Châtelaillon

I also wanted to share some pictures of Châtelaillon, where my head teacher Isa lives. Friday afternoon when class finished she drove me out to her home and made us a lunch of boiled fish, rice, and a tomato salad. We started our meal with a French (or regional) specialty of pinot poured into the center of a halved cantaloupe. I'm not sure if it is actually spelled "pinot" because it is not like the wine, but instead thicker and sweeter, right before cognac in the distillation (or fermentation?) process. It was delicious with the melon!

Isa cuts thick slices of "real" French bread, the country-side kind. Those thin baguettes that we eat in the "city" are too hard and made with processed flour, she tells me. She has lived in the little village of Châtelaillon for over 15 years, so I suppose she would know.

Sorry that these pictures are a little overwhelming when placed side-by-side. Isa's house is full of colors and shapes and old French knick knacks, as well as two fluffy black dogs. Her pantry is in the bathroom, and the kitchen is like one on a ship, she says. Everything you need is literally right in front of your nose.

Isa also had these old prints of the La Rochelle harbor which I loved! Maybe I can find some at the vide grenier, or flea market, that I'm off to this morning with Katia.

One Saturday Morning in Autumn

It is Saturday, and even though I haven't actually started work yet it feels good like weekends should feel. It is sunny but the air is crisp...Fall. I slept in and ate a muesli and fig breakfast while searching for tickets to Berlin to visit mon amie Hannah, who is living there until at least the end of the month. And I bought a ticket! From Paris. I am SOOO excited about seeing Hannah and Berlin and Hannah's Berlin in less than two weeks! Exclamation points necessary.

I finally meandered out of my room around noon and set out to make the perfect fall meal, polenta with tomatoes which Zoë introduced to me during my last days in Portland. It is simple, warm and contains some of my favorite things: cherry tomatoes, basil, and garlic. Mmm.

I also added some leftover eggplant, mushrooms and chard.

Here is the original recipe:

Polenta:
1 tsp Sea Salt
1 cup corn grits or polenta
1-2 medium ears fresh corn, (1 cup)

Tomatoes:
2 pints cherry tomatoes
1/4 cup olive oil
2 garlic cloves
Pepper!
1/4 cup basil, tarragon, parsley
Salt




1. To prepare polenta: bring 3 cups of water to boil in medium sauce pan and add salt. Stir in grits and fresh corn and continue to stir until water returns to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally until polenta is thick and smooth. Cover.

2. For tomatoes, put it all in a heated skillet. Add herbs after 3-4 minutes, and sauté for 2 more minute.

 Put the polenta in a bowl and spoon the tomatoes over it. It steams delicious. And with that, plus my oversized cashmere sweater (thanx Bins), I have the *inner warmth* (teehee) to ride bikes to the Mediatheque with Katia and get a library card.

Let ME eat cake!

Apparently some cake in French is just called "cake." (Instead of gâteau). As in: "Le petit livre de Cakes salés et sucres," a tiny book that Katia lent me after I tasted her cake au saumon and wanted to eat 5 slices but had to stop myself due to the lactose intolerance. She gave me the book and said I could definitely make it without cheese or butter. This little book is packed full of incredibly simple recipes (each takes up only a single, 4x3in page), half savory, half sweet. The "cakes" that it speaks of are more like loaves, and instead of perfectly sifted pastry flour (the reason I've never made a real cake from scratch) you just throw in a packet of yeast. I never use yeast in anything but bread.

Most of the cakes have the same basic recipe, so you can really put whatever you want into your cake. And I mean anything. I didn't go too crazy, just adding a bit to the cake aux bananes et aux noix. I didn't use nuts, as they are pretty expensive. I miss bulk bins... I'm not too upset, though, because I added grated ginger, dried coconut and cinnamon.

Katia walked into the room right when I put the cake in the oven and was truly puzzled as to why the pan was sitting alone, directly on the rack. She asked me if I wanted to do it a better way. Of course I do. So she took the cake out and placed the pan in another pan full of water. The French way.


 I'm now waiting for the 45 minutes of bake time to be up. On the subject of time, I've noticed that everywhere I go there is a different system of it. In rural Mexico time seemed to mean very little. Many people sat outside in lawn chairs talking, eating, and baring the heat all afternoon and evening. There were no expectations about how long something should take to be done. There were no assurances that things, including meetings, meals, school, church, ect., would ever happen "on time." Si Dios quiere. The lack of attention to time is a way of life. 

