Reflections on the program.

Time passes so strangely.


It is almost evening. The strange black birds with the white striped bellies are nesting quietly in the garden outside. I can hear them cooing softly. The train station in the distance is oddly silent today. The workers are on strike and the train will come only once every hour. The sky is grey and is covered with thick fluffy clouds. If I didn't know better I would think that they were pregnant with snow. 


My thoughts, like the sky outside, are a little foggy today. 


It's hard to believe that I've been in Paris for eighty three days already. Hard to believe that ninety three days ago I was sitting in a cubicle half way across the world and dreaming that I would soon be here. I had been planning this for so long, and le voila, here I am, one week before the holidays in my little cottage on the outskirts of Paris, and thinking of all that I have seen and experienced since I moved here. 


I am feeling very grateful today.


If someone nearing the end of their college career were to ask me if I would recommend the assistantship program I would say, without a moment's hesitation, to go for it! Oui, I would recommend this program in a heartbeat. It really is an ideal opportunity for someone who loves to travel, has some sort of interest in teaching, and who wants to work on their own foreign language skills. Even if at the end you decide that teaching is not for you, I am sure that you will not regret coming. As a wise writer once said:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. 

So send in your application, start brushing up on your francais, and come sing English songs to little French kiddies for seven months! Trust me, it sure beats trying to look productive for eight hours at a desk job. Having to minimize facebook compulsively in a cold, cramped cubicle is a lot more exhausting that being an English assistant.


One of the reasons that I think I am enjoying this so much is because I honestly believe that what I am doing is important. I don't know if I am being overly optimistic but I really think that I am helping to make a difference in these kids lives. Giving them a head start with a language which will no doubt be of  great use to them when they get older. I can say that for one of the first times in my life, I feel like my talents are being used correctly, and it is a great feeling.


That's what it's all about isn't it? Trying different things, and different jobs until we find our place in this world. Every one of us needs to find what they are meant to be doing. There needs to be a sense that you are using your talents in the best way possible and it sure is nice to be part of something that you believe in.


I would love to see a program like this in my own country. Some sort of exchange program to bring over Spanish speaking students to the island to introduce our Trini children to the language. It might even help our government with their lofty plans to have a bilingual nation by the year 2020.


-----


Night has fallen, and the sky finally has cleared. I can see the sky so clearly tonight. There are no more clouds to hide the moon. The stars join together in our human imagination to form the big and little dippers, those two giant soup spoons that hang silently in the cosmos. Imagine I had to come all the way to France to see the stars. I wish I could see them from my house in Trinidad. But you see, where I come from the neighbour hood lights, blazing bright to catch the criminals, blind us from the beauty that hangs above. Thank God there are still places on the island that are dark, and wild, and beautiful. Places where we can still see the stars, and where we can still dream.


My thoughts are still dancing all over the place, and my bed is beginning to call out to me.

Good night world.

Obscure French Signs Part II

Found this one near to a church.

'Smiting Zone - Sinners Beware' ?

Le 'F' Word

No, no, I wasn't reading dirty magazines in French . This enlightening article about the correct use of the English 'eff' word was actually in '20 minutes', a free daily paper that's handed out in metro stations. A daily paper read by thousands upon thousands of commuters on their way to work. Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that English is indeed the current lingua franca of the world, and I know that speaking good English is a huge asset when applying for a job in these parts, but surely, surely there must be other words that need to be taught to the general public before this one.

Now, I'm no prude, but I must admit that the unhibited use of English curse words in the French public media kind of makes me cringe. Children could be reading this for Pete's sake! And hear nah, this liberal use of the F bomb is not limited to the press either, no sir, it's also in the uncensored American music played non stop on the radio and even on popular day time television programs.

