The last update from Cambrai

Hallo, all.

As Dad and I are leaving on a train at 1.15, this is probably the last update from Cambrai. It's been a good seven months. A fantastic seven months, really, no major tragedies or disappointments, and lots and lots of joys to balance out any tedium.

The colza is in bloom (so Amélie tells me), and the fields that aren't green or dun or cream are preternaturally yellow, so bright that it almost hurts to look at them. It hurts to look at them anyway, given that I won't be seeing them for much longer. No more bus rides. No more waiting in the growing light and watching the buses uncurl like caterpillars. "J'aime me laisser conduire sur les chemins du cambrésis", they say on the sides: I love to let myself be driven along the roads of the Cambrésis. And it's true. But not any longer. I never did get off the bus on a random afternoon to play with the two dancing chocolate labs behind somebody's gate. Never got a photo of the chicken statue. Never ended up going to the lace museum after all.

But I did take my two favorite students to a café for their last class, and we had a very nice conversation, and then when I was going to pay, Virgil insisted on paying, like a gentleman. He'll do well in the U.S., and Astrid will do well wherever she goes. My wistful girl, hoping for so many good things. I gave her my Jane Austen seven-novels-in-one, because that was the best I could do to reassure her. And the teachers threw me a lovely little party on Thursday afternoon, soda and presents and the cookies I'd made and all the naughtiest kids, mostly on their best behavior. I nearly cried. They got me a book about the architecture and geography of the North, a little journal, and a comic about teaching and teachers, and I looked at everyone and thought how dull my weeks at home will seem at first, without these people to occupy me. I'll miss riding home with Christine or Amélie, and chatting with Virginie and Romain and Nathalie and Adrien and Marie Claude and Marie André and Stéphane and Stéphan and all the others.

The American-hating philosophy teacher never did say a word to me, though.

Sometimes I think I'll be lost without the spire of St. Géry to pull me home. It's visible from so far out of town, rising over the roofs, over the rolling fields. It's my landmark. It's home. Dad and I walked out along the canal today and ended up in a part of Cambrai I'd never been in, but I found St. Géry and then it was easy to get back. It's so beautiful, this town, and even though I've lived here for a while, it still startles me sometimes. There are big fancy beautiful things like the cathedral and the belfry and the chateau, and then there are the gardens with their elaborate planning. And simple things, even, like walking through the place with a cone full of sorbet, pear and blackcurrant. There was a wedding going on on the steps of the town hall, and everyone else was out at the tables of the cafés, stretching their legs into the sunshine and calling out to friends who walked past. There are a lot of delights in a small town. We went to the posh bakery for one last round of pastries and carefully avoided making coffee with Cata's filter that seems to be made from a sock.

Here are some photos of Cambrai, and the colza, and my students. I may continue to update this blog later, when the reverse culture shock hits, and I feel it's probably going to hit really hard. How will I go to the grocery store in English? What a strange thought. How will I find anything? How will I order in restaurants? When we were in England for a few days, I kept wanting to order in French.

No more lemon yellow kitchen. No more blue room (though my room at home is just as blue). No more cranky stove that wants to kill us and crazy washer that takes two and a half hours to do a load if you don't put it on the fast cycle. No more leaving clothes to dry on the rack. No more bags and bags of stale baguettes so that we have to invent recipes to use them all up. And it will be all right, but it's hard to know that now, even though I know it. On the plus side, no more French bureaucracy.

I've made a lot of friends here and had a wonderful time. I'm sure that if I could stay longer, it would only get better. But my students and a lot of the teachers have my email address.

I'll be glad to have a dryer again, and Mexican food and vegetarian food, and I'll be glad to see family and friends and the dog, but life in France is easy and sweet and I will miss it a lot. And for all the things I didn't do, there were plenty of things I did do. I went to Belgium, Sweden, and England (and will have gone to Italy). I picked up a bit of German and some Spanish. I learned how to cross the street (pretend you don't care if the cars hit you) and how to give guys in bars the brush off (grab someone else). I can navigate the Paris metro and the aboveground Paris, or really any Metro you throw at me.

