Since I can't figure out how to make these one blog...

Here we are after aerobics class.
Our very crowded makeshift classroom at La Courneuve.

More of classes.

Watching the kids. By way of explanation, I don't have a dryer, so my pants are expanding out of control. That's the reason they look so balloon-like in this photo.

And that's all I've got for now. I look forward to provinding a minute-by-minute account of the wedding of the century in the days to come. Until then, Au Revoir.

A few more pictures...

Here are some of the kids at La Courneuve. In the back, you'll see a baby sitting in a baby carriage. I asked this baby's brother what her name was. The boy answered, "Poopy-peepee". I'm assuming he was mistaken.
More of the kids. The one who's squatting here gives me a lot of mental anquish. I can't figure out its gender, and I feel that it would be inappropriate to look inside the diaper. Sometimes, it wears girl clothes--for example in this picture, the kid is wearing a pink sweatshirt that reads, "Flower" and then, the day after wore a t-shirt that said, "World's Best Brother."

Starbucks in France. If you're going to pay 5 dollars for coffee, why not do it in style?

I'm now a volunteer with the 9-14 year olds at church. Here we are playing that game where you have to hit someone over the head until they scream the name of another person in the room. I hate get-to-know-you games. We really should just have balls like they did in Jane Austen's day.

Making crepes for the Crepe party at church. The little girl in back said, "Oh I love making crepes. It's something I'm very passionate about." I thought that was very funny.

Hello America!

As I write this, I'm sitting in my old Indiana bedroom, which smells exceptionally good and feels exceptionally good and is just exceptionally nice in general. I'll be here for a week and two days for my brother's wedding, and I'm just soaking up American life. I love France, and I love Pontault-Combault, but I have missed Indianapolis. I've missed the canal and Circle Center mall and the library and genuine Mexican restaurants and useless celebrations for useless holidays and parents who take me out to eat for free. I keep spontaneously giggling, because I just almost can't believe how Paradise-like Indiana is. Today, I went to the bank and almost hugged the teller. I hadn't seen that woman in two months, and I mean really, she's the woman who gives me money, and let's face it: I've missed her. I just stood there behind the counter and talked and talked to her, and though we've never been super friendly before, I found out how she's preparing to move and why she's moving and what her kids have been up to lately. I later went to Walmart, and the greeter was so friendly, and he brought over a shopping cart for me, and I got tears in my eyes, and said, "Sir, that is just the nicest thing you could do..." I went to the hair salon to have my hair cut, and my stylist asked question after question about my life in France, and I got the mouth diahrrea and started telling her everything--frustrations with teammates, about the poor guy on the train who got robbed, about the crack down the middle of my toilet seat and how it pinches my leg every time I sit down. I went to Starbucks and when they handed me that Apple Chai Infusion, this weird screech came out of my mouth--something I've never heard before. And everyone was looking at me, so I tried to pretend it was just my ring tone on my phone. And I sat down next to a man in a suit, and I told him how great gift cards are and how unfortunate it is that I couldn't find a Starbucks at the Philadelphia airport. You see, the great thing about America is this: though the world doesn't really care what's happening in your life, they certainly pretend to. I love customer service.
But I've missed overhearing other people's conversations the most.
The other day, I was on the train with my boyfriend, and he was listening really intently to the girl a few seats over. After she got off the train, he said, "Did you understand what she said?" I said, "No." And he told me that the girl and her boyfriend agreed that they don't want to officially marry, so instead of having a legal wedding, they've planned to stage the whole event. She'll wear the big white dress and he a suit. They'll have flowers and wine and everything, but they won't have any of the official documentation. After he told me this, I felt deflated. If I missed a conversation that great, I probably was missing even greater conversations on a daily basis. That whole week, when I heard people saying, "No way!", I kept thinking about what might possibly have been said. What sort of tragedy or triumph had happened?
Though my French is steadily improving, I still can't "overhear" things. To understand, I need to be abnormally close to the speaker, and I need to be looking at the speaker's lips, and there has to be no background noise. When you think about it, this makes eavesdropping tricky, and by "tricky", I mean "Impossible."
So anyway, today, I could listen to my heart's intent--while I waited in line, while I had an emotional crisis over which of the million cereals I should choose (I don't get these kind of options in France)--all the time! It was unquestionally one of the greatest things to happen so far, apart from seeing my family, of course.
Speaking of language difficulties, here's an anecdote to end with: on Saturday night, I was talking to my team leader about how classes were going. I was mentioning how hard I'm working with my women, and how sometimes, they just don't retain anything from one class to another. She said that there's a woman at one of the tables who has been in the beginner's class for 7 years, and still, when you ask her what sound A makes, will just smile blankly and shrug her shoulders. Then, she added, "Elle etait a Mecca", which I know now means, "She's been to Mecca." However, I heard, "Elle etait un mec," or "She used to be a man." So, I thought she was telling me that the woman was having learning problems due to her recent sex-change operation. Finally, after providing a few obligatory nods, I confirmed that the woman indeed had transferred the gender card, I learned I'd really gotten a little lost in translation.
Anyway, I'm going to be an 80 year old woman and go to bed at 9:00 tonight. I'm just so tired. Jet lag has not been a friend to me.

