Reflections on France I 2/12/06 ish
By Sandra Price
Geographic note :
We are living in France not far from the Swiss border and Geneva, Switzerland. Geneva is in the Rhone Valley at the southwestern end of Lake Leman. The lake feeds into the Rhone River which goes all the way to the Mediterranean. South of Geneva are the Alps, including Mont Blanc. The Jura Mountains run from the southwest to the northeast of Geneva on the other side of the valley. The Rhone Valley is v-shaped in this area with the Alps and Jura meeting in the southwest where the Rhone passes into the center of France. That place is maybe twenty kilometers from where we live. We live in the village of Thoiry, one of a string of villages at the bottom of the Jura. It has about 4500 residents, a fair number of whom are “etrangers.” The village is on the lowest part of the Jura but goes from the valley to the highest peak in the Jura. We live in about half of a three-hundred year old farmhouse that is about 50 to 100 steep meters up from the main road. I can walk to the village in 10 minutes where there is a small grocery, the post office, several hair salons, a doctor and dentist, a charcuterie, a bakery, a one-star restaurant, the lower school, athletic fields, a pharmacy and more but no hardware store although there is an outdoor market on Sunday. The house is reputed to have been a custom house or an inn in the past and more recently perhaps a brothel for German officers during the World War II. On the first floor our house has a glassed in porch, a dining room/kitchen and a back kitchen on the first floor (three gas burners and one electric one on each of the two stoves) and a living room with a fireplace; on the next floor are two large bedrooms, a toilet and a bathtub room; and a sitting room/bedroom/bath and loft are on the top level. There’s a garage for one of our cars and a parking spot under a storage area for the other. And there’s a large open field that goes with our house.
The first part of these comments was written before Christmas. I’ll add more below.
« Going to another country is disorienting. Everything that makes you feel comfortable isn’t there.”
Kurt M. Landgraf, President and Chief Executive of Educational Testing Service from “The Boss” column in the NY Times, probably Nov. 20, 2005.
We arrived in France on the 10th of September and began by camping at our house and taking French lessons in the city of Geneva in the mornings. By camping, I mean we had the basic kitchen and bed and bath items which we brought in giant suitcases along with some clothes, and we rather quickly we purchased a picnic table and plastic chairs. A mattress on the bedroom floor completed the house’s furnishing. Of course, a week in the States at the end of September, then a week in Paris (gloomy weather and closed museums because of a strike) and a week in Como, Italy meant that we did not really camp all the time before our shipment of furniture arrived on the 18th of October. So we are now out of the camping phase although we are still using the picnic table and plastic chairs for our dining pleasure. It took a few days to realize that we had more that one pot and one frying pan and could cook three or four things at one time. Since then we’ve added a basic microwave, too. Larry is settling in at CERN, appreciating being here full time, and I’m going into Geneva to work on my French in the lab of the school we attended and getting things organized and running at home. Below are some impressions.
Pace of Life Many of the small villages around here have sur elevees in the roads. They are extended speed bumps and are obviously designed to slow drivers down. They are, to me, a symbol of a different pace of life here. First, almost all businesses close for about two hours at lunch. No chance to shop on your lunch break. (The ones that are open all day advertise their extended hours as “non stop.”) School children go home for a leisurely lunch as do, I guess, their parents. In compensation, stores and businesses like banks tend to be open until seven in the evening. This is the hardest thing for me to adjust to. I get ready to go out around noon and then realize I can’t run any errands except at our ValThoiry Mall.
Second, almost everything is closed on Sundays. One local supermarket is open from 9 to1 at which time the lines are impossible. Our local mall is closed. What do the teens do? One Sunday we did not have mint for a recipe and I had to get the help of a friend who had a friend who had mint in her garden to complete the recipe. Families seem to gather for Sunday dinner and late in the afternoon one sees families out for walks along the roadways. Sunday is a real break in the week. I feel fortunate that I grew up in Pennsylvania in the 50’s with its Blue Laws because I know how to plan around no shopping on Sundays and how to take advantage of a non-work day so that has been an easier adjustment. I’m told that one cannot do work around the house except from 8-10 and then only if one is quiet although I did see clothes out to dry on our Sunday drive to St. Claude in the Jura. That may be driven by the weather since it rains a lot there.