And who can be sad when there is Italy, and sunshine? Not me. Or at least, I'll try.

Easter in Cambrai

Hello, all!

We've been doing Eastery things all day: an egg hunt for chocolate eggs, scrambled eggs from the eggs that Cata and I blew the insides out of so that we could dye them with the dye kit that Anna acquired, lots and lots of chocolate in general. I'm in the process of making a fruit salad and a big bowl of stuffing for the Easter dinner tonight, but the others have gone to MacDonald's for the second time today, so I have a free moment to write. We've got a rental car for the weekend and we're trying to make the most of it: last night we went late-night bowling in Douai, and tomorrow we're going to the Asterix Park for Easter Monday (I will avoid the roller coasters). But there's a sure sign Cambrai is moving up in the world. Not only have we got a MacDonald's (Macdo for the French), we recently acquired a Domino's. The delivery people zip around on their scooters and introduce the French to the height of American pizza, or something. Personally, I yearn now and again for Eureka, or for the fried tofu at Chuong Garden, or for any Mexican food at all, but I don't care about having a Domino's around, except as a status symbol. Take that, Paris! Maybe we'll get a Starbucks too! Except for the fact that we won't, and that's all right: everyone who lives here is resigned to the diminished importance of Cambrai, once the jewel of the Spanish Netherlands.

I've been uploading more photos and forgetting to tell you all about them, so there are some here of my visit to Paris on Tuesday, and here you can see more of England and Sweden.

I can't believe it's the last week. I can't believe my last week is a short week: no one works Easter Monday, and so I've only got Thursday and Friday. I'm going to bake cookies for my kids on Wednesday night, and maybe make a chocolate pie for the teachers' lounge. All the profs are stressed, because they've had conferences all last week that lasted until nine every night. Virginie just remembered some things she wanted me to do earlier and now there's not really time. Romain remembered that next week is my last week and that was both nice (that he knows when I'm going, and he knew when my birthday was) and sad, because it reminded me that I'm leaving so soon. I'll miss him, the beau gosse of the teacher's room, because he's a sweetheart, and he's really funny. And I'll miss the English teachers, of course: Virginie, to whom I belong, and Marie-Claude, who thought I should flirt with Gautier because it was Valentine's Day, and Veronique, who was sweet but not always communicative, and Severine, whom I almost never saw because she was off on maternity leave. The older man whose name I don't actually know who gives me mixtapes and talks to me about astronomy and local history. Adrien, who I talked to all day on Thursdays. Nathalie and Marie-the-sports-teacher, with whom I talked India and France. Marie-Celine, who was always frustrated that the naughty boys remembered my name and not hers, though I only came to class once.

It should be a fun last week though. I get to cancel one of my classes with my least favorite group of seconde to have a party with Marie-Claude's naughty boys, who are going to bring things to eat. It's the last round of football at Fenelon (for us) and Cata's making empanadas for everyone. I really ought to go to the lace museum in Caudry. At least I've eaten a croissant and bought a shirt with some French on it. My goals for France are accomplished.

Life will go on while I'm not in Cambrai. Next year the premiere and the seconde will have another assistant, probably, and maybe they'll behave better or maybe they'll behave worse with him or her. I'm kind of possessively pleased that Virgil and Astrid won't have any other assistant: they'll graduate and move on and do other things. So it goes.

Oh man, and now I have to start packing. How to clear up the detritus of half a year in another country? We've made the little white house our home. I've got papers and clothes and all sorts of things to range away or throw away.

Anyway, happy Easter to everyone!

la rather belle vie

It's another sunny Sunday: the weather's decided that it's spring again and so we've got the windows open. Mind, it might be France's idea of an April Fool's joke (which here is les Poissons d'avril - the fish of April). But the weather report says it will be lovely (or at least not-rainy) the rest of the week, which is excellent, as I'm off to Paris on Tuesday to visit a friend. Warm warm warm weather coming up, I hope.

