detours

A three-quarter moon glowed orange and hovered low over the horizon as the plane touched down in Casablanca. Hours earlier I had at last ended an unexpected five-day stay in Paris, another of the world’s beautiful, intriguing cities. But circumstances as they were, I far from relished my time in either.

I left the States last Wednesday, headed to Bamako, Mali, for an international meeting of advocates, even departing early to help get ready for the big event which my project was sponsoring. The plane landed as scheduled Thursday morning and I meandered around the Paris airport for several hours, waiting for my connection flight on to Mali, in West Africa.

Only when it was at last time to board did the most dreaded word in air travel begin flashing on the screen above my gate = CANCELLED. I couldn’t believe it, nor could the thousands of other people who soon found themselves in the same situation. The flight crews of the airline, Air France, had just gone on strike, leaving passengers from around the world caught in the middle of their discontent ….

And so began my five day saga of coping with (or attempting to) my worst travel debacle to date. Thank God for debit cards and Blackberrys is all I can say. Without those modern conveniences and kind people at my office back home, I would be among the thousands of stranded travelers still lining the terminals, with luggage carts piled high beside them and no flights home anytime soon.

Sparing you the details, and to stifle any online ranting on my part, I’ll boil my dreadfully detailed experience down to the following oversimplified list, minus figures of money and angst (which were both freely spent).

Number of days spent in Paris = 5.5

Number of different re-booked itineraries in three days = 4

Number of hours spent waiting in line for Air France = 12

Number of hours spent waiting in line elsewhere = at least 10

Number of hours spent in transit dealing with the above = 5

Number of hours spent on Blackberry also dealing with above = 7+

Number of different hotels in four nights = 3

Number of hours spent enjoying Paris, excluding eating = about 7

Number of it would have taken hours to fly directly from Paris to Mali = about 7

***************

And now, here I am in Mali. After starting this entry days ago, we’ve since wrapped up our conference and I’m spending the weekend catching up on piled-up work, planning site visits for the next few days, and having a bit of fun, of course. But to add insult to injury, after surviving the Air France travel nightmare, I was here less than a day before finding out that local officials decided this week was the perfect time to close the airport to repave the runways. So again, I found myself surrounded by stranded travelers, but at least this time they were my colleagues, and I got my wish to spend a little extra time here.

Mali is the real home of Blues, a shocking statement coming from a Mississippi Delta girl, I know, but the last few nights I’ve heard the musical research validated for myself. What these bands may have lacked in wailing harmonicas, they made up for in added percussion – from drums of every shape and size to xylophone-type instruments made of wood and string. The lyrics in French and Bambara (the language of Mali) may have been incomprehensible, but the fusion of strings and beats was as familiar as Muddy Waters, B.B. King or any of the soulful sounds drifting from juke joints along Highway 61. I think I’ve found an African home…

In the coming days, I’ll be spending time exploring outside of the capital city, Bamako, so will surely share some sights and sounds from those days as well. But in the meantime, here’s a few glimpses from my few fun hours in Paris....

hmm... guess where this was?

the Louvre

looking down the Seine River

the throngs at Notre Dame

looking down a lovely, typical Parisian street

the fall colors were amazing...

... as were the parks

in pere lachaise cemetary, i finally got to pay my respects to an incredible poet and musician

And when i at last left the "City of Love," i realized that (even after my horrendous experience with the airline) perhaps we sometimes give French people too hard of time... because if i lived somewhere as incredibly beautiful, artistic, historic, and enjoyable as Paris, i'd probably be pretty indifferent toward everywhere else, too. (Just kidding, I know many wonderful French people, but you get the point...)

Without a doubt, though, I couldn't have picked a better place to get stranded.