Writing About Lives

Life at Pension Motu Iti on Moorea has exquisite access to the water for swimming and snorkeling.

A mountain view from a few miles up in Moorea.

PAPEETE, Tahiti – From that first whiff of fresh gardenias on board on Air Tahiti Nui’s late-night flight from LAX, our delegation’s trip from rural Indiana’s flatlands to South Pacific’s plush utopia, had already entered a new realm of sensory bliss.

The flight attendants placed flowers in our ears and switched to traditional Polynesian wraps. Champagne flowed freely. The pilot’s instructions were in English, French and Tahitian. Every passenger had private television screens, earphones, pillows, blankets, and seats that reclined in exquisite comfort. It was as if everyone were flying First Class. French Polynesia and 118 islands’ hospitality had already kissed us and we hadn’t even yet touched her soil. The airline industry could learn a lot from those folks.

For the next two weeks, two professors (myself included) would take 20 American college students on a 10,000-mile round-trip excursion via airplane, bus, van and boat to the islands of Tahiti, Moorea, Huahine and finally, Bora Bora to discover the people and culture of French Polynesia.

Just as expected, locals greeted us at the airport in Papeete (pronounced “poppy eh tee”) and placed leis on every person who got off the plane. Getting through customs went smoothly because of the trilingual agents’ efficiency. While most of the service industry and structure is fluent in English, it would be helpful for someone in the travel party to speak conversational to advanced French.

Our hotel, the Royal Tahitian, had such deep green shrubbery, it was as if we had all entered a new kingdom of greenery. Each morning, we’d get up and find flowers had fallen from the trees and landed on the walkways. The beachfront Tahitian indeed treats each visitor regally. Mornings began with freshly cut pineapples, mangoes, watermelons, croissants and coffee.

For the entire entry on the “I’m Black and I Travel” blog, click on the words “posted under.”

Courtney Anderson performs .

A colorful pride festival attendee.

SPENCER, Ind.,- Pride festivals in San Francisco, Chicago and New York City boast hundreds of thousands of spectators every June with their go-go boys, drag queens and dykes on bikes. Courage drew activists together some forty years ago to create something out of nothing in those urban centers. Now they’re pretty much corporate organizations with big budgets.

But here in this town rural Indiana town of 2,500 souls, a band of drag queens performing on the Owen County Courthouse steps in the rain proved to have even more courage. And Courtney Anderson’s cartwheel in high heel boots, was the show stopper. That’s Miss Gay Indiana 2009.

Drawing a strong contingent from nearby Bloomington, a handful of courageous souls braved the weather for this town’s fourth annual pride festival. Last year organizers were proud to claim 250 people – “more than double the prior year’s turn out.” It’ll easily be up to 300 this year.

When the drag performers came out to do their routines, a few law enforcement officers on duty elbowed each other and winked. Yeah, it’s easy to mock drag queens but how much courage does it take to show up in Spencer dressed in full regalia without a gun?

By 3 p.m. the festival organizers were packing up and shutting down. A mob of LGBT folks wearing a rainbow of outfits took over Skid Row Bar & Grill directly across from the court house. When John Mellencamp sang “I’ve seen it all in a small town” in the 1980s, Spencer is the kind of a rural Indiana town he had in mind.