Thanksgiving #1

 Why is she writing about Thanksgiving?, you might wonder.  It is, after all, only the 24th of October, and Thanksgiving doesn't arrive until November 25th...which means, I'm over a month early.  Or am I?
To properly explain what this post means to me, let's rewind a year and start at the very beginning (a very good place to start...)
Last year, Thankgiving arrived in the United States, and I sat alone here in France, absolutely Thanksgiving-less.  I was pretty devastated.  I'd looked online to see if I could find any American restaurants that served Thanksgiving dinner (I couldn't).  I had exactly one American friend in Paris who was still interested in celebrating the holiday (the others had given up on Thanksgiving after their first two years in France), and the two of us talked about throwing a Thanksgiving dinner.  But the idea of a two-person Thanksgiving seemed pretty bleak, so we dropped the idea.
Thanksgiving arrived in France.  I woke up, and I went to work as usual.  The ladies in my literacy class didn't even stay to have tea, because Thanksgiving fell during their Fête de Moutons, so they were off to the house to prepare for the evening festivities.  Thankfully, the woman I work with had cooked a pumpkin pie or else the day would have passed in complete obscurity.
I ate a piece of pie there after class, took another piece home in a Tupperware container, and spent the evening eating Turkey flavored ramen and pumpkin pie.  Worst Thanksgiving ever.
So, in the year that's passed, I've talked to everyone I know about how sad I had been to have missed Thanksgiving last year, and how I really hope things will change for me this year.
Talking out loud helps, you see, because this year, I'm having three Thanksgivings.
Thanksgiving #1 occurred today with my Canadian friends at Noisy le Grand (you can see now why we're celebrating in October and not November.)

 After church today, we all stayed and ate a traditional North American Thanksgiving together.  Of course, everyone (French people, African people, German people) all brought food, so I'm not sure how "traditional" the food actually was, but that's how it goes...  What did the French people sign up to bring for our traditional meal?
Salmon quiche.  Cheese.  Wine.
"A meal without cheese," one of them said today, "is like a day without sunshine."
But thankfully, despite the differing opinions on what should be included in the meal, we pulled ourselves together, and had a table filled with turkey, corn, salad, mashed potatoes, and sweet potatoes.  Pretty basic, but just what my homesick heart wanted.

 The week before, when I'd signed up to come to dinner, I was asked to bring sweet potato casserole, "American style".  I've never made sweet potato casserole, but valiantly decided to give it my best shot.  I have an American friend who knows her way around the kitchen, and I reasoned that she could help me.  And she did help.  She sent her mother's recipe into my email inbox and said to give her a call if I needed help.
I'd more envisioned her making the sweet potatoes for me, mais fin bref... Life goes on.

 So, I got out the recipe, wrote down what I needed, and began the big shop.  6 sweet potatoes?  I soon realized that canned sweet potatoes don't exist here, so I was going to have to find the actual potato.  After a lot of searching (and insisting that I wanted orange sweet potatoes and not white ones), I found a fat, long potato-looking thing.
The other ingredients were just as much of a question mark.  Brown sugar?  Nope.  I decided to try Cassonade, telling myself, "It won't make that much of a difference."
Pecans?  After asking several vendors for pécans, and all of them understand piquante, I got a little tired of being led to the pepper aisle, and decided that walnuts couldn't taste all that different from pecans.  Again, "It won't make that much of a difference."

And even still, once I was home with my new apron tied around me and my sleeves rolled up, the trouble hung around.  The recipe began with the vague, "Place peeled and cooked and mashed sweet potatoes in a pan."  I looked at the 6 lumps of potato I had on the counter and found myself at a loss.  How did one cook a sweet potato?
Thankfully, google saved the day once again, and I got those potatoes peeled (although, I still wasn't sure what all that talk about removing them from their jackets was about...), cooked, and mashed. 
Somehow, I made sweet potatoes with a walnut (not pecan) carmelized glaze.  Not too bad, if I say so myself.
Although, the French weren't quite sure what to do with my creation.
"It is a cake?" one asked, pointing at the glaze.
"No," I replied.  "Sweet potatoes."
"But it's sweet..."
I nodded.
"On essaie alors?" 
And they all gave a good effort, and whether or not they were all convertis to the American sweet potato ways or not, they cleared out the pan and I left with a smile.  It wasn't quite Thanksgiving in Indiana.  But Thankgiving in Noisy le Grand wasn't anything to complain about either.