There is, for example, this game show called "Tout le monde veut prendre sa place" which involves trivia questions, singing, and a whole lot of small talk between the host and the contestants. The host Nagui, normally quite charming when chatting in his native French, just loves to throw random English phrases into his banter, because, you know, speaking English is just sooooo hip. The problem is his English is normally littered with curse words. I actually heard him once say to an elderly contestant on the show (who had just gotten a question wrong) "Aye, what zee f**k is wrong with you man? Are you f**king stoopeed?" Keep in mind this is a so called 'family friendly' program. Oh la la.

Who knows, maybe this whole working at a primary school thing is starting to bring out my protective paternal side. Or maybe it's just taught me how careful you have to be when talking to children. I've seen how these kids like to hold on to random English phrases, and for some reason the ones that normally stick in their heads are those that they shouldn't know how to say in the first place. These petits diables would refuse to answer you when you ask them their name, have no idea how to count to ten, but will take great delight in belting out a nasal hollywood inspired "Oh - my - god" intermittantly throughout the class. Who knows what they would be saying by the time they turn eight.

That's why I couldn't believe it when one of the head instructors suggested in a staff meeting that we teach the kids how to say their names by using Eminem's 'My name is Slim Shady'. Ok, granted, the kids would probably think it's cool, and yes, the absolute only part of the song that they would understand would be the 'my name is slim shady' part. But I would just feel way, way too dirty standing in front of that class of little ones and having to listen to Eminem singing:

Walked into a strip club. Had my jacket zipped up. Flashed the bartender then stuck my d**k in the tip cup.

Call me old fashioned, but I'd just rather we stick to the good old "Hello song". This way my conscience wouldn't have to gnaw at me at night while I try to sleep.

---

Below is a Dutch commercial for English lessons that kind of demonstrates what I've been talking about. Please note that it is both VULGAR and UNCENSORED. You have been warned :)

Pic of the day - La Foire au Gras

La gourmandise, ce n'est pas manger trop, c'est prendre du plaisir à manger. Alors qu'il n'y a aucune raison de s'interdire le plaisir de manger, de boire, de converser, d'écouter de la musique, de voyager.

Gourmandise does not mean overindulgence, it means taking pleasure in eating. This way there is no reason to forbid the enjoyment of food, of drink, of conversation, of listening to music, of traveling.

- Michel Onfray

Paul's pay day plat du jour:-

Succulent filet of trout sauteed in butter and topped with tender morcels of lightly fried foie gras. The dish is complemented with a rich, buttery, citrous spiked foie gras reduction and served with a simple salad of julienned spinach and fresh raspberries. 

Nothing wrong with a little carnivorous indulgence every once in a while, right?

Haiku for Homesickness

Tobago

Break through tranquil sea,

Keep eyes closed and listen well.

The ocean pulses.

Stories by the Fire (Listwa bò difé-a)

Come child. Come and let me tell you a story. Sit still. Pa bwennen twòp, ok? People starting to forget child, and that is why I must tell you these things. Cause you see, if these things get forgotten, if people let these things go, that is when the real trouble will start, you hear? These kind of things don’t disappear, doux doux.  They hide in the shadows and in your nightmares and they wait for that day that someone will start to believe in them again, and trust me child, there will always be someone to believe in them. Es ou konpwann, doux doux?

You have to be careful. Here, take the stick, child. Draw a circle. We have to keep them  things out. Keep them far from our souls. Make it wider, child. Wider than that. People can’t take any chances these days. That is good, child. Watch the moon, doux doux. Watch how it getting thin and covering itself up with black sky, and watch up there, child, watch how the stars getting smaller and shrinking back into blackness. Bondjé. That is bad luck child. That is how we know things getting bad.

 Come, come child get that fire going stronger. Throw the wood in. We need fire to keep them things away. Yes, like that, child. Throw it in. No, don’t throw in the wet ones, doux doux. You want us to get caught out here in darkness? Sé sa ou vlé, eh?If that fire get out is you, me, and the devil to keep company, eh.

