A Bit about Africa

OK, my highlights turned out reasonably well; I have gotten the appropriate amount of caffeine into my system; and life is looking much more bearable than it did this morning.


So let me tell you a little bit about my experiences in West Africa. I had visited this country once before, in 2002, when I was working for nGo. That was a very difficult trip for me, in part simply because I really, really, really do not cope well with heat and humidity, so I always have a hard time in Africa. (I suppose I should have foreseen this issue when I sought a job which would combine my interest in international development and French, but I blame my high school career counselor for not better thinking this through on my behalf.) Since nGo was a small, start-up, non-profit organization, I generously offered to save them money by sleeping at their office in West Africa, rather than spending money on a hotel. I had been assured that the office had everything I would need: a bedroom, a bathroom, etc. I forgot to mention to nGo that my needs also include air conditioning and dependable running water.

The first night, a steel band at the bar across the street from the office played "No Woman, No Cry," which I initially found charming because it made me think of the boy I was in love with at the time. But after a week of sleeping on a rock-hard mattress, sweating through the un-air-conditioned night, having only a bucket of water to bathe with, and with my head pounding as they screeched out "No Woman, No Cry" over and over and over again, not only did I get over the song, I also got over the boy.

I did, however, have the opportunity to make some really incredible field visits during that 2002 trip, and the photo above is from one of those visits.

For my trip this week, I stayed at a comfortable, air-conditioned hotel, with a lovely, working shower. It was an intense week of work: I arrived at about 8 pm last Sunday, worked hard all day long every day, and continued the work at my hotel in the evenings, before flying out on Friday evening. So except for lunches and one dinner at local restaurants, and being driven around to a few different organizations for meetings, I really spent the whole week going nowhere but my hotel and the office. But that was okay. I was working with the Corporation's local affiliate office, and I really enjoyed working with the West African team: they all seem smart and motivated and hard-working and kind, and we had a good, productive week together. It was fun to get back into the swing of my own profession, and to be working with people I respect. I'm getting more and more excited about my work for the Corporation. And we all believe in the importance of the work we're doing. The photo on the right is the view from the air-conditioned comfort of the Corporation's Local Affiliate office.

The week was not without its moments of heat- and humidity-induced crisis for me. I had an outside meeting on Tuesday in an office where the air-conditioning wasn't working properly, and by the end (after taking off my jacket and spending most of the meeting trying to mop sweat off my face with a soggy tissue), I had stopped listening and was focusing all of my mental energy in maintaining my body's cellular integrity, because I was fairly convinced I was simply going to melt. So when we drove to the next meeting, at the building of some Powers That Be, I noticed from the outside that most of the building's windows were open, concluded that there must be no air-conditioning, and left my suit jacket in the car. When we got inside, I discovered that the meeting (actually, a ceremony for the signing of an Important Document between the Powers That Be and the Corporation's Local Affiliate) was much more formal than I had imagined, being held in a refrigerated room filled with an enormous table of about 50 people, at which I was seated very near the head. Where all the TV cameras were located. Suddenly, my tank top seemed less than appropriate, so I ran out to try to find our car and driver and retrieve my jacket. No luck. When I went back in and mentioned to my colleague how embarrassed I was to be so under-dressed, he very nicely called the driver's cell phone and had him bring me my jacket. So I was saved from sartorial shame in front of the Powers That Be of West Africa and the U.S. of A. Since the signing ceremony started over an hour late, however, the TV cameras still had plenty of time to film me in my tank top and show it on the evening news. My mother would be so proud!

What's my sign?

I'm a Cancer. The Crab.

My flight back from West Africa arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport at 6:30 this morning. Spending a night trying, unsuccessfully, to get some sleep while crammed into an economy-class seat did not allow me to start the day with my normal bright and sunny disposition. OK, that's a total lie: my normal disposition is neither bright nor sunny. I'm a Crab. Rephrase: Spending a night trying, unsuccessfully, to get some sleep while crammed into an economy-class seat did not allow me to don the mask of civility with which I normally attempt to face society.

As my plane was landing, I realized that this was the next-to-last time that I will land in Paris while I still call it home. The next-to-last time that I will be able to get through passport control at a Paris simply by showing my residence card, no passport required.

So I started my day tired and sad and Crabby.

