The Sound of Music

Here's a video of the ladies singing for the Christmas party. The videography isn't so good, but oh well, the sound is the important part anyway, right?

A Very Merry Asnieres Christmas

Today was our Christmas party at Asnieres. Everything was planned. Jan and I would arrive early, we'd set the room up--make it look Christmas-y and festive--, the women would come at 14h00 with their couscous, Jan would tell the Christmas story, and we'd all have a lovely Christmas party.

However, as you can see from the picture on the left, today was also the first snow of the season, and the city shut down. The buses weren't running. The RER A was, unrelatedly, on strike, along with several of the metros, buses, and trams. But pas de soucis. I rode the ever-faithful E line. My train cut right through the snow. My metro pulled up right on time. And I walked into class an hour early as planned.

What wasn't planned was that there was not one bus that drove through Satrouville to pick up Jan...who had the images for the story, the Christmas CDs, and the altogether "know how". She called at 13h00 and let me know that she likely wasn't going to make it.

And so started my panic, because I'm a planner. I need everything that's been planned to work out just right. I don't like change. I don't like surprises unless they come in the form of gifts. And there, surprise, I was standing in the freezing cold room alone with a pile of wrapping paper and tinsel in the corner. Despite the panic, I got the room set up.

And one by one, the women trickled in with their cakes and cookies and couscous. I tried to make everything as normal as possible. I told the Christmas story, put their food on a variety of colorful plates and set them around the tables. One of the women helped me make the Moroccan tea, but something was very obviously missing.

"Where's the music?" they asked.

"Well," I said, with an apologetic shrug, "I don't have any CDs here in France, so..."

"Oh," one said. Their faces fell.

Eventually, one said, "Aren't you going to dance?"

"Well," I said, hating that I was the stick in the mud. "I don't know how."

"And anyway, there isn't any music," another one reminded her.

Finally, one of the women suggested, "Why don't we make music?"

And so, she pulled out a jembe that was sitting in the corner. Another woman took a silver tray of drinks, set the empty cups on the table, turned over the tray and started beating it with two spoons. Several others took their forks and banged them against their glasses. And all the sudden, they were playing their music and singing these high pitched call and response songs in Arabic and Berber.

We continued that way all afternoon--singing between snacking and snacking between singing. And, despite all the plans that never quite ripened, it turned out to be a great Christmas party.

(That is, until I was walking to the metro, slipped on a patch of ice, and face planted into the ground, losing my mittens in the process. But you know what they say? C'est la vie...)

The Search for a Husband

There are very few women who come to my French class in Asnieres who aren't married (or haven't, at some point, been married). A few have been married for papers. A few have had husbands who've left them. A few stay with cruel husbands. A few are in happy marriages.
But that's what they do: they marry.
Well, Jan (the other teacher at Asnieres) and I are not married. The women often try to pawn off their unmarried sons on us. ("You could use a husband," they'll say, nudging a picture toward us like a Yenta. "He's handsome...intelligent...will be rich!")
However, since I'm still in my 20s, the women haven't started panicking about my marital status yet, but Jan, who is in her late 30s, is the object of their constant matchmaking.
The other day, one of the women told Jan, "This Christmas, I'll pray that Santa brings you a husband under your Christmas tree."
"What if I reject him?" Jan asked.
"You're going to have to stop doing what you want all the time," the woman said. "It's time to settle down."
Jan continued, in her usual fashion, explaining that she's picky, that she doesn't want to marry just anyone.
The woman looked at her, halfway joking, halfway serious, and said, "After 50, the market is closed." When Jan didn't immediately respond, she added, "They won't let you in."

Oh my. We had a good laugh about that, and now, I try to throw it into my conversation as often as possible.

So, now let me say to you: "Sorry. After 50, the market is closed."

A Tunisian Adventure

So, everything is going well--chugging along as usual. In my newly acquired street French, you might say "ca roule."
Lately, (seeing as it's December), I've been trying to fit in some Christmas shopping from time to time. Tuesday morning, classes were cancelled, because the church where we meet was using our room for a Christmas play. So, Tuesday morning found me in the middle of such a Christmas shopping activity.
I took the bus out to Pontault's centre commercial, and I picked up a few odds and ends. Fifteen minutes before my bus was to leave to take me to the train station (I had a visit to make to one of the ladies from class), I headed back to the bus stop. The 12:11 bus pulled up, and I walked inside, but the driver said, "This bus isn't taking any passengers."
Completely dumbfounded, I asked, "Why?"
The driver said, "Listen. We're just not, okay?"
Still not quite wrapping my mind around this, I persisted, "But if the 12:11 bus doesn't run, I can't get to the train station and I'll miss my train."
He shrugged and said, "Dommage." Too bad.
Apparently, the distress of one person isn't quite enough to force the bus to the train station.
So, I stepped off the bus, and almost ran into another man who looked just about as distraught as I felt.
"You'll miss your train too?" he asked.
I nodded.
"I can go home and get my car," he said. "I'll drive you to the station."
But even though he seemed like a nice man, I've seen enough episodes of Criminal Minds to know that you don't hop into the car of any old stranger, so I replied, "Thanks, but I think I'll just try and catch the next train."
He must have heard my accent, because he said to me, "Norway has really contributed to the world in the last few years."
I looked at him, confused, and he added, "They've been providing a lot in the way of agriculture."
I still really had no idea why he was telling me this.
He then put his hands together and clapped as he walked away.
I realized, with a smile, that he thought I was Norwegian. Secretly, this always makes me happy when people confuse me for a German or a Brit or a Norwegian. I like knowing that I don't have a twangy American accent. I like being just a little mysterious.
What I don't like is waiting at bus stops for buses that never come.
So, I walked around the centre commerical, licking the windows (the French expression for window shopping...) Finally, a half hour later, another bus showed up. Incidentally, it was the same man who'd refused to take me to the station earlier.
He waved at me, indicating that I could now mount the bus.
"You're going to the station?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
I got on the bus, walked to the back, sat down, and was reading a novel I found called The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank, and the driver walked back to sit beside me.
"Do you work here?" he asked, meaning the centre commercial.
I put my finger inside my book, and said, "No."
"In Paris?" he asked.
"Yes."
"What do you do?" he asked.
"I teach immigrants to read and write," I replied.
"Oh?" he asked, his face registering surprise. "But you aren't French."
"No," I said, stating the obvious.
"Do you have any Tunisians in your class?" he asked.
This made me smile. I was, in fact, sitting on that bus, waiting to be taken to the station so I could take my train to meet with one of my Tunisian woman. "Yes," I said. "That's where I'm trying to go right now. To a Tunisian's house."
"Oh?" he asked.
I nodded. "Really."
"Well, in that case," he said, walking back to the front of the bus, "we'd better get going."
(I so wish that buses followed their appointed departure and arrival times...)
But in any case, he took me straight to the station, flying past all the stops with people smothered in their winter hats and scarves, shivering as they hailed the bus. The bus that flew past.
He wished me luck as I ran out of the bus. He blocked the pedestrian path from all the other cars, allowing me to pass first.
And then, an hour later, I showed up at the woman's house. Then, of course, I had to explain that I would have been much later if she hadn't been a Tunisian. We had a good laugh out of that.