Not a lot of things happened this week. We're all getting stressed and mopey about the end of school in two weeks. I've got to start sorting out my school paperwork, for one thing, and writing a letter to next year's assistant. Fortunately, the Moroccan prof said that I could stay in France and just move in with him, but I imagine his wife would be a bit cranky about that. Still, it's nice to know I'll be missed. The students had their best startled faces when I told them I was leaving forever after vacation. A lot of them I'll miss. Astrid and Virgil, my advanced students, the only ones who actually come to class (from that group) and the only ones I've had all year. Astrid and I talk about everything: her grades, how hard she works in school, how hard her brother didn't work, her life outside of school. Virgil is coming to the U.S. next year, repeating a year of high school before he applies to an American university, and he wants to badly to play or coach basketball. The passion in both of them is incredible. Then there's David, who always wanted me to come and play football (and I wish I could have), Teddy, who I always think is little and quick but who's taller than I am (and who is bright and sassy without being disruptive), and Nico, who is quiet but very thoughtful. François once came to class even though he's not in my classes anymore. The girls from seconde trois have started behaving, mostly, and it's only Vianney who needs some discipline.

I actually had the girls from seconde deux volunteering new topics for the opinion cards the other day. "I want to talk about the bureau de surveillants!" said one of them, so I let her, and she talked about how handsome Gautier is (true enough) and how funny Rudy is (I couldn't say) and it was nice to see the students' relationship to the professionals that are there to help them out. We also spent a lot of time this week talking about how cute Romain the Spanish teacher is. And it's true, he's a wonderful guy, but it's also really funny to see the dreamy looks on all their faces when they say, "I love zee Spanish! M. Delagrange ees beautiful!" And then they make up stories about how I must be dating either him or Matthias. Oh, tiny ones, thank you for assigning considerably more excitement to my life than actually exists.

It's coming up on the presidential election here and what I'm surprised about is the lack of advertising, in comparison to the U.S. elections. I've seen a few posters: mostly on one billboard on my way to school that was covered with Royale, then Sarkozy, and now Bayrou posters. None of those homegrown ads on tv, and none of the polished ones either (though we've mostly had the tv off). I hear the teachers talking about the candidates, but overall, there's a lot less frenzy. I asked Max if he was going to vote and he looked at me like I was a little bit stupid. "It's my duty," he said. "Everybody votes." It's funny to hear so little when I know it's actually a huge deal. France could have a woman president, or it could have a crazy racist president. Never underestimate the power of fear: unemployment is already a huge problem in France and a lot of people think that immigrants make it worse, so an anti-immigrant, pro-white-French stance (nos ancetres les Gaulois style) is very welcome to a lot of people. I was talking to my two boys from seconde quatre about immigration, because they're studying Ellis Island and such. I had them write a little narrative imagining they were immigrants: where they'd be from, where they'd go to, whether they'd try to keep their old traditions or really integrate. They decided to be Chinese people immigrating to the U.S. to get better jobs, but they wanted to live in a Chinese community, speak Chinese at home, and use chopsticks to eat. I pointed out that this was basically living out their old lives in a new place, and they nodded.

"So what is it to be French?" I asked. They conferred for a moment.
"To be married to a French person."
"So if I got married to a French person, I'd be French?"
They gave me the shifty eyes. "To speak French? To live in France?"
"I speak French and I've lived in France for six months. Am I French?"
More shifty eyes.
"What makes the French spirit different from the American spirit? Is there a difference?"
The bell rang while they were still thinking, but they were thinking. And that was wonderful. I gave them a little bit of my own opinion: France knows where its boundaries are. France lives inside its language and its hexagon and its fine old traditions. America always wants to discover something new, to go beyond. They nodded a little and said goodbye and left, but I kept thinking. There are so many different people in America that the identity of an American is necessarily fragmented. We eat so many different foods, we learn about so many different holidays and traditions, we're taught that diversity is the best and strongest way from the beginning. And it doesn't stop the prejudices, but maybe it helps. It doesn't mean that we get French or (much) Spanish music on the popular radio stations, but you can find bhangra in New York clubs, and African music, and all sorts. I can hear people speaking other languages on subways and street corners without feeling the need to turn and stare at the weirdos who actually know another language besides English (we've gotten stared at a lot lately for speaking English or German or Spanish). And I'm not ashamed to be an American. There are plenty of good things about America, along with the plenty of bad politics that gets us reviled by the rest of the world. Sometimes I'm ashamed of other Americans, when they forget there's more to the world, but then again America is so big and contains so much that it's almost understandable that people get wrapped up in it and neglect to notice the other countries. America is a microcosm of the world in the big cities, and the influence of the hundred different cultures filters even into the smaller towns.

