Traveling opens your eyes. You can spend hours watching documentaries from all over the world and think that you understand all their problems, know what life is like there, and that people here or there are like this or that. Or … you can leave your comfortable chair and go on a journey to touch reality … and finally understand that reality is very different from what you thought it was. Set out to live somewhere for a month or two, and why not a year, with the local people, living their way, sharing their joys and sorrows. Suddenly all those vague and strange “Wallisians”, “Malagasy”, “Rwandans”… become concrete people with names, friends. This kind of travel opens the eyes… and the heart. And it is this kind of travel that gives me the most meaning.

Rainbow over Wallis island
Rainbow over Wallis island

I have spent an important part of my life traveling outside of my home country, even settling down halfway around the world. Here you can read a little about the places where I spent this time.

Somewhere along the way I learned a dozen languages of the places I lived. You can find some of the work I did on them in the linguistics section.