Things are not getting better. When I got home, I:

1. immediately checked my e-mail, because my U.S. moving company was supposed to send me the moving contract. Instead I had a message from them saying that their French partner company insists that they can't fit me in on June 23-24, the dates we've agreed on all along, and the other French companies that my U.S. company has contacted want $3000-4000 more to do my move, which would put the total price way over my budget. The U.S. company helpfully told me I should find another moving company of my choice. I must think of a way to thank them for this wonderful advice! Fortunately, I had been waiting to receive the actual contract before notifying the two other potential moving companies that I had chosen another company. This means that technically, I still have two other valid offers outstanding, both of which are from lovely and professional (please God!) French companies, and both of which are in the form of actual contracts which I should be able to just sign. Unfortunately, only one of the two potential contracts is within my budget, and it requires me to pack all my non-fragile belongings myself (the packing of 100% of my belongings was the big advantage of the offer from the stupid U.S. company). I left messages by e-mail and mobile phone with the cheaper French mover, to try to make sure that their offer is still valid for a move date of June 23-24. It most likely will be fine, but I probably won't have a firm answer until Monday (or Tuesday, since I'll be en route to DC all day Monday), and I'm going to be stressed until I have confirmation. This is a major annoyance to be dealt with, and I'm going to have a lot more work to do now, packing stuff. And that makes me Crabby.
2. called my friend A to cry on her shoulder about this tragic turn of events. That made me feel a little bit better.
3. went to bed for a couple of hours to get some sleep and try to see the world in a better light. Any positive effects from the sleep were erased immediately after, when I
4. picked up my mail for the last week and stopped by the building superintendent's apartment to pick up a package. She pointed out (rather snarkily) that I had had a letter returned for insufficient postage, and she'd had to pay 1.05 euros on my behalf. So I went to get her 2 euros to shut her up, and looked at the returned letter. It was the letter I'd sent to the French unemployment office right before my trip, to tell them I couldn't be present for my mandatory appointment on May 26, because I was going to be out of the country. The copies of my consulting work contract and plane ticket, which I attached as proof of my trip, apparently put the letter over the weight limit. So now the French unemployment office may cut off my benefits because I missed a mandatory appointment without proper advance notification. I'll resend them the letter in the "returned" envelope, plus an additional explanation about why they didn't receive the letter beforehand. I'll also try to call them on Monday before I board the plane. Best case scenario, this is yet another administrative annoyance that I have to deal with. Worst case scenario, the lack of a 55 cent stamp just lost me about half my income. That makes me Crabby.

I will tell you a bit about my trip to West Africa later, when I hope that I will no longer be filled with hatred for all of humanity. Right now, I need to go try to find some positive energy somewhere. I'm supposed to get my hair done in 1.5 hours, and I don't want my hairstylist to catch my current bad juju while she's doing my hair. Bad highlights would make me Very Crabby.

P.S. I forgot to tell you about the very worst thing of all! The package I picked up had some French books and CDs and DVDs that I had ordered online. One of the books is the last in a series that I own, so I made sure to order the edition from the same publisher as the rest of the series, so that all the books would match (things matching is something I'm very Particular about). Well, the publisher changed the cover design and the color of the side binding, so my new book does not match the others. Bad moving experiences will eventually be behind me. Bankruptcy, I can recover from. But this unmatched book will be on my shelves forever. Clearly, my life is ruined. Why do bad things always happen to me?! Also, my friends often say I exaggerate, which is obviously an unfair and completely baseless accusation. The whole world is out to get me, there's just no other explanation....

The Dangers of Underpacking

Well, here I am at the airport gate, with a wi-fi connection and an hour to kill before boarding my flight to West Africa, so I'll make good use of this time and share a little story. After all, what else do I have to do? Other than the hundreds of pages of project documents I'm supposed to read and revise, of course. 'Cuz let's face it: that's boring. It's much more fun to write stories for my readers.

*****
My name is Stephanie, and I am an overpacker. ("Hello, Stephanie!")

I've always thought that if something is worth having, it's worth having along on a trip. And to be honest, I've rarely suffered any negative consequences from my little "problem." I always have outfits for any occasions, medication for any illness, and sunscreen for any skin type. I'm the girl who has wet-wipes in her purse to give you after you finish peeling that sticky orange and a miniature flashlight on her keyring to keep us from freaking out when we're stuck in the dark elevator during a power outage (true stories both, by the way). In return for these inestimable advantages, I will sometimes ask (well, "force" is probably the more accurate term) you to carry my suitcases for me. But I think it's well worth it.

Oddly, I had never once had to pay a fee for excess baggage until this January. And that was just poor organization on my part: I unthinkingly put all the heavy stuff in one bag, and once I shifted between suitcases for the final leg of the journey, it was fine. In any case, $50 was a small price to pay for everything that that airlines have let me get away with over the years.

But it does occasionally occur to me that maybe I could scale back a bit. I see other people on planes easily lifting and stowing their teeny-tiny carry-ons into the overhead bins; I think that maybe it's not quite normal to have "Take preventative Advil for imminent back pain" on my travel checklist. So for this trip, I thought I'd see if I could travel a bit lighter. After all, it's only a 6-day trip, and I can probably do without my heavy sweaters during the rainy season in the tropics.