In conclusion, I'm going to miss my students a lot, and perhaps reading American Gods in French all week has gotten me thinking a bit too much.

Paris in the springtime

We have just changed the clocks here in France, which suddenly meant that we all stayed up way too late last night, but people kept coming by for no apparent reason. And then they'd learn that it was my birthday and wish me happy birthday and ask all kinds of questions. But it was a good day despite the fact that we were all sick and/or lethargic. I made garlic mashed potatoes and fake meatballs for dinner and then later baked a cake from a plain mix to which we added cinnamon, nutmeg, and the maple syrup Aunt Mim sent. Tasty! We watched my birthday movie and then spent the rest of the evening listening to Disney music for reasons which are inexplicable.

Today is Sunday and it's after one, which means there's nowhere to go and nothing to do, but that's all right. We've all got books and more movies and things to eat and look at. Not nearly as exciting as Friday, when we took about a hundred students to Paris to go to a science museum (Palais de la Découverte) and the theatre. And of course, in my group were the only two students who have ever really given me a lot of trouble, but they actually behaved surprisingly well. They tried to escape the boring weather lecture, but everyone was trying to escape, and the girl was quite nice to me. It was the older boys who were worse behaved, and that was at the theatre. I can understand not really wanting to watch the play - it was baroque, and a bit odd - but be civilized, children. It was nice for me to get to hang out with the other teachers, as well: I know them all by sight, but I don't always know their names (because everyone knows me, so they forget to introduce themselves). We had a tasty dinner. Overall, it was still an excellent trip. We drove around the Arc de Triomphe, close enough to see the flame that marks the tomb of the unknown soldier, and we drove past the Eiffel Tower, close enough to see it from top to bottom (and the view from the theatre when it was lit up in the evening was gorgeous). Paris certainly is magical.

It's sad to think of how little time we've got left. Bit of stress in the maison blanche, but we try to work around it and not break into shouting or tears too often (only once so far, fortunately). I ought to start packing and tidying up, I suppose, or at least straightening up the things I'm going to leave for next year's assistant and writing my letter. Strange to think what I'll do without the beautiful tower of St. Gery to draw me home.

cloudy sunny cloudy sunny

In Cambrai the weather is cloudy but clearing, sort of. It was raining, and now we get drifts of white clouds and drifts of grey clouds and glimpses of bright blue sky. Now it's clouded over again, only to go sunny half an hour later. I'm sitting in the living room writing this: the window to the left and the one in front of me show slices of blue sky and bright sunshine, and the window to the right is thick cloud. Michelle's taking her visiting friends around for the tour of Cambrai and canal in a bit, but I think I'll stay in; I have some artsy and writing projects to finish. Steffen's sister and her boyfriend are here too. It's a big weekend for visitors! St. Patrick's Day, you know, which meant that all the pubs in town were serving Guinness and whiskey, and that everything was packed when we went out dancing and we couldn't even get up without losing our seats, so we didn't end up dancing at all, but at least I got a free Guinness glass (a tiny one). And then we came home and ate chocolate pie.

Today we have big plans to make spinach and goat cheese lasagna, since Cata's not back from Spain yet, so we can still cook with goat cheese without hearing a number of complaints. Though we might get some anyway - she didn't tell us what time she'd get home, although she got cranky with me for not saying what time I'd be home from England when I went. Ah, the joys of cohabitation. It is good generally, though: our tiny house that occupies three has so many unofficial inhabitants. Yesterday we even got Steffen to vacuum for us. Actually, he volunteered while I was sweeping in preparation to mop (and believe that the kitchen floor looks so much better than it did yesterday, given that at points I was on hands and knees with a sponge). So that was pleasant, having our half-housemate actually do some tidying up when generally we can barely coax him into doing the dishes. But he still can't cook for anything.

