Comparing Paris to Mali

Below is the last post from our APC team member that was studying abroad in Mali this past semester...

So I've been in Paris now for about 5 days, and it's been pretty weird. I've gotten very used to the type of life in Mali, as well as the type of community, and it took some adjustements to be walking in crowded areas with pretty much no one but white people again (so many tubabus!) It isn't a nice feeling. My general thoughts on Paris is that it is very quaint and clean, and that the people are very rich, happy and white. Both Lindsey and I felt so out of place the first couple of days, and we didn't quite know what to do with ourselves. We just wandered around the streets, and there were no women carrying things on their heads with babies strapped to their backs, no one selling mangos, oranges and just plain junk at every corner, no little children shouting "tubabu!" and fighting to shake our hand, no men asking to marry us, no one telling us hello and asking how our families were, no taximen honking at us, no sotramas or motos almost running us over, no sheep, cows or dogs running around our legs, no one carrying on an animated conversation in Bambara, no dirt streets, no life really, just anonymous people walking around anonymous streets and driving anonymous cars, all very quietly and calmly. There are so many things, even from the list above, that annoyed the heck out of me in Mali, but I found myself missing them in France. They became like normal, and Bamako became like home, and I felt rather homesick. Both Lindsey and I would look at each other from time to time and say, I want to go back. Things make sense there.

Now things have become a little easier, and it's kind of scary just how quickly you can fall back into your old life. Mali has definitely changed me, and I've grown from my experience, but I can't ignore that I've grown up in this life since birth, and it will always be familiar regardless of how long I am away from it. Mali just seems like another planet. Being there I knew how different it was from life in the U.S., but being in Paris after, I honestly can't find anything that resembles life there. Did I really just spend 4 months of my life in that country? It's kind of hard to believe, I'm so removed from it now. That makes me incredibly sad and a little afraid of losing Mali all together. I know I have my memories, my experience, all those things that people always say to make you feel better about leaving, but it is still very hard to come to terms with. I told myself that I was going to go back there one day, and that I will not forget it, I won't let myself do that. I think I can stick to that plan, and I intend to follow through with it. It will just be a little harder than I thought. I love Mali, and I am so happy that I studied abroad there, but this life has something about it that sucks people in, kind of like into a bubble. I don't want that to happen, and I always want to feel connected to that place. I am going to try my best to keep in touch with my friends and family there, so that should help out a good bit. If I could find some Malian, Bambara speakers in the Triangle area, that would be nice too, but I tell myself good luck with that one.

So, back to Paris. I intended to not do the tourist thing here, but honestly there isn't much more else to do, at least for the week that I am here. Paris to me is first and foremost a tourist city. And an expensive-as-hell one at that. I do like certain sections of it, particularly in the more historic districts, but everything else just seems like another big city to me. I think I prefer NYC to Paris, actually. There have been some things that I've liked, such as: little sidewalk fruit/grocery shops and flower shops everwhere; really cool sidewalk bookshops; really tiny cars and small streets; the Seine River smack in the middle of the city and little sidewalks along its banks that you can walk on; sidewalk cafes where you can always have a cafe or a glass of wine; people that play the violin in the metro stations; coblestone streets; lots of gardens and parks for picnics and leisurely strolls/reading; and random sculptures and historic things all over the city. I really like the lack of waste that is present here too; everything is small and sufficient, the food, the drinks, the cars, the garbage. People buy and consume what they need, which turns out to be not a lot. I really hate that everything we do has to be so large scale- our streets are 5 lane, while in Paris they are 2; we drive suburbans and hummers for no real reason, while the French drive the tiniest cars I have ever seen; we have to fill up carts with food at huge supermarkets in the U.S., while the French buy what they need every few days and carry their 2-3 grocery bags home with them; in the U.S. we need to supersize our coffee and other drinks, while here they have tiny coffee cups and small things of milk and sodas, which is perfectly satisfying, actually; trash accumulates into huge bags in the U.S., while here trashcans are quite small, as are the bags with the amount of trash in them. Overall, the city is fairly interesting and fun to be in, now that I've been here for a few days, it just wasn't what I was expecting, and I really dislike the rich, white homogeneity of it. I did go to a part of the city today though where there were tons of people of different races and ethnicities, and I even saw a woman carrying a baby on her back! I was really excited and intend to spend lots of time there the next time I come back to Paris. I'm sure that if I spent more time in the city, I'd find more things to like, but I have no time for that for now.