Of Late

So, after more than a week of absence, here I am. 

It seems that France has determined to give me the most rounded of experiences.  I’ve had some really fantastic experiences (getting engaged to a wonderful person I met here !), but this last week, something pretty awful happened.

I was walking in Noisy le Grand in the Pavé Neuf, and was suddenly pushed over from behind.  After a few kicks to the head, the attackers took my bag and fled. 

I was an absolute wreck, screaming and sobbing (to my credit, however, I did scream out in French.  You never know what you’ll do under pressure, and I actually feel pretty pleased that, even under pressure, I could still think in French.)  Thankfully, there were plenty of witnesses on the street who called the police and the firemen, so after an initial looking over, I was sent off to the emergency room and then later, to the police station where I filed a complaint against the attackers.

But even though this agression, as they call it, was absolutely horrible, now that I’m a bit further removed, there were actually quite a lot of funny moments.

As I said, after I went to the emergency room, I went over to the Commissariat to file my complaint.  When I walked in, hair everywhere, mascara streaking my face, the man at the desk said, « Let me guess :  You were attacked by two men from behind.  They kicked you and stole your purse. »  I confirmed this, thinking he must have heard about it.  Well, no, he hadn’t heard about my particular incident, but said that it happened fairly frequently over there in the department 93.

Anyway, I began the complaint with this particular man at the front desk, but then, after a few minutes, a really beautiful girl walked into the station.  She was tall, thin, and had these really high heels, long gorgeous hair, and a Louis Vuitton bag.  Would you know ?  The policeman told me to wait a minute and then went outside for a smoke with the girl who, I later found out, had to stop in weekly due to her probation.

After he left, a very dour, man-faced woman came down and asked it I’d been helped.  Confused, I looked out the door where the man still stood talking with the pretty girl.

 « I’m not sure, » I told her.

She followed my gaze, and then told me I’d better follow her upstairs. 

I followed her into this really bleak room with hardly any light and extremely old computers.  We sat in front of one that had a sticker on the outside that read I do evil things.  The woman then said that I should tell her exactly what happened, and she would type out my statement.  So, I began to talk--fairly slowly, I thought.  She kept holding her finger up and asking me to stop, as she typed what I’d said.  She typed, that is, with one index finger.  Then, after every sentence, she stopped and reread everything she’d just written.

Eventually, she began asking questions which I answered as best as I could.

« Did you see the attackers. »

I said I hadn’t seen their faces, but saw their backs as they ran away, so I gave the vague description that I could give :  I described their race and age range.

« Victim…cannot…describe…attackers. » She read aloud as she typed.

« Well, » I said, « that isn’t completely true.  Like I said they were probably  ____ years old and of ________________origin. »

She sort of rolled her eyes and went on with other questions.

« Did you see where they went after they took your bag ? »

« They ran into the alley between the Marantha Church and the hôtel by the woods. »

« Victim…is…unable…to…say…where…attackers…fled. »

Any time I brought up the fact that she’d typed something I hadn’t said, she attributed it to correcting my French.  The situation got so frustrating, I just let it go.  I quit correcting.  I quit arguing.  I just stared at her with glazed-over eyes.   At that point, I’d spent almost five hours in the emergency room and police station, and all I wanted to do was go home, take a shower, and get warm again.

And, I’m happy to say, that’s the way it eventually turned out, because nothing, no matter how horrible, lasts forever.  I eventually made it out of the police station, and I spent the evening watching Le Petit Nicolas with my fiancé, remembering why I fell in love with France in the first place.

And in other good news, some friends of mine went back to the place where I was attacked and found my bag, my train pass, my driver’s license, my Bible, my umbrella and a few other odds and ends in the woods over there.  I’m really grateful for the things I did get back, and on Sunday, when I had the elementary age kids in Sunday school, they were all extraordinarily well behaved and oohhed and ahhed over the chocolate cake I’d made.  I don’t expect the behavior to last, but I’m enjoying it while it does.