And I succeeded admirably, by my standards: my rollaway carry-on with computer and essential work papers closed without forcing, and I almost managed to get everything into my rolling garment bag. But I did end up bringing along my smallest duffel bag as well, just because my toiletries case is a bit too thick for the garment bag. The little duffel is only half-full, however, and I resisted the temptation to fill the empty space! I am, indeed, a paragon of self-control.

I got to the airport and checked in with two bags, first the little duffel, then the garment bag. As the garment bag rolled up the little conveyor belt and through the rubber curtain to make a sharp right onto the main conveyor belt for the entire airline, I saw something amiss and told the desk agent that I thought my first bag was stuck in the joint between the two belts. She raised the curtain and said, "Great, now both bags are stuck!" She turned off her small conveyor belt and opened a big access door to be able to reach back onto the main belt, but she couldn't get the bags unstuck. She asked another agent to help her, and the two of them together couldn't get the bags unstuck while the main belt was still running. She called a central airport number to ask them to stop the main belt due to my baggage emergency, thus halting the timely delivery of the luggage of every traveller departing on this airline. She and the other agent were still unable to get my duffel bag out of the little gap between the two belts, so she finally had to go off and find a baggage specialist who went back on to the belt, and after several minutes of tugging and using different types of leverage, was finally able to free my poor little bag.

I learned a valuable lesson today: underfilled bags, with their loose "skin", pose a great hazard to the smooth functioning of airports. And as God is my witness, I'll never underpack again!

Everybody's Doing It!

All the cool kids are posting their favorite Sesame Street clips on their blogs, so of course I'm going to jump off the bridge, too. Eric's and Meema's clips are very charming, to be sure, but I will always feel that Sesame Street reached the pinnacle of its Art here:



The Wonders of Sesame Street are international: I've never actually watched it in French, but 5, rue Sésame looks cute. And a Palestinian friend told me years ago that the show exists in Arabic, where the episodes are sponsored by letters such as alif and daal.

Me love it!

Things Fall Together

I was thinking that some of my readers might like to know a little bit more about my life than just the tantalizing tidbits provided in my profile. If not, too bad. I'm going to tell you anyway.

For the last three years in Paris, I've been working for a consulting firm which I shall call "the Office." The Office is perfectly pleasant, but the work is neither over-stimulating nor over-paid. So I began contemplating moving back to the U.S. My thinking was: I love living in Paris, but Paris is eternal, and parents are not. A couple of years ago, I start looking for a job in the U.S. in my own half-hearted, procrastinating fashion.

Early last summer, my landlord put my apartment up for sale. Under French law, I had the right either to buy the apartment (€298,000/$450,000 for a smallish one-bedroom with no particular charm or special features to recommend it? No thank you!) or move out no later than the end of my lease, on July 7, 2008. Since I was going to have to go through the expense and hassle of a move this summer in any case, I decided I should just move to the U.S. This gave me a firm deadline for my return, and somewhat more urgency in my job search.

Later in the summer, I was offered the opportunity to do some independent consulting work for an international organization which I shall call "the Group." The Group said they might be able to offer me long-term, stable consulting work, which would be one way for me to make a living in the U.S. So I agreed to start doing a bit of work for them.

In late October, my boss at the Office decided that he needed to do some down-sizing. Since I knew I'd be leaving by this summer in any case, I volunteered to be laid off. This may sound self-sacrificing (I'm such a martyr!), but it was really an ideal solution for me: it would give me time to organize my move and start developing my consulting work, while giving me the safety net of French unemployment benefits and health insurance until I was consulting full-time. So we negotiated my departure, and I was officially laid off in December. Of course, I then had to work my three-month notice period*, so my last day of official full-time employment at the Office was March 10. And then, I kept working for them for 1-2 days a week on a contract basis, so my really, truly last day there was last Tuesday.

On March 11, I got a firm offer for a long-term, half-time consulting assignment with an international organization which I shall call "the Corporation." This assignment should provide a stable base of income for me to live on, and (when my American consumerism gene gets reactivated) I can take other short-term assignments to be able to buy myself Pretty Things and New Toys. I'm really quite excited about working for the Corporation: the work is in my field; I'll be dealing with French-speaking countries and can continue to use my French; I'll be traveling a little bit and will probably pass through Paris regularly; and I can be based wherever I want (I picked the Twin Cities).

Big picture: over the past 12 months, things in my life have fallen together quite nicely.

But they say the Devil's in the details, right? Well, the details of the last few months have been rather chaotic: complicated move to organize; uncertainty in my work with the Group; need to find a place to live and health insurance and everything I'll need to be an independent consultant in Minnesota; constant interruptions at home from prospective buyers for the apartment; and the Corporation.

