Salut Colloc!
Sunday, Jan. 21, 2007
Colloc is short for collocataire, which is French for roommate. It is always a gamble when entering a living situation with people whom you do not know, as MTV’s The Real World amply demonstrates. After just two and half weeks of living with François, Zoé, and (for all intents and purposes) Kevin, François’s best friend who is at the apartment literally as much as we are, I can’t begin to imagine just how lucky I was to find my collocs.
When I first arrived in Lille in September, I scrambled around trying to find a roof to put over my head. Unfortunately, I was a week behind the thousands of students who had just finished doing the same thing.
Knowing no one in Lille and nothing about the good quartiers and the bad, I moved in with two French girls, Ludovica and Julie, and one Italian, Elisabetta. I was happy to finally have somewhere – anywhere – to come home to after struggling so much as to question why I ever moved to France in the first place.
But this was not home in the sense one wants it to be. Home is where you can relax, entertain guests, put time and effort into making your space reflect who you are.
While Ludovica was generous to correct me every time I made a mistake in French and explain the reasoning behind it, Elisabetta there to become one of my best friends and help me with my fashion choices, and Julie – well, Julie and I kind of just stayed out of each other’s way – the apartment, quartier and ambiance were empty. Actually, the apartment was barrenly decorated with an impressive lack of comfort, the quartier was extremely sketchy and no place for a young woman to be seen after sunset and the ambiance of both just plain depressing. Of course, it was not the end of the world. But I had to get out.
So three months after frantically searching for an apartment the first time, I started the whole process over again. But the first was too far from the metro, the second out of my price range and the third with no walls where I was to sleep.
Then I found it – a filthy, decrepit space where one had to traverse the bathroom to reach the available bedroom. This was perfect! I thought, for no other reason than it was the arteries in the heart of centre ville. I am young, I told myself, becoming more and more convinced that the fruit flies in the kitchen and the once-white-but-now-more-like-brownish bathroom countertop were things to which I would become accustomed.
I had practically begun to stock up on cleaning supplies when I received the news that the people in my imagined new home were going to continue looking for their future colloc. I was devastated. The tables seem to be turned here in Lille when it comes to subletting one’s apartment. Whereas in Boston the sublettee often has the upper hand – I remember college students begging any person on the street to take their room while they studied abroad – every apartment here is in such high demand that subletters can be as picky and interview as many prospectives as they want. With a minor blow to my self-confidence resulting from the rejection, I continued to persevere in my search for the new chez moi. It was then that I stumbled upon 18 rue Beaucourt Decourchelles.
As I sit in my new apartment nearing the end of January, the Christmas tree still on display and Joyeux Noël! sprayed on the window, I know they could stay here until the summer and it wouldn’t bother me a bit. The kitchen is far from sparkling clean, glasses and plates still piled up from this weekend’s meals and the ashtray sits inches from me chock-full of cigarette butts.
But it’s home. A home I already love.
Le Grand Repas
Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007
Last night I threw my first French dinner party. Simone, another teaching assistant from Washington D.C., always takes excellent care of me by cooking the best meals when I am at her house. I wanted to repay her by cooking a favorite meal of mine that my mom always makes when I am home, pork satay and spaetzle, topped off with banane flambée for dessert.
Upon choosing a date for the affair, I soon found the number of guests growing exponentially and by the time I knew it there were eight of us to be fed. Simone would of course be accompanied by her quintessential French boyfriend, Thomas, a business student from Nantes whom she met while studying in Nice two years ago, in addition to my roommate François, Kevin, their friend Laurent, another assistant Liz, and Simone and Thomas’s roommate, Benjamin – or Papi, as he is better known.
Before I came to France my knowledge in the kitchen was mediocre at best. The highlights consisted of toast, cereal, scrambled eggs, and the occasional salad. My parents are wonderful cooks, but apparently I never felt the need or desire to actually watch and learn, instead content to be spoiled by nightly family dinners and pitching in to do the dishes afterwards. I am of course kicking myself for this now, living 3,000 miles away and barely knowing how to cook pasta.