Summer Changes

Summer brings changes. I suppose it isn't really that everyone actually changes all that much during the summer. It's more that everyone runs off to their different vacation destinations or summer camps or quoi ce ça soit during the summer, then we don't see one another for several months, and once fall comes, we all are very aware of the differences in one another.

In high school, everyone came back to school with bleached hair, white teeth, brown skin. I spent plenty of time spraying lemon juice in my hair, covering my teeth in Crest Whitening strips, and lotioning my legs, arms and face with selfless tanner in preparation for those back to school days.

Now, with the women in my class, the changes are entirely different.

After not having seen the women for almost three months, I feel shocked at how much their lives have changed.

Here's an example:

This week, one of my women, Fatima flew into class and just started shouting, “Fatima morte!”, “Fatima morte!”, “Fatima morte!” over and over again.

My heart dropped to my shins, because I thought that she was saying that her friend (incidentally, also called Fatima) had died. I finally got her to slow down and tell me what happened. Eventually, she found the words she was looking for and told me that Fatima's husband, not Fatima, had died.

This was still a huge shock to me. I've been over to Fatima's several times, and each time, her husband had greeted me at the door, inquired after my family, and wished me health for the future. He had always seemed in much better health than his frail wife.

Fatima explained that her friend's husband hadn't even been ill, but that during Ramadan, everyone finished their nightly feast, and then, they all had lain down on the floor together. Fatima's husband had lain next to the grand fauteuil, she said.

“The big armchair?” I asked.

She nodded. “Grand, grand, grand armchair.”

“The couch?”

“Yes, that's it...the couch.”

She went on to explain that Fatima had tapped him on the shoulder and tried to wake him when it was time to head off to work, but that he wouldn't move. She'd started screaming his name, and all the kids poured into the room, tried to revive their father, and realized that he was dead. They called the urgences but it was too late. He had died during the night.

I was absolutely stunned by this news, and Tuesday after class, I headed over to Fatima's apartment with the other women I work with. We brought along a bag of gifts. My colleague had gone to a Moroccan shop and asked what we would be expected to give a grieving Moroccan widow after the death of her husband.

“Sugar,” the man at the shop said. “Everyone will be stopping by to pay their respects, and she'll be expected to make tea or coffee for everyone who comes. So, in Morocco,” he said, “we bring sugar when someone dies.”

So, we brought along sugar, nuts, and dates (which the shop keeper assured us weren't too festive).

We walked to Fatima's apartment and her son answered the door. When we came in, she was just standing there in the middle of the living room, dressed from head to toe in white, holding a silver tray with nothing on it. Huge, wet tears were sliding silently down her face. I wondered how long she'd been standing there like that.

We all walked over to her and took turns giving her the bise. Instead of the two kisses on each cheek that she gives normally, she gave us a million kisses on just one single cheek and held us so tightly to her that it was painful.

Seeing her like this got me choked up, and I couldn't help crying too.

We all sat down on the couches and exchanged formalities—we asked after her children, after their grades in school and if they'd been blessed with children. She choked through her responses. We gave her the sugar which she took to the kitchen. And as we'd been told she'd do, she emerged from the kitchen minutes later with coffee and trays of nuts and dates.

We spent two hours with her. She told us about her trip to Morocco, how she left her husband's body there, how he was buried in the ground not far from his hometown. She told us that everyone she knew had come over the Saturday she arrived back in France and that they'd all slept over until Sunday. Her older daughters and sisters were taking turns staying with her. She assured us that she wasn't too alone.

But when we left, her sister walked us out to the front gate, and I watched Fatima walk back to her room, open the door, and slip inside. She looked so lonely then.

She won't be back to class for four months, she said before we headed our separate ways. She'll stay in the house.

I was disappointed to hear this, because I leave in three months. I won't have her in class anymore.

Hmmm.

I've decided once again that I don't like change.

I read somewhere that the only people who like change are wet babies wearing diapers. I suspect that's true.

Sporting some Moroccan Fashion

By the way, I just wanted to briefly note that this school year began in one very typical way : back to school clothes.  Here I am wearing a dress that one of the ladies in class brought me back from Morocco.
What's the verdict?
Too Christmas angel?

