Letter from France 2

 

written shortly after Easter of 1989

 

Folks,

 

Am settling into a nice routine. Still jogging and juggling and having a fun time at the circus school. Every week brings a new discovery, and I am slowly learning the ways of France. Business hours, however, still throw me. Everything closes on Sunday and most things on Monday so I have learned to stock up heavily on supplies Saturday afternoon. It seems that most days some type of French siesta takes place around me; there are random hours when shops and libraries close during mid-day that I haven't yet mastered. Don't worry about me starving, though, the old point and grunt method still works at the patisseries.

 

Went to England for Easter week-end. Saw some friends and spoke English. Did some needed shopping in a language and currency that at least seems more familiar.

 

The school has its own jargon. Because of all the different cultures, a convention of using onomatopoeia has sprung up. "Schlak" is a fairly descriptive word that can either mean the quick, intense pass of a juggling club, the sharp banging of a chain on the ground, or someone falling from the trapeze in a particularly dramatic tumble. We also use "shpaff", "tak", and "baf".

 

Life is full of balance. With all this focus on juggling, I notice that I have become quite clumsy in more mundane pursuits. Orange juice comes non-frozen in tetra-bricks, a packaging concept I am grudgingly learning to accept. I have yet to open a tetra pack without spilling some juice. I also manage to stain my shirt, pants, and shoes at an alarming rate. As I schlak and shpaff my way through the day one can also hear the crash, bang, bump, and spill of la vie française a la Tôdd.

 

Additionally, the hot water here is hot. Being in a residence hall, I don't get to set the temperature. After years of lukewarm hot water I scald myself once or twice a day at the sink as I forget to cut the hot water with some cold. The other residents set their morning wake-up calls by my excited cry as I wash my hands and suddenly, "schlak", pull them out of the scalding stream.

 

The hotel, home, is also where the noon meal for the school is prepared. Daily, two women arrive after I leave to jog and juggle, and set about cooking up a lunch for about forty people. When I come back around the house is full of some wonderful smells, which will be served after I take a shower. I have begun thinking of them as elves or sprites who magically appear when needed during the mid-day break. Lunch is ten francs for students and seventeen francs for faculty and staff. Depending more on my mood than the fluctuations of world currency, I either think of this as a great bargain by miscalculating the exchange rate to make lunch about $1.80, or think myself very decadent by assuming one franc = one dollar US and am enjoying a $17.00 noon-day meal.

 

The school seems happy with my work. No deportation papers have yet arrived. Actually, I suspect they tried to fire me in the first week but, not speaking French, I didn't understand and just kept showing up to teach. I think they just finally accepted me.

 

Somewhere over the Atlantic I lost the computer. I still have the trusty Macintosh, but it has been transformed into a very gallic ordinateur. The school also uses Macs with French keyboards and operating systems though, so we can still swap programs. I have a French-English training program that has turned the ordinateur-née-computer into the most expensive flash card du monde.

 

take care, Tôdd

 

copyright 1989 by Todd Strong

 

 

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