The morning of the meal, François and I took a trip to the discount supermarket to stock up for the week; here we were able to pick up the basics. While you can buy a bottle of fake Coca-Cola for less than 30 centimes, the meat is less than desirable and it would have been cruel to expect my guests to eat any pork I may find there.
That afternoon I found myself at la boucherie, surrounded by old ladies discussing the day’s best cuts and the butcher trying to persuade me to change my order to veal. Upon convincing him that my recipe called for pork (I would not, under any circumstance, attempt to improvise), but that I would in fact return to try the veal, I walked out with nearly two kilograms of cochon knowing the easy part was over and the hard was yet to come.
Luckily, I managed to find skewers to put the meat on after visiting four markets. “It is not the season for brochette,” the man at one told me. I thanked him and moved on to the next, puzzling why there might be a season for little wooden sticks.
Thankfully, Simone came over early to help me with the preparation – I had barely cooked for myself before, let alone for eight people! (And a meal I had never before prepared! Yikes.) The guests soon began arriving to enjoy Belgian beer for apéritif as I was wrist-deep attempting to cut off the fat surrounding the enormous piece of meat about to be cooked. The boys looked at me appalled, wondering why I would want to remove these most precious morsels. If you have ever tasted French cooking, you know that it does not shy away from anything butter, cream…fat.
It would be extremely inappropriate for any standard French dinner party to start before 10:30 – how odd it is to think that many Americans are heading to bed at this hour, let alone eating. It would be even more inappropriate without at least one bottle of wine (and one pack of cigarettes) per person.
In the end, I’m not sure whether it was all the pinot noir or my actual cooking that won the hearts and palettes of my guests, but the meal was deemed a success by all. As we sat enjoying our banane flambée, the clock approaching midnight, I tried to absorb every moment, listening to all the conversations around me in this foreign language, vowing to a) find a French cooking class immediately and b) replicate this night as many times as possible.
Memoir to Maine
Monday, Feb. 12, 2007
When people ask me where I’m from, “next to Boston” is almost always my reply. But this leaves me with a Benedict Arnold-type feeling in my gut. “Ok,” I continue, “I’m actually from a state called Maine.” When I stumble upon someone who has actually heard of it, I am too excited.
Born and raised in the twenty-third state, I am currently teaching English in Lille, France’s fourth largest city situated in the north. The primary schools in which I work are not exactly that of the Madeleine books I read as a kid, and I have neither the desire nor the patience to be a teacher by profession. But it allows me to live in France, and that makes up for all the headaches in the classroom.
No matter how many books I read on French culture or how much money I spend on French clothes, in my attempts to fit in flawlessly there are always clues to give my foreigner-status – and Maine roots – away.
The French with their impeccable fashion sense must feel their stomachs rise in their throats when I end up pairing my skinny jeans and knee high boots – a big fashion oui – with my fleece jacket. If only they knew my Moxie (Maine’s official state soft drink and subject of cult-like following) t-shirt lurked underneath.
Of course, I could weed through the piles of clothes in my closet and find the perfect scarf and matching blazer, to which I would receive rounds of applause. But we Mainers know how much easier and practical – a word that I’m sure gets no use here when discussing anything fashion – it would be to throw on my trusty L.L. Bean threads. This way, I know I will be warm. En plus, I will have a comforting reminder of home as I greet the looks of disgust.
Even when I decide to leave the fleece at home, I can never transform completely. “Bonjour la petite française!” a French friend remarks when I make the effort to dress myself impeccably in my pea coat and Longchamp purse. My face lights up like the Eiffel Tower itself at night. “Now just don’t open your mouth!” I might as well start saying “ayuh” (yes in Maine dialect) instead of oui – my American accent gives me away every time.