The Corporation is a Bureaucracy with a bold and capital B. It took almost a month for us to negotiate and figure out all the administrative details of my contract, which was finally signed on April 8. That day, the Corporation suddenly remembered that it needed to do a background check on me. It took another week or two to figure out how to have me fingerprinted in France and get the fingerprints sent back to them (in an act of frustrated rebellion, I finally just mailed the prints to them, which I had been explicitly forbidden to do!). The Background-Checkers have now had all the necessary information for almost four weeks but have not yet completed the background checking (and believe me, there is absolutely nothing interesting or complicated in my background!). And I can't start working for the Corporation until I'm Approved. In and of itself, that's fine with me right now--I have other things to do and get lovely French unemployment benefits for the days I don't work--but the Corporation wanted me to travel to Africa this Sunday, and if I wasn't Approved by Monday, they were going to have to cancel the trip.

Then on Monday, my Corporate Supervisor cut a deal with the Background-Checkers: they let me start working and go to Africa on Sunday, then when I travel to Washington the following week, they can have their way with me in person, checking my background, my foreground, and all my body cavities. They accepted the deal (lucky me!), so late on Monday afternoon, I found out that I'm leaving for West Africa on Sunday, will come back to Paris for a quick weekend, and then will go to Washington for 10 days. When I get back to Paris, I'll have about 10 days left to organize all my stuff before the movers come to take it away. (This is the part in the action move where the squadron leader starts screaming, "GO! GO! GO!" and everyone starts running around like crazy.)

OK. Deep cleansing breaths, Stephanie. Don't listen to the inner screams of "But I haven't even finished going through my closets yet!"

On Monday evening, while I was busy e-mailing about travel arrangements, visa request, etc., two prospective apartment-buyers stopped by, saying their offer had just been accepted, they were signing the papers this week, and they wanted to measure everything. This is great news because it means I won't have to deal with visits any more, and I'll have a better chance of getting more of my security deposit back (the owner was more likely to be persnickety in the final inspection if the apartment was still for sale). Plus the new buyers want to buy some of my appliances and furniture, which further reduces my to-do list.

Tuesday morning, I found out that I have a short-term furnished place to live in Minneapolis (in Powderhorn, if you're curious) while I'm waiting for my shipment to arrive from France and looking for a permanent home.

And I've had a total of four "good-bye" lunches and dinners since Monday. All in all, it's been an action-packed week, and we're just starting to kick it into high gear. I still have a million things to do in the next 5 weeks.

But even in the details, things seem to be falling together.

(Knock on wood.)


*In France the standard notice to be given whether you resign, are laid off, or are fired, is three months! Plus severance pay, if you've been with the company for more then two years. What a strange and marvelous land this is!

Tomorrow's Forecast: Partly Striky

RATP, the Paris transit authority, lets you sign up to receive e-mail or text message alerts when there's a disruption in public transportation. Late last night, I received an e-mail saying that, due to a "social movement" (read: "strike"), traffic on the suburban train lines will be disrupted on Thursday. Since I rarely take the suburban trains except to go out to P and A's house, I wasn't too concerned.

This morning, however, when I was out running errands and going to meet a friend for lunch, I noticed dreaded words flashing across the info screens in the métro station:

Work stoppage [read: "strike"]. Following the notices by the unions CGT, CFDT and FO for the day of May 22, 2008, RATP is predicting: normal or near-normal traffic on all the métro lines.

Next screen:

Work stoppage [read: well, you know]. RER [the combination suburban/intracity train lines] Line A: Normal or near-normal traffic. RER Line B: 1 train out of 2 running, interconnection between networks suspended at Gare du Nord. Bus and
Tramway: Normal or near-normal traffic.

Whew! It doesn't look like this one will be too bad. The bad ones are where you have maybe 1 out of 4 trains running on certain lines, and it gets so crowded that not only is everyone in the train belly to back (and not in a good way), there are people doing crazy things like standing on the backs of the seats or in the (3-inch deep) window frames.

The other good news is that I'll be working at home all day tomorrow, so I shouldn't need to go anywhere near any normally or abnormally functioning trains.

The main line that will be affected, RER B, is the principal north-south axis and goes to both Orly and Charles de Gaulle airports, so a lot of travellers (as well as many working-class folk) will be very inconvenienced tomorrow. Someone told me recently that when Disney decided to build its European theme park outside of Paris, one of the points it negotiated with the government is that there would never be any strikes on the train line serving Disneyland Paris. I have no idea if that's really true (and I never paid attention in prior strikes), but traffic is supposed to be normal on RER A tomorrow, so strike or no strike, we can still all go see Mickey speak French if we want!

UPDATE: My friend Isabelle's 9 (or so?) year-old son declared a homework strike today, in response to his teacher's stike. Read about it here.