 Listen, child, you see back before you and I was born, things were different here. It was not just people and animals walking on this beach. Not just that at all. It had spirits too, child. Jumbie is what we called them. Dark spirits. Jumbie that had so much hate in them that they would burst into fire in the middle of the night sky. You know what is that, child? To be on the beach and then look up and see jumbie burning up like fireworks? Non, ou pa konpwann.

Oh, no, don’t frighten, doux-doux. Look I here with you. I here, and we have a circle, and we have a fire. Jumbie can’t hurt we here, child. But you have to listen. You hear the waves, darling? You hear how the ocean breathing and crashing on the shore? She knows the stories, child. Listen to her.

Pic of the Day - Dîner

La simplicité est la sophistication suprême



Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication 


- Leonardo de Vinci




Living on a language assistant's salary is definitely teaching me a thing or two about how to budget my money. It's also causing me to completely change my cooking style in order to avoid starvation.


You know, I was just too damn spoilt back home. That's the problem.  And now, instead of being able to reach in to Mummy's well stocked cupboard and throw toute bagai into my dishes, I have to watch what I use. Talk about pressure! So my new method is to try and pull as much flavour as I can out of as few ingredients as possible. Which, I am told, is actually the entire philosophy behind French cooking. Interesting, non?


Well that fab' dinner you see on top consists of sauteed sweet potatoes, baby lettuce served with mozzarella and a drizzle of truffle oil, and some kind of fish (can't remember what it was) that was cooked in its own juices and flavored with garlic, thyme, and bay leaf.  Talk about yummy. And believe it or not this gourmet dish cost me the grand total of da da dum - 1.50 Euros! No joke. Seriously, if you do it right, groceries in France are ridiculously cheap. Not too mention the wonderfully affordable outdoor markets that they have here on the weekends. 


So, voila, there's some good news for anyone considering coming to France to do the Assistantship program - you won't starve.

On Wandering

Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the Universe.

- Anatole France

I love to wander around aimlessly. It's without a doubt one of the reasons that I love it here so much.

Paris is just such a wonderful city for roaming, you know? It's the sort of city whose streets twist and turn at unexpected corners, and whose narrow paths lead to the most unexpected of discoveries. It's the kind of place where you can roam about, swept up in silent reverie, for hours upon end, and only come to realize that time has passed when your stomach begins to grumble and you know it's time for a warm crèpe and a café crème.

It's strange how new and fresh everything seems to me here. I think that my senses have really been working on overdrive since I stepped foot in Charles de Gaulle airport. It's a strange thing to be in a country that looks, smells, and tastes completely different to your own.


I love to wander about Paris because there is just so much to see, so much to take in. It is a city which was designed to be beautiful, a city brimming over with art, a city that has the power to inspire. It's also a city in which I enjoy a feeling a relative peace and security.

Of course, I know, Paris is not perfect. There is trash on the pavement, and stray dogs on the streets. There are parts of the city which are evidently more dangerous than others. But what do you expect? Paris is not some whimsical dream. It is not Amelie and it is not Paris Je T'aime. It is a real city, full of real people, who have their own stories, and their own problems. Just like you and I. 


I know that bad things can happen to me in this city, just like it can happen any where else in the world. But that still does not stop it from being a magical place.


....

This morning I went for a walk in my neighbourhood. I started off from my cottage and walked along the Seine until I came across a wooden bench which overlooked a particularly beautiful part of the river. This is the same river that has inspired the paintings of Renoir and Monet and timeless poetry from Baudelaire, Apollinaire and de Musset.


I sat on there on the bench, rapt in blissful solitude, and my mind began to wander back to that place that I come from. My two islands, nestled warmly at the bottom of the Caribbean chain. Islands blessed with breathtaking natural beauty and year long warmth which should make them ideal for wandering. I thought about Mayaro beach, rugged and wild and spacious, and how much I would love to walk from one end of its coconut tree lined shoreline to the other at the crack of dawn. I thought about the beautiful waterfalls that lie all along the mountains of the North Coast. I thought about all the places that I would love to wander about in the islands whenever I wanted to and without any fear.

