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.


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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.