It was a good week at school. My classes that don't generally behave behaved pretty well, though I'm not sure they actually understood what the lesson was trying to convey. They're learning about the American west and the frontier and it's rather impossible to explain to French children what the frontier meant to the pioneers, and what it still means to the American spirit. The French have pretty much always known where their boundaries were since the time of nos ancetres les Gaulois. They've been conquered a lot more than they've been doing the conquering. I tried to explain how much hope the pioneers and the immigrants had for the wide, wild lands of the West, but the landscape is different, both physically and emotionally, from the soft rolling French countryside. So eventually we just played with the opinion cards. With the older classes, I had my favorite student show up with one of my kids from last semester whom I technically don't have anymore, but it's always nice to know that they like me enough to come to class even when they don't have to.

Next Friday I'm going to Paris with a significant number of the kids. We're going to the theatre. I'm not sure what we're seeing - some Russian or German play in French, I think - but it should be fun, and it's a nice little birthday present for me, since we won't be back until after midnight, and then it will be the 24th and I'll be 22. I've told Michelle I expect to see a frosted cake and a pile of presents on the table. And I get to go to Paris for my birthday like I wanted without having to pay for it! Nice! Although what I really wanted to do was pick up Fragile Things and take it to Neil Gaiman's book signing. I miss books in English. The French books I've found are kind of hit or miss. I read Powerbook by Jeanette Winterson in French and it was excellent, but the Discworld books are rather awful. I suppose I could get actual French books by actual French authors, but why on earth would I want to do that? They're probably all depressing. (I'm kidding, but only half.)

I've done the dishes, and I can't do any laundry until Steffen's is done, so I suppose I'll go back to futilely trying to copy my music off my iPod onto the computer. Oh, Windows Vista, you're certainly pretty, but you give me problems. Or maybe I'll attempt to perfect my Scouse accent before the Liverpudlians get back, so they can be amused.

Have an excellent Sunday!

springtime in Cambrai

When I left for Sweden, I stopped at Odéon on the 4 Metro Line for a lot of coffee. Paris in the early morning light was curled into itself like a snail shell found in a garden, each arrondissement pearly under the weak sun of the end of winter. Paris, city of love, city of lovers. I have not found love in Paris. For me, it is a city of bridges and of keys. I do find keys in Paris: a tiny anonymous key to one of ten thousand interchangeable locks on diaries with pasteboard covers. Someone's house key, which I left on the curb where I found it, though I took the small one. There are a million others just like it.

When I left for Sweden, Paris was shading towards spring and Stockholm was still locked into winter, snowy and slushy and chilly. Not as cold as Iowa, certainly. Stockholm lacked some of the bone-chilling cold of Iowa, certainly: it never really got below freezing. It was like home, really, about as cold as Arkansas, with considerably more snow. And it was pleasant. Fewer blond people than one would expect, but cobblestones and twisty streets like France. And to me, the Swedish subtitles looked a bit like German, at least enough that I could recognize some words. But it was a wintery place, and we ate wintery food, like the goat cheese with walnuts and honey and lingon jam that I had in the vegetarian restaurant, and the roasted veggies Angie made.

When we landed at Beauvais, outside of Paris, it was spring. The fields were greener under the brighter sun, and the sides of the road were touched with color: white from the snowdrops and the shrubs and trees like popcorn and the daisies buttoning down the grass, pink from some other sort of blossoming tree, and yellow from dandelions and daffodils and the forsythia. The light has gone from winter silver to spring white gold, and outside the maison blanche, there are violets. We've started taking long walks by the canal on the more and more frequent sunny days, just because we want to bask in the sunshine (and hey, Mom, I'm wearing my sunscreen that smells like India and everything). Cata has a photo of me standing under one of the trees that's just exploding into blossom, and none of us can stop smiling. Even though it's still a bit chilly, we have the windows open to let in the fresh air, and it's warm enough to go out without a coat.

