Very much in France yet crossing cultures

Hi again,

I’m enjoying some lovely summery-spring weather and hoping it lasts until the weekend for my friend’s wedding. I’ve got my window wide open and I’m just hoping a bird doesn’t want to come into my room and say hello!

This week there has been a flurry of activity. I was quite pleased with myself for going to the pharmacy and the hairdresser’s for the first time in France. The pharmacy vocabulary was easier than the hair stuff, but both went smoothly! On Wednesday I was at work as usual when a colleague popped her head round the door and amongst other things told me that a teacher from Southampton University was visiting Rennes and she had arranged to have coffee with her at half five, and if I wanted to join them then I could. It turned out it was one of the nice teachers that I know, so I said I would like to. So we went for a drink and a crêpe and then my colleague had to leave to catch a train, but my teacher Juliet wanted to have a walk around Rennes for a bit so I gave her a little tour and we chatted away. She was very surprised by everything that I’ve been asked to do in my job and the lack of support given, but at the same time she was very encouraging and was impressed that I’d handled it and said it would stand me in good stead.

Last Thursday there was still no available video projector despite the fact I’d booked it again. So I’d made sure I’d prepared something else just in case which didn’t rely on a projector. I’m not taking the risk for this week as it’s the last class before their test, so I gave them homework with details of how to access the video on youtube at home and we’ll just do a short class going through the answers. In the evening after work I went on a prayer walk around Rennes with my house group which was good.

On Friday night we celebrated the 18^th birthday of one of my church friends, Sandra, who couldn’t wait to be 18. It was a relaxed evening with some of the food cooked Togolese-style and there was a fun African vibe to the soirée. Saturday night was also pleasant with our Indian friend Ruth staying over and cooking us a curry.

Then on Sunday my friend Halle came to see what our church is like as she’d been meaning to for a while and she is going to write some kind of guide for students as to what the different churches are like I think. A lady called Marie at church invited me round for lunch and said I could bring two friends so I took Halle and Manqi and we piled into the car with her three kids (9, 6, and 4) to go off to a village called Liffré to the north of Rennes. Another couple from church rang up to see if they could bring their lunch along and join us, so they did. We had a great time together eating and playing with the kids and talking to each other. Marie’s husband was away in Pakistan for a week leading worship at some evangelism meetings. He skyped during the afternoon for a bit and told us some of what was going on out there. They’d had more and more people coming to the meetings every evening (we’re talking increases of 5,000, so there were 30,000 on the last evening!). There were hundreds of healings (including the deaf, blind and lame) and thousands of people decided to follow Jesus! This was through the ministry of 3 ordinary guys who travelled across from France in cooperation with the local Pakistani Christians! Wow.

Fiona x

Mid-March mayhem

Hello everyone,

I’ve been encouraged to find out lately that a few more people read my blog than I thought! Thanks, it makes it worth writing!

C’est la fête !

Last Monday evening I participated in something nicknamed ‘la fête de la craie’ (Chalk party!) which consisted in going around the campus I work on with a bunch of other guys from the Christian student group chalking the name of a website called questions2vie.com (questions of life.com) everywhere to raise publicity for it. It’s a website which has been launched recently to allow French students to respond to and ask big questions about life and God. We split off in pairs to tackle different parts of the campus.

My friend Halle and I were sent to the part of campus which is most familiar to me – the part between the metro, the library and by L and B buildings. I felt like a right rebel doing it, but with the quiet assurance of my friend beside me and the fact that it was clearly going to spark interest (as soon as we started people were reading what we were writing) we soon started to have fun with it.

A colleague saw me in the middle of chalking and stopped to ask what I was doing, but it was alright as she’s a young Spanish lectrice like me so she didn’t think badly of me – to the contrary – she took a little card with the website marked on it and even said she might talk about it with the students! Right towards the end of the night as we were writing the website on the ground for the last time a security bod came over to us in a bit of angry state and asked us to stop. Oops. So we did stop – at ‘QUESTIO’ – shame we were in the middle of our biggest chalking! It looked a bit stupid leaving it at that, but we decided it best that we obey. We were worried after that that the bloke was going to go round with water and wash them all away (thankfully he was too lazy for that or God stopped him from bothering). Some of the others met a gendarme when they were chalking, but apparently he was cool with them saying ‘Oh it’s only chalk? That’ll soon disappear here in Brittany then!’

My friends at Agape set up a stand on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday on campus too to raise awareness and discuss questions with students as well and I think they had quite a good response (hopefully not just to the carambar sweets!).

Washing machine continued

You remember the start of the washing machine tale from last week? On Tuesday I nervously sat down to make a call to the company, encouraged by Manqi, and kept being given different numbers to ring. So on the 4^th number and after having some difficulty to find Michèle’s file on the computer, we got there and the man changed the rendez-vous to Friday, thankfully 5 days before the repair man was supposed to come.

I welcomed the repair man on Friday, turns out the ‘repair’ wasn’t much of a repair and is something an ordinary person is supposed to do to maintain the machine from time to time. He opened the compartment in the bottom left corner which is where things go which have come out of your pockets and the like. It stank and there were a lot of clothes fibres clumped up with a coin and a few bits and bobs, a lot of water came out too. He had a bit of a job getting it open! Once that was cleared the machine was happy again, he stopped it and it unlocked normally after a minute or so. He explained that some of his colleagues would charge 150€ straight up for that as they’d been called out for something which is not really their job! But he explained that he was nice so wouldn’t do that (and I think he took pity on me due to the fact my laundry had been stuck in the machine for 8 days and I was a young foreigner). So I was happy to get my clothes back and they didn’t smell too bad, so I gave them another wash and all was well.

