming with choice. Not only were there simply too many brands (many of which were actually familiar) there was the fruit dilemma. In the end, I chose not to eat too many of the fruits I can no longer get (reasonably) here in Abidjan (blueberries, strawberries....any kind of berry really. ) I figured one short taste would only create a desire I have long since squelched. I did have a few cherries however, which were just perfect.

I spent much of my time in Paris feeling like an African villager. Most of my reactions to the city weren't compared to how things are in America, but how we live in Africa. Even my Congolese friends were laughing at me as they showed me around.

"You don't have to worry about crossing the street here. A long as the light is green, they will stop. They have to stop." It was true and I marveled at it every time. When the pedestrian crossing light turned green, everyone stepped off the sidewalk to go and the cars stopped, even if they were in mid-turn. Such a trustworthy system. My response a habit now, born of years of close calls with crazy drivers. I thought of one of Trevor Noah's comedy routines about this exact thing. I laughed at my amazement- just the way he described it too- even as I had to resist the urge to break into a mad dash. Luckily the streets were narrow. It wasn't long, though, before that Trevor Noah bravado set in. I started testing things out with my newfound power, jumping off the curb at second one and staring down drivers.

One thing I couldn't get over, however, was the way people refreshed themselves from the water flowing up through the street drains. I never got the real story about why the water was even flowing up in the first place, (to clean the streets?) but my friend insisted it was clean water. And people everywhere were washing their heads, splashing about and cooling off from the Paris heat.

In Africa, street water is pretty dirty. A lot of times, it runs with a tinge of green. You barely want to step in it, let alone get any part of your hands or face wet. I couldn't really get behind this idea of playing in the street water (although I did try to imagine it something like the fire hydrant water of NYC fame?)

Other things about Paris puzzled me as well. The European distaste for air conditioning, for example. The studio where we stayed- a 6 flight walk-up, apparently super common- didn't even have so much as a fan. The buses were plentiful and efficient (even sporting a handy count-down timer at the bus stop so you knew exactly how many minutes until the next bus arrived,) but they all had long, narrow windows that offered no breeze. Everyone was fanning themselves with their pocket sized maps of the city.

I did appreciate the energetic air. There was a kaleidoscope of transportation in use- from walking to biking, to riding on scooters and even uni-wheels. Bike lanes accommodated the many modes of transport. (Tourist tip- stay out of the bike lane, it is definitely not a walking lane. The bikes come fast, ringing bells, and passing each other with fervor.)

I appreciated the many bike rental stands throughout the city, allowing one to pick up a bike, run their errands and then return the bike to the stand closest to their house. I never got a number on how much it cost, but there were plenty in circulation. The rental bikes were easy to spot with their metal baskets and sleek silver fenders.

Electric cars were hugely popular, even meriting their own parking areas, with charging station. Motorcycles and scooters were also high on the transport list. I saw all kinds of people revving up, from business ladies in suits and high heels to dads with their kids. The bikes appeared very efficient with storage under the seat, a messenger box on the back, and padded covers for the hands and legs.

I remembered being impressed like this  while working at the French school. There seemed to be such an air of forethought and congruency. All cogs in the wheels running smoothly. Which is helpful considering the vast number of tourists on hand. There is such a rich air of history and so much to see (elaborate architecture built on the back of colonialism, as my friend pointed out) a system for everything keeps it all running smoothly.

I did get to the Louvre, which reports a loss in visitors. If so, it wasn't apparent. One side of the museum was delightfully uncrowded, and the atrium under the pyramid was filled with beautiful light and impressive sculpture. People were sitting, contemplating work and even drawing. I could have happily joined them with a sketchbook.

It was here I saw my favorite piece, a massive bronze called the Captifs. The work depicted 4 men, each captured in war. The magic of the piece was each of the men's expression- a uniquely different, realistic portrayal of the human response to despair. There was panic, anguish, resignation and defiance. I was really drawn in by the varied responses so eloquently capturing human tendency. Of course, the French history tells a slightly different story than the one I imagined during my viewing.

I convinced myself I couldn't visit the museum and miss seeing the most famous painting in the world. My friend- the ever gracious guide- agreed to help me find it. We double backed and over tracked and eventually made our way to the other side. It was a different world over there. Crowded. Hot. Busy. Families were camped in every nook and cranny. The main hallway was littered with visitors, sitting on the floor, walking in large groups, all talking and hardly paying any attention to the art.

