When I was a child, I thought that I could see the other side of the world across the ocean.

I never believed myself to be superhuman in this endeavor; on the contrary, I believed that it was something everything but my (at that naïve age) old mother with her ‘failing eyesight’ could see. It was only just sitting on the horizon; a whole new experience just waiting to be reached. Sitting on the beach by my grandparents' house in New Hampshire, the world seemed so small—if I hopped on a boat I could be in another continent by noon, and there were no doubts in my mind that I would someday make that trek...

Thursday, March 15, 2007

3/15/2007- Scents (Port Louis, Mauritius)



The Mauritian air was heavy with the scent of molasses.

That was the first thing that any of us noted about the new world we had just embarked upon. It’s funny, because each place that we entered had a distinct scent to it—whether it was the pungent scent of urine and sweat in Brazil, the scent that can only be called ‘Caribbean Paradise’ in Puerto Rico or the old smells of Cape Town, you knew how far you were away from home not by the sights or sounds, but by the amazing smells that you never noticed before. It makes me wonder whether or not I will notice one upon my return to the United States—perhaps there was something there all along that only getting away will ever show you. I am eager to leave the ship in San Diego in two months time and see the changes that I notice in the place I once called home.

No comments:

Post a Comment