We'll always have Paris....

  Roissy, Île-de-France, France
Wednesday, July 8, 2009

I'm off and running on what should be quite a varied trip to places in both the northern and the southern hemispheres. My itinerary takes me to Reunion and Mauritius Islands off the coast of Madagascar, South Africa, Rwanda (via Kenya), then France before returning home. Reunion and Mauritius will be to make church members visits and arrangements for our fall festival. I have to transit through South Africa to reach Rwanda, so I arranged for a stop-over of several days to as to be able to speak in Johannesburg, and perhaps take a couple of days off. In Rwanda we’ll hold our first-ever youth camp in that country, and I’ll participate in the inaugural board meeting of an NGO (non-governmental organization) called Smile-Rwanda. This NGO was started by Dr. Greg Swartz, a dentist and an elder in UCG. Its goal will be to improve the training of dentists in Rwanda and to import dental supplies at cost to improve the logistics for dentists in the country. I was happy to accept an invitation to serve on the board. We will have our first meeting just after the camp finishes. Then I’ll head back to Europe for visits in Bordeaux, where we’ll a meeting of the board of the French UCG association, as well as speaking in Paris on a Sabbath, before I finally return to the US. Total time out of country should be a few days shy of 4 weeks.

My flight from Cincinnati to Paris departed on time last night. The 767 was full of tourists heading to Paris or other places in Europe for an educational vacation. As usual several American teens distinguished themselves by talking loud enough to be heard throughout the cabin. I believe it is because we’re used to having more space than the Europeans, and a bit more exuberance as well; on average we certainly do talk louder, a fact that is not appreciated in quieter more reserved cultures.

I was seated next to an AP reporter on her way to her post in Kabul, Afghanistan, via Abu Dhabi. We chatted pleasantly for a while about travel, writing and journalism. Her enthusiasm faded noticeably, though, when she found out I worked for a Christian publication. The conversation pretty much dried up. Perhaps she feared Christianity might be contagious. I slept most of the flight after dinner, though I did take the time to start Dorothy Dunnett’s last Lymond novel: Checkmate. It’s starting off very well and promises to tie up all the loose ends that Mrs. Dunnett has spent five other novels loosening….

After looking at a number of itineraries to try to find the least expensive, I finally chose a flight to Reunion on Air Austral, which I have never before flown. But I found out at the Cincinnati airport that they don’t have a baggage agreement with Delta. So I couldn’t check my suitcase all the way through to Reunion, but had to claim it in Paris. And taking that flight meant a long layover in Paris: arriving at 10:00 am; I won’t leave again until nearly 8:00 pm tonight.

Claiming my bag, I took the new airport train (quite an improvement over the old busses) to the Roissypole center, the location of several airport hotels. I took a room at the Ibis for half a day, at a reduced price. That allowed me to rest in a bed for a few hours, shower and change, and also use the wi-fi system to answer some mail and get some other work done. I have a few more hours to wait until the start of my 12-hour flight to the Indian Ocean.

The weather in Paris is pleasantly cool, and overcast. Light rain falls from time to time. It’s a typical July day in northern France.