Here in France things are faster. There are expectations and the necessity for things to run smoothly. Time is different, however, than it is in the United States. It seems that around the world America is known for the speed of life, the lifetimes Americans spend chasing accomplishment and economic success. In France they "dream of [our] country," as I was told today by a middle school teacher, but they know they are unique in their embrace of leisure and time to breath, as well as of strikes (which I want to talk about later). 


Some banks close down for a midday break. A grocery store at the end of my block closed for a one-week inventory; in the US this would happen by night. Throughout one school year, I have approximately two months of paid vacation. Love it. I have, though, found myself reacting unintentionally American to certain issues of time, such as when I tried to get a bank account and had to schedule appointments for the next day, and when I had to pick up my bike the next day when I had my brake pads replaces. My first thought is why wait? I'm not used to waiting : ). 

But waiting isn't bad. I have to purge my American habits! While walking through town this afternoon (aka not riding my bike) I ran into some new friends. (awww). And while waiting for my cake aux bananes to rise and brown in the oven I wrote this blog entry. Snap.

New intentions and old misunderstandings

I am teaching high schoolers a language they may or may not want to know. Last week and this morning I visited a couple of classes and was asked questions about me and my life. They got most excited when I said I liked the British Skins. Aside from my semi-exotic presence in the classroom, they seemed pretty bored. It's so strange that something they do every single day can bore them so. Maybe I forgot what highschool was like. Over the past year or so, I have been thinking about becoming high school lit teacher, but that would mean teaching A LOT and only having a captive audience about 30 % of the time. Hmmm... I'm hoping my small group classes, which will start next Monday, will engage the students and get them excited about speaking English. Manipulating them with their sole passion for pop culture? I can work with that.

My teaching schedule leaves me a lot of free time, time like I haven't seen in a long time. Time that I have to use to do the things I want to do, but am too lazy to do. Habit-forming timmmeee.

Since I arrived in France, I have run into many things that have made me scorn my rather lazy nature. Specifically the fact that I am unmotivated to write, but want to be a "writer." The first thing was a girl, Jo Crow. This is already a pen name. Which of course is necessary because said Jo Crow has already written two novels, attended a year of graduate school in Popular Fiction, and is looking for an agent. "So what do you write?" she asks, after telling me she just does not like literary fiction. Oh? The second thing was a boy, who is yet without a pen name. He studied many things in university, mostly medieval things, and happened to write a screenplay. It is an adaptation of an old french mythic tale. I thank him for leaving his explanation brief, but not for telling me that producers were already interested in his script, the same ones that did Braveheart, ect. And then asking, "So, what do you write?" My answer to this question is wishy-washy at best.
But, instead of feeling sorry for myself and my inability to put pretty paragraphs into a coherent, narrative order, I have started writing for at least an hour a day (this doesn't count.) My students also asked me if coming to La Rochelle will give me something to write about. I thought for a second after saying, "Definitely," and added, "In the future, I'm sure." What I am working on right now is rooted in some encounters I had when I was in New Zealand three years ago.

It is interesting talking to the students about my life and hearing myself getting excited about certain things or giggling about others. It seems that my energy or quirky reactions to things are what they follow. I can't tell how much of my speech they actually comprehend. It is strange "communicating" this way, but I am getting used to it. Aside from in class, I am speaking primarily in French and having conversations about everything from music to schooling, from divorce procedures to cellphone plans. I have grown accustomed to only understanding part of what is being said to me, but truthfully, it doesn't seem to make a difference. Afterall, when does full comprehension and communication ever exist?*

For instance today I finally opened a French bank account. I signed paper after paper for my free youth checking account, and it could have freaked me out immensely. However, it was the same feeling I have when dealing with banking matters in the states. The language is removed from both French and English. The only words I need to understand are the ones that relate to me doing things: withdrawing money, banking online, NOT paying any fees.

Some shots of La Rochelle. Thus far, my life consists mostly of wandering around and getting lost. That is totally alright with me. Monday things will pick up, but until then it's me and the town, which has traded in the sunshine above for a blustery gray with patches of blue. Also fine with me.

*Whoever said everything we ever write again will somehow relate back to our senior thesis definitely has a point....

J'ai la bonne chance.

I suppose going to France is good luck in the first place if you like chocolate, coffee and wine. I've run into even more good luck than that, though, and not just because I "like everything," a charge [illegitimately] put upon me by my roommate freshman year.

