A la prochaine fois, la France

Upside down

So on Monday night at 9pm, I found out that I was booked on a flight for Thursday morning at 11:45am, giving me just two days to get my life in France in order.  Senegal was a very likely possibility, but without an exact date I didn’t want to tell my students or start packing, si jamais there was a problem.  Slightly superstitious, I know.

My lycee, the three windows up top
on the right are my tiny classroom

In the two days I barely had time to breathe, let alone teach, pack, and laugh with the other assistants, leaving me already slightly behind on correspondence, grad school communication, and unable to enjoy some last few walks around my medieval French town.  [And somewhere in there, Ash Wednesday also happened meaning its Lent and time to get serious.]

Looking up at Semur from the river

My last day in Semur seemed both totally normal and completely ridiculous at once.  After some slightly emotional goodbyes with my favorite classes at the lycee generale on Tuesday (they wrote me a poem and we took pictures!), I showed up for my two lycee pro classes and of course the prof wasn’t there.  Monica and I had leftover lunch together as we do everyday and the other girls came over in the evening for dessert and kir royales.  I spent part of the afternoon with my language exchange partner, Christiane, talking about the schools, her family, and traveling over tea and cake.  I went to double (or triple) check something about the apartment with the school administration which turned into an hour long legal argument between the two cons (fools, idiots) who run the school finances (uh…) and Monika and myself about the amount of rent.  We of course turned out victorious because the two of them are unable to do basic number crunching and refused to look at their files.  We did learn one thing: “apparently” in France a contract that you are never shown or agree to can be changed after a different agreement has been made, without you being informed (don’t follow?  Neither did we…nor the two idiots we were arguing with).  After the sadness about leaving some of my fave students, I was reminded yet another reason why the school is ridiculous.  A relatively normal day in Semur and at the lycee.

One of the four old towers

And yet it wasn’t because it was my last day in a beautiful medieval town in the French countryside and the sun was shining.  I went back and forth between the post office and my apartment some 5 times with boxes and things to mail.  I closed my bank account (only after the argument with the lycee).  And I packed everything I own, again…and all by 8pm (a record in itself!).  I said goodbye to some of the students, teachers, and assistants, watched an episode of Glee, and crashed in my bed, in a room full of ugly blue and pink wallpaper.

For the record, I feel the need to share how glad I am that I signed up for the teaching assistantship in France.  Several friends suggested it as a good “pause” year between PC and jobs or grad school and while on more than one occasion I felt like my work with the lycee was a waste of time (for me) and money (them and me), it was a good decision.  True, I had a crappy lycee arrangement with 500-some students and more than 37 groups of them (and thus couldn't spend quality time with them), several overly political teachers and admin which hurt their students' apprentissage of English, and a cold apartment that we were overcharged to live in (and then deal with the idiots who can’t do math), but I still had a good experience.

As I’ve mentioned, I couldn’t have asked for a better roommate in Monika or other fellow assistants Vir, Jie, and hospital volunteer Klara.  We all got along well, enjoyed spending time together, and laughed.  A LOT.  We spoke French together all of the time, which is a much better situation than many of the city assistants I know who spend their days and weeks in English.  Semur is a beautiful town, more so in the sun than the clouds, that was just on pace with what I was looking for when I first applied to the position.  The students were nice and of modest background (so not overly stuck up/snobby) and liked to laugh with me.  There’s wine and cheese aplenty.  This year also fulfilled a life-long dream I had of living in Europe (in my apartment, going to grocery stores, speaking true French, visiting cafes, and seeing la vrai quotidienne, quoi.  Burgundy, while not super glamorous, is a very interesting and historic part of France with a lot to offer.

Along those lines, some of the things I will miss the most about not being in France:

Leftover tiramisu with Kir Royales:
Creme de Cassis et Cremante

• Les filles, as we called ourselves.  We’ll see each other again, somewhere, sometime.  In the least, it’s an excuse to come back to Europe or to go to South America J
• Speaking French, real French.  In Senegal I speak Fre-rere or Frolof (combos of French and Serere or Wolof), but in France it’s a different language completely.  I still make lots of silly grammar mistakes (la instead of le, confusion on the subjunctive tense, etc), but I’m so much more comfortable in French than I’ve ever been and have serious difficulty turning it off, which I LOVE.  Most assistants speak their native languages with their teachers, but I’ve only ever really spoken French with mine (the exceptions are few and far between), though they only spoke English with the girl who was in Semur last year.  True, because of Senegal, Brussels, Paris, and being American, I’ll never have a true French accent, or even a deep Burgundy accent (much to my chagrin, I can’t roll my Rs), but I’ll have to satisfy myself with people not being able to confidently place my accent.  Also, in Burgundy, unlike silly Paris, people will continue to speak to you in French even after they realize you aren’t French.  Maybe it’s a lack of English knowledge or confidence, or they just have no idea where you are from, but I really appreciate it.  I’m a stubborn traveler and only ever respond in French when I’m traveling abroad, but I really enjoyed when people would carry on conversations with me in French even if I stumbled over things.  And my language exchange lessons were a lot of fun.
• Wine.  In Senegal, it burns and tastes like vinegar, but in France it has so many qualities and is a fascinating culture in and of itself, plus it’s cheap.  I’m pretty sure that when I have a house I want a wine cave and a garden, like almost every Semur family.

• Afternoon tea (and not necessarily like in Britain).  This wasn’t a daily occurrence but because Monika and I had a lot of tea/coffee/hot chocolate in our apartment and the town cafés always closed randomly without warning, our place became a great place for a hot afternoon drink and gossip alongside some type of sweet that we made or received from someone.  Just now while drinking some tea and eating a cookie on this flight, I thought about how it’s not quite the same in Senegal or France.  It was always a fun, relaxing, and cheap thing to do with the girls as a break from work or whatever.
• Things written in French: sorry, but it’s just so much more elegant than English, à mon avis.
• My students (many of them) who were mostly sweet though talkative (though not always in English), but I loved getting a rise out of them by being silly or telling them something ridiculous about the US (cost of college tuition, stereotypes of French people, etc), and laughing at/with them about English pronunciation.  The 2ndes and 1eres were particularly enjoyable (especially Madame W's class!) and I hope to hear from some of them via email.
• Being paid in Euros

The salon, before the ceiling
started caving in

Things I won’t miss: the grayness that existed November-early February, my cold apartment, the fools I already mentioned, apartment issues like a falling ceiling and mold, teacher/student/train strikes (ok ok, they exist in Senegal), the “bof!” culture of not caring exhibited by some colleagues, and French bureaucracy (though I would love for socialized healthcare to come to the US, so much easier and better!).

This chapter of my life in France is done; another is opening in Senegal, and in the fall yet another chapter will begin as I start grad school.  I was accepted to the Johns Hopkin’s Bloomberg MS in Public Health (slightly different from a traditional MPH) and Tuft’s University MPH and now have an important decision to make.  I’m still in disbelief that a future in the US is starting to shape up but it will be good to return for awhile.  As long as these programs don’t get canceled or change their minds…

Au revoir Burgundy!