The Mean French

One of the most common American stereotypes about French people seems to be that the French are mean and rude. Let me say upfront that I do not think that this is true. Like people anywhere, some people in France are nice and some are not, but generally, I find people here to be pleasant and gracious, and I am at times overwhelmed by the kindness extended to me.

So where does the stereotype of "The Mean French" come from? I think part of it stems from very specific French-American cultural differences that I'll talk about some other time. Part of it stems from the fact that most Americans' principal experience of France is in Paris, where they encounter typical big-city brusqueness--New Yorkers don't exactly have the reputation of being the nicest people in the U.S., do they? And part of it stems from the fact that there is often at least a little, tiny grain of truth behind most stereotypes.

A few years ago, my friend Isabelle and I were comparing notes on the book Almost French, by Australian ex-pat Sarah Turnbull. I liked the book, but Isabelle did not. She thought the author was too whiny: "It seemed like she spent most of her time crying in the bathroom because someone said something mean to her at a party!" I blinked. I paused. Then, with the trepidation of someone revealing top-secret, classified, intercultural information, I said, "Isabelle, I think every American woman I know here has at least one story about how she broke down and cried because of something a French person said or did to her. Often at a party, where she had to go to the bathroom to hide." Stunned, Isabelle exclaimed, "Why?! What do we do to you?"

Well, that's kind of hard to explain. All I can say is that some French people can sometimes be critical in a way which many Americans find hard to deal with.


NOTE: The following story is purely anecdotal and should not be used to make sweeping generalizations about an entire country and its people. Even if that's kind of how I'm using it.

Two summers ago, I took a beginning ballroom dance class in Paris. It was a one-week intensive course, with an optional second week, and I signed up for both weeks. Now, I know that I'm never going to be the most graceful girl at the gala. I have many talents and strengths; physical coordination is not chief among them. However, I do not think that I totally, completely sucked at ballroom dancing (I remain open to the possibility that I am wrong about this). The first week of the class was fun. There were about 50 people, which meant that the room was very crowded, and the instructor couldn't do much besides show us the basic steps and then circulate among us to give the occasional comment. On the last day of the first week, we danced with one partner for the whole session, and I was fortunate enough to be paired with a man who had taken lessons before and was quite a good dancer. With him as my partner, I left the class feeling that I might have a bit of Ginger Rogers in me, after all.

Then the second week happened. The class was down to about 20 students, which meant that the instructor could give us more individualized attention. On the second or third day, I got his special attention, and not in a good way. When I was dancing with him, he started telling me that I was doing the turns wrong, and that if he weren't such a magnificent dancer, able to strong-arm us back in the right direction, that we would be dancing astray. I didn't really understand what I was doing wrong, and being criticized in front of everyone did nothing to improve my box step. We were changing partners every few minutes, and when I danced with one of his assistants, she told me that she understood what he meant, and she very sweetly started to show me what I needed to correct. But then we had to rotate again. When I had worked my way back to the instructor, he apparently decided that his Nice Guy act was over. He told me that he would just let us go wherever my terrible turning would lead us: straight into the wall. At least, that's what he said he was doing (and perhaps he was right; he was the expert dancer, after all). But what it felt like he was doing was physically throwing me against the dance barre along the wall, which, by the way, kind of hurt! So I got more and more upset and danced more and more badly. Finally, the Dance Lesson from Hell ended, and I went home to regroup.

I was determined to learn the basics of ballroom dancing, so the next night I bravely returned to the scene of my trauma. Fortunately, the instructor turned his evil eye on someone else: a poor guy whom I knew to be a slightly clumsy, but not horrible, dancer. The instructor berated the guy's every move, and he was getting visibly flustered and making more and more mistakes. By the time That Night's Victim rotated to dance with me, he was such a nervous wreck that the two of us kept getting hopelessly out of step and having to stop completely. He'd stutter and apologize, and I would try to reassure him that it was no big deal and that we'd get it figured out. After the third or fourth try, he said, "I'm sorry, I just can't do this," and left. The instructor turned to me and asked what had happened. I shrugged and said, "He was just too upset. He said he couldn't do this tonight, so he left." The instructor was outraged: "How rude! How inexcusably rude, especially to his partner, who was messing up so badly!"

Excuse me? Up until that moment, all I had seen was a guy who was upset about being ripped apart by the instructor and subsequently lost courage. It hadn't even occurred to me that it might be my fault, that I was so horrible that he couldn't stand to dance with me and was forced to leave! Once planted, however, the idea rapidly took root and blossomed beautifully.

There was no bathroom handy, so I had to wait until I got home to cry. I skipped the last dance lesson and stayed home, trying to figure out why some French people are so mean.

Me & the West Wing

Let me state right now that the West Wing is the greatest television show that the world has ever known. If you don't agree with that statement, you must leave my blog immediately and never come back!

(Unless you leave nice comments. The nice commenters maybe can stay.)

