From Grenada to the City of Lights: Interview with a Seasoned Traveler
Despite their diversity, AUP students have at least a few traits in common. For one, most of us are foreigners and we came to France out of a desire for a uniquely international academic experience and a love for travel. Perhaps surprisingly, the same is true for my 90-year-old grandmother, Avis. Over the course of her life, Avis moved from Grenada, to Canada, to New York and ultimately to Paris, where she has lived for the past 40 years. It was here, during her first few years, that she worked at the AUP library. I talked to her about her travels in the hope that they might inspire your next big adventure. Or maybe they will provide some insight into what it's like to move really, really far away to go to school. Either way, I hope you find her life as interesting as I do.
Q: How did you start traveling?
"I'd have to start with my little village, Victoria in Grenada, where I was born. My generation in the Caribbean, we all knew that we had to leave because you got to a point where your education was cut-off, and you realized that you had to have outside experience somehow. You know, 'cuz we're 90 square miles! We're the smallest island in the Caribbean! So those of us who were more into education, and there weren't many of us because to go to the English private school there, you had to be very wealthy or get a scholarship. I went on a scholarship. The nun who taught me French was a French woman. The nun who taught me English was from England. We didn't go into too many other different languages but they were sufficiently European. To get your diploma at the end of it, you had to write the Oxford and Cambridge examinations. I went in at the age of 10 and so by the time I was 14, I had finished high school and there was nowhere else to go because jobs were not something you just walked into. And so at the age of 14 I started to teach! I taught school and during my tenure as a teacher, I passed the Oxford and Cambridge entrance exams and I got a big boost in my pay."
"I taught until I was 21. It was 1953 and I knew I wanted to go away to study. The reason I went to Canada to study was that while I was in Saint George's, my part time job was typing for a man by the name of Bosworth who was the representative of the BBC on the island. So he said to me, 'you know, Miss Francis, you have such a well-tuned voice! Why aren't you in broadcasting?' and I said, 'Broadcasting!?' First off, the station we had on the island was privately owned and they were not going to hire me in shape or form, you had to have connections. So I was trying and saving a little money to go to school and he said to me, 'why don't you try to study communications and speech?' When I was ready to leave, I applied to the University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I was accepted like that, and that was the beginning of it."
Image Credit: Elizabeth Segre-Lawrence
Q: Were you scared? Nervous?
I was scared beyond belief because here I was, coming from the Caribbean. I had never seen snow before. It's not as if I'm Canadian and I was the only black one, of course. There was another one who came in after, he was younger than me, but he was white-passing, if you want to put it that way. There were only two of us."
Q: And what was Canada like? What did you do there?
"Within three months we had our term exam and I wrote something about the British Caribbean. About two weeks later, the English professor called me and asked if I'd be able to come and see him and I was like 'Oh my god, he's going to fail me so he wants to soften the blow...' Do you know what he'd done? He asked if he could show it to the head of broadcasting at the Canadian Broadcasting Association. I'll have you know that he showed the guy and they bought it outright and asked me to give them copyright. So that was the beginning of my job. And I'll have you know that for the three minutes that I was there, I did a 10-minute broadcast Monday through Friday for the Canadian Broadcast. I worked with them until I decided I was going to go back to Grenada because I could work with them and the BBC because they had local stations. And since I was the only person who had gone for professional training, my job was basically guaranteed. My aunt was very proud of me, my aunt was in New York. She said 'You have American papers, so come and work for a couple of weeks in New York and get some real sharp clothes for that job you have there since you've got to be in the public eye' and three weeks later I got a job at the Girl Scout's of America. Next thing I know I met your grandfather. Three months later I was married and living in New York."
Image Credit: Elizabeth Segre-Lawrence
Q: How did you get to Paris?
"When I got here it was two kids, two suitcases. It was after your grandfather died and I was looking for a sort of compass. I had friends that lived in Paris and they suggested that I move there. I didn't have a job at the time, so I was worried about health insurance and things like that. We moved here within a few weeks. It was just the three of us."
Q: What would you say your favorite trip was?
"The trip in France that I would consider to be my favorite was to the Haut-Savoie, in a little village called Raclat. In that village, when you looked out of the window, you could see the airport in Geneva so we were right on the boarder of Switzerland. If you looked on the left-hand side it was Switzerland, on the right-hand side it was France. I had gone there because they had a halte and a lot of teachers go there for the summer. They usually had room for about two or three others and my neighbor, who was a church person, knew of this place and she recommended me and they took me. It was absolutely mind blowing. I remember the day I got there I had just set out walking and that part of the Haute-Savoie was beautiful. It was at the foot of the Alps and I came to a clearing and in front of me was Mont Blanc, covered in ice! I couldn't believe it! I ended up going back there for four seasons."
Image Credit: Bernard Blanc
Q: Mama told me one time that the three of you went to Morocco?
"Ah yes, that's right! We went to Spain and Morocco. That was almost as soon as we arrived. Your aunt was in Spain for exchange and when she came back, five days later, your grandfather passed away. And so when we came here, the Spanish family [she stayed with] was very touched and invited us to visit. So we were in Spain, Madrid, for about two weeks. And we went to Morocco because my friend Abu was there. I met him in New York. He was a big time agent in Morocco, married to an English woman, and I met them because I was working at the Plaza Hotel. And then when I came to Paris, a friend of ours, Tony said I should go visit Abu and Valerie! They met us with a chauffeur when we arrived in Morocco but we took a boat from Algeciras to get there. Before we got to Morocco we stayed at a resort called the Reina Christina from which you could see Gibraltar. The experiences were just wonderful."
Q: Any last thoughts?
"The year before that we were still in America. Your grandfather had just died. It was never la vie en rose but I never felt out of my depth. I always felt I could struggle, you know? Here I am at 90, what can I tell you? It was a long and interesting voyage. Poverty was dogging me all of my life before I left and became independent. Looking back on it, that was life."
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