And then I thought about the horror stories that flood our nation's papers daily. Stories of innocent citizens being attacked. Stories that cause us to become paralyzed with fear.

I come from a place where I have been robbed of the freedom to roam. Being here is making me realize how much I missed that freedom.

This is How I Walk

His footsteps. sharp and rhythmic, echoed down the corridor, and echoed throughout all the ages of his life. They were his bell of mindfulness, yanking him away from the whirling mental turbulence, and linking him to memories of days gone by.

There had been so many corridors, so many solitary walks.

The sharp tac-tac-tac being belted out by his shiny dress shoes on the hollow wooden parquet faded slowly into the muted brushing of bare feet on dormitory carpet. The pounding of heavy boots on cold, wet, New York sidewalks played to the same rhythm as brown sandals slapping onto bare soles on hot Caribbean sand and pointed heels clicking on Parisian pavements.

He was moving all right. Walking the same path to nowhere that had been beaten and trodden by all those who had gone before him. The footsteps stretched out like a long chain in his mind, linking him to that dream like moment when he first found himself wandering about in this dream like world.

How the world had changed, and yet how familiar it all seemed. Even his feet had morphed and expanded, and even the shoes were ripping and tearing before his eyes.

His heart beat to the same rhythm as his feet. It moved to the same two step which beat constant and eternal throughout the cosmos, and which made today fade and tomorrow blossom.

He continued slowly and, now, purposefully down the hallway. One, two, one, two, one, two. He was a metronome amongst metronomes and, like all who had gone before him, and all who would come after, he waltzed to the eternal beat of the invisible conductor.

Click, clack, click, clack, click, clack, click, clack, one, two, one, two, one two one two one two one two one  two one toe one two

One Step Closer to Fluency

Written on November 21, 2010


Now, for a little update on my linguistic progress.
I was on my way to work, waiting for the train at Chatlet les Halles, which happens to be the biggest and busiest train station in all of Europe, when the PA system started to sound. Now, I have to admit that the last time I was in France I had a lot of trouble understanding announcements on public PA systems. The quality of the PA is normally bad, the sound quality muffled, and you have to compete with the sounds  of the station to understand what's being said. So you could imagine my surprise when I was able to understand every last word that crackled out of the tinny speaker.

Votre attention s'il vous plaît, suite a un incident technique dans la voie du train, le trafic du RER B sera fortement perturbé. Merci.

Instant comprehension! "Due to a technical incident with the train tracks, the RER B will be experiencing major delays." Holy crap, I understood everything! My French is on fire!

Wait a minute. The RER B? That's the train that I need to take to get to work. Major delays? Oh shit. That means I'm going to be really late. It also means that the train is going to look something like this when it finally arrives:

As if this wasn't enough linguistic progress for one day, I also had a charming encounter with a local French gentleman on the train. You see, I believe that in the midst of all the commotion to squeeze onto the train my backpack had somehow become entangled with his own.


Now, I must admit that I didn't catch everything he said to me the first time around. They just speak so bloody fast, these Frenchies. It's also a bit intimidating when you are in such close contact with so many native speakers who you know are judging your every grammatical mistake. What I heard first sounded something like this:


He...fi.. depu..leve...ton...ac...de...mer...!

Pardon?  Said I, wanting to make sure that I truly caught everything that was being said to me. Thankfully the Monsieur in question was nice enough to repeat his sentence word for word, and very clearly, so that I could understand.

J'ai dit enleve ton sac de merde, fils de pute!


Ah, yes, of course. How could I have missed it the first time?

Take off your f**king backpack you son of a b**ch!


Fluency here I come.

Pic of the Day - Petit Déjeuner

"...ça se voit, ça se medite, ça se mange"


"...it must be looked at, contemplated, and then eaten."




Anonymous French chef on TV talking about his philosophy on cooking.