I am happily living with a French family, which does include the temperaments of two teenagers, whose whining I can tune out due to the language barrier. My weekend has been full of little outings. On Friday night, I tried to go to a girly movie night with the British assistants, but couldn't find their house... cellphones are indeed an amenity. When I returned home, Katia and Jean-Marc invited me to a party across the street for Michel, who works at the school. We walked in the door and had to make our way through multiple rooms until we found the backyard which was tikied out with a cheesy seascape painted on the wall. Yes.

Something I'm learning: at French parties when anyone new joins the group they make the rounds, kissing both cheeks of everyone and introducing themselves. I'd consider myself a pretty physically intimate person, but my reaction to this custom makes me feel like a stiff American board. This is especially obvious when bisoux'd by teenagers, like my housemates, who at first were only nearing me out of grumpy submission to manners. But I'm getting better.

So at this birthday party, I was thinking about how the early ice-breaking kisses made it especially enjoyable and far from the awkward I-know-you-but-not-really parties I've frequented in Portland. Then the birthday boy magnified this thought by breaking out his guitar. He put his foot up on a chair, minstrel style, and sung catholic school songs that everyone seemed to know, and then a couple of French ones that had English bits thrown in, which they sang with lower, more dramatic voices: "And you will never forget me." Pausssseeee. Then he made everyone line up facing each other for a party game, yes a party game, and we danced and sang a little. And THEN someone put on a you-tube video and all 20 some people at the party did a dance for Michel in the living room. It was a line-dance sort of thing like the ones the cool kids in middle school learned at church camp (that's the only way I could explain why they knew them and I didn't).

Needless to say I slept in Saturday morning. And was then swept away to L'Ile de Ré, an island that is attached to La Rochelle by a long bridge. We spent all afternoon in and out of the water. I played soccer in the sand with the boys and played in the water with little Ana who went totally crazy for the waves. The kids are starting to warm up to me I think. Katia asks me if they bother me and I want to say no, in fact they are cute even when upset and their moods are really interesting to me, but I just say no, of course not, they are very polite!

Ana and Katia pose for me. Theo and Luna, who will adamanty NOT pose for me, have a conversation sitting side-by-side, via texts. For some inexplicable reason I still think it's cute.

Ana making a castle and the port of Sainte Martin, one of the villages on Ile de Ré. It's picaresque with the little carousel and the French flag flying high. 

As the sun went down we piled into Katia's friend's boyfriend's (....) apartment bordering the tiny port town Flottes (still on Ile de Ré). The friend, Axcelle, came in with bags of groceries and we snacked for an hour before the real guests arrived, far more posh than our barefoot and sandy selves. I picked the bones out of the fist and watched Ana exhaust herself cutting the fatty rims off two packages of Italian ham. We ate and drank well and I kissed everyone. Twice.

And when the evening came, the lighting rivaled even that of the late afternoon on the beach. This picture is from the window of Francois's bachelor flat.

Here to stay

As I made my way to La Rochelle on Tuesday I felt like a bumbling idiot. Trying to board a moving escalator with two large suitcases was nearly life threatening. I tried many fruitless maneuvers including putting one suitcase on the track first to fare on it's own, and then jumping on behind it with the other suitcase in tow. Of course the first suitcase tips over and almost takes out the man in front of me. I was so out of sorts it was laughable, but he didn't seem to think it was funny. As a sleepless foreigner with absolutely no grace, the French seemed far too smooth, efficient and quiet.

When I finally got on my train to Poitiers (unabashedly following a couple with Harley-Davidson Poitiers t-shirts), I could not find my seat or a place to put my luggage. This made everyone seem even quieter. My exhausted insecurity roared like a car alarm. These things happen, I suppose, and I eventually sat down and took deep breaths as the train whirred [quietly] over the tracks and the green countryside passed by.

I then realized that though I was a little stressed I was in no way homesick or regretful. I have never had the feeling of choosing to leave a place I love to go far away to live on my own. This should have happened when I started college but Oregon is Oregon. It should also be a bit scary, not having the choice of driving 4 hours down the I-5 to visit home or being able to flirt with the idea of transferring.

Instead, I have found great comfort in the fact that I will be here for a long time. There is no valid question of whether not this arrangement will work out or not; I must make it work out. This is liberating in a way, as I don't have to pass judgment, figure everything out immediately, or closely monitor my progress. I am here, and I am here to stay. This might seem stifling to some, but emotionally it reassures me, as if this thick block of time were some kind of physical support.

If you read my first blog entry, however, you probably picked up on the fact that this support isn't extremely necessary, as I have walked into a truly amiable situation. Katia and I are still [I would hope] getting along well, and I think I will be able to rent my room long term (yay for no apartment hunting, hefty deposit or a potentially long trek to downtown). Yesterday afternoon I visited Josue Valin, the high school where I will work for the majority of the week, starting Tuesday. I met Isa, the woman who I've been in contact with this summer. She is extremely welcoming and introduced me to the school and the other teachers, who all seem very friendly (sorry that's all I've got so far).