Here's a clip from one of the many, many superlative episodes (Season 4, "Game On," the Ritchie-Bartlet debate, in case you were wondering):


I especially love the line "Diplomacy needs all the words it can get its hands on."

You may have noticed that I can be a bit wordy. Well, if you're looking for a short, snappy blog, you've come to the wrong place. I think that concision is overrated and possibly the sign of moral laxity. Or at least an inadequate vocabulary.

Here at Native Observation, we're talking about two whole countries and then some, and we need all the words we can get our hands on!

HYS: Boutons

Headnotes:
1. HYS = How You Say?
2. Bouton is French for "button" and also means "pimple, blemish, or bud."

Last Saturday my friends P and A invited me over for dinner. A is my best friend in Paris; she and her husband P are both American, and they have a beautiful 10 month-old baby boy. P also has two charming sons from his first marriage here in France.

I've always been very interested in linguistics and language acquisition, so it's a source of endless fascination to me to spend time with bi-cultural and ex-pat families and observe how they help their children deal with foreign language issues. P's two older boys have dual French-American nationality and are bi-lingual, but since they attend French school and live with their French mother most of the time, French is their dominant language, and they do make some little mistakes when they speak English. P and A do a great job of gently correcting them--it's obviously important for them to speak both their native languages well, but constant criticism isn't good, either.

Over dinner last Saturday, I was chatting (in English) with the 14 year-old. He told me that he had developed a sun allergy, so I asked what happens when he goes out into the sun. He pulled up his sleeve to show me his arm and said, "I get these red buttons all over my arms, and . . . ." I thought about correcting him but decided not to interrupt the discussion, so the conversation flowed on. No big deal.

The next morning, however, this little scene replayed itself in my head, and I suddenly realized the irony of the complete thought I'd had about how to "correct" him: "Should I stop him to tell him that the correct word in English is 'hives' or 'rash', and that we only say 'button' when the blemish is on your face?"

Right.

Does anyone know of a good ESL program I can sign up for in the Twin Cities?


*****
Petite explication pour mes lecteurs français qui n'auraient peut-être pas compris cette anecdote : en anglais, le mot "button" [bouton] n'a qu'un seul sens. C'est la pièce servant à la fermeture d'un vêtement. Un bouton d'acné sur le visage s'appelle un "pimple." Quand ce petit Franco-Américain m'a parlé des "buttons" sur ses bras (le mot juste pour des boutons allérgiques serait "hives" ou "rash"), c'était donc un peu ironique que je voulais "corriger" son anglais en lui disant qu'on utilisait "button" seulement pour les boutons sur le visage, car c'est faux !

MPAS: Wanna go to a movie?

MPAS = My Politics Are Showing

I just read this article on a film called Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which won best documentary feature at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival:

"The film is inspiring, uplifting and is a call to action for all of us", Desmond Tutu, Winner 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the extraordinary story of a small band of Liberian women who – armed only with white T-shirts and the courage of their convictions - came together in the midst of a bloody civil war, took on the warlords, and brought peace to their shattered country. The film is compelling testimony to the potential of women worldwide to alter the history of nations.

I think the film sounds very cool and would love to see it. The website has a link where you can put in a request for a screening in your area. Why don't we see if we can get enough requests to have a showing in the Twin Cities?

Click here to demand a viewing of Pray the Devil Back to Hell in St. Paul, MN. I originally started a request for "Minneapolis metropolitan area", but then I noticed that there was already a request for "St. Paul, MN" (someone didn't read my explanation of Twin Cities geography!), so I propose we add our votes to St. Paul. For those not lucky enough to live in Minnesota, just check the list to see whether there's already a request for your city (Washington has 15 requests already; there are 2 screenings booked in New York). I'll also add the request link to my sidebar. E-mail the link, tell your friends!

Ready for Syndication

Well, not really. There is some option about syndication in the blog settings, but since (unlike the comment page configuration :-)) I had no idea what it meant, I just left it on whatever the default setting was.

I have, however, been toying with different themes that I may (or may not) use on Native Observation, so I thought I'd give you a little preview of topic threads that may come up, along with their oh-so-clever abbreviations and acronyms:

• BNT. I confess: "Native Observation" was not actually my first choice for the title of this blog (but just because my baby was unplanned doesn't mean I love it any less!). For better or worse, many of my early ideas were already taken, in some cases by bloggers who, at least at first glance, do not seem Worthy of using my brilliantly conceived URLs. Because I think it's interesting to consider the road not taken (or in this case, the Blog Not Titled), I may tell you about the other titles we might have had. I suppose this theme could also offer the opportunity for guest bloggers who had their own title suggestions to tell us about them, but it's hard to imagine when I might be ready to relinquish that kind of artistic control. I can be a bit Particular at times.
• HYS. Life in a foreign country offers many opportunities for linguistic glitches, and I will be sharing anecdotes of words and thoughts lost in translation, and all the times I have to ask How You Say?
• MPAS. I have strong opinions on many, many things, and this blog is the ideal forum for sharing them. But sometimes, I may have to warn you that My Politics Are Showing (the correct pronunciation of this blog theme is to be "im-pass").
• TIMM. The question I hear most often when I tell people I'm moving away is, "What are you going to miss about France?" It occurs to me that telling about the Things I'll Miss the Most could be a nice way of sharing some of the loveliness of my adopted home.

