ahh-LA!!

On our travel we meet all kinds of people, each with unique stories. Life really is like a box of chocolates, you never know which nut you're going to get.

Twice on the ferry between FdF and Anse Mitan we ran into a guy who most memorably longed to return to Los Angeles, which always enunciated with a sigh. He originally left metropolitan France as a teen to dodge the country’s military obligation, which we had never heard of prior. Apparently he spent four illegal years in NY and fifteen in LA, only to return to France for the noble reason of spending time with his family after the dissolution of the draft and amnesty to those who fled. He returned to France only to discover that he left his heart in LA. Having left he could not easily reenter and was trying desperately to go back home and to his friends. In our conversations he made numerous references to his depression and breathed a heavy sigh every time he spoke of the US, especially ahh-LA. He felt France was too tight, stifling, while the freedom he absorbed in the states could no longer comfortably fit in the confines of the French border. In fact he was in Martinique because he thought the weather would remind him more of California. He had effeminate gestures and speech that made us think that he would fit very aptly in ahh-LA. We never made proper introductions, but I felt bad because he’s trying to get into the very place we have left but still call home. Meeting people like this reminds me of how fortunate we are and how we often don’t even realize it. That seems to be a pretty common revelation in most of our travels.