There's an organic market today across town, but we're not going, because it sounds more fun to sit on the Grand Place and eat ice cream. If that isn't a spring and summer food, it's hard to say what is. We keep buying fruit for the house as well, a sure sign that winter's slipping away. I may make a fruit salad later: we've got a can of lychees and a can of mangos and a couple of yellow plums and nectarines that need using and I've got my trusty shaker full of ginger. Plus, I've started drinking coffee (with cardamom and cream, generally) instead of tea. Change of season.

Work starts again on Monday and I'll be glad enough to go back. I miss my students, and I like having a little more structure to my day than "Wake up, stumble downstairs, eat some yogurt, and argue peaceably about what we're going to do for the rest of the day, which ends up being sit around with our various computers". Although on Wednesday, we did go to Valenciennes to teach Cata how to bowl, and to play pool and air hockey and dance on the Dance Dance Revolution machine and wow some schoolchildren with our impressive skills. I've lost three fingernails this week: right thumb and ring finger to the bowling ball, and then right index at random. I also cut partway through my left index fingernail while I was slicing up (vicious! Lethal!) stale bread to make a vegetarian loaf. Been a bad week for my hands.

After this, only a few weeks of school left! Tragic. But for now I'll just try to enjoy the moment. Some of the old German assistants from a few years ago are visiting, and they've shown us some of their old favorite places around town, which are our new favorite places. So we're off to bask in the sunshine and chatter away in our patois, and it'll be lovely.

not France but Sweden!

Hello, all!

This is my last day in Stockholm with Angie! It's been a great vacation. Extremely relaxing. We've just been wandering around the city, eating vegetarian food, talking about our favorite tv shows, and comparing the various countries we've visited. Last night we went out to a sports bar to watch some song competition having to do with Eurovision and free slots left. There was a lot of cheering and a lot of hissing going on. The place was packed! And then we did karaoke. I have learned some important Swedish phrases from watching this and some random television, such as "jag måste kyssa dig" (I must kiss you) and the words for "naked", "wonderful", and "for king and country". So that will serve me well. But I can also say "I don't speak Swedish!" and "Do you speak English?" so that's all right.

Today I think we're going to visit some gardeny place and I'll teach Angie how to use the newly augmented contents of her spice collection. The weather hasn't really been the best for sightseeing - rather slushy and cloudy - but it's been pretty mild. The girls were afraid I would freeze, but it's so much warmer than Iowa was. Colder than Cambrai, but often enough above freezing, so I am toasty as a little piece of toast in my coat and scarf. No problems. But their concern was cute. It's so nice to actually find vegetarian food in Sweden. In the restaurants, in the grocery stores, wherever you go, there's always some vegetarian option, and it isn't a salad with the meat hastily taken off. Plus, there's lingon jam everywhere, and that's almost as tasty as cranberry sauce. Mmmmm. I approve of Sweden, yes, I do. It is clean and fairly friendly and easy to navigate. Expensive, though. I keep trying to divide kronor by rupees instead of Euro, and that's bad news for my bank account. But! In general everything is lovely.

It's been strange to come to a place where it's dark at six again. In Cambrai it's been so light that I don't wake up to church bells anymore: starting at 3.30 or so, I can wake up to the chirrup of birds in the trees and on the theatre, and some of the trees are budding and blooming. Hopefully the frost won't kill the blossoms. But here in Stockholm, it's still brown and bare, except for the snow and slush. This is the farthest north I've ever been! How exciting.

I had some more things to relate, but they've slipped my mind for now. The rest of vacation looks to be incredibly relaxing. The girls and I have been cleaning the house and cooking a lot. There's fruit in the maison blanche again, which is good, and we've all been paid, which is excellent. I have some writing to do when I get home. It's so strange to think that after break, there are only five more weeks of school and then it's over. I can't believe it's March already. At least I've got birthday plans to distract me. Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite authors, is having a book signing in Paris on the 24th, so I think I'll play the birthday card until someone comes with me. It'll be great.