Ready . . . Set . . . Vas-y!

That first full week in La Flèche was busier than I thought it would be.  While I spent most of my time profiter-ing du soleil — it was as Indian of a summer as I’d ever seen — by spending most of my free time at the man-made plage by the Lac de la Monnerie, that free time was surprisingly minimal. 
 

/creeper pictures

Despite the fact that legally I couldn’t work yet, many English teachers asked me to introduce myself to their classes.  That meant standing at the front of the room on the raised platform particular to French classrooms and staring awkwardly back at the students like a skittish animal at fourth grade show-and-tell.  All asked the obvious questions: where was I from, why did I choose La Flèche/to do this program, did I have any siblings.  Almost all the classes asked if I spoke French only towards the end of the hour, almost as an afterthought, even though I’d spent most of the time reacting to what they had been saying in French.  All who asked were surprised that I did speak their language, and for about 11 years at that; they knew they couldn’t get away with much.  One student asked if he could friend me on Facebook, and I told him to have fun searching through all the Beckys in the world.  Amazingly, only three students asked if I had a boyfriend, and one of them hastily added, “Or girlfriend!”

Oh, France.

They asked if I supported Obama, liked health care (for the French, it is securité sociale, which led to an interesting if a bit confusing discussion), if I owned a gun, and if all Americans ate McDonald’s.  The students became the most animated when someone asked what French movies, food, and wine I liked or hadn’t tried.  Seventeen-year-olds were giving me wine recommendations!  With educated opinions!  I pinched myself more than once.

Wednesday, Muriel took me to the big marché in centre ville, which featured not only food but clothing, CDs, fabric, yarn (!), shoes, and accessories.  Like aforementioned, I did quickly pick a couple favorite stalls and began frequenting them, planning how much I would buy based on the next time I could buy it.

Wow.  That totally sounded like a heroin addict.

But anyway, that Tuesday, my second day at the school and first full day on my own, Muriel offered to take me to Le Mans for my first real French strike.  I had been inconvenienced by SNCF strikes, walked past striking taxi drivers, and watched sadly as public university students took to the streets while the private UCO continued plodding on, but never had I actually participated in a French manifestation.  This teachers strike was a perfect opportunity to watch the French’s tendency to complain in action.  So Muriel and her friend Karine drove Verity and I to the nearest manif site, which happened to be in Le Mans.  Since I had never extensively visited this city before, I figured a march through its center would be the best way to do it.   

Just a portion of the demonstrators.

We met other Lycée d’Estournelles de Constant teachers, both from my side and Verity’s, and we set off.  As we began the trek, I asked Catherine (the teacher with the iloveengland iPhone) just exactly why the teachers had called a nation-wide strike.

“I saw the information on the news,” I added, “but they only said where they manifs were taking place, not why.”

“The government is hiring unqualified teachers for the limited number of posts available.”  When I asked what that meant, she continued, “Instead of hiring people who went to university and studied teaching, they’re hiring anyone who has a business degree to teach business classes, tu vois?”

Gulp.  That was kinda my situation.  Awkward!

Well, I justified to myself, I was not actually a teacher; as an assistant, I could not legally teach a class all by myself, nor be responsible for a class without the teacher present.  I wasn’t supposed to have my teaching certificate.  Right?

I was sure there was more to the situation than that, but I continued on to a different question.  “What are all these banners for?  What organizations do they represent?”

She hemmed and hawed about how to explain it, and finally said that they represented different teachers’ unions (sort of) that were focused on different political and administrative grievances.  Again, didn’t fully understand, but that seemed to be one (of the many) morals of my time in France: even if you don’t fully understand, as long as you get the gist, carry on.

We shuffled through the city, mostly quietly at the beginning, and then when we hit centre ville, the truck leading the procession began blaring protest songs (finally!) blasting President Sarkozy’s policies.  The most exciting part: I actually understood most of what the songs said!  Here are two clips; my favorite is the second one, where they tell Sarkozy to put all of his policies in the garbage!

But then we arrived at the Cité Administrative, or the Education Prefecture’s Administrative seat, the speeches began, and my understanding reduced to about 50%.  There was a woman who read an official list of grievances (with lots of acronyms that flew straight over my head), and a guy with a paper chef’s hat that demonstrated the recipe for an ideal school system, and then I occupied myself with taking pictures with different camera features.  Catherine called me a tourist.  In English.

Tourists! And damn proud of it!

It all ended a lot more quickly than I expected, and good thing, because Verity and I were about to start foraging through dumpsters.  We all ate at a sushi place and headed home like we had spent a normal day in Le Mans.

Oh, the French.  Again.

Verity hadn’t known I would be arriving that week, so she already had plans to stay with one of her teachers, thus leaving me alone for my first weekend at the school.  Most of me didn’t care: because Verity had been showing me around all week instead of the usual trial by fire, I hadn’t been able to get my bearings, and so I wanted to use this weekend to situate myself.  My teachers, however, had other plans.  Muriel’s Friend Karine (as she shall henceforth be known) offered to hang out with me on Saturday, and Muriel herself gave my number to one of her former students who still lived in the La Flèche, and we set up a Saturday night out at the pub.  (I texted Verity to let her known that if I never came back, she was to track down and accuse someone named Morgan.)  Plans with Muriel’s Friend Karine didn’t end up panning out, but my Karine, one of the other English teachers, offered to take me in on Sunday, including going swimming at l’Ilebule, the complex sportive, and spending the day at her house.

