Oxford Goodbye

Last night I went punting. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this method of boating, it is most similar to canoeing, but requires you to abandon all conventional wisdom that might normally inform your behavior in the water. Essentially, a punt is a long, wooden, vaguely rectangle-shaped vessel that you STAND in and push along the riverbed with the aid of a metal pole. Upon embarkation, you are outfitted with said pole, and a small paddle, roughly the length from your wrist to your shoulder. I really can't tell you what size person would find this piece of equipment to be useful. It certainly didn't earn its passage in my boat. I can tell you, however, a few things not to do on your first punting outing.

1. Do not wear a dress.
2. Or a cashmere sweater.
3. Leave your pearl necklace at home.
4. Do not drink too much Pimm's, even if you did, just one hour prior, submit a lengthy (and tedious) paper on a certain invasive species of freshwater plant, and even if you are leaving to go back to the States in just two days so you must celebrate! Because you are going to float away down a river and it is going to take you a very. long. time. to get. back.
5. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, do not listen to the obnoxious fellow in your boat who claims to be the most experienced punter, but in reality is only the most experienced loudmouth.

I will not regale you with all of the horrors attendant to this voyage. I will tell you that they included a snake, a head injury (Yes. Someone was smacked with the pole. Hint: See item 5, above), a patch of stinging nettles, and repeated use of the phrase "Brace for impact". My darlings, it wasn't pretty. Lucy and Ethel would have fared better navigating down that river than any of the five of us. Hours later, we arrived back at the boathouse, where the (Boatmaster? Dockmaster?) helped us to shore. I watched as his eyes moved from our damp and bedraggled hair and clothing to the floor of the punt, which, if you added a little soap and a rubber duck, you could have bathed a small child in, (that is if you are not opposed to bathing your child in a mixture of liquor, melting ice cubes, silty river water, and browning pieces of cut up fruit), and asked, with mild shock, if we had capsized. We hadn't.

Later that night, I was sitting in the library with a small group proofreading a paper, when the night porter, Jean-Baptiste, came by on his 'rounds'. If I haven't mentioned it before, each of the colleges here has a "Porter's Lodge" at the entrance, which is similar to the front desk of a hotel. It is staffed by Argus Filch, (no, just kidding, porters!) It is staffed by a handful of friendly chaps who are happy to help with just about anything you come up with. Locked yourself out of your flat again? The porter will let you in. Need a stapler, duct tape, coffee, or an extra blanket at 2 a.m.? The porter is your man. The duties of the night porter include making rounds through each of the quads, surveying the library, computer labs, laundry rooms, etc. to make sure things are running smoothly. Occasionally, as one gentlemen told me, he'll have to tap at a student's door and 'gently suggest', (not too harshly, because the students here are special- his words), that they should really continue their little gathering the next day, so as not to interrupt the dean's slumber with their piano playing. (On that note-ha!- there is a resident who lives on the first floor of my building, and he plays the piano almost every evening. He sits right next to the open window and it's just lovely. I feel like I should toss some change onto his sill before I leave tomorrow...) Anyway. Jean-Baptiste and I 'got talking', as the Brits say, and I learned that he came to Oxford from Rwanda about ten years ago. I offered him a look at some photos that Adam took when he was there, and we sat flipping through various sights of Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda on my laptop- banana farms, hills dotted with little multicolored houses, streets crowded with motorbikes. We arrived at several photos of Hotel des Mille Collines, and he said, "Oh yes. I stayed there during the genocide." And so that's how I found myself sitting in the upper floors of a library, housed in the former college chapel, on the fringe of the English countryside at well past midnight on a Wednesday with a man who survived one of the most tragic conflicts of the past hundred years by hiding out in Hotel Rwanda to my right, three undergraduate girls from northern Illinois to my left. He stayed for a little over an hour with us, we chatted about BP, Bhopal, and the children of Chernobyl. He talked briefly about his life in Rwanda, (he studied journalism), and the trip that he and thirty other young African democrats took to the States for a tour through several cities and the United Nations, and his decision to settle here in Oxford, where he earned his degree at one of the colleges just up the road, got married and had two daughters. He told me proudly that they both do well at a grammar school in town and speak perfect English and French. "I'll never leave Oxford", he said. "I love it here." He knows everybody. This city, with its small-town charm, is full of friends and friendly faces. It's full of fascinating people and stories. There is another college library on almost every block, teeming with books, (the most in England, possibly), the sort of ancient, leather-bound tomes you want to curl up with on a rainy day, and you know there are plenty of those. You can't sit at a pub for long without overhearing heated conversations in German, Italian, Korean, all competing with each other over the noise of the crowd, all with one thing in common.

Today, my last day here, I bought a crepe from the cart, (Oh little red crepe cart, I'll miss you most of all!), strolled over to the Bodleian Library, and then saw the Stradivari violins, Monets, Rembrandts, and Pissarros at the Ashmolean Museum. And I had the distinction of being the last person to buy a roll of tape from a hardware store, (Gill & Co.), that is closing its doors after 450 years. This evening I popped into the King's Arms, a pub that has been serving up drinks since some time in the 1600's, and is joked to have the highest IQ per square foot of any bar in the world, thanks to the fact that it's owned by one of the neighboring colleges and apparently, until about thirty years ago, Oxford professors would grab a pint and hold their tutorials in a back room. I walked in, past several bikes leaning against the wall, and recognized one of the actors from last week's performance of The Tempest at a table near the bar. I sat with some friends and had a drink. And looked out the window and imagined how pretty Oxford must be in the fall, when the leaves start to change.

Cheers and thanks for reading!