A few pictures

While I added that last photo, I thought I should add a few others, showing all the touristy things I've had a chance to do on the weekends. Here, Margret (my old roommate--on the left) and Celeste (who also teaches literacy classes) and I headed off to Montmartre to see Paris from the sky.

Here we are in front of the Sacre Coeur.

We had a picnic together in Celeste's apartment. Margret and I headed to the Louvre for a little culture.

The beautiful Louvre at night.

Well, it's been a while...

So, these last few weeks (or rather, this month since I've last written) have finally started to get really busy. Back in February, I was still mostly observing what everyone else was doing. I was following people around in order to learn how to get from our house to the train station or from the tramway to the church where we have classes. I was still mostly in spectator mode, but now, I'm pretty much doing everything on my own which is both terrifying and exciting. Now, I have my own class of women that I'm teaching without an observer (hallelujah. It isn't that fun to have someone looking over your shoulder and critiquing your teaching style). Generally, 5-6 of these women come regularly. We've been working on the letters "d", "b", and "p" lately, and it's been a real struggle since all three look and sound exactly the same to them. After several very long, very painful sessions where pushing out that "p" sound must have felt to them like pushing out a child, I think we're finally on the right track, and yesterday, when one of them recognized the letter "p" as the first letter in "pere", I was very relieved.
And for me, I've made some strides in the recognition department as well. At first, I was so frustrated, because every single one of these women looked alike. From the head scarf to the burka, I was completely unable to make a distinction between the Fatima from Morocco on the left and the Fatima from Morocco on the right (seriously, 2/3 of the women are Fatima from Morocco, while the other 3rd is made up of the more diverse "Fadma", "Famida" and "Farika"). Usually, I recognize people by hair cuts or hair colors, but clearly in this situation, that's not possible. But last week, only 4 women came to class, and I started seeing differences--a mole on the bridge of the nose or a birthmark on the forehead--and now, I'm happy to say that I can tell the difference between everyone in my class.

Another nugget of big news: I'd applied for my one-year residency card (my carte de sejour) on February 24th, but after receiving the papers stating that I was in the process of receiving my card, I found out that I would not be allowed to leave France until my carte de sejour arrived. From most of the members of my office here, I heard that it takes about 2 or 3 months to receive the card. For me, that was a huge let-down. My brother is getting married on April 4th, and I'd already bought my plane ticket, my bridesmaid dress, my shoes, etc. My short-term visa expired April 1st, so it wouldn't be still valid when I returned. I was devastated, because from what I understood, I was going to have to miss the wedding. Everyone here at the office started researching other options--second passports, short term aller et retour visas, and other things. No options seemed to pan out. So, we'd been praying for the card to come for several weeks.
Last Friday, I called the prefecture to say that I wanted to check on the state of my carte de sejour. The woman looked up my number and said my card was ready, and i could pick it up Monday. This was an enormous shock...like I mentioned earlier, it should take 2 months or more to receive the card. Still, not wanting to look the gift horse in the mouth, I rushed to the prefecture yesterday morning and waited in line. I waited several hours before they called my number. I walked up to the woman behind the desk and said, "I talked to an employee here on Friday and she said my card was ready." The lady at the desk took my papers, typed in my information, and said, "May I see the results of your medical exam?" (Well, I've never had a medical exam. I hadn't received the convocation to go get the exam.) So, I explained this and she said, "Mais si! Si! You have received the convocation. It's marked on the computer." I said that I'd checked my mailbox just the day before and it wasn't there. She, thinking I didn't really understand what she wanted, gave me my card and a piece of paper with the state medical doctor's number. She told me to call the number right away, but that she'd give me my card anyway, trusting I'd call the number. I promised to call, and I took that card and ran out of the prefecture, before anyone could stop me and say, "Wait. That's not right..."
I got home and called the doctor who said, "But I haven't sent you a convocation yet. How do you have your carte de sejour?" I explained what the woman at the desk had told me, and he just kept saying, "Impossible." He said that he'd only received my file on Thursday, and that he hadn't had a chance to send me my convocation yet. But we set an appointment, and all is fine now, but someone somewhere made a huge mistake in my favor. It's next to impossible that someone would mark on my file that I'd received my convocation when I really hadn't. A mistake this big can only be God's grace towards me. So, I'm incredibly thankful today. I won't have to miss the wedding!

