Arrivée!

I'm in Paris!

After spending 19 hours on a bus from Bratislava, I finally got off at Gallieni with my two oversized suitcases (one of them bursting with food) and a hurting back. I miraculously made my way through the escalator-free metro to Ledru Rollin to my temporary accommodation spot.

The first week I will be staying at Auberge International des Jeunes, a cozy and not pricey student hostel near Bastille. I recommend it to all young and adventurous travelers to Paris who are limited by their budget. It costs me 14 euros a night with breakfast and a nice staff in the high of the tourist season. Each night I get new roommates since I am in a 4-bed room and the people change around. So far I've met a Japanese, three Germans, some British girls and a Norwegian. The whole hostel is bursting with international youth which is definitely an environment I love moving in. Pas grave, eh?

I am exploring the beauties of Paris while looking for an apartment (I spend most of the day hooked up to the internet browsing through petites annonces that are mostly very much above my budget). Visiting the flats takes me to weird parts of town as well, such as the east 18th arrondisement which looks a bit like a post-war zone the closer you move to Gare du Nord. On one side you find bustling streets full of tourists wanting to see Sacre Coeur on Montmartre, one kilometer away you think you're no longer in Paris since most of the buildings are run down and predominantly inhabited by immigrants. There are several parts in the city that I'd definitely not call "tourist-friendly". Not that they don't appreciate tourists. The tourists wouldn't appreciate the lack of high-class glamour in parts like these. In fact, most of Paris' 12 million inhabitants live in places that are not at all chic. It just depends on what kind of Paris one comes to see.

School starts in a week and I'm a bit nervous because I opted out of the Welcome Program (hence I am generally lost in the things academic at Sciences Po) and because all my classes are going to be in French. But it makes me excited with anticipation at the same time. I'll finally get to experience a European university life with all its ups and downs for a whole year!

So here the French university&life journey began.

Opening the heart to the past

I have been wanting to open this red box for some time but I was never physically present to do that.

Throughout the year I was just hoping and praying that my mom wouldn't throw it away (which she tends to do with random boxes when in her cleaning mode).

The contents of the box(es) are very special to me. Trifles, you may say, but special nevertheless. It's a collection of different objects that I've been gathering since I was a teenager. To be honest, I was very cautious opening it. I didn't know what I'd find this time because I rarely dare to look at all the stuff and often chose to pick through it. It has lots of funny and childish things in it, but it brings back some very painful memories as well. However, I have decided this summer that I have to start putting to rest the ghosts of the past and learn to face the things I would much rather erase from the timeline of my childhood.

It's actually quite a nice journey exploring the contents. Among other things, you would find my first paycheck ever (from the Slovak Radio Station where I presented three of my poems as a 10 year-old; shame that my poetic juices have drained since then), a photo of our beloved guinea pigs who are all in the guinea pig heaven now, my old library passes (I was a bookworm big time until about 16), butterfly stickers, a pocket mirror, twinkling pencils and similar girly accessories. Some stuff I never liked picking up (but I kept it for some reason anyways), such as a bunch of keys from the house where my dad lived with his girlfriend and where we used to go for visits, or a few passport pictures of myself as a 12 and 13 year-old that I hated looking at until recently. I always thought I was ugly and disgusting, and that it was a reason for why I was bullied at school. Looking at the same pictures now, I can see a beautiful young girl who believed her and her surroundings' lies, with sad eyes that could cry at any moment but are well-hidden behind those uncool glasses and a semi-convincing smile. It pains me to see myself looking so beat down and with so little self-esteem, but I thank God now that I see how far He's taken me since then and how He taught me to love myself so that I can in turn love those who bullied me and not hate them anymore.

The main reason for opening the box, however, was the treasure of every teenage girl, my journals. I buried lots and lots of information about how I coped with the good and bad things that came after my life got a different spin just before my 10th birthday. I had a very "writer friendly" stage between 13-14 years when I produced 5 or 6 journals, most of them filled cover-to-cover. That was when I loved reading L.E.Blair's Girl Talk, a 90s paperback series about five high schoolers who were each keeping a journal. Of course I had to do the same. And thankfully so! It's a great way to spy on memories, many of which I have largely suppressed. Then there were 2 years of silence when I was angry with the world and thought writing journals was for kids. I regret not keeping track of what was going on with me then, because it was quite the spectacle (I think my mom can talk to you about it). But I sobered up and discovered at 17 that keeping a journal is actually a very mature thing to do. It helps me make sense of what's happening in my head and in the world around me, and it serves as a sort of a chronicle I keep for myself and others in the years to come.

Amazing how a single box can tell so much about a person. Now I understand why my grandma gets so excited when we are sorting boxes of her old photographs or why my mom gets all nostalgic unwrapping Christmas decorations from the attic. Every object we own has a piece of our history attached to it, and it's up to us to keep some of them so they can remind us of the sad and happy stories we can talk about to our older selves and to the ones walking along with us.