Third, the pace is slower because space in houses is less and many people don’t have a lot of appliances. Laundry is done in small loads. Clothes get hung out to dry. Refrigerators don’t hold a great deal so people shop more often. All that takes time and such activities don’t lend themselves to rushing all the time. The wife of a friend who returned to the US reported to him that it takes half the time to run her roomy home in Dallas as it did to run an apartment in Ferney, France. I’ve noticed that people on the bus just sit – no compulsion to multitask. It is rare to see someone reading a book or newspaper. Larry was an oddity as he worked on his laptop on our way into and out of Geneva for French lessons.
Finally, our experience is shaped by the rural atmosphere in the Pays de Gex. There are very few traffic lights and many rotaries. With few cars, traffic moves quickly around the traffic circles. They are wonderful except when there is snow or black ice when cars have a tendency to slide as they go around. There are occasionally cows going to pasture in the roadway. A week ago I drove home from a shop about ten minutes away and realized that I had not stopped once all the way home. On the other hand, there is not time to put on some lipstick which is a job I used to do in the car at stoplights. I miss the non-stop life of Chicago’s suburbs but think this lifestyle is healthier and more humane.
Rural Life Did I mention that we are in the country? As we walked home from the Sunday market in town (yes, the market is open from 9-1 year round), two girls on horseback rode by. When I drive to the dechetterie (a much prettier word than dump although it is actually a recycling center) I always see horses, cows, and sheep out to pasture. Another day I saw a herd of goats. On night as we came in we heard cowbells in the distance as the cows were being moved from pasture to barn. (What a gentle, lulling sound.) The highway has deer crossing signs. Then there was the story in the local paper of a man who lost control of his car and crossed a highway as he tried to avoid hitting a boar. The paper noted that he was not injured, the car was pulled from the ditch, and the boar “runs still.”
Despite a strong demand for housing (exacerbated by the fact that Swiss can live in France and remain Swiss citizens) there are many fields, some quite green even now in December, presumably with winter wheat or rye. Earlier in the fall there were fields of sunflowers and, of course, vineyards. Most of the grapes have been harvested and used by the local wineries. By the way, the French word for “grapes” is “raisins.” Raisins are “raisins sec.”
But rural life is fading in our region. One sign is the number of building cranes one sees. There are at least five in Thoiry. (They use cranes to construct housing. Our theory is that the concrete blocks and tile for floors and roofs that they use are heavy and require the lifting power of a crane. Or perhaps they use more prefab units.) More and more fields are growing houses rather than crops. Another sign is the fading of the itinerant still. Last week (This is an observation from January.) an antiquated contraption with barrels and pipes and hoses appeared in the parking lot of the gym where I have an exercise class. Last Thursday my friend Brigitte asked me after class what the machine was. I didn’t know so she went to find out. She found a woman who explained, in English for my benefit, that she had brought mashed and fermented apples and pears (hermetically sealed after fermentation in barrels in the fall) from her orchard that the owner of the contraption was making into an alcoholic drink over the space of several hours. He goes from place to place and people bring their mash and he processes it. Of course, the customs people have to inspect each batch and get their taxes. But next year may be the last year that the owner will make his rounds since there are fewer and fewer customers for the service as orchards disappear. It is sad.
Assume Nothing Such faux amis or “false friends” as “raisin” are what give the edge to life here, especially for expats. Even though I learned to “assume nothing“ especially after teaching at Oak Park, there were things I could take for granted like knowing which plants in my garden were weeds. Here, I don’t know which the mauvaises herbes are either in plants or in people. I don’t know the nationality or background of the people I see or know their language for sure.( In my language class in Geneva, there were five people from South America, a Turk, an Iranian, a Russian, an Egyptian, a Nigerian and me. Geneva is 40% etrangers.) One day I got brave and went into a local beauty shop to get my haircut, practicing my best French to make an appointment. My coiffeuse turned out to be a Christian Iraqi expat (she left Iraq twenty years ago) who spoke English as well as French and whatever she spoke in Iraq. She says that people assume she is Muslim. What a complicated world and one that keeps me on high alert.