So, those are just a few great things that have happened lately. I'd better head off and get ready for classes this afternoon. But in the meantime, I'll post a picture I took Saturday with a few friends I made in Paris' Catacombes.

Addition, Subtraction, and Reese's Cups

Dominique, my downstairs housemate (who is British), really loves Reese's Cups. And me...well, I do too. However, Reese's aren't really a French thing. You can get them in some American-type stores in Paris, but you have to pay 2 euros for 3 of them, so it's really not at all reasonable. So, we just wait, and occasionally, someone travels to the US and brings back Reese's for us.
When I came to France, I brought exactly 3 Reese's Cups with me. They'd been a gift from the OM USA reps who came with us to Mosbach, Germany. About the same time, an OM France worker went home to the US and returned to France with two cases of Reese's Cups. She gave one to Dominique and one to my friend, Stephan. I didn't know any of this, however, so when I got to France, I told Dominique that I had 3 Reese's Cups and that we could share them. Stephan didn't realize Dominique had already gotten Reese's, so when we were at church my first Sunday here, Stephan gave Dominique one pack of 2 Reese's. So, with that addition, Dominique ended up with about 12 Reese's--something ridiculous like that--and was waiting for me to share mine with her.
I was talking to Stephan later, who asked me if Dominique had shared her Reese's with me. I said, "No, but you only gave her two." He said, "No, I gave her two MORE. I'd already give her 2 packs of 2 earlier that weekend." Well, after I found out how many Reese's Dominique had, I decided that I was going to keep my 3.
After I'd eaten 2 of them, Dominique came up to me, and she said, "You told me you were going to share your Reese's with me."
We'd just been talking about David's sin with Bathsheba in our literacy classes with the women in Paris. So, I said to Dominique, "Let me tell you a story." She looked confused, but I continued, "Once there was a very rich man who had a whole lot of cattle. He had a million sheep, and didn't need anything. Near him, there lived a very poor man who only had one sheep. The poor man's family loved that little sheep--he ate at their table. But one day, someone passed through to visit the rich man, and the rich man wanted to have lamb for dinner, so he took the one and only sheep of the poor man, and he slaughtered it."
Dominique looked at me with these huge eyes, and said, "Who told you?!"

But today--weeks after the "rich man/poor man" story happened--I came home and saw this big box sitting outside my door. I picked it up and saw it was addressed to me and not to my roommate (*sigh of relief*). I opened it up, and guess what? I am now the proud new owner of 6 heart shaped, special Valentine's edition Reese's Cups.
Now the question is--will the poor man share with the rich man? Right now, the Reese's are hidden at the bottom of my closet, so I can't tell you the answer yet.