The Mona Lisa room was equally crowded and noisy. Masses of people thronged close to the painting, holding up their tablets and phones trying to take a picture. I really couldn't understand the fixation on taking a picture. There are a million photos of the Mona Lisa of much better quality than one was going to get in such a congested room. I made my way up close, just to say I did, but there was no connection, no ability to really contemplate the masterpiece.

Instead, I was taken in by another piece on display in the same area. It was a fantastic representation of foreshortening...each figure dynamically placed in its fall from the sky. Jupiter Throwing Thunderbolts at the Vices. But it was still too crowded to look at for long. Even the tour participants had to wear earpieces in order to hear their guides.

We took more buses, visited all the required tourist sites and in the process, I saw many more places and promises of things to come that pulled at my spirit. An exhibition of Rodin, a dedication to Van Gogh happening the week after my departure and magnificent building after magnificent building. I guess Paris is like that. Steeped in art and history. You're walking down the street all innocent, and there's the house of Georges Seurat suddenly right in front of you.

I saw another side to Paris, staying in the African neighborhood of Chateau Rouge. In many ways, I felt right at home there, although I admit it was a little disorienting at first to see signs for rentals in Cocody and a house for sale in Kinshasa. I did love hearing Lingala on the streets. In the little restaurant we stopped in for dinner, there was a particularly vibrant discussion about Kinshasa's well known musicians. They got louder and more passionate by the minute, pausing only when a music video came on featuring a friend at our table. The guys stopped their debate to give kudos to the singer. I felt like I was breathing in the DRC with all of it's creativity and intensity and spirit. It was the next best thing to actually being there.

Popular bike rental stand and moto stop for metro passengers

21st century bus stop

typical tourist

electric car parking

regular doors with history
Georges Seurat's House

Limo lux- Parisian limos are so sleek....like presidential cars here

Public urinals...to prevent peeing on the street
Abidjan has taken so much from Paris, why not this?

refreshing with the street water

sleek rentals

tower at night

more street washing

6th floor view- lots of noise down there but no way to really
(safely) see what's going on, unless you're looking
 across into  the neighbors...reality tv

African stores from every country lined the street

Tout Kin, the Paris Version

African market

Adjame....Paris style

DRC protest organizers- this grew into a rally taking over the street

African market overview with Paris style buildings

rooftop....does Santa do Paris?

Congolese street sellers, chikwanga, car-top clothing sale, and
those fancy curled up dried fish

The Ancient Art had me thinking about
humanity's intrinsic desire to create, 
express, and leave a mark

Beautiful sunlit atrium under the pyramid

Les Captifs

Massive carvings

Contemplating the captives

the ridiculousness of Mona

Jupiter Hurling Thunderbolts....lovely

Many statues dealt with lions and snakes
real dangers of ancient times

My favorite piece

Sisters

Innundated

It was bound to happen. Our cartier turns into a swampy mess of river roads every time it rains and so it was only a matter of time before we were inundated. I took some photos on the way to school this morning- everything from flowing little streams to cute puddles to lake sized ponds dotting the path to the main road.

Residents have a variety of strategies for coping with the transformation. The simplest being to sing a self-comforting song about how much you love your neighborhood in order to provide courage to get through the ridiculousness of living on dirt roads. (The guy I witnessed singing on an early morning was particularly cheerful. He wore a broad smile and had his pants rolled high around the knees. He was trying hard to convince himself that his neighborhood was number 1.) Other methods include digging trenches or building mounds to try and control the direction of the running water. Where accumulation is inevitable, walking paths are created with plywood planks or well placed stones.

Of course, there is the traditional sandbag method- rice bags, in our case, filled with dirt (most likely- and somewhat ironically- from the very road itself.) More intensive measures include having a cement barrier put in around your entrance. This results in the need to step up and over and then down into your doorway. It seemed like such an odd arrangement when I first moved here, but now I understand.

We are mound builders on my road. Or rather, someone is a mound builder. I am not sure who the mystery person is that creates the mound faithfully throughout the rainy season, but I have gratefully benefited from its presence. It prevents the water from turning down the road and instead forms a bank- guiding the river to continue straight past our houses and off into the bush area before the lagoon.

This past weekend- well, for the past several weekends, really- the rain has been steadily falling from gray skies. It feels a bit like early spring in the US- still very cold, but with an air of growth and hopefulness. On Saturday night it rained particularly hard. There was force and continuity for hours. And even when it slowed down, there was a quiet stream of water falling.

Early Sunday morning we were up having breakfast (4 am suhoor ) and the rain was calm. I stayed awake for another hour or so before returning to cozy down with Mbalia with visions of a lazy Sunday morning. I still managed to wake before her and wondered about the time. I stuck my hand out from under the mosquito net to reach for my phone and felt an icy cold surprise. My phone was floating in about 2 inches of water.

