Snippets

What I miss most:

The dollar. You are cheap, dear dollar.
Stores that are open all night long. You can do anything you want, anytime you want.
Accessible recycling. Go figure.
Internet that works all the time.
Being busy, going to classes, having homework. Yeah, it was a surprise to me too.
Technology in the classroom.

What I don't miss:
How spread out everything is in the states
How everything is a chain-restaurant, grocery store, etc
Lack of efficient mass-transit and the stigma that goes along with taking a bus


To be quite honest, I like both places. But being here makes me appreciate what I never appreciated about the US. You don't think of the privileges until you don't have them. And that seems like a really obvious thing to say, but I just didn't think about it. You can go grocery shopping at 3am! You can get any type of food you want: Chinese, Mexican, Italian, Greek, Japanese, Indian... You can send an email from anywhere. It's becoming a wireless world and Reunion is just a little behind. No big. Expected even. I'm just sayin'. It's nice to see things how they are.

Brief update on travel plans:
Leave Reunion at the end of May. June in Europe. Back in Nashville June 28. Off to Florida on the 30th or 1st of July for a few days. Back to Nashville. Off to Colorado July 22nd for a week. Back to Nashville. Off to Knoxville, for school, August 17.

I love being busy.

update

riots have subsided

even so, ISEP will evacuate us if it's gets really bad

so no need to worry

I love you

s

riots in my neighborhood

Our friends went ahead into the crowd toward the yellow-lit intersection where young men shouted and others threw rocks.  Some were on bicycles or walked with shirts tied around their faces holding sticks and bottles.  My stomach was in a knot. The tension in the air was thick on my skin as it mingled with the light film of rain that was settling on everything.  

The riots are for fair prices in Reunion and they seem to be headed by men, mostly young men.  I looked at Richard who had stayed back with me while the rest moved toward the action; his eyes were focused ahead, alert, and waiting.  He turned his head to look behind, away from the riot, and my eyes followed.  We saw people begin to scatter, begin to move, running across the street in masses thirty yards up.  They were hurried and looking behind them in quick flashes, their shoulders up and their bodies staying low.  My stomach got tighter.  I looked back to the right and saw our friends, their backs to us, still watching the riot.  I felt my feet shifting my weight beneath me when Richard put his hand on my shoulder as his mouth opened, “Ivan!”  he yelled as he whipped his head in their direction.

They didn’t hear. I looked behind me and through the bushes I saw armored vehicles jolting over grassy hills, through the playground, toward the riot.   Police.   Police with shields, with tear gas, with guns.  Both hands were on my shoulders now, steadying himself on his tip toes, stretching his neck and back to peer over the bush behind me as my head whipped from left to right deciding which way to go:  away from the police and into the riot or away from the riot and into the police.  He grabbed my hand and pulled me up the street toward the police.  I turned as we ran and yelled “Chaz!”  who was still watching the riot, his back to us.  They were on the edge of the crowd as if watching a festival.  I took one more quick glance as Richard hand propelled me forward and I saw the mass in the intersection begin to move.  My face was forward but I don’t remember seeing anything when I felt the loud blast against my back.  

Richard’s hand kept pulling me forward despite my fear, my shock, my want to close my eyes, my need to look at everything.  Then I heard Becky yell my name from behind, and as I turned my head Richard changed directions and my Keds almost slipped out from under me in the wet grass.  I didn’t even have time to catch myself because his hand pulled me fast, over the curb into a parking lot.  We shot quickly between two parked cars that sat so close I had to shift my hips sideways to slide between the mirrors.  Then I saw them.  I saw Becky again looking frantic and Chelsea running with Ivan and Chaz.  We all moved like darting fish until we saw an apartment building with an open door.  

A mother had her baby in a stroller stopped in front of the entrance stoop.  The child was maybe a year old and was sitting straight up with his little chubby hands holding onto the bar in front of him; his head craning to see in every direction like mine had moments before.  Richard picked up the front of the stroller, speaking quick French, and she pushed her baby inside while we pressed our backs against the glass listening to the quick pops and explosions, watching the clouds and light.  My stomach stayed tight and my eyes wide.  

The claps and booms were getting closer and clouds of tear gas billowed from the street and blew sideways in the breeze.  We decided to move and we made our way back to the street that lead to our university.  Despite the fires that burned in the streets, cars still whipped past.  

A Reunionais called to us in cool French, “Students!  How kind of you!  But why are you leaving?  Did you get scared?”  Richard said it was the girls.  To that, Chelsea and Becky quickly spat that he had stayed behind and that they were brave and went ahead into the riot.  They were arguing as if they had ridden the roller coaster that he was too afraid to approach.   My whole abdomen was still tight from fear, and the tension of just moments before was still thick in my blood.  I meant to keep quiet but the words swelled up into my mouth, “I don’t think it’s brave to put yourself in a riot.”  The conversation ran quiet as Ivan chuckled and said, “That’s a good point.”

Now I have an odd cool scratchiness at the back of my throat as I sit in my room. I watch from my balcony --watch the orange smoke pushing toward the sky, the helicopter spotlighting the chaos for the police--  trying to swallow the cotton in my mouth and reality of what I just witnessed.  The hazy ginger lighting and the misty rain that continues to fall adds just a touch of Hollywood to the whole hot, passionate affair between angry citizen and police.  

The papers are saying this will continue until the French government caves and begin to cut prices and increase pay.  It’s all about money.  Always is. 

The wheels on the bus

Everyone on this island has similar dietary practices and therefore all smell alike.  The bus is the place you smell it the most.  

I was sitting on the bus on a bench seat big enough for me and another small person, so a ten year old boy sat beside me.  We rode along like that until we came to a bus stop and the doors opened. The boy and I simultaneously sat up, scooted to the edge of the bench, waiting and watching for old people.  

It is understood here that youth and able-bodied persons give up their seats for middle-aged women and grandparent types.  When only college and high school aged people got on, the boy and I both sat back.  In that moment I understood I was part of this island, following their customs and social cues, and just like the boy, every bit at home.

tuesday

I was in a bad mood the other day, so I drew a smiley face on my orange.  He sat on my desk for an hour smiling at me until I ate him.

Laying in the sun on L’Hemitage beach, we remembered tops were optional. I can check another box off my bucket list.

On the long bus ride back to campus, I sat by the open window and let the wind style my salt-laden hair. The seat next to me was left open and the gruff Reunionnaise man across the aisle, that went in and out of dozing, sometimes watched me take pictures like a tourist.

The sea water was pink lemonade massaging the rocks where fishermen stood in sandals. Behind them, giant gullies wrinkled the mountains so lush they looked soft. The sun setting in the west cut shadows across each dip in topography, making each ravine a thick line of black against the lit up greens of palms and vines. The whole island smelled of flowers. A sweet and warm wind with the scent of gardenias swallowed my face and took my mind away from the crowded bus that held waves of body odors from diets full of spice.

I had the eyes of someone who saw what that Reunionnaise man could no longer see; his view of this world was polluted with memories, associations, and distractions of the everyday, while I could still see its raw, pure harmony. Every shadow, every cloud was magnificently textured with the freedom of not knowing it.

Studying abroad

I aim to be full of love for everyone, to also have ample forgiveness and acceptance. I will no longer “try to get people to like me,” but instead just love them, be open to them, and care. By not trusting someone, I make them untrustworthy, so I will trust. And I hope can let go of whatever has already happened. It doesn’t matter what was said or how this moment came to be, because all I may do is change the future. Just change it now and tomorrow and be content. That’s all. That is what I’ve learned so far.