I inevitably turn to the stereotypes all Mainers groan about when describing my home state. “Well,” I start, “we are known for our lobsters – which are the best in the world – moose, vast forests, and blueberry jam.” (As soon as I mention Stephen King – voilà.) One of Northern France’s staple cuisines may be moules-frites – mussels and French fries – and it’s good, yes. But it just cannot compare to the fresh steamers I grew up shucking with my father at our island house off the coast of Harpswell.
“But why did you ever leave? C’est magnifique! If I were you I would never have come to France!” reply my French roommates as I proudly show off my Maine calendar full of the most gorgeous photos of fishing boats in Wiscasset harbor, the ocean crashing upon snow-covered rocks, and a stunning coucher de soleil – sunset – falling as Mt. Katahdin sits lazily in the background. “You have the ocean, the mountains, snow and sun. You have it all!”
This from people whose country has poured hundreds of years into the perfection of beauty – the Musée Louvre and River Seine dazzling at night in the world’s most romantic city, Cézanne’s countless renditions of Mont Saint Victoire and lavender fields in Provence, Coco Channel herself and all the glamour of haute couture.
While I was quick to leave, to experience a country 180 degrees different from the one in which I grew up, the more I describe home the more I realize just how much the Pine Tree state really does have to offer. In a country where a quick trip to the corner market invariably leads to a long gaze at some architectural wonder, I realize that perhaps the same might happen to a foreigner visiting Maine.
“The old Greek on Samos Island had warned me,” Sarah Turnbull writes in Almost French, a book given to me just before I left. “‘It’s a curse to love two countries.’ … For an expatriate, the whole matter of ‘home‘ is an emotional conundrum riddled with ambiguities and caprice.”
Noted: Istanbul
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
A French friend of mine and I wanted to go somewhere exotic and different for spring vacation and we both decided that beaches and clean hotel rooms were things we could do without. I had become fascinated with the Haghia Sophia after studying it three years earlier in an art history class. Yet Istanbul ended up being a rather randomly-picked destination: it fit our requirements as a place that neither of us had ever been, with enough to keep us occupied for six days, that wasn’t too far away and had plane tickets priced to match our budget. I was sure France would never feel boring – until I took this trip.
The Islamic chanting broadcast via megaphones throughout the city from the mosques dotting what seemed to be every other street corner probably made the biggest impression on me during my stay. I must admit that it initially took me aback, frightening me by its sheer unfamiliarity and reminding me instantly that while Turkey is technically a secular country, I was still in, for all intents and purposes, a Muslim one, five daily prayers a mandatory routine for the majority of its population. While the distance between London and Turkey is less than that from Maine to Florida, the music made me feel as if I were on the opposite side of the world and provided an unexpectedly delightful soundtrack as we explored the city.
I saw too many things that were so intriguing and beautiful to be able to provide hastily written descriptions that could do any justice. Instead, here are some things I noted in a little notebook I bought for 30 centimes in an alley during my stay:
- 1.9 Turkish Lira (YTL) = 1€, 1 YTL = .53€
- Only men around, all the time, rolling prayer beads between their fingers, playing backgammon, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and drinking tea.
- Lots of public bathrooms, stray cats everywhere.
- Being haggled in English, French, Spanish and Italian, amidst the madness of the Grand Bazaar, by a man who sells tea and spices. The contrast between this and Istikal Caddesi’s designer shops in Beyoglu.
- The age, wear and tear, and mystery of the Haghia Sophia. The incomprehensibility of how this immense structure could have been built almost 1,500 years ago.
- Five men working in a store or restaurant with no one in it. Having tea delivered to them.
- How the probability of seeing women donned in head-to-toe Islamic garb can so drastically change in an afternoon stroll. How it ages those who wear it.
- The shame I felt to be a woman upon being ordered to wear a headscarf inside the mosques. Respect winning out over my American feminism.
