TAPIF Blog #2
October 03
As the first week ends, I’ve had some time to step back and take stock of where things stand.
When I first got to France, I stayed in Paris for a few nights with a friend from studying abroad. She had a place in the 10th, about ten minutes from where I used to live. It set in for me the extent to which I had found a sense of place in Paris as I was walking around the streets. I felt like I returned to familiar ground. I spent so much time there thinking I was an imposter, yet when I returned, I could really step back and see the life I built there. Seeing Paris was like seeing an old friend from childhood; maybe you don’t keep in touch with each other’s lives, but there’s a familiarity about them that you feel like you’ll always know them. It felt like the reflection I needed before continuing to my next steps of meeting my host family and starting my job.
A few days later, I hopped on the train to Bordeaux, lugging my ridiculously heavy bag behind me. Boarding the train, I ran through all the different personalities and weird tendencies my host family could have. While I had communicated with my reference teacher via WhatsApp, I had no idea what she looked like, what the house was like, what her family would be like, or anything else. It was all a mystery, and my Type A, anxiety-filled brain was screaming from the inside.
To my luck, she ended up being a kind woman who likes to cook, go on hikes, read, spend time with friends, etc. Her husband is also a teacher who happens to also build houses and run marathons (not sure where he finds the time for that). They have two young kids who are funny, rambunctious after 6 p.m., and presented me with a drawing immediately upon my arrival.
Two days after my arrival, I had my first day of work. My commute to school is largely in the dark. Even though I wake up at 5:45 a.m., I only have an hour to get ready and eat before I leave. It’s not winter yet, but the sun rises after 8 a.m., and so I can hardly make out the vineyards and chateaus that stretch across the vast wine country.
My brain was fried from jet lag, and everyone around me was speaking French at lightning speed. I stood awkwardly in the teacher’s room, hoping someone might break my timid state by striking up a conversation, but also cowering away in the corner and hoping they wouldn’t.
Now, after a few days of work and a week of being in France, comprehension is becoming more fluid. But language barriers still crop up in awkward ways.
During lunch in the staffroom, I joined a game where each teacher wrote a French expression, passed it on for someone to draw, then others guessed the expression based on the drawing, without seeing the original. The papers went around the circle until they returned to the original writer, revealing how much the expression had changed.
It sounded simple until I had to interpret a drawing of someone licking the back pocket of another person’s jeans. The woman beside me assured me it was obvious, so I tentatively wrote “lécher la poche” (“lick the pocket”), which seemed straightforward. I thought I’d played it safe… until the papers came back and I saw the next drawing depicting someone licking someone else’s ass. It’s sufficient to say that I did not pick up whatever they were putting down.
When I go into the classroom, the students look at me like I just fell from the sky and landed in front of them. I can see 25 sets of eyes pouring into every detail about my appearance. They have so many questions. Some are about me and who I am, but others are questions that I couldn’t have ever guessed they would ask me: “Do you know Mr. Bean?” “Do you know the Queen?” “Have you called 911?” “Have you ever danced in San Francisco?”
They want so badly to know if I speak French, but I know that if they think I only speak English, they will try harder in the lessons to speak English. When they try to get a reaction out of me by asking me questions in French or talking about me right in front of me, I keep a poker face to preserve my strictly anglophone reputation in the classroom.
Earlier in the week, I attended orientation with other assistants in my region. It’s important to note that this region is huge, and so to get to the orientation, I had to take a bus and two trams. Once I arrived, I made tiny talk (smaller than small talk) with some other assistant before settling into the presentation. The first half was largely administrative housekeeping. I’d say the main theme was telling me that I am underprepared and need healthcare immediately to fend off the financial consequences that will accompany my impending physical ailments. Regardless of the anxiety-inducing aspect, I managed to befriend a couple of people with whom I successfully grabbed a beer. This felt like a massive win for me and garnered some hope for my social future.
As I close out my first week, I am feeling hopeful and excited for the months to come. I can feel myself improving in French already, and I even received an invitation to the 9-year-old daughter’s birthday party. I am lucky to have the encouragement of my loved ones, who are keeping me saner than they probably know. It’s humbling to feel like a beginner again. There are good days, and there have been hard ones. However, if nothing else, it feels like I’m off to a solid start.