Isabelle suggested that I go to Collége Beauregard, the middle school where I will teach at 3 hours a week, today to "present myself." I wouldn't have guessed, but is an uncomfortable idea to an American to just show up without notice. I asked if I should call or email first to know what time I should go and they said no, why would I do that? It is far better just to drop by.

And of course they were right. Everyone at Beauregard was expecting me.

On my trek back from Beaurgard I was at least able to get some pretty pics (the story of Katia's bike falling apart as I wove through the narrow streets of Centre Ville is another, kind of boring story).

I made it!

The language assistants' handbook that I received two months ago says that the weeks before you leave for France and those in which you arrive will be "challenging, but wonderful." However, perhaps because I was not very responsible about realizing what going to France for a whole year would feel like, I wouldn't describe the past few weeks before my departure as particularly challenging. In fact, they were exactly the opposite. I experienced two weeks of being completely unemployed and blissfully without obligations in Portland, which chose to give me a whole week of glorious sunshine so I would remember it fondly. It worked of course. It seems that this summer, I've been able to have my cake and eat it too. Lots of cake.

The photos of us laughing, eating, drinking and dancing could go on forever. Also! We were once in Grants Pass.

After two weeks of playing, eating out far too much and tying up loose ends, it was time. I didn't get around to mentally preparing at all [how do you do that anyways??], but my parents came up, and it felt more real. On my last morning we went to Jam where I ate blueberrychaioatmeal pancakes and was made fun of by the waiter (this always happens to me there...I think because I get stupid giddy over those damn pancakes), and it rained hard and I kissed Trevor goodbye and gave him my rainpants. XOXO Portland.

I usually like flying for the jitters of going someplace far away, especially when I travel alone, but this was just a very long, exhausting journey from plane to plane to station to train. I was rather zombie-like and speaking French was a bit of a nightmare. This is where my experience began to correspond with the handbook. It was challenging. More challenging than I had expected.

For some reason in Mexico I was fine speaking terrible, broken, cavewoman Spanish, and everyone seemed perfectly content with it. Here, I unintentionally hold myself to a higher standard and blush at my hesitations and constant need for repetition. I am living for the time with Katia, a teacher of French lit. at my highschool, and her three children. None of them speak English confidently, though Katia tried until I assured her that I would eventually get better at French if we kept struggling to communicate. It is so bizarre only understanding 50% of what she says, especially as she has been my guide these first days. I usually understand the gist of things and we get along great despite the blank nods I give her so often.

It is the details that are difficult. At lunch yesterday 7-year-old Annette became upset and cried and pouted and I couldn't figure out why even though Katia told me. When Katia placated her by covering up her food with mashed potatoes, I decided she was in tears because she didn't like fish. On my first night here, the kids' dad came to the door and they all yelled "Papa!" and leaped from the dinner table. Katia gave me a pained and vacant look. She explained that he had left her last year. She said "suddenly" in both French and English, and said it was hard for the children. All I could say was I am sorry and that it must be very hard, but I wanted to say much more and understand more of what she was saying.

The house looks unassuming from the outside. Number 4, Rue Normandin

For some strange reason, Katia seems confident that I do understand most of what she says and seems to enjoy talking with me. She asked me to take Annette to school this morning, after she left for work. She repeated the time a couple of times, and I knew she said 8:30-8:45. After she left, though, Ana sat on the stairs outside my room and sniffled a bit and paced around. She walked up to my open bedroom door, but not come in or let me see her. When I came out she would run away, and when I asked her if she wanted to play a game or read to me she claimed to not understand me, and just looked at the floor. I think she was just scared that I didn't know what time we need to leave.

Eventually we left, ten minutes early, and immediately she was happy. She began to talk to me and understand what I said to her. We got to school early of course, and we sat on the steps and she made herself a mustache with her ponytail and giggled a lot and I asked her a lot of simple questions. French children are adorable, partly because they all pull along rolley backpacks and clank them carelessly up the stairs like they are incorrigible puppies.

Two important things: we have a beautiful garden and my room is really cute with a lofted bed. An assistant I met last night described it as a tree-fort bed (she has one too). And see the big polka dots on the walls? Looks like a target ad.

I know I haven't described it at all yet, but La Rochelle is really, really lovely. More soon once I take some pictures!