Marie was just reminding me – very appropriately – of the way one can just crave fondue. There’s nothing rational about such a dish and how it creeps into your mind, the cheese melting your willpower and trapping your senses. It will probably fall like a ton of bricks into your stomach and force you to retire early, yet it is just unavoidably satisfying.

I think fondue is perfect mountain food. I should say perfect after-mountain food, as it is best consumed after a long day of hiking or climbing. And I’m afraid those mountains must be the Alps for the fondue to fully come to life. The best cheese, white wine and mushrooms, a pot frotté with garlic, a flame, fresh bread. So simple.

When I think about fondue, one memory always emerges first; not a particularly happy one, but intense and meaningful. The year was 2004. Hurricane Ivan was devastating Grand Cayman. I sat in a little Chamonix restaurant overlooking the river Arve and with sublime Mont Blanc towering right above me.

I had decided to go on with my vacation plans despite the approach of the storm, having boarded up my place on the Little Cayman waterfront the best I could and decided that there was nothing more I could do to change the course of things. So I’d gone ahead and packed my paraglider, and flown to France as the giant depression neared Jamaica.

But of course, once in the Alps, I had been unable to clear the weather out of my mind and simply fly. I had spent most of my time in internet cafés, watching the Weather Channel and the news, trying to figure out the outcome of this impending disaster. The category 5 hurricane had headed straight for Little Cayman, smallest of the three islands, and then all communications had gone down. Weather maps showed it going right on top of the islands, but without enough detail to be sure of anything.

Then the first reports had started coming in, sporadically, via various unreliable channels - but that’s all there was. A few people, it seemed, had managed to text-message relatives in the States and news of the devastation slowly were emerging. The capital Georgetown appeared to be destroyed. Wind gusts were reported to have reached 275 km/h. Power was out island-wide; the city was flooded with a mixture of rain, ocean water and raw sewage; graves were releasing their content which floated around in the streets; people were missing, entire buildings and houses were gone from the waterfront. A few US based web sites started posting messages from friends and family desperately seeking news from their loved ones. And still, not a single word from Little Cayman.

Little Cayman is a very small, low-lying island made of ironshore-covered limestone. 12 miles long and 2 miles wide, it offers absolutely no protection against heavy winds and storm surge. Since the much larger Grand Cayman had been hit so hard, I assumed that the smaller islands had suffered ever more, and at that point, I had to face the facts: it was most probable that I no longer had a home, nor a place to work. They had to have been washed away completely by the storm surge. And then I began worrying about friends who had chosen to stay behind despite the evacuation notice.

So there I sat, in my adorable French mountain town, eating an exceptional fondue, looking up at the last rays of sunshine burning up the roof of Europe while the valley lay in the shadows, attempting to grasp a very simple yet staggering concept: it seemed I was suddenly unemployed, homeless, and stranded in France. Pretty much everything I still owned was packed away in a travel bag next to my paraglider up in the hotel room. I tried to picture my gutted house, battering waves perfecting their work, DVD cases floating among the debris, picture frames broken and shattered glass, desolation everywhere.

And I tried to come to terms with the new reality: this was then and there, a new beginning. Absolute freedom, no chains, no ties. Abruptly severed material bonds. What would I make of it? What was more real, the mountain above me or a small devastated island across an ocean, thousands of miles away?

I tried to gain perspective by first losing it. I was failing.

It turns out Ivan miraculously avoided Little Cayman and only unleashed its fury on the main island, which it tore apart. It took months for the country to get back on its feet, but my home was intact aside from some minor water damage. The work place was there too, even though tourism had come to a grinding halt. We would spend weeks shoveling sand and stones out of the swimming pool.

When the country finally reopened and international flights resumed, I immediately returned from California - where I’d gone from Chamonix to await the final verdict - and was stranded in Grand Cayman for a few days. The devastation was incredible. A 5:00 pm curfew was in effect. Riots were a real threat. There was no power, no phone, no water. Gas was being rationed. Hundreds of Caymanians waited in line in front of grocery stores, to be admitted in a few at a time; but most of the dark shelves were empty any way.

People were going through the rubble of what had been their home, looking for what mattered most to them, overwhelmed, numb. My friends in GC were coping the best they could. Some were heroic, others selfish; human nature prevailed. One couple had spent an entire night in their flooded single-storey house while the storm raged outside, perched on the kitchen counter and taking turns holding their crying newborn baby at arms length to keep it above the rising water, wondering if and when the wind was finally going to tear the roof off and kill all hope.

But in the end, the storm went way. It lingered for a long time in hearts and minds but even there, eventually, it will be replaced by happier memories. It’s really only a matter of perspective.

2007-08-11 00:08 • Posted in Always: & On the road: & Photoblogs: & Schtroumpfissime: