As my experience in France continues to change me, how will I in turn affect the society and people around me?

I’m sitting here in the sun, having just finished a huge cup of coffee, and am currently loving the blue sky! I was worried there for a couple of weeks when we had all the clouds and snow, but the typical Provençal weather is now back and hopefully here to stay. A long Sunday of studying and an excursion with my friends lies ahead of me, but all I want to do is crawl back in bed and sleep. Being a study abroad student can get quite tiring! After a month here, it’s still exhausting to have to constantly be cognizant of the French culture and making little adjustments. Not to mention the amount of studying I have to do while I have friends who think I can go out past midnight every night of the week! Exhausting. As I continue to adjust and learn from the culture and people around me, I couldn’t help but wonder…

As my experience in France continues to change me, how will I in turn affect the society and people around me?

This past week I had my first experience at my travail bénévole, where I hope I will be able to affect the lives of the students with whom I’ll be working. I will be assisting a professor with her English class of 20 middle school students. My first day was a little nerve-racking to say the least; I know that middle school students can have an attitude, and weren’t going to be like the elementary school kids with whom my friend is working who adore her and think she’s amazing simply because she’s from America. I felt there was something I needed to prove, that I needed to be interesting, fun, and exciting so they would want to work with me throughout the semester. My introduction went fairly well (except for the fact that I started talking way too fast at the beginning because a. it’s me, and I always talk fast, b. I was nervous, and c. it was in English, and I hadn’t spoken in English for so long that I lost track of myself! But after I realized the entire class was staring at me dumbfounded and had no comprehension of what I’d said, I started over-much slower!), and the students were able to ask me questions about my life.

The conversation was entirely in English, and it was a very interesting experience to have the roles reversed in the classroom. Now I was the one patiently waiting for the students to translate their thoughts and ask questions at a slower pace, as opposed to me being in a class at the Center and having to take time to form my own thoughts. I have an entirely new appreciation for my professors; I marvel at how they can wait for us to think so slowly and take a painstakingly long time to form phrases, not to mention how they can teach an entire class at such a slow pace of talking.

The students asked me every question from if I like fast food and video games to if I wanted to stay in France after the semester and what I did when I went to Paris. They were all very eager, and for the most part well behaved and attentive. After our 45-min. Q&A, I took five students into the adjoining classroom to practice conversation skills. We sat in a circle and talked about our hobbies and the American culture. For next week I have to come up with some phrases/vocab words that the students can copy down and study. I’m still in the process of coming up with a theme that is applicable and useful, as well as interesting and fun. If you have any ideas, please send them my way!

My language partner and myself at the billards bar.

Another way I hope to affect those around me during my stay is by helping my language partner with his English. He has to pass an English exam to receive his diploma in Mechanical Engineering in June, and is in the process of preparing. We met up this past week at a café to practice and speak in English a little bit. We went over some exam questions together (which are very picky and specific!) while I enjoyed a noisette, and we attempted to have a conversation in English. It was an entirely different experience from our conversations in French, which I find to be much more fluid and natural. I hope that through our continued work together he will be able to pass the exam and continue onto his career. In the future, we will be discussing current events in the news, and continuing to converse in an English that is applicable to his exam. In addition to improving his English, I will definitely benefit from the cafés that come along with these rendez-vous!

While I may not change French society with my adoration for Country music, I will at least introduce them to the concept! Friday night at a friend’s apartment we played guitar and sang together after some amazing crêpes! (Don’t even ask me how much Nutella I ate, it’s rather embarrassing!) We sang a mixture of popular songs, with some TSwift and Dixie Chicks thrown in for good measure! I’ve found myself listening to my Country playlist non-stop these past couple of weeks, and I think it is a definite sign that I miss home. I always associate Country music with hometown America, the sentiments of family, friends, love, and belonging, not to mention a simple and nostalgic version of the American Dream.

My playlist, along with my continued addiction to Friday Night Lights, has signaled to me that I’m definitely homesick. “Mal du pays” is the French translation of homesick, and I think it fits my situation much more aptly, since I am missing my American culture and lifestyle more than anything (mal=sick, pays=country). While I continue to love and take advantage of my French experience every day, sometimes I just wish I could take a couple of hours when I didn’t have to think about how my actions and natural reflexes might be different from the French culture, or how the way I view my future, my dreams, and want to raise my children are almost entirely different from the society around me. I never realized how much I took for granted the fact that all of my friends and family have the same core values and beliefs, and I miss that. I'm not saying that I don’t value the French cultural practices or understand why they’re different, because I do, and I value their differences, it’s just that sometimes I wish it wasn’t so tiring to keep an open-mind and neutral state all the time.

