Obama

What will this man do for us?

Death at the Metro

Last week the metro did not stop at Pereire, there was a dead body on the station. One more suicide, one more accident? Last week one of the people that I meet told me his friend had been killed by the metro. That makes 2 dead in one week that " Im aware" of... However, how often do we hear in the metro "accident grave passanger"? How many suicides/accidents happend in the parisian metros? Im trying to find the data, but I find not much quanitative numbers.... it seems that on average there are two deaths per week in the parisian metros/trains. How crazy is that! Just look around at certain news that are found on the internet.

F mort sur les voies du RER
RER A : Suicide à Nation
Accident voyageur 16/09/08Electrocuté à Juvisy-sur-Orge
Nuit Blanche: un mort dans le métro
Ligne 13 : Accident grave de voyageur à Pernéty
Mort du journaliste italien agressé dans le métro parisien ...
Nothing against people killing themselves, but do they need to do it in the metro. At the end that will only lead to more and more suicides, metro drivers who will be shocked, people who will miss their job interviews, people fired for arriving late at work.....a chain of suicides :) Just a Joke, but the numbers are estonishing. It appears that the RATP (the parisian metro company) has a group of psychologist to assist people that see these suicides take place. According to a Canadian study, the people that commit suicide in the metro are usually people that are living in marginal conditions and have been under the influence of drugs or alcohool before jumping on the rails. Nevertheless, the study notes that for people who live in the metro it is hard to distinguish if their deaths are due to accidents or suicides. Besides all the real dealth, there are also the "temptatives" of suicide.... which leads to us hearing often in the Parisian metro " accident grave voyageur.."

People To Meet 1

Be it a tuesday or a thrusday between 00:30 or 00:50 there he is with around 10 bags a hat and a thick heavy coat. Im too much in a hurry to even ask who he is or where he goes. The furthest I have gone is to give him a sandwich. Probably one more person that lives in the street and sleeps in the parisian metro to get himself warm. But the mystery of what he carries in his multiple old looking breaking bags captures me. Wouldnt it be easier to carry all his affairs in a bigger luggage or a shopping cart like most of the other homelss do?- Of course I always arrive wondering if I will actually see him moving. How does he do it to carry so many bags two hands clearly arent enough. However no matter when I arrive he is always in the same place at the bottom of the stairs surrounded by the sea of bags. Im rest in schock at the fact of always seeing him at the same place doeing the same exact thing at the same hour. He has becomed part of my routine.Ive passed at mutliple other times during the week and he wasnt there. Will he be there next week? I guess so. Will I know who he is one day?

The end of Polynesia

Unfortunately, time flew by in Polynesia, and with it the internet connection disappeared.... after Raiatea and the short visit to Taha, we headed off to Bora Bora. Oh, Bora Bora, Bora as they call it there..... It might be the island with the most famous lagoon, and thus has becomed into the most turistical one. Its where people head for their honeymoods, and yes the water was beautiful. However... the amount of tourism has made it become into a "fake place". To be honest, the island was not turistic in the sense of bumping into tourists everymoment, but there was less coral and less beautiful fishes as in the other islands, it was full of resorts with bungalows of the water. Yes, the bungalows where nice, but one starts to wonder. Is it really worth the night to pay more than 600 euros for a bungalow over the water? We were staying at some "pension" by the sea, first row (everything is on the first row anyways...) and got to swim under the bungalows of the Interncontiental.... They had a glass on the floor, and there was a rock under the bungalow so that fishes would come. Is this why the price was so high? I found it ridicolous! The good part of Bora Bora was that we swam with Sharks!! Once again these came because we threw them food....it felt fake, but it was amazing to swim with sharks and huge rays!

Unbelivably the greek girls that so annoyed us at Raiatea showed up again at Bora Bora, in the same hotel!! But something good came out of our meeting, they recommend us to go to Maupiti, and so we did. Took a boat for 2 hours to do 50km to the island "infront" of us.... Maupiti! The boat - The Maupiti Express- only goes there twice a week, so when we arrived there was the entire population of the island waiting for us. With bike to rent, cars to do an island tour (tour took 15minutes!). It was like being in Paradise, we ate at the only restaurant of the island. Maupiti is definatively the island to visit, and relax while away from the world. While we were swiming but right by the beach we saw a moray eel and the parents of the kids "shouted" " faut pass toucher"" (do not touch!).

New Years was spend seeing the home fireworks that the house next to our hotel did... I though the resorts around our little hotel such as ClubMed,InterContiental or Sofitel would do big things... However no fireworks were seen but the never ending ones of the house next to us. It was nice, we watched as we had our 12 spanish grapes, and then headed to bed!

And the days passed by, rainy days, sunny days,snorkling,insulations, island tours, water, photography....and soon back to Paris through LA...

Everything being imported from either USA,Canada, NZ, Aussie or Chile the prices were expensive in the supermarket. Leading to the question ...how do people survive there? There are great subsidies from France, they have tourism, fish, and coconuts, vanilla and pearl plantations but not much more.... A question to be answered.

Casi todo lo que realice será insignificante, pero es muy importante que lo haga.

Mahatma Gandhi