I just want to say that this is my new breakfast of choice. Cottage cheese (or fromage blanc when I'm feeling French) with ripe figs and blueberries. Figs are one of these fruits that I've been eyeing up on the Food Network for quite some time because they seemed so exotic and cool looking (can't find these in Trinidad). Anyways, I was super excited when I saw them in the market and have been hooked ever since. Yum.

Pic of the Day - l'Ange

Si les anges volent, c'est parce qu'ils se prennent eux-mêmes à la légère.

If angels fly, it's because they take themselves lightly.

-Gilbert Keith Chesterton





This picture was taken during an organ recital at the Notre Dame. At the time, the ambience in the cathedral was somewhat chaotic as eerie tocattas and fugues were blasting out of the organ pipes at full volume. The picture, however, seems to invoke a feeling of serenity. Interesting, n'est-ce pas?

Forever cursed by cursive

I never imagined that failing penmanship in primary school would come back to haunt me.

But alas, life is full of surprises.

Well, it turns out that the French are really big on handwriting and penmanship plays a big part of the primary school curriculum. The kids are banned from writing in script and all of the teachers here have really nice calligraphy-esque handwriting.

My 'crapaud foot' handwriting, on the other hand, leaves a lot to be desired. If my memory serves me right, I got the impressively low grade of  'E-'  in penmanship class when I was in primary school and was the only kid to be banned from writing in cursive. I remember my report card said something like, "Paul tries. Poor handwriting may be due to muscular problems in the wrist. Please see a doctor."

Anyways here are some pics from my first day of school:

This is what the teacher wrote on the board while I was introducing myself to the class. There was just  one little thing that I had to write myself cause she didn't know how to spell it. Think that you can figure out which one it was?

The weird part is that every single one of the kids copied Diego Martin EXACTLY how I had written it. I couldn't figure out if they were trying to mock me or if they really thought that this is how it was written. Silly kids.

Pic of the Day - Fleur

Les hommes de chez toi, dit le Petit Prince, cultivent cinq mille roses dans un même jardin...et ils ne trouvent pas ce qu'ils cherchent...et cependant ce qu'ils cherchent pourrait être trouvé dans une seule rose...

On your planet, said the Little Prince, men cultivate five thousand roses in a single garden...and they still don't find what they are looking for...yet what they are looking for can be found in a single rose...

-The Little Prince

Antoine de Saint Exupery

Pic taken at the Musée Rodin

Pic of the Day - Lumière

Il est impossible d'apprécier correctement la lumière sans connaître les ténèbres.


It is impossible to truly appreciate the light without first knowing the shadows.

Jean-Paul Sartre

This pic was taken at the Notre Dame this afternoon. The rainy weather coupled with the spooky organ music echoing through the cathedral made for a pretty epic photo snapping session.

Let the blogging begin

Shame on me.

Five weeks in Paris and not a single blog entry. Not even a little sentence to say 'I have arrived'.

Ah, yes, laziness is ah hell of a thing.

In a way I think that it is probably a good thing that I have waited until now to start updating my blog. I say this because I very much wanted my blog to be an online celebration of my new Parisian life. I wanted it to be a positive place where I could share my impressions of, and experiences in this wonderful city. I wanted it to be a Caribbean boy meets Europe-discovers his true calling-writes a blog about it kind of thing. The last thing I wanted was for it to be an online bitch fest .

You see, I believe that I am finally nearing the end of what is commonly known as 'The Adjustment Period'. You know, that grueling but necessary period of transition to another country where one tends to feel constantly disoriented, confused, and helpless. A period when, due to cultural differences and linguistic handicaps, the smallest of tasks such as opening a bank account or applying for social security tends to cause one to become totally overwhelmed and throw a full on hissy fit. And human nature being what it is, I would have probably omitted all the wonderful experiences that I have had thus far in Paree, and focused all my energy on writing blog entries such as:

'Oh please sir, please, please, please let me open an account at your bank." - The joys of French banking.

or,

"Oopsy-Daisy, looks like there has been a little mix up and you won't be getting paid till the end of next month. Have a great vacation!" - Fun e-mails from your new French boss.

or even,

 '101 reasons why French bureaucracy will make you want to gouge your eyes out with a stale baguette'.