- The frustration of trying to find my way around given that there are extremely few street signs – just a mess of buildings constructed seemingly anywhere.
- Surprisingly few beggars – old women selling tissue packets and men with scales instead.
- A different neighborhood to sell everything, rows of 25 shoe stores with exactly the same stock, sock-only stores.
- Tea huts consisting of shanties and a few stools.
Two Sides of a Sword (excerpt)
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Strikingly handsome with sharp features would not begin to describe this intimidating and thoughtful presence. His skin a deep creamy tan twelve months a year, two holes between the forehead and imposing nose open to reveal dark roast coffee-colored eyes enveloped by thousands of mile-long eyelashes, effortlessly embodying what so many women spend countless hours and dollars to achieve. Writers obsess over these eyes and use every contrived metaphor to find new ways to describe “the windows to the soul.” Yet no clever play on words could come close to this set; every description feels tired and kitsch and ultimately pointless.
From the moment you look into these eyes–nerve-wracking if making eye contact is not your strongest personal trait–they take you under. Something subconsciously starts to communicate the complexity of the brain and heart dancing in the head upon which they are set. So many images and experiences they have witnessed that most people of three times his age have never had to consider, let alone confront on a daily basis. You feel that there is an innate wisdom to this young male who faces you, if only he can find the words and stamina with which to realize and articulate it and if you have the patience and dedication to stay around and wait.
Given the right circumstances–location, dress–he may pass for Sicilian or Greek. While not actually of any striking proportions, his body is thoughtfully covered with wide leg jeans three sizes too big, long t-shirts and hooded sweatshirts broadcasting various insignias of brand names made popular by hip-hop videos plastered on MTV and BET. Always a carefully-chosen color scheme at play, today it may be the flat-rimmed visor of his Cardinals hat that perfectly matches the red laces of his Nike Air Force Ones.
Seif purposely makes himself look heavier and more muscular and more “gangster” than he is, trying to impose fear or at least intimidation on to those who pass him by. But you would know this body consists primarily of plainly visible bones if you saw him in his underwear. The lack of muscles makes him look like an adolescent boy anxiously awaiting the post-pubescent body already maturing in friends around him.
Upon realizing this flawlessly executed optical illusion, you find yourself restlessly wondering what other tricks he has thought of so as to make the average viewer think what he or she wants to believe he is. Tough, angry, domineering, careless of the people and world around him: he is all of these things, but most of the time none of them. He would be simultaneously bashful, slightly ashamed and grateful if you knew this–because it would only be then that maybe–maybe, he could put down the shield he so naturally holds in front of himself enough to shed tears in your presence. You would no longer be afraid of him, yet he might be afraid of you, now knowing you had seen him as so many others have not.
It seems to be this ability to seamlessly transition between polar opposites that so poignantly characterizes the life he currently lives. The Muslim son of a Palestinian woman and Jordanian man, Seif means “sword” in Arabic. He spends his life negotiating between a New England Catholic college attending pro-choice rallies on perfectly-manicured lawns and his home in Saudi Arabia driving his mother to the grocery store as she is forbidden behind the wheel. While his roommates worry about which party they will attend tonight and debate the effectiveness of fake IDs at nearby liquor stores, Seif is on a long-distance phone call with his parents. His grandmother’s house in the West Bank has been bulldozed, they tell him, and his 16-year-old cousin thrown in jail.
Seif lights his cigarettes before he is entirely out of buildings. I yell at him and swing at his upper arm with my fist, explaining how rude and inconsiderate it is to others around him, pointing out that these buildings have for some time now been non-smoking and it is a rule not hard to respect. He looks at me with those eyes, sarcastically–“with the wind there is no other way! whoever has not thought to beat the weather’s games is an idiot!”–while at the same time half-conceding that I’m right–it is inconsiderate, and perhaps if he had thought about this seconds before he might not have gone through with it.
The next time we walk out of a building, the scenario repeats itself.