The Day I Almost Met a Famous Person

As I mentioned in the last post, we've been having problems with the door at La Corneuve. For a while, it had been broken, because someone had locked a Sri Lanken church inside (we'd initally thought someone had broken in--as I wrote in the last post--, but turns out, it was really the church trying to break out). Then, when I went to La Corneuve last week, we were able to have classes, but a very drunken man (literally, a bottle of beer in each hand) was putting a new, electronic door on the building while we were there. Not surprisingly, the door doesn't work well. In fact, it no longer opens. The door is electic, so it needs electricity to work, and all the electricity has been turned off, and therefore, the door doesn't open. This sounds like a logic problem, no? (Ahh, if this were happening on TV, this comedy of errors would make me laugh. Since it's happening to me, I think I'll just have to find it funny later...). Anyway, all this to say, we went to La Corneuve today, but were unable to have our classes.
Since the classes were cancelled, I decided to get some errands done. I've got several completely banal things on my To Do List--grocery shopping, books and papers I'm supposed to read in order to be more informed on the women I'm working with, emails to write, etc. But I also had one thing I needed to do that I didn't particularly want to do. I have to have my birth certificate translated by an official translator in order to apply for my carte de sejour that will enable me to live in France more than 3 months. I was given the name of a woman--Mme Sylvaine Collet--who lives a ways away in Paris. I was told that she would translate my birth certificate, officially stamp it for me, and I could collect it again in 3 days. I really am not good with meeting people for the first time. I'm pretty awkward with small talk in English, but I'm completely incapable of making small talk in French. My roommate, Margret, is one of those really likeable people who can talk about anything all the time. If I'm silent for more than a minute, she says, "Are you okay?" I told her today, "I don't really like saying something if I have nothing to say." This is incomprehensible to her. Anyway, because of this super power of hers, I bribed Margret to come along with me to see Sylvaine. (Margret's a Starbucks junkie, so I told her that if she went with me to see Sylvaine, we'd get Starbucks afterwards).
We didn't have specific directions to Sylvaine's apartment--we just knew what metro line we needed to take and what street she lived on. So, we took the metro until our stop, came up the stairs, and started looking around. It was such a beautiful neighborhood. I really do love our house, but Margret and I live in the suburbs of Paris, where things are a little less manicured. However, where this woman lives in Paris, everything is so typically "Welcome to France", with the cute little creperies and boulangeries and people on the sidewalk playing accordians for money.
We finally found Sylvaine's apartment building. We walked in, and the interior was just so ornate. Everything was marble, there were real flowers on every mantle, two of the walls were lined with these floor to ceiling mirrors. We looked at the mailboxes, and noted that the majority of the people living in the building had the same last name: Collet. I rang up to Sylvaine's apartment, and in this really professional voice she said, "Hello? Who is it?" So, I explained who I was and that I'd come to have a document translated. She buzzed us in, and we took the smallest elevator ever up to her apartment (and just as a side note: there were only two apartments per floor.) She'd left her door open, and when we got off the elevator, she shouted, "Come in." So, we walked in, and this tiny dog was sitting by the door, eyeing us. The book shelves were full of books, but more notably, pictures of the dog who was still on the door step. There were also several black and white pictures of some old man.
Sylvaine was sitting in what I'd call the parlor, with a stack of papers on this tiny table in front of her. She had crazy curly black hair and little glasses that were sliding off the end of her nose. Of course, being French, she was wearing all black. I handed her my birth certificiate and she looked over it, and assured me that the translation would be very easy. She and Margret chatted a little about the weather and how beautiful Paris is and how spring will come soon. The whole time, I kept staring at Sylvaine thinking, "I bet she's famous." Of course, there was the obvious question: why would a famous person translate random documents for random people and sit with her dog at a desk in the parlor wearing black? Still, I felt that she acted elitist and frosty enough to be famous.
We left, and I said to Margret, "Do you think she's famous."
Margret shrugged.
I said, "I bet this didn't used to be an apartment building. I bet it used to be one huge house and all these Collets lived together."
"Doubtful," Margret said.
But I insisted that there was something "too good to be true" about this all.
As we were leaving, I decided to look for proof of famousness. I looked at the floor, the ceiling, and lastly, I looked at the walls on the outside of the house. Guess what I saw?
A plaque hung by the door, and it said "Henri Collet, writer, musician, and critic, lived in this house."
So, moral of the story: Sylvaine was not necessarily famous, but I wasn't completely off-base with my guess. She's got a famous heritage. That's something cool, isn't it?
And just to prove (to whom? I don't know....myself?) that the plaque and the man listed on the plaque were real, I got home, and googled Henri Collet. Sure enough, he was real, and most likely, he was the old man in the black and white pictures.
So, just to say it one more time--today, I was at the home of Henri Collet, someone who might possibly have been mildly famous.
The end.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Collet