As a first-time visitor in a beautiful country rich with life that is more foreign than similar to my own, I was more observant than usually as soon as my feet touched the French soil. One of the first impressions I registered was the racial (and when possible, national) representation in the spaces I was entering. It was interesting to pick that I had seen most people of African origin at the train stations in Paris and Tours, my ultimate destination. There were more descendants of Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Niger in Paris at Gare de Montparnasse, and the numbers began to dwindle as I moved away into my host community. Additionally, I noticed that there were a significant number of people of Arabic origin, and when I had the chance to spark a conversation with some of them, I learned that they came from countries like Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. As minor of a detail this may be to someone else, it was essential to me because I was witnessing firsthand the continuing effects of the colonial residue of the French’s occupation of most of West and North Africa. There is something irreplaceable about the mesh of race and class I am experiencing on this trip, and as one of my goals is to understand better the French culture and the world it extends to beyond the country’ s borders, I feel I am on the right track!
The tale of two Mysteries: France and the French Impact
When I pushed my green-cover passport across the glass counter of the immigration officer at London St. Pancras International Station, I was panting heavily with sweat soaking the back of my shirt and trickling down my legs. I had two balloon suitcases flanking me and a gigantic black acoustic guitar dragging along behind me. A week prior when I left Notre Dame, no one would have guessed that the security protocols at London St. Pancras International Station would double, if not tripled, due to the raised level of terrorist threats from “severe” to “critical” by the British Prime Minister. Now here I was departing for Paris’ Montparnasse station from London; it was only four days since the security protocol had been instigated. When the immigration officer took an unusual interest in the details of my trip, asking me to provide some proof of my accommodation and return ticket, in addition to the study visa, it hit me hard that I was not the usual visitor France receives on an average basis. I hold a passport from a small southern African country with a struggling economy and no historical or linguistic ties to France. I could see in the eyes of the immigration officer as he serves me that, he desperately wanted to ask me this question if he could: “What on earth was my business in France?”
This was a familiar question I had asked myself at the initial stages of applying for the SLA grant. However, there is something about the awe of that moment I was about to enter France via train that made me tremble at this question. My train ride was too short to allow me to reach a satisfying conclusion to the question. It is a question that still bothers me today, and I am not any closer to an adequate answer. It is looking like so far on my trip I am coming up with more questions than answers… Who is a French citizen, in reality? How has the society been shaped? How different is it from the ones I have been exposed to? When I go back to the initial goals I set before my departure, I realize that I was gettingabundant opportunities to learn the lessons I sought out to get.
For now, I will safely say my business in France is proving more fruitful than I had anticipated.