Karine and I had instantly bonded during my first week in La Flèche, ever since she dropped down next to me in the staff room and asked my opinion of her plans for her literature class: reading Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and then comparing it to the Baz Lurhmann and Zefferelli versions.  I flipped.  My favorite course in college had been exactly that!  We spent about an hour that first day gabbing about her literature course — with which I of course offered to help even though I legally shouldn’t — and she genuinely said if I needed anything, I could come to her.  In fact, she took me to InterSport to get a swimming suit and bike reflectors that very day.  When I asked if she could drive me back from Carrefour sometime when I bought all my big purchases, she instead told me to make a list of what I needed, and she would check and see if she had whatever I needed at her house before I went out and bought it.

So Sunday she picked me up (after I went to the marché and got lost on the way) with her youngest daughter, Alice (5), in the back.  Karine tried prompting her to say ‘hello’ in English, but her daughter steadfastly refused until she hid it in a French song she was singing, and I laughed, and then she would not stop saying “good morning!” at the top of her lungs.  We went swimming where I ran into Catherine and met her two sons and English husband and then journeyed to Karine’s country house outside the neighboring village of Durtal.  A converted farm/stable, it huddles in a ring of trees in the middle of fields, very reminiscent of American farmhouses.  The entire floor plan was a straight line with the bottom floor connected by a single long hallway and the top floor connected by doors through every room.  She showed me the extra bedroom and adjoining bath they were renovating, offering to lodge me if I ever became homesick, lonely, or just wanted to spend time in a family atmosphere.

I really wish I had sneakily (or not so sneakily; Karine would’ve just laughed) taken pictures, as the house and environs were absolutely gorgeous in the Indian Summer golden sunshine: highly manicured forests of browning birch off in the distance, nobody for kilometers around, and only the sweet chirping of birds for a soundtrack — completely idyllic.

And then Alice would run screaming at me, demanding to show me her entire school portfolio from the year before.

I definitely felt part of the family, even as I showed Alice, Karine, and the rest of her children, Elysa (12ish) and Bastin (8ish), my U.S. house via Google Maps.  Karine couldn’t get enough of pictures of Chicago, especially when I explained the whole neighborhood situation and ethnic breakup of the city.  She gave me free reign over her Internet, letting me use Skype (even though it ended up not working) and Facebook, which I hadn’t had access to since the McDonald’s in Angers because of the school’s firewall.  Alice then thought it was hysterical to sit on my lap and keysmash every time I went to type.  And it was . . . the first seven times it happened.

After a longer sieste than planned (but one that thankfully ended seconds before Alice had me playing Barbies), Karine grabbed my hastily scribbled list and began ticking off items, even apologizing when she didn’t have an extra bookshelf to spare.  All in all, I ended up with a curtain, rug (“from Portugal,” Karine added), nightstand, radio (“to practice aural comprehension!”), two lamps (“one I had when I was in college”), a hidden bag of nougat that I found when I got home, homemade jar of apricot preserves, the promise to hand over anything else I might need in the future, and a room if I ever wanted to feel “part of a crazy French family.”

Check.  And.  Check.

So, in all actuality, my first real day felt rather normal.  Muriel’s schedule went off without a hitch, and I basically continued introducing myself to classes for several weeks.  Some teachers like Catherine prefer that I share teaching time, like a team-teacher situation: some of the time I am in front of them doing a lesson plan designed by her/us, sometimes she refers to my pronunciation or opinion, and sometimes we both circulate while they work.  And some other times, she takes advantage of having a helping hand and just leaves them with me while she goes to make copies, and I literally have to think on my feet, as she merely calls, “You’ll think of something!” and closes the door.  I mostly work with her BTS or Domotique students — ones who have already passed their bac and already technically graduated high school, but are taking an extra year of studies before moving on to a technical or normal university.  Those kids (mostly boys) are downright hysterical.  They love my accent — there’s one who likes to imitate me a little too much — and when I go over grammar with them, they lap up the information and then make mistakes on purpose to see me cringe.

Me: “Alright, what’s the comparative for good?”

Student #1: “Better!”

Me: “Nice.  Never ever say ‘gooder.’”

Student #2: “What?  Why?  It’s way gooder!”

Most of Catherine’s classes listen to me when I’m alone with them merely because I don’t teach them as much.

With everyone else (excepting Karine’s literature class), I share teaching time 50-50, just as Muriel described in her original email.  Most teachers discuss with me in advance about what they want to talk about and whether they have an idea for me to use.  These include Muriel herself, Karine’s other classes, and Romain — excessively so.  I’m in the process of training Marc; I’ll update you when that starts working.  Valérie and Nathalie mostly have me test their students one by one: a terrifying prospect if I do say so myself.  Hervé leaves my lessons up to me, as that class is an elective English credit, and they just really want to talk, but Lydia never gives me warning, sometimes showing up to class with a, “Oh, you’re with me today?  Well, they’ve got a test today, so we’ll see how this goes. . . .”

Well at least I have a bit of variety.