Mes premiers jours à Bordeaux

It has been almost a year since I moved to Bordeaux, and I believe its time for a few reflections on the whole experience. I couldn’t understand a word if French when I arrived. I had no idea how ostracizing it would be to live in a country, work in a school, or dine in an apartment in which I couldn’t communicate readily with the people there. On the flight from Amsterdam to Bordeaux, I struck up a conversation with the man sitting next to me, an old Bordelais who was busy reading Le Monde and taking advantage of Air France’s liberal wine policy. I told him in English that I was moving to Bordeaux and he asked how long I had studied French. When I replied that I had not, in fact, studied his language, his face changed from one of coldly interested bemusement to one of out and out disdain. I forgot the exact words he used, but his tone was clear enough. Il a pensé que les affairs n’irent pas pour moi.

I arrived to the city by taxi. The bright afternoon sun cooled by the breeze from the Garonne pleased me, as did the rows of grapes we passed along the way, each with a rose at its head to protect against a certain type of disease common to vineyards. I met Iris, the girl I had found on appartager.com to be my roommate, and she whisked me around to diners and parties for the first week or so. I stayed with her some nights, with other of her friends other nights; for our lovely apartment on 47 Rue de Begles was yet to be vacated by its current tenants. Finally we moved in; I collected my things from all over the city, met Hanna, our third roommate, and began cleaning one of the dirtiest charming little 3 room apartment I had ever seen!

The first week of October was an orientation of sorts to my new job. We had eight hour long meetings each day explaining how our contracts worked, what type of insurance we had, general job description stuff, etc. Or at least, that’s what some friends told me we had discussed; for, I had not understood a word of the meetings. not a word. My head was frantically trying to process this language, but I didn’t understand a word. It was wearying. By the end of the second week of meetings during the day followed by diners and fierce discussions of politics with Iris and her friends, I was exhausted. By the end of the forth week, my shocked brain learned to comprehend French. Of course I didn’t understand each word, still don’t; pourtant, j’ai compris. I could feel the computer in my head, physically feel it rewiring itself. It was an agonizing evolution. I’m not sure I could force myself through it again. Well maybe I could, but that is because there is something of the masochist within me…

After the orientation process, I was to present myself to my new school and my new principal. I woke early, dressed myself in the fashion, and rode my bike 3 kilometers outside the city center to Jean Cocteau, Ecole Elementaire. I clumsily asked the lady who came to the door for Madame la Directrice and was immediately whisked up the stairs into a small, poorly lit but brightly decorated office where sat Madame Gabrielle with her black frizzy hair branching out stiffly over her bare shoulders as though it had a volition of its own.

She wore thick dark makeup around her eyes, which, along with her coiffure and sharply manicured nails, added to her misplaced forest creature appearance. She was a petite, plump middle-aged lady stuffed into a long skin-tight black lace skirt with a generous slit up the leg, complete with fishnet stockings and dangerously high stilettos. Before her, rising out of the heaps of papers and childrens books, lay a tiny cup of coffee, a paper cutter, and a large hunk of uncut sugar. After kissing me with her rouge covered lips, she let out a shrill plaint in French about the lack of a proper sugar cubes for her coffee, and she violently lodged the hunk of sugar in the paper cutter’s teeth and shattered that hunk with all the force those fat little hands could muster. She finally succeeded in forcing a large shard of sugar into her petite little cup.

After a few minutes of confusion and chaos, she brought out her first English sentence. “vouldayoooleekatay, marie?” Oui Madame. And we went arm and arm down to find the other teachers in the break room. The chaos recommenced and I kissed a thousand strangers who soon after began arguing loudly amongst themselves about when I would come to whose class. I was sitting there with them, drinking coffee (for although La Madame had offered me a tea, she had done this so much as to propose a tea as to try a "proper" English sentence), but after the initial kisses, I was more or less irrelevant. After a half an hour or so, I was handed out a scratched out and scrawled over piece of paper that was my schedule for the next year. I was then led off to another office, where a haughty French man gave me important papers and asked me important questions, none of which I understood. After he left the room, a secretary came up to me and shyly asked in a heavily accented English (but in English!) if I would like some help. I gratefully accepted and we got to work on the nightmare of documents and signatures and letters that is the French bureaucracy. Monsieur Renault, the haughty French man who was in fact the boss of my boss (La Madame) returned and showed annoyance at the aid his secretary was giving me, but the work was for the most part finished, and I was soon released with orders to present myself for courses the following Monday. I went back to my dirty little pallet on the floor of 47 Rue de Begles and I slept!