Things that I've done so far are:

-walk by the Eiffel Tower, which looks pretty cool and is lit up with sparkling lights at night

-visit the Notre Dame Cathedral, which is beautiful and such an exciting thing to see

-spend 7 hours at the Louvre (and that was walking at a quick pace so that I can at least get a feel for the whole museum) and that place is breathtaking. I had no idea how big it would be, nor that it is a few centuries old, and the whole thing is just so huge and ornate that it is a little mind- -boggling to think that the whole thing holds peices of art. I got to see the Mona Lisa, which was bigger than I thought it would be but very interesting to see nonetheless, and I got to see two other Da Vincis that I was maybe more excited about- Madonna on the Rocks and Saint John the Baptist. I also got to see pieces by Vermeer, Ingres, Ruben, Fragonard, de la Tour, Gericaults, Delacroix and lots of Northern Europe stuff like Durer that is pretty creepy to most but I rather like; I literally saw thousands of pieces of art, but those are just some of the favorites that immediately came to mind. I also got to see some cool sculptuers such as the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, Milo of Crotona, Psyche and Cupid, The Dying Slave, Saint Mary Magdalene and the Code of Hammurabi. They had rooms from Napoleon's apartments also, which were interesting to see as well. I was very happy with my first visit to the Louvre, and hope to make many more so that I can analyze more of the art in the future.

-Cluny Museum, which is a museum of the Middle Ages and built on the site of an old Roman bath. There were a lot of history represented there, both in the building itself and in the artifacts, and it houses the "Woman and the Unicorn" tapestries which are lovely to see in person.

-Sacre Coeur Church, which is also breathtaking to see. The church itself is very beautiful, and the view of the city from the top of the hill is great.

-Pompidou Center, which Lindsey really likes and I think is pretty ugly. It's usually referred to as a "building made inside out" so all of the pipes and things are on the outside of the building, multicolored. It is pretty cool to look at, but looks very odd in the otherwise quaint and historic part of the city.

-Tuileries Gardens which are right outside of the Louvre. There are lots of sculptures, fountains, green grass, trees and people lounging about. Very nice and relaxing.

-Luxembourg Gardens, which are next to the Senate building. Also very nice and relaxing with sculptures and fountains. Flowers too.

-Checked out briefly several monuments and historic sites, such as the Sorbonne, Place de la Concorde, the Bastille, the Arc de Triomphe, the Royal Palace, Sainte Chapelle, the Grand Palace, the Chaillot Palace, Invalides (houses the tomb of Napoleon, I might not have the time to really visit that this time, so I'll have to save it for another trip); and the Champs-Elysees, which I've been told is the "most beautiful street in the world," but to me it just looks like a lot of huge expensive stores, nothing that special.

-I've also walked A LOT around the city and seen a good bit of streets, buildings, etc.

For the next 2 days, I plan to visit:

-Musee d'Orsay

-Musee d'Orangerie (Claude Monet museum, just opened after 6 years of renovation)

-Musee d'August Rodin (sculptor)

-Musee Nationale de Picasso

-Musee de Carnavalet (French Revolution museum)

-the house of Victor Hugo

-the Catacombs

As for where I am staying, for the first 2 days I stayed in a hotel near the Eiffel Tower with my friend Lindsey, and now I am staying with a family from Madagascar, friends of a friend. They live in a Parisian suburb not far outside the city, so I take a metro in to spend the day. They have 3 children ages 17, 13 and 3, and they are all very nice and hospitable. The French here is so much more easy for me to understand than in Mali, and I've had no problem understanding them or talking to them, or anyone else in Paris for that matter. My french is by no means good--my accent is noticably American, and my grammar is not always the most intelligent sounding--but I can get by with it very easily, more so than I thought, so I am happy. It is a nice feeling knowing that you can communicate with people in another language, and that you can go to non-English speaking countries and be comfortable. I am very excited to learn more French, and to begin on some other languages too, namely Bambara.

Until then,

Jen