And since I'm uploading photos, here's one more for you.  I saw this poster still up in the RER.  Thankfully, they're still advertisting the Christmas Village in Reims that took place November 20 through December 27, 2009.
Yes, that's 2009.
Just in case anyone wanted to agonize over having missed the festivities...



And with that, I wish you all a good night.

Back to the job hunt

Monday, classes started up again. I taught during the day, and then, Monday night, I was back over by Sacre Coeur with my favorite unmotivated, Sri Lankan pupil.
I panted up to her sixth floor apartment (summer had done nothing to keep me in shape), and as soon as I entered her apartment, I had a premonition that something wasn't quite right.
First of all, she answered the door wearing an oddly decorated shirt. Oddly decorated, I'm telling you—embroidery all over the collar and sleeves and cuffs and botton holes. They were a multitude of uneven stitches in various patterns.
“I got a new sewing machine!” she told me. She pulled it out and showed me all the features. Finally, she pointed to the top of the machine and showed me that it stitches almost any pattern you could possibly want on your clothes.
“You see?” she asked, pointing at the cuffs of her shirt.
She'd used every different stitching pattern possible on her shirt. I then looked around her room and saw that suddenly, everything bore a new border—the curtains, the pile of clothes sitting on her bed, her bedcovers. Everything had been decorated.
“You've been busy,” I said.
“Yes,” she smiled. “I stitch all my clothes.” Suddenly inspired, she said, “You want stitch on you?” She pointed at my shirt. She seemed to expect me to yank my clothes off right then and there so she could cover it in stitches.
“Um...well...no.” I said, hoping not to hurt her feelings.
She took it well. She nodded, and then began pointing at all of her new handy work. Second sign that not all was right: her walls were newly covered in homemade crafts. There were beaded potholders hanging from the window and woven doilies hanging from the wall. She'd printed black and white pictures of herself off the computer and colored them in by hand.
“You like?”
I said yes. I told her that it gave the apartment some personality. I thought it looked original.
“And you notice that my house is clean?” she asked.
I had noticed. Usually, all of her possession are poured out over the floor. Monday, everything was in its place. The floor was mopped. The bed was made. The pots and pans were put away.
I didn't want to discourage her sudden domesticity, but I felt like I needed to ask, “Is everything okay with you?”
“Yes,” she said with a huge smile. “Ca va.”
“Work is okay?”
Immediately, her face fell.
“Well...”
“What happened?” I asked.
“No money for two weeks,” she said.
“You haven't been going to work?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I go to work everyday, but boss says he cannot pay me.”
As it turns out, her boss ran out of money, continued having his employees work, but then didn't pay them in return. After two weeks without pay, she stopped going to work.
“Now, I sit home all day and work from home,” she said, pointing around her room at the potholders and doilies and decorated curtains. “No problem.”
“Well, how are you going to pay for your apartment?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I find new job one day,” she said. “I cook Indian food for someone else.”
I agreed that this was a good idea, and we had French class together. After, she insisted on cooking a cadeau—a gift.
She boiled couscous, added orange food color, raisins, powdered sugar, and butter, and gave me a heaping plate of this. We both ate until we felt sick, and she kept bringing the pot round, trying to refill my plate again and again.
“But you must eat!” she said.
I told her I was more full than I'd ever been in my life, and that, as much as I wanted to, I just couldn't eat anymore.
She seemed saddened by this, and scraped the rest of her creation into my lunchbox so I could finish at home.
I've decided she has to find a new job...and soon. This isn't just for financial reasons. This is also for completely selfish reasons. I can't eat enough food to please her, and I don't want all my clothes embroidered.
She's assured me, however, that Operation Job Hunt started Tuesday.
Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.