My mattress, which is really just a piece of blue foam on the floor, had become an island sponge in the middle of my bedroom. The computer, some favorite books and piles of clothes were all drifting along or soaking up water. An extension cord caught my eye and I wasn't really sure if I should step off the mattress.  I remembered my hand splashing around in a blind search for my phone and deemed it mostly safe.

Once I overcame my electrocution fears, I was ready to brave the water and survey the damage. All three bedrooms were flooded. The living room and kitchen had much less water, suggesting the house is built on a slant? I didn't really know where to begin. I started by trying to save the things that were sitting on the floor getting water-logged, which was just about everything since the floor is our biggest piece of furniture.

After rescuing most of my paintings, baskets of important papers and throwing soaked blankets into the washrooms- which were ironically dry- I grabbed the mop. When I first moved to Africa, I remember resisting the mopping method. I searched everywhere for my traditional image of a mop- round head with straggly cords coming off that I could swish back and forth. It was not to be found. The squeegee on a stick is the preferred method.

The squeegee is paired with a soft cloth that gets dipped in soapy water (if you're lucky. In many cases, the water is just sprinkled across the floor- soap or not- sometimes just a water/bleach mix which is hard on the olfactory nerves) and the cloth is laid down. The squeegee goes on top, the cloth gets draped over an edge and the whole contraption is pushed around the floor.

I understand the concept now and I am mostly proficient with it, but in those first weeks I longed for nothing more than my familiar mop (and broom. There's a parallel tale to the sweeping techniques here but it doesn't exactly fit in this story.)

On this wet morning, however, the squeegee was exactly the tool I needed. Ousmane grabbed a bowl and a bucket and began bailing out the house like a sinking ship. I corralled and cajoled the water through the doorways and out the main entrance. In a few hours, we managed to take back control.

By then the rain had slowed, the water levels in the yard had receded and the mound man was back on duty.

Photo walk of my journey to school each morning:

Just outside the door- a bit of water
but I am headed in the other direction

The first stretch- muddy: rich, deep,
 sink-up-to-your-ankles, stick-to-the-
 bottom-of-your-shoes mud

A cute little road stream with
impromptu stone bank

The first of the bigger sized ponds

Requires a glance ahead to find
 the best hop-skip-jump path

Reflective views lend a cheery
 air to the wet morning

Always need to take in the bigger
picture so you can plan the best route

The biggest and riskiest lake
chance of getting a shoe soak: high

Stone path, one person passage

Hug the wall and make sure
no cars are coming- miniature
tsunami  if one drives through
while you are on the high wire

The last section of pond-puddles
to navigate before the main road-
usually requires a bit of
 zig-zagging to get there

Pay Phones in Paris

It's been nothing but rain. Cold, wet, gray days. I am looking forward to escaping for a bit- the end of school is coinciding with my quick trip to Paris. One feels like it will never end and the other is coming faster than I can prepare.

Taking a trip abroad is forcing me to think of things I haven't really considered in years. The most pressing is the phone. I don't have fancy phone service and there is no contract. I am on the ever-so- easy, pay-as-you-go Africa service. It is no big deal to charge up phone credit- minute sellers can be found on every corner. Getting a new SIM is equally easy- and cheap. Africa really seems light years ahead when it comes to using mobile phones. Get a new number, transfer money, pay bills, school fees and even taxis' are accepting payments by mobile phone.

Of course, I haven't been out of Africa for 5 or 6 years....and so I am not really sure what it's like in the other worlds. Are there even pay phones anymore? Along with charging up minutes at the corner stand, you can also just use the phone to make a call. They charge by the minute. Super simple. No coins needed.

I have been trying to figure out how to manage the few phone calls I will need to make once arriving in Paris. There's the key pick up for the studio I've rented, and I am not really convinced that I will be successful in meeting my friend. A phone might come in handy.

Otherwise, I will (supposedly) have wi-fi at the studio. As long as I can get in. Some preliminary research about options led me to the very convenient sounding Orange Holiday SIM. It offers probably a bit more in SMS and phone minutes than I need, but the price tag is prohibitive.

I've gathered as much information about train lines and bus lines and transportation to and from the few locations on my itinerary. While my friend has offered to show me around, the meet up spot is suspiciously vague. It's like suggesting to meet at Grand Central track 4. Some 700,000 people pass through there daily. Apparently the Gare du Nord is similar. In fact, it makes the top 5 busiest stations in the world. So I am a little skeptical about us actually finding each other somewhere around the "voie 4," though my friend seems to think it will be no problem. (I will be awash in a sea of white women, and Europeans in general. Camouflage could be an issue.)

