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As the afternoon draws to a close, the heat is easing. Particularly on the quays of the Wall House Territorial Museum, a meeting place for parents and their children. Laughing "tiny ones" running, shouting, riding bikes and scooters, playing. They also like to venture into the museum for a breath of fresh air and to disrupt the muffled atmosphere. Usually, it's the director who greets them with an amused look and a kindly remark from behind his tiny glasses. But in Charles Moreau's absence, it's a returning student who sits behind the desk at the museum entrance. Her name is Thalia Gréaux. In her early twenties, she takes on this vacation "job" with an infectious cheerfulness. A short break on her island before heading back to Cork, Ireland, where she has been studying for almost nine years.
"We had to leave
I grew up in Saint-Barthélemy until I was ten," says the student. I went to school at Saint-Joseph, in Lorient, and then a year at the Cned (Centre national d'enseignement à distance) too. "In 2015, her father, Frantz, suffered an accident at work. "We had to leave," recalls Thalia. We went south, to Montpellier. "But not for long, because Youli, her mom, had other plans in mind. "She wanted us to speak English, so she took my brother and me to Ireland," smiles Thalia. With my grandparents too. She told them to come with us! "
Initially, it was to be just a one-year stay. "But we stayed longer," laughs the student. We kept the house until I was twenty. When I was very little, we lived in a different country, but we went to see Dad every vacation. My mother didn't want to leave us alone. And my brother wanted to stay too. "Her brother, Yago, is a brilliant student who has already been featured in the Journal de Saint-Barth (JSB 1595) and who, after three years in Maastricht studying European law, is returning to Ireland (Dublin) to complete his Master's degree.
Family estrangement
For Thalia, life in Cork has changed over the past year. Now I'm on my own, I'm independent," she says confidently. I've had my friends here for a long time. "And then she joined the university to study photography and videography. "When I was little, I learned photography from my grandfather, and I liked it a lot, so it seemed natural to turn to something artistic. "What's more, she makes no secret of her attraction to "everything culinary". Another passion that comes from her grandfather, Max, who was a chef. "Maybe that's where it comes from," she says innocently. Family is obviously an important part of the young woman's life. Even if she knows that her desire to travel and make documentaries will regularly take her away from home. When you leave a place young, you often want to see even more of it," she smiles. Our parents brought us up that way. My mother sometimes says she knows we won't be living near them. She knows it, but she says it anyway, crying. "Fortunately, for Thalia, Saint-Barth is never far away.
A "little granny
I don't come back very often," confesses the student. Mostly for summer vacations. I meet up with childhood friends with whom I've reconnected. And then there's the family. My paternal grandparents live on the island. My maternal grandmother went back to France. "Thalia finds herself torn between three countries, three cultures. In Ireland, it rains a lot, but the people are very welcoming," she assures us. Of course, like everywhere else, the kids are mean in secondary school. Sometimes they told me to go home. It was difficult. But today, I consider myself a bit of a mix of the three: Saint-Barthélemy, France and Ireland. "
At the age of twenty, looking after the Wall House Museum, even if it is a vacation "job", must seem very dull compared to the hectic student life. I'm a little granny," she laughs. Cork is a quiet city. It's the second-largest in Ireland, but there are three streets! "So the risk of getting lost in her studies is slim. One day, no doubt, a documentary on a faraway land and its culinary specialties will be broadcast. With, under the director's name, that of Thalia Gréaux, the most Irish of Saint-Barth's travelling children.