OK, this is clearly far too cheesy for syndication, but now that the concept is all spelled out in pixels, I guess I'll stick with it.

UPDATE: One more blog theme I'd thought of but forgot to list: OBG (don't worry, Scott, I'm not going to have an entire topic thread dedicated to gynecological issues!). Way back when, in the dark ages before I started this blog, I sometimes sent out mass e-mails with stories about life in France to selected friends. I may recycle some of these Oldies But Goodies for use on this blog. Partly because, in my far-from-humble opinion, some of the messages were funny and deserve a broader audience, and partly because I'm lazy but can claim that reusing old material makes me Green.

Manif'

Coming back from the doctor's office a little while ago, I saw notices taped to all the métro exit doors: RDV MANIFESTATION 13H LYCEE ARAGO ("Rendez-vous Demonstration 1 p.m. Arago High School"). Inner groan.

I've been in a bit of a bubble recently--I haven't really watched or read the French news for several days, and since I'm only in the office one day a week, I don't get much "water cooler" news. So I had no idea if this demonstration was an isolated one or part of something larger. I just checked Le Monde, and it turns out that there's an education strike today, with something like one-third to one-half of school personnel on strike nationwide. Strikes (les grèves) are usually accompanied by a demonstration (une manifestation, or manif'), but there are often demonstrations about some cause or another, with no strike involved.

I live a few blocks from Place de la Nation, a big public square. It's a popular spot for demonstrations, so I've seen quite a few since I've lived here. They're mostly peaceful--more like a parade than anything else, but there is generally a large police presence, just in case things start getting out of control. I always find it disconcerting to have to walk past groups of police in full riot gear when I go out to buy a baguette, even if the police are just standing there chatting, leaning on their clear plastic bullet-proof shields. It's one of those things that didn't often happen to me in the U.S.

Another thing that didn't often happen in the U.S.: having my doctor hand me a glass slide with my cell sample on it, for me to mail into the lab myself. This is standard procedure with French gynecologists. Anyone else have their Pap smear in their purse right now?!

(Sorry, Scott. I should have warned you to bring your smelling salts to this blog.)

The Place I Will Be From

As I prepare to leave Paris, I know that I'm going to be spending a lot of time waxing sentimental about life in France in the weeks (and months, and years) to come. I'm sure you'll all get sick of hearing about it, and many of you will think that I'm an America-hater or that I'm miserable to be going to Minnesota. I want to tell you now that that's just not true. I love the U.S. (I imagine I'll write more about why I'm Proud To Be an American some other time), and I'm excited to be moving to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota*. Let me tell you a little bit about why I'm choosing to move there.

For those of you joining us while my life is already in course, I should explain that Minnesota is where I grew up and went to college; I lived there from the ages of 5 to 22. So the most important reason for me to move to the Twin Cities is simply that Minnesota is home to more people I love--family, friends from college, friends from childhood--than anywhere else in the world. Another reason is that although I've spent a lot of time in the Twin Cities visiting friends, I've never actually lived there. So although Washington, DC, might have been a more logical place for me to return to professionally and socially, I thought it might feel a little "been there, done that," whereas the Twin Cities would be a new adventure for me.

There are two lines that I love in the Semisonic song "Closing Time." One of them is "Closing time, time for you to go out to the places you will be from." I love the sound of the future potential in "places you will be from." Likewise, one of my favorite scenes in the movie "L'auberge espagnole" is when Xavier, a French college student, arrives in Spain for his year of study abroad and is wandering lost in the streets of Barcelona, seeing them for the first time. He narrates his thoughts on the future potential:

Later, you will have lived in this city. You will have walked its streets; you will have known its buildings; you will have lived through stories with people there. When you will have lived in this city, you will have taken this street six, twenty, a thousand times. After a while, all of this will belong to you, because you've lived here.

That's what I'm looking forward to about the Twin Cities: the future potential of making it my own. My home. The place I will be from.

Two more things:

1) For the Minnesotans in the audience, please be forewarned that experience has shown that I and all my possessions are eminently portable. It will be your responsibility to keep me Entertained, or I'm outa there!