But now that I am feeling myself finally starting to settle into the Parisian way of life, and now that I am becoming a little more comfortable just shrugging my shoulders and muttering c'est la vie when things don't go how I expect them to, I think that I can afford to update my blog more often.

I have my visa! Joie!

Anyone, and everyone, who has ever had to apply for a travel visa knows what a total pain in the neh-nen this could be. Having had pretty rough experiences in the past at the American, Canadian, and Italian embassies, I had mentally prepared myself to deal with long lines, hours upon hours of waiting, screaming, condescending visa officials, and security procedures so tight that you are made to feel that your cell phone and iPod have suddenly become potential weapons of mass destruction.

So you can imagine my shock when I breezed in an out of the French embassy in twenty minutes, my stress level not having been raised even once while inside. The visa officer was pleasant, professional, and did not once make me feel like a criminal for wanting to spend time in her country. And while a part of me now feels like breaking in to a ten paragraph rant about all the injustices and humiliations that I, or people I know, have suffered while trying to obtain travel visas in the past, I will try to exercise some restraint, because you know what? I am in a great mood now! I have my visa! Next step, Paris!

Zee countdown has begun

Time continues to fly and my departure for France looms closer and closer. Six weeks. Well, forty days to be exact, excluding the entire day set aside for traveling from Trinidad to France, and even though I haven’t really had a lot of free time to think about my upcoming adventure, there have been a few minor happenings recently that have made it all seem a little more real. First of all, I finally received my arrêté de nomination, which is basically a job letter from the French administration which would allow me to get my visa – it’s my ‘golden ticket’ if you will and it’s one of the most important documents that I will need to survive in Franceland . Secondly, I reserved my flight. Date of departure - September 22, 2009. Proposed route – A 23 hour haul on British Airways from Port of Spain, Trinidad, to Paris, France, with lengthy layovers in St. Lucia and London. Tentative date of return to the island – Saturday May 15, 2010. Whether I will in fact come back home on this day, or whether I will change my flight and extend my European adventure, I can not say. As we like to say in my country, we go see nah!

So there you have it, I have my flight booked, my arreté in hand, and my visa appointment set up. All that is left to do now is wait, make some money, and enjoy the time I have left in Trini. I could also afford to start working on my tan. Indoor office life ent doing much for my complexion.

The Journey Now Start

Come October, I will be living and working in France as an assistant English teacher in one, or several, primary schools in Versailles. Yep, you heard right, for seven months I will be teaching snotty nosed 8 year old French kiddies how to count to ten, sing nursery rhymes and say "how do you do?" in a language that they have never been exposed to. And no, I have absolutely no teaching experience whatsover, and I think that the last time that I worked with kids is when I myself was one of them. So how did I get myself into this kooky situation you ask?

Well, you see, me and the French language have had a long standing love affair. From the moment that I first learnt how to say "bonjour" and "merci" in high school I knew that I would not rest until I was able to speak this beautiful language fluently. It was one of the few dreams that I never abandoned (being a professional squash player and a concert pianist kind of got left somewhere by the wayside). So to cut a long story short, over the last couple of years I ended up studying French and English in a university in New York during which time I was also fortunate enough to spend a semester abroad in Paris - and what a semester it was!

The following semester, after I had returned to New York, I was lucky enough to find out about something called the English Language Assistantship program where native English speaking students of French can apply to teach English in France for either seven or nine months. "Parfait!" I thought, and immediately began to go about getting my application together. And here I am now, six weeks before my scheduled departure for Paris looking back at the whirlwind events in the past, strung together delicately by my love for all things French, that have led me to where I am now, standing expectantly on the cusp of my European adventure.

So follow me if you will, as I capture my move from sunny Port of Spain to Paris, from roti to crepes, and from being Paul, recent college graduate availible for hire, to being Mister Paul, English teacher in Versailles, if you please!