A traveler's miracle

Let me tell you, my traveling luck is quite a spectacular one. Sometimes the trip works out smoothly, but for the past years the balance hasn’t been so much on the formidable side. In short, I lose bags, I lose flights, and I lose money. I comfort myself by saying that one day my air travels will make for amusing stories to my grandchildren. I used to absolutely love flying, people watching in all those big airports and making friends on the plane, but then some bizarre things happened to me while traveling. Ever since then I am a bit fidgety each time I fly since I subconsciously expect something bad will happen. Well, as I said, bad things don’t happen always, and I am now learning to appreciate even the bad that I stumble through (e.g. realizing that I can live pretty comfortably for a month without the clothes that I thought I needed so much since they had to be left at home after I’ve missed my check-in). 

However, I am grateful to God that this time around I don’t have to “praise Him in the storm”. Instead, I can thank Him for a safe and hiccup-free journey from Lusaka all the way to Vienna (at this point I am still sitting in Cairo airport so anything could happen, but I am living by faith :D). I have to confess that I am not a master at Philippians 4:5 (you will love it if you like incredible challenges), where Paul gives the advice not to be anxious about a single thing but instead rejoice, rejoice (he actually said it twice), pray and give thanks to God while being honest about what I need. He attached a great promise (which is good for one’s blood pressure as well)- the peace of God surpassing all my understanding, will guard my heart and mind. Simply put, don’t stress and you won’t stress! Understand why I’m not that good at it? Trying to worry about my flight leaving on time (or leaving at all), my luggage being handled by some elusive airport staff, what I’ll watch and eat during the flight, the weather forecast for my destination and the rest of the globe I’ll be covering, digesting all that at once can give you a bit of a headache. No wonder I need some supernatural dose of peace. I tried inducing it by myself but it rarely works.

So, my lesson. I spent my 10-hour layover in Cairo praying, thanking God for the journey so far, and taking deep breaths to kill the physical stress and the anxiety over whether I will have to pay 150 euros for my 2^nd piece of checked luggage. But of course I did other fun stuff as well (for those who might not find praying and mental exercises amusing- I understand you); I also surfed the Internet, read and explored the airport. My mind got distracted from the stress and I actually enjoyed the day!

I liked this billboard in one of the airport halls. Although I don't appreciate classifying one people as 'the greatest' (it's been here a few times in the past and you know what it caused), it's nice to commemorate a revolution in this way.

When I finally went to the Austrian Airlines representative to pick up my last boarding pass of the trip, I was praying some more and singing in my head, only to learn that nobody cared about my second bag and that I was free to board my plane to Vienna. So I can say it worked! 

Four and half hours later, I am hugging my crying mom and two crazy brothers whom I haven’t seen for a year. What a miracle!

Wrapping my mind around it

Sitting at Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport, I realize that those 11 weeks, or almost 3 months of my stay in Zambia, are now officially over. I looked forward to it so much literally for years, and now it’s done in a snap of a finger. It’s amazing how the time flies when you’re enjoying yourself. I guess that’s why people say that life is short. At this speed, my life is quite the highway!

I’m realizing that it’s very difficult to make sense of what all has happened when it’s still so recent. Maybe for the sake of my friends and family asking me right off the runway “So how was Zambia?!” expecting a concise, one-line answer, I should create a provisionary summary of this trip. “It was awesome!” shouldn’t do it; I would do injustice to my hosts and the host country by summing it up in the most overused word in the English dictionary. But how to phrase it?

It was different. It was challenging (I wouldn’t lie saying this; I just forgot the word for challenging in Slovak). It was a learning experience; I learned a lot about Zambia, its people, my best friend, and most importantly, I learned a ton about myself. A sample of the latter would include: getting reaffirmed that I have a hard time staying idle (at work, in my spare time, even when I’m sick), being wary of making friends with men (sad, not very convenient, and something I have to work on), or the tendency to change my accent depending on the social setting (e.g. work, the immigration office, the plane, in-country travel, chilling with friends). Another interesting one is that I might not be able to see myself working for an NGO long-term in the future. A post about that might come a bit later. I think this thought still needs a lot of intellectual and practical scrutiny, but it seems like I might not be headed in the NGO direction. But as I say, don’t take my word for it yet.

I think figuring out what has happened to me, with me, and maybe even through me during the time I have spent in Zambia will take some weeks, or even months. It might be like peeling back an onion; first I will notice the (teeny weeny) tan when I contrast my arms to my brothers’, then the change in my English when I speak to other international students in Paris, and then things will start surfacing about a change on the inside- my worldview, my reasoning, my understanding of the issues Zambian, Southern African, African and global. And on the deepest level I hope to discover a spiritual change that I’ve experienced. I flew in to Zambia knowing that it wouldn’t be possible without my “Sponsor in the sky”. I also knew that He allowed me to go there for a reason. Reflecting back on these three months over a period of time will help me understand the reasons, and see the results. Results in me, and also in those who I spent time with. Because spreading His sponsorship to others is what it’s all about for me :)

I snapped this one my last day in Mpika. I love the colors. It reminds me of autumn, the transition between two seasons. Right now I am similarly transitioning from a season in Zambia to a new one in France. And it's great to be transitioning through my tiny home town.