2) *I've listed the full name/description of the metropolitan area where I'll be living for the benefit of the non-Minnesotans in the audience. If you're not American, of course you can't be expected to know all the arcane details of U.S. geography; if you are American and didn't know this, please get out a U.S. map and study it carefully. The Hudson River is not the western limit of our great nation! In either case, here's the deal: Minneapolis is the largest city in Minnesota; St. Paul is the second largest city and the state capital. The two cities are located on either side of the Mississippi river, right across from each other, and can thus be considered "twins." The terms "Twin Cities" and "the Cities" will be used interchangeably in this blog to refer to the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. FYI, Minnesota became the 32nd U.S. state exactly 150 years ago this week. Learn more here.

Never Quitting

First and foremost, please train yourselves always to click on (and add to!) the comments at the end of each post. This will be very important here at Native Observation.

Early commenters have suggested that they are going to quit their jobs in order to keep up with this new blog, assuming that that's how things are done in France. Mais non !

But it does remind me of A Story . . .

When I first moved here, back when I was Young and Innocent, before I had learned all The Ways of France, I had to negotiate my first French employment contract. The HR person--let's call her Glinda--at nGo where I was working (I'd already been working there for a few months before we negotiated the contract, but that's A Different Story) was very kind and patient, explaining all the things that were strange unto my American eyes. "Why doesn't the contract say how much vacation time I will have?" I asked. "Because," Glinda told me, "French Labor Law requires everyone to have five weeks of vacation, unless the Collective Agreement for our sector provides for more. Anything in this contract that contradicted Labor Law or the Collective Agreement would be invalid, so there's no point in mentioning it." "But the contract doesn't say if I have health insurance!" I worried. "Stephanie, you're not in America anymore! Everyone who works in France is covered by French social security. Plus, of course nGo has private supplemental health insurance," the Good Witch told me. And on and on she went, assuring me that my every need would be taken care of by the Wonderful Wizard of URSSAF*.

Then we came to the contract clause which specified my place of work. The clause stated that I was assigned to work in Paris, but that nGo could transfer me on a short- or long-term basis to anywhere in the world, without invalidating the contract. Glinda seemed to think that this would be a sticking point, so she gently explained that while nGo did not foresee transferring me, it might need me to help set up foreign offices in the future, so nGo felt it was important to keep this clause in the contract. I shrugged and said, very matter-of-factly, "That's fine. I took this job because I wanted to live in Paris, so if you ever transferred me to a place I didn't want to live, I would just quit."

Glinda's eyes got huge, and she gasped, "Stephanie! You never quit a job in France, you always negotiate being fired!" I thought that was the funniest and most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard.

Six years, and two "negotiated departures" later, I begin to see her point.

So, gentle readers, please do not quit your jobs. If you need more time to devote to this (and other) worthy blog(s), please negotiate an alternative work schedule with your benevolent employers. Of course, those of you in America will probably just need to accept that you're going to be getting less sleep from now on.


*URSSAF is the French Social Security administration. One minor point that Glinda neglected to mention to me about life Over the Rainbow is that instead of a pay "stub", I would received a "bulletin de paie" that would be one to two pages long, to list all the deductions for social security and other benefits. But not income tax! Income tax in France is not withheld from your paycheck by your employer; you have to make quarterly or monthly income tax payments directly to the tax authority out of your take-home pay. So "net salary" in France means after social charges (about 25% of your gross salary) but before income tax (which may be from 0 to 15% or much more of your taxable income, depending on your salary level and tax deductions). Yes, French taxes can be high, but in my experience, it evens out: the French have many public benefits, paid for by taxes, which Americans have to pay for privately, out of their (higher) take-home income.

What is the subject?

And so it begins.

I'm an American living in Paris. As I start this blog, I have been in France for just over six years and will be moving back to the U.S. in just over six weeks. I am both very excited to be going to a new place near my family and many friends, and very sad to be leaving this place and the people here that I love. I'm torn between two countries.

A little digression to get us to the point: I have a friend who has a friend who knows someone in the band Counting Crows (by association, I'm practically a rock star!). My friend's friend is an Arabic expert, but she couldn't figure out how to translate "Counting Crows" into Arabic, because the name isn't really clear in English. Does it mean "crows that count", or "the act of counting the crows"? In other words, what is the subject, the crows or the counting? I thought this was a really interesting linguistic question, so I frequently mentioned it to friends, and it always surprised me how adamantly people would defend their opinion one way or the other. (It turns out that the true answer is in the lyrics of the song "A Murder of One," but you'll have to look it up yourself. I can't do all the work here!)

So, what is the subject of this blog, Native Observation? Am I the Native, providing an insider's perspective on her two homelands? Or am I an outsider, offering Observation on the strange rituals and behaviors of the natives of two countries where I don't quite belong? Stick with me here, and maybe we'll figure it out as we go along.

Welcome, and soyez les bienvenus.