Cathedrals in the rain

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Editor's note: Second-year Cottey students are in Paris, France, on an annual trip filled with required educational modules and with opportunities for soaking up the local culture as well. This is the last of a series of reports on the experience from Cottey College's public information director Steve Reed, one of the chaperones for the trip.

Bonjour Mama!

I can't believe it's Friday, our last day in Paris. Where did the week go? Today is a free day for most of the faculty and students, but Melinda Rhodes and I have a module this morning, a small group left very early this morning for Normandy, and a group is leaving at noon for Chartres.

Melinda and I are doing a photo tour of the Left Bank with approximately 25 students today. We are all to meet at Notre Dame at 9 a.m. with cameras in hand. It was cloudy and threatening rain when we left, and even darker when we arrived at Notre Dame. On the one hand, no sun makes for good photo shooting because there are no heavy shadows to obscure details. On the other hand, if it started to rain, we probably would cut it a bit short so as not to get soaked.

We all met at the Zero Kilometre mark in front of the cathedral. I had a color map with a proposed route outlined on it. The students were free to explore those areas most interesting to them. Areas we had highlighted on our map were the cathedral, of course, La Samaritaine, the bird market, several bridges, and the justice department.

I had my photo taken standing on the Zero Kilometre mark, because it is said that if you touch that mark, you will return to Paris. After the students heard that, they all wanted their photos on the brass marker as well. I guess they're enjoying Paris as much as I am.

After that, we turned the students loose to take photos. By this time it was beginning to rain, and only a couple of people were hanging around with me and Melinda. The rain, the river, and the boats made for some interesting photo opportunities, so I talked our little group into wandering down to the river's edge from the Pont du Double. I think I have some really cool shots of the cathedral looking up from the river with ivy covered walls from the quai in the foreground. I also found some pigeons roosting in a drain pipe (hiding from the rain, I guess) that I hope turns out well.

We'd walked along chatting and taking photos when it began to rain a bit harder. Whitney and Kathleen decided to find a drier place, while Melinda and I decided to continue.

Almost immediately behind Notre Dame is the Memorial to the Deported, a somber monument to all the French citizens who were exiled to the Nazi death camps in World War II. I had been there once before and suggested we visit it. First, because it is worth seeing, and second, we would be out of the rain for a bit.

You have to descend down into the memorial, and upon entering it feels as though you are in a crypt. There is a tomb with an unknown victim buried there and rows of lights extending beyond into the background.

It is said that there is a light for every one of the 200,000 people who were taken to the death camps. Around the walls are phrases and bits of poetry from French philosophers, artists, and writers, but it is all in French. The last time I was here, I could pick out enough words that I got the general gist of what was written. This time, however, English translations were posted next to the engravings.

There is part of a poem by Robert Desnos that I'd never been able to translate well. Now that I read it in English, I was absolutely overwhelmed by it. I was overcome with emotion and couldn't even speak. All I could do was tug on Melinda's sleeve and point at the poem on the wall. The poem is called J'ai tant r'vé de toi, or I Have Dreamed of You so Much. The excerpt on the wall read: "I've dreamed of you so much that you're losing your reality. Is it already too late for me to embrace your literal, living and breathing physical body and to kiss that mouth which is the birthplace of that voice which is so dear to me? I've dreamed of you so much that it might be too late for me to ever wake up again."

I knew the Holocaust existed, and it was always real to me intellectually, but after I read that poem standing in the crypt, it became real to me emotionally too. I had even been to a Holocaust exhibit in the National War Museum in London last year, but suddenly, those few words hit me.

Later that afternoon, I went to an Internet café to look up Robert Desnos. He was a French poet who fought in the Resistance during World War II. He was captured by the Nazis and sent to the death camps. Although his camp was liberated before he died, he had contracted typhoid while in the camp and perished shortly after. That poem was actually published in 1926, well before World War II, but was so prescient of his later experience.

I think what I felt and learned this morning is what travel is all about. Sure there is fun and great food, but where we really get the value of these trips is when our eyes and minds are opened up to the actuality of things that have gone before us and have shaped our history in ways we may not have realized. I know I am not the only one who felt that today.

One of our students went on the trip to Normandy and took flowers with her to place on her great-grandfather's grave. The caretaker happened to be there when our Cottey group arrived and he helped her to find the right tombstone. He also asked her to write down information about her great-grandfather as they keep a record of every person buried there and are always looking for more information they can add to the names of those who sacrificed their lives for freedom. Kip Yoss, who led the Normandy group, said it was a very somber experience for all of the Cottey folks who made the trip.

No, we all don't have an epiphany like this on an international trip, but I do think that travel opens the minds of our students, faculty, and staff, so that the possibility of greater understanding is there when the right event presents itself at the right time.

I wish I could say that the rest of my day was as intellectually enlightening, but I spent the time wandering about the Latin Quarter, taking photos and doing some souvenir shopping for the family. I hope you like what I'm bringing home for you.

That night was our farewell dinner, and it was at the renowned Le Train Bleu in the Gare de Lyon train station. This is a very upscale and fancy restaurant with painted ceilings and gilded decorations, and the food was every bit as fancy as the decor. Salmon was the main course for the evening and it was, like all the meals I've eaten this week, wonderful. Too soon the meal was over and it was time for one last round of photo taking and then on to the buses and back to the hotel.

This was my third trip to Paris, Mama, and every time I'm here I learn something new. I hope our students find these trips as educational as I do. My world is so much bigger now than it was before I traveled. At this point, though, I am looking forward to my own home, my own bed, and the chance to share my memories, photos and souvenirs with you. I will see you shortly.