I am back in Los Angeles. The plane was delayed for several hours taking off from Charles de Gaulle because there was a mouvement social of the cleaning staff.
On the plane I sat with a little boy flying alone to Tahiti. He was adorable, about ten, with blond curls falling in his face. He was not a reader, but polite and bored, and wriggled a lot in his seat, so after a long sleep from England to Greenland, we talked most of the rest of the way.
"You are so lucky you live in Tahiti," I said. "It must be so beautiful."
"Oh, no, Tahiti is ugly," he said. "There are too many people and cars." It turned out he lived on another island and 'Tahiti' to him meant the big city.
He was partly Tahitian, as I had guessed from his looks. "But the Tahitians don't accept you if you have this color skin," he said a little sadly. He held out his arm. "If you have this color skin, you won't be their friend. If you have brown skin like them, even if you come from the other side of the world, they will welcome you."
I am still in West Virginia, the alternate America. Almost everyone over 21 is obese, except the cigarette smokers and a few wiry workmen in blue jeans.
The other day I went to the county courthouse with my mother, and while I was waiting for her, nosed around the building. There was a distinct air of the South in that courthouse, with its turning fans, opaque-glass-fronted office doors, and dark wood staircases-- it reminded me of my childhood in Jim Crow Louisiana, when the water fountains were still marked "White" and "Colored"; but although it is Southern, West Virginia has very few African-Americans (or any other minorities): 3.2 %, almost all in the few large towns. Few recent immigrants have made it over the mountains to West Virginia, either. Most of the natives are descended from Scotch-Irish settlers of the late 18th century. They still use quaint expressions that died out in British English hundreds of years ago and are marked "obsolete" in the dictionary. They tend to be truculent, blond and loyal.
On the wall above my bench was a large framed poster with photos of the two dozen or so sheriff's deputies. Every single one was a white man with an English or Scottish name.
I am visiting West Virginia, which always seems to be suffering under a heat wave or a cold front. I have rarely experienced comfortable temperatures here. It's an alternate universe from Los Angeles, which has nice weather all year round. I feel I can't mention that here. If the Easterners really knew how pleasant it was out there, the whole country would tip to the left.
The airports, stores and rental places all have the television blaring, another non-L.A. thing. It's always Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity.
Global warming isn't happening here. It's not the heat, it's the humidity.
"Those huge nests belong to parrots," said my guide. "They have lived in Chicago for years and don't even go south for the winter."
When I got back to L.A. I was telling this story to a new acquaintance and he said, "You have parrots right outside your house. Hear that screeching noise-- there? That's parrots who have escaped. They're all over L.A."
The plane from Los Angeles to Chicago was full of Maoris from the North Island of New Zealand, who had been traveling nonstop for more than 24 hours already. They were mostly large, tattooed and cheerful. The group included some older men and women, and I stopped and asked one of them whether they were a choir. She said that they were all from a large family, going to perform a dance and ceremony at an ancestral house that now belongs to the Field Museum in Chicago. "At nine o'clock, there will be a welcome ceremony before the public enters. Why don't you come?"
The woman next to me-- she herself was half Maori and half pakeha, or non-Maori--was doing a documentary on the house for Maori television. "Of course we only get half as much money as the English channels would get to do their documentary," she said. "But at least there's a station now where Maori kids can see people who speak their language."
She explained that the whole culture of the Maoris revolves around these family houses, where huge family gatherings are held and everyone brings food. "Some people practically spend their whole lives there, and use their own homes just to sleep. So you see the house is very important to them." But she said that the family was not angry that the Field Museum had this house. It had fallen into disrepair and would have been destroyed, and the museum bought and saved it, and can afford to keep it in good repair.
I asked about the tattoos and she said that men traditionally got full-face tattoos, and women tattooed their eyebrows, lips and chin. "It's coming back. A lot of younger women are doing them now. People have more pride in their culture than before. No one ever gave us anything," she said. "But we have our treaty; we have rights."
I thought of the American Indians and the numberless, worthless treaties they signed with the white man. What made the difference? Were the New Zealanders more decent, or the Maoris fiercer? Was the land too far away from the British Empire? Another kind of invasion is happening now. "Everyone has discovered how beautiful New Zealand is now," said my neighbor. "Foreigners are buying up the entire coast. Local people can't afford land there any more."
It was snowing and 35° F (1.6° C) when we arrived in the Windy City.