Having some fun with our baguettes and rosé!

Along the lines of our crêpe dinner, I was also able to have a few friends over for dinner Saturday night to cook. It was so much fun! We made some delicious food, had some rosé (duh!), and laughed a lot. It was so nice to just relax and hang out with some friends, and I love that we spoke in French the entire time. I’m never going to get sick of speaking in French all the time, and I hope we can stay in touch over the summer with our "French friendships"!

Our gourmet dinner: brie crostinis with smoked salmon, sautéed mushrooms and caramelized onions; sautéed zucchini and red pepper; extra baguette; and rosé.

Provence students with Frédéric Mistral.

Yesterday, the French experience wowed me again as I was able to walk in the footsteps of Van Gogh! Our excursion with the Center was to Arles and St. Rémy where we were able to visit a few spots and landscapes that inspired Van Gogh’s work. (Below you can see the places we visited and the corresponding paintings of Van Gogh!) It was a gorgeous blue-sky day, and we had an amazing time walking around the two towns! I am absolutely in love with the charm of small French villages and getting lost among the winding side streets with colorful shutters and old stone houses. I also found quite a few fun places/signs that relate to the Provençal Literature and Film class that I’m taking this semester. I took a photo with some of my friends in the class of the Frédéric Mistral statue in Arles (he was an extremely famous Provençal poet who wrote only in the local language, Provençale, and won the Nobel Prize), and found a post card of Alphonse Daudet’s moulin (we recently read excerpts from his novel Lettres de mon Moulin). I love making educational connections outside of the classroom; how Denison of me, I know!

                                                                      Les Alyscamps

Terrasse du café le soir, Place du forum, Arles

Oliviers avec les Alpilles dans le fond

Jardin de l'hôpital en Arles

Enjoying the day in Arles

After a fabulous day enjoying Provence, I went out with some friends last night to play billards. Beforehand, I enjoyed a dinner in one of the town squares with two friends, where we each brought food and literally ate it on a fountain! Sometimes not having a house to host guests in can get a little odd, but it was still enjoyable. Yes, we may have gotten some odd looks from the people walking past with our plates of sautéed red peppers, brie, and smoked salmon, but it was a hilarious experience. While I didn’t play billards last night (making a fool of myself two times is enough!), I enjoyed chatting and laughing with my friends. Enjoy our photos of the night below!

My friend's face in the background: priceless.

So cute!

I look forward to the week ahead, and continuing my relationship with the French culture!

Ciao et Bisous,

SA

Here's an excerpt from one of the stories we read in Daudet's novel Lettres de mon moulin. I would attempt to translate it, but it's just too beautiful in it's original poetic form, and I'm afraid I'd ruin it. It is a beautiful passage that describes spending a night out in the fields underneath the stars, enjoying the nature of Provence around you, and having the person you love at your side. It ends with a gorgeous metaphor where the narrator compares his love to "one of the stars, the most fine, the most brilliant that had lost it's route and come to lean on my shoulder to sleep."

« Si vous avez jamais passé la nuit à la belle étoile, vous savez qu’à l’heure où nous dormons, un monde mystérieux s’éveille dans la solitude et le silence. Alors les sources chantent bien plus clair, les étangs allument des petites flammes. Tous les esprits de la montagne vont et viennent librement, et il y a dans l’ai des frôlements, des bruits imperceptibles, comme si l’on entendait les branches grandir, l’herbe pousser. Le jour, c’est la vie des êtres ; mais la nuit, c’est la vie des choses…Autour de nous, les étoiles continuaient leur marche silencieuse, dociles comme un grand troupeau ; et par moments je me figurais qu’une de ces étoiles, la plus fine, la plus brillante ayant perdu sa route, était venue se poser sur mon épaule pour dormir… » (Daudet, « Les Etoiles », Lettres de mon moulin) 

Nothing like a little cat saying "bisous bisous" to make you think of Arles!