I created a very lite itinerary because 5 days in Paris is sure to fly by. I've included the Louvre, which happens to be showing a special exhibit of "The Body in Movement- Dance and the Museum."
Apparently dancing along the Seine also seems to be a thing. I am ready to get my salsa on (although, two of my French students pointed out that salsa dancing is not very French. I countered with the idea that being creative, well rounded and artistically minded is very French. And dancing salsa on the Seine sounds like all of those.)

Finally, one more thing came to mind. Although those same two French students did recommend the Arc de Triomph, especially if I wanted to climb - as opposed to climbing the Tour Eiffle. I am not really interested in climbing either, just a glimpse - even from afar- would be fine enough. They may have sold me with tales of the flame that is lit every night at the Arc de Triomphe- the Eternal Flame however, along with the suggestion to visit very early or very late at night.

Rather than either of these, while browsing for interesting things to do, I came across the Lady Liberty. I'm pretty sure I knew there was a Statue of Liberty in France as well, but it doesn't get as much press as the NYC one. As a native New Yorker, I guess it is no surprise that I haven't actually been to the Statue of Liberty, but I figure this is my chance to make up for that. I could visit the ladies in reverse. I still have time to make it to Ellis Island one of these days.

So that's it for Paris. A few market places, maybe a croissant and a cup of tea in an outdoor cafe (although Ramadan is kind of at odds with that image. I guess I could adjust it to late evening rather than early morning. Or maybe I will find a cafe open at 4 am....)

In the meantime, just trying to get through these cold, rainy days. (The forecast looks surprisingly similar between the two cities, so I may not be escaping as much as I thought. But a change of air, if not of temperature, will surely do wonders.)

vive la france

The month of May really kicked me on my butt. It turned into one long wrestling match, me and May. I am pretty sure June has found me victorious, but I am cautious. One sickness after another heaped itself on me, all the while I was shrouded in self-doubt and confusion. Sickness has that effect on me. I tend to spend more time wondering if I am really sick, and questioning whether I should be doing more or really resting. The effect of having a chronically sick parent- who may or may not have spent many of those years and hospital trips malingering, viewing it as more of a vacation where everyone takes care of you and all responsibilities are put aside- is that it's really hard to just give in and rest without feeling guilty.

But May was determined to knock the guilt out of me and so, for a the last week at least, it's been nothing but rest. I do feel on the upward swing.

With just 8 1/2 days until vacation officially starts, it is just in time. I was somewhat randomly invited to Paris and, having never actually been out of the airport, I accepted. Europe has never held a big attraction for me, but I do find myself getting excited.

I spent some time on AirBnB- the french version- and what emerged began to give me a picture of a whole different culture. (Of course, you say, but really, sometimes the American in me imagines all Western cities to be similar. In fact, a friend mentioned this homogenization of cities around the world and I can't help but feel he is right. They are all beginning to look the same. There are 3 Burger Kings in Abidjan now, and so many street corners resemble any big city, anywhere.)

Aside from that, browsing apartments (in my price range, keep in mind. Paris on a budget. There were plenty of over the top, incredibly gorgeous, soul soothing apartments available for a small inheritance) an image began to emerge. The back-packing, youth hostel crew, the Europe trekking families, zipping over on the Eurostar for a weekend, New York city at dusk, soft light and smooth music.

Many of the places were in multi story buildings (think 6, 7, 8 stories) with no elevator. A walk up. 'Great exercise,' the reviewers touted. Many had a shared bath- hallway toilet. I hadn't even considered needing to ask if there was a bathroom in the flat. They were described in terms of meters and I imagined the tiny NYC apartments that went for outrageous rents. But maybe these have cobblestone streets leading up to them. Or at least a really great bakery just outside.

In effect, I began to get a sense of Paris, as an exotic locale. As a place to 'meet locals' and my French school experience came back to me- yes, it's a different perspective, a different culture, an intriguing take on this journey of life we are all undergoing.

And so reluctance to experience Europe has changed into something of excitement. The world seems open once again. I haven't left Africa in so many years, it will be nice to breathe new air. The apartment I found is in a little neighborhood the host describes as "Afro-neighborhood." I take it to mean a variety of African owned businesses and migrant presence. Seemed like such a lucky break to find it. I can go to Paris but still feel a little bit on familiar ground.

And the Louvre is hosting a special exhibit about Dance and the Movement of the Body. Perfect timing to vive la france.