The Purple Sludge Debacle of 2010

I live in the basement of a house that's been converted into an office building. Have I ever mentioned that? Well, I do. That's where I live, and I have a room at the bottom of the stairs. I like to call it my studio, but it isn't, because, of course, I have to climb the stairs to use the kitchen, use the bathroom, enter or exit the house. The living situation isn't altogether convenient, but it is affordable.
It's odd living in an office. It's odd hearing everyone parade in at 9 every morning. It's odd having a day off when they're all working. It's odd seeing signs posted everywhere. Some of the signs are your normal, run of the mill, signs (there's one of the garage door that read 'Please do not take garbage out of the garage as it attracts cats.' There's another beside the toilet that says, 'Please hold lever down well--4 or 5 seconds if necessary—to clear the basin.' There's another by the sink that reads 'Please wash and dry your dishes. Keep team life sweet.') Some of the signs are a little passive agressive (there's another one beside the sink that reads on one side, 'Don't use this sink unless you want to clean up crap off the floor.' This has been crossed out, and on the other side, someone else has written, 'Sink: out of order'). See what I mean? Living in an office is odd, and while I hate the idea of finishing my 2 year contract and leaving France in 3 months, I am very ready to have my own place.
So, what spurred these thoughts?
Today, I woke up early and ran a load of laundry. It took almost three hours which struck me as odd. I took out the laundry, and my clothes were covered in purple lint and still soaking wet. The machine was still filled with water. Not a good sign. I ran a “Vidage”--emptying--cycle, but the water remained.
Once the office staff was in, I walked upstairs and reported the broken machine. The accountant followed me down, and said, “It sure does stink down here, doesn't it?”
I hadn't really noticed, but as we neared the laundry room, I had to agree. It smelled of hair dye.
To make a long story short, the accountant opened up the basin where the water was draining from the machine. The basin was filled with purple sludge. Purple stinking sludge. Someone had washed a purple, shag rug in the machine.
I spent the rest of my morning scooping purple sludge out of the basin with a kitchen spoon. All the while, I thought, 'I'd really love to have my own place'—I'd love to know exactly who's using the washing machine and to know what they're putting in it. Is this a little controlling? Maybe.
But for now, I live in an office. I live in a bedroom across from the stairs. And, of course, it does have its benefits. The office staff had a lunch today (I was invited. I went. I ate better than I have in weeks.), and they had leftover cheese and baguette. Now, rewarding myself after this sludge-filled day, I'm eating Brie, baguette, and drinking my Fruits de Verger tea.
Life isn't so bad after all, is it? Everything has its perks.

Not Quite Kindergarten

Last night, I had a meeting at church. My church perpetually has meetings—meetings to determine when we should have further meetings, meetings for individual ministries, meetings for the church as a whole, meetings for people involved in this, and meetings for people thinking about possibly, at some time in life, being involved in that.
And every meeting is dealt with with extreme seriousness.
Last year, I worked in the nursery, I played music Sunday mornings, and I taught children's church.
This year, I got three separate emails: we would need to have a nursery meeting, a music meeting, and a children's church meeting.
Yesterday was the nursery meeting, so I met with the other women who work in the nursery.
Subject: should we really call the nursery The Nursery.
We had supporters on both sides.
Me: Well, calling it the nursery has worked so far. Does the name really matter?
Another Women: But wouldn't we like something more soothing, more loving? Something like the Cabbage Patch?
Yet another Woman: Maybe it would be nice to call them The Fleas?
Another: We should probably avoid anything that would make the children feel like animals.
The meeting stretched on.
All the others seemed intent on changing the nursery's name, because after all, some of the children are now going to preschool, so we wouldn't want them to get the wrong idea and think we're calling them babies.
So, the suggestions came: The Cabbage Patch, The Fleas, The Children's Corner, The Teddy Bears, etc.
At one point, I was asked if I had a suggestion.
“Hmmm...” I said, looking at my notebook where I'd written nothing down, but instead had been turning my pen back and forth to form squiggles. “Erm...well...yes, a name.”
They all watched me as I squirmed.
I suddenly had an idea and sat up straight, proud to have though of something. “How about The Lion's Den?”
They all sat silent, not wanting to immediately shoot down my idea.
“It's nice, but...” They decided it was too negative, and that it wouldn't do at all to call the nursery The Lion's Den.
So, the discussion continued.
We left two hours later, having decided to call the nursery The Children's Garden. We'd then take pictures of each child and post his or her photo in the middle of a flower.
Stephan came and picked me up that night. I recounted the experience to him, and he said, “You know, you might as well have called it Kindergarten.”
Hmmm. No wonder The Children's Garden sounded so nice. I guess we weren't so creative after all. But then, what is creativity if it isn't the reformatting of something we've already seen?