Technology mishaps

Two weeks ago I came to playing a podcast to my listening class on my speakers only to realise it was far too quiet for them all to hear at the loudest setting. Panic! So I had to think on my feet and apologise to them. I gave them a choice of leaving and I would send them the link to the podcast online so they could do the task in their own time, or staying and I would listen to the podcast through earphones and project what was being said with my own voice so they could do the task in class. It was quite amusing to have to do it that way but 3/5^ths of the class stayed so that was how it worked. For my second listening class I dashed back over to my office and the staffroom and gathered extra equipment which would allow them all to do it normally.

Then last Thursday I had a shock when I wanted to use a projector for a listening task – listening to Jamie Oliver on youtube. I had put my name down for the projector two weeks previously and when I was in the day before I noticed another teacher had added her name to the sign up sheet, but wanted the projector for a longer time so she would take one earlier in the day. There are two so this should be fine, but occasionally one has been going walkies recently, so late on Wednesday afternoon I went to check if they were both there. Yes they were. Phew, things were looking good for Thursday. Thursday at 13:20, 10 minutes before class, I go to collect my projector and there aren’t any there. Then the other teacher who’s signed up walks in and I ask her ‘Are you using a video projector now?’ She said ‘Yes, I’ve just come to collect one.’ My face fell and I said ‘There aren’t any’. She was annoyed like me, especially as she had booked it for her students to do presentations with. How is it that both of the projectors disappeared between the end of the day on Weds and lunchtime on Thurs for neither of the two teachers who signed up properly to be able to use them?? I don’t know but it’s rubbish! I had to change my lesson round completely and I’m hoping I can get one this week.

Homesick

I’ve had quite a bad bout of homesickness recently, been quite down and missing my family a lot. Only got to hang on a week and a half now before I set off for England for a wedding and a short break.

Fiona x

Events of the past fortnight

So it’s been nearly two weeks since I last posted because a lot’s been going on!

First I’ll tell you about Katie’s visit which was rather successful I think. She arrived on Friday morning (3^rd March) bright and early on the plane and I couldn’t resist buying her a mini pain au chocolat from the bakery near the airport to say ‘welcome to France’.

On Friday afternoon, one of the highlights of the visit happened – a cookery class on how to make macaroons! Katie loves baking and she loves macaroons, and had attempted to make some at home but they didn’t go that well as they’re tricky to get right, so I decided to treat her to a lesson from a real French chef as to how to do them. Of course, I would have to accompany her and that would be nice for me too! I did nearly chicken out of booking it, doubting my French capabilities and whether I’d manage to translate what the chef was saying with all that potential specialist kitchen/meringue vocabulary, but then realised it was likely to be my only chance to do this and I should bite the bullet as a lot of it would be demonstrated anyway. There were 6 of us signed up for the lesson and all the ingredients were laid out ready and we had fun mixing, heating, piping, scraping and filling things in order to make some beautiful and tasty macaroon specimens. We made two kinds of macaroon case and four kinds of filling. As it happened the chef did do a lot of talking, but I kept up with him more or less, apart from the occasional moment when my mind drifted while involved in filling the macaroons and Katie wanted to know if he was giving any useful tips to the ladies next to us in response to their questions.

On Saturday morning we went to the marché des Lices (which I have recently learnt is the second largest market in France), to have a good browse, buy Dad some much-anticipated goat’s cheese and munch on a galette saucisse. We proceeded to wander round Rennes and the park ‘le Thabor’ where we saw some small birds trying to jailbreak and the interesting names of many varieties of rose (though of course the roses were not in bloom). Mid-afternoon we settled down to a drink and cake of the highest French standard in a lovely patisserie.

On Sunday we went to church and then afterwards we were invited to a family’s flat for lunch, fortunately an English-speaking family with three lovely kids (the ones I’ve done some babysitting for), so we had a really nice time there. On Monday we visited English club where they enjoyed meeting my sister and Katie was also charmed by them! Lunch was in a creperie for a good price and then we had a nice walk along the canal with changeable weather.

I took Katie to see the ludothèque too and we borrowed a game to play that evening with Manqi, Michèle and Andrew. Katie left the following day at lunchtime. We also fit in watching TV, going to the supermarket, and making muffins during our time together as well as lots of chatting of course!

Washing machine

The latest frustration here is a broken washing machine with my clothes locked inside it! Not fun as the repair man isn’t supposed to be coming until 21^st March and my clothes have been stuck in there since the 8^th. The reason for the repair being that far away is that Michèle arranged it according to her availability and she's away this week. I've got to put on my best telephone French tomorrow to see if they can send someone sooner!

Birthday

This weekend just gone I had the privilege of enjoying a Saturday birthday which is always nice. I had a lie in, ate a pain au chocolat for breakfast with Manqi, opened a few cards and presents (including a card which arrived from England with no postage courtesy of my Uncle!), and phoned home. Then I had fun making spring rolls with Manqi and we went on a short bike ride too. At 5:30pm my friend Halle joined us and we chatted away while finishing preparations for the evening. From 7pm a number of my friends joined us and we ate a meal together followed by a lemon drizzle cake and butterfly buns that I’d made. I was sung to in French and Chinese and found that 24 candles on the cake took quite a bit of puff! It’s the first time in a while I’ve had as many candles as my age. My friends all got me presents which I wasn’t expecting at all and some of the kind words in the cards they’d written were really touching.

Well I’d better leave it there for now, eh?

Until next time with love,

Fiona x