My Bavarian Education

I just said goodbye to the people who have been my family for the past month. I cried when I kissed Hanna, and my eyes continued to glisten as I hung my head out the train window to spend a parting moment with the four of them. Hanna reassured me she would soon visit Bordeaux and Hildagard encouraged me with smiles and hand signals to dry my eyes--alles ist in ordnung, Mary! But the tears streamed down my face in spite of my efforts. I caught the eye of Harald and then those of his father and before I could blow a kiss to Hanna the train pulled her from my sight and headed off with a heavy thud towards Paris.

It is difficult to put words to their kindness and generosity. L'affluence d'émotions a l'air plus acceptable dans la langue française; donc je dirai tout simplement que j'ai passé des vacances de rêve chez eux. I felt like a child in the most positive sense. Everyday someone taught me something new. Hanna trained me in table tennis deftly hitting the ball ten times to the left side the tens times to the right side of the table, patiently fetching my wayward balls when I hit them into the garage, the flower garden, down the hill, etc. Helmut taught me to hit a tennis ball, cheerfully running back and forth across the court to return my clumsy serves in exactly the same spot on my side of the court.

One of the first mornings after my arrival we all decided to go to the lake for a day of wind sports. Hanna, excited to be on her surf board after months of waiting, was off like a flash, sailing skillfully against the strong alpine wind. Her father helped me construct a second sail and showed me physically what I was to do. I got in the water. Freezing cold lake I thought then (in fact it was only my second day in Germany and I had yet to habituate myself to the German taste for cold). I balanced myself on the board, feeling fairly confident--my legs firmly planted slightly more than shoulder length apart, toes spread, muscles engaged--fertig! I found the rope attached to the sail. Hanna had told me that I might find it a bit heavy the first time. What an understatement. The thing wouldn't budge--I mean not in a million years could I hope to lift this 5 million square meter submerged sail out of its lake. But Hanna's father continued relentlessly to advise in a language that I did not understand. And I, frustrated that I could not obey, tried again. This time slipped off the board completely. Halt! Halt! Halt! said my teacher, and without delay he went off in search of another boat onto which he loaded my board, my sail, and me. We rowed to another side of the lake where the wind was less strong. We reconstructed the sail, rather he constructed as I looked on, and I tried again. Harald arrived on his sailboat to translate the words of his father and lend me a hand. By now I was exhausted, but with Harald's help I managed to pull the sail out of the water and even sailed a few meters before losing my balance and tumbling back into that cold ass lake. When we arrived back at the house, my sentiment was still one of frustration. As I mounted the stairs, Harald, who as descending, tousled my hair as if to say cela n'est pas grave; I appreciated that!

Hanna's mom taught me how to make knudel--a delicious Bavarian specialty made from day old bread, eggs, herbs, and veggies. Her father taught me how to chose the ripe hazelnuts from the trees and how to crack them open with the light stroke of a hammer. Together, Helmet and Hildegard showed me the best places in the high Alpes to find wild mushrooms. I have no idea how we didn't get lost that day! Harald taught me some basic chess strategies. And Hanna, since the first day that I met her, has never stopped teaching me the most important things! From introducing me to the works of the Blaue Reiter, in particular those of Franz Marc, to showing me the proper way to tie the bow on the back of a dirndl, to explaining the petite nuances of French adjectives and their placements. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to spend time with this family and to have learned so much from each member. It all makes me feel so proud to be human!