Paris for the First Time

I had clear instructions from the International HQ in Paris.

First, I had to leave Hong Kong and arrive in Sri Lanka to obtain my visa to France. In addition to that, I had to obtain a Benelux visa, a joint visa then issued for Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. I arrived in Colombo on 10 December. Although I had a letter written in French by Jean-Francois Bickel, the Secretary General of IYCS, inviting me to come to Paris for a meeting, the visa process had some issues.

Fr. Chrispin let me know that the French Embassy had blacklisted YCS members in Sri Lanka from obtaining visas. This was due to the fact that one of our YCS members had been recommended by Fr. Chrispin in 1986 to go to the Taizé community in France. We did not know that he had his mother and family in France and was looking for an opportunity there. He went and applied for asylum. Since then, the French Embassy in Colombo was not issuing visas to any student representing Catholic student groups.

Bearing the warning in my mind, I went to the French Embassy and applied for the visa in early January. They issued the visa on 5 January. Soon after that, I went to the honorary consulate of Belgium to get my Benelux visa. I had no idea why I was getting these visas then.

And on 8 January 1989, I left Colombo for Paris on an Air Lanka flight. That was my longest flight up to that time: Katunayake to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.

One of the highlights of the Paris trip was that I was going to meet this guy called Victor. I had heard a lot about Victor from Zita and Lek. But I had never met him, so I did not know what kind of person he was. The only thing I knew was that I was going to work and live with this person. And Fr. Joe Naliath was supposed to come together with him from Calcutta.

When I arrived on 8 January at CDG in Paris, it was gloomy and cold. I had a cheap grey winter jacket. I remember those long escalators going through long glass tunnels at CDG, connecting one terminal to another. I went through a couple of those and went through immigration without incident. Bernardo Espinoza, a Chilean medical doctor, was there to receive me. I had met Bernardo about five months earlier, and he was not a stranger to me. I was happy to see a familiar face at the airport.

He welcomed me with a broad and warm smile and then took me first on the RER train and then on the Paris Metro to the famous Montparnasse station, to arrive at the International Office of IYCS at 5 rue de Rennes. Victor and Joe Naliath were already there. JN was usually JN, shaking my hand and hugging me in an awkward way. But meeting Victor was a kind of shock. Although I had heard about him, I did not expect this Victor. He almost jumped on me and hugged me with the loudest greeting anyone had ever conveyed to me.

He behaved as if he had known me for years. In a way, it was a good feeling. I knew right away that this was a good and honest guy. But how was I going to deal with his ultra-extrovert personality, later to be christened by Joe Naliath as “immature!”

We first met at 5 rue de Rennes on the 3rd floor, in the dining hall. The lunch was some baguette, cheese, brie, and red wine. Victor was sitting next to Antoine, and I was sitting next to Joe. In between were Bernardo, Jean-Francois, and God knows who else. I was unnecessarily happy to be served red wine.

That afternoon, Fr. Antoine suggested that he would take us on a walking tour in Paris. There was Victor, JN, me, and Habib Beau Nafeh from Lebanon. There were also Rory and Cabello from South Africa. Antoine took us from parks to monuments to churches, describing history and anecdotal fun facts like no other historian, in a thick French accent. He rarely smiled, and when he sometimes described a funny anecdote, he would smirk, and then we would know he was saying something funny.

But Antoine was super-prepared! He had studied diligently about every place he took us and was full of information you may not find in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Of course, he was French.

At the end of this first day, I was totally exhausted and possibly jet-lagged. In those days, I did not know what jet lag was. I only knew there was this weird headache-like feeling at times. If I remember well, I was taken to the apartment of Jean-Francois. JF was from Switzerland, and he looked very strange. He would talk to you, but his eyes would be directed at the ceiling or the side walls. He looked like a nerdy intellectual.

He was sharing his apartment with the secretary/administrator of IMCS, Gemma Rossel from Catalonia. We then learned that Catalans did not like to call themselves Spanish!

That was our entry to Paris, and we would soon travel by train to Luxembourg to catch one of the longest flights I have ever taken: a 21-hour flight from Luxembourg to Lima with three stopovers in between: Shannon in Ireland, Gander in Newfoundland, Canada, and Havana in Cuba!