Mountains Mountains are important. The first few days here as I drove around, I found myself remembering “Before the hills in order stood/Or earth received its name,” words from a hymn I learned in the Children’s Choir at the Presbyterian Church in Ridley Park, PA. I must have been in the second or third grade and I remember the director explaining that the “hills” were mountains. And they do stand here – the Jura behind us and the Alps across the Rhone Valley. They make me smile. When I’m out gardening, I find myself stopping all too often just to marvel at them. Now there is snow, the snow line slowly creeping toward our house. Of course, the clouds that cover them make the clear days even more special. Mont Blanc is particularly discreet, appearing maybe one day out of five (note from January – make that ten). I’m looking forward to see how much of the Alps are covered in snow once the clouds clear. Some official organization has predicted a colder winter than usual with less snow. But the cold will mean that the snow lasts longer. Whatever happens, I’ll enjoy the mountains. They might make it hard to go back to the Midwest.
Heating Crisis December 8th Our heat went out the day after we got back from the U.S. What to do? I sent email to our landlady but she was in Argentina. We called Antonio, our landlady’s handyman. Who knows what he said when he answered my call but he did stop by Tuesday afternoon although he could not solve the problem. (He speaks French with a Portuguese accent.) He called several chauffagistes, all of whom could not help. Finally we found a local company where the person at the other end of the line told Antonio that someone would be here this week. I’ve been waiting. It is now Thursday evening and I am waiting still having missed an exercise class and three days of time at the language lab. The person I spoke to assured me, I think since I catch one out of 20 French words, that the chauffagiste would be here “ce soir.” There is so much uncertainty. It’s hard enough to give directions to our house in English. Will he find our place? The outside lighting is bad. I have every light we can muster on and I’ve put a sign by the entry gate with our number and an arrow. But it will still be hard to find us. If he calls, will I understand what he is saying? Ditto when he comes and looks at the boiler. It’s ironic that I’m missing French lessons to wait here. Anyhow, how late do chauffagistes, or for that matter other tradesmen, work? Learning the rules is hard work. Meanwhile, I’ve lit a fire.
It’s now the middle of February.
The heat is now back on. That Thursday evening I called the former tenant, Monica, who directed me to call a M.Drutel. He was on a list our landlady had given us as a plombier of choice (did I mention she was in Argentina?) and we had tried to send him a fax but had put an incomplete phone number. Finally I reached him by phone and he said he would be here at five and he was and he fixed the problem in forty minutes. His father had put in the heater, who knows how many years ago. So we are warm. I find that I put off making calls because they are so difficult for me. I can say what I want but don’t understand what people say in response. When we first arrived, I drove twenty minutes to Cessy to arrange to have our oil delivered so that I could speak with someone directly. It worked – one of my early victories. As for our house, our landlady has had the chimney cleaned, lights improved, and the cooktop replaced with a new model. What a luxury to have a burner that keeps food at a simmer. We are quite comfortable in the house.
Rituals And we are developing new habits. Each morning and evening shutters upstairs and downstairs have to be opened and closed. (Upstairs there are cunning old hooks the keep the shutters open. They are in the shape of a person from the hips up and swivel up and down. When they are up, they settle into a socket to lock in that position and keep the shutter open.) After a shower the vent window to the outside has to be opened and as soon as possible closed once the bathroom has been aired. Gates must be opened and closed. The oil level has to be checked. Our house has an inside and outside door, both of which must be locked with keys, the second door requiring a certain precision in how far in one puts the key. The black tom cat, Neo, who belongs to our next door neighbor, can be let in to sleep on our porch or put out if we want to lock the outside door. And then there is shopping at the supermarket.
Before we go to the closest grocery store, we have to remember to get bags in the car. Then at the grocery we need a euro to unlock a cart where we can put the bags if we remember them – one gets the euro back when relocking the cart in the cart park. The checkout clerks sit – which is a kindness—and customers load their own groceries in their own bags or pay for a bag. Some people shop by just filling up a bag and unloading and reloading it at the checkout counter which discomfits me because it looks like stealing in the aisles. If I pay by debit card, which is the norm here, I have to remember to allow the card to stay in the slot until I put in a code and the words “code bon” appear. All those years of putting in and pulling out credit cards quickly make this difficult for me. I also find that I’m in such a hurry that I pack bags stupidly and that annoys me. I’ll have to watch how others handle the situation.
Shopping is funny. When looking for an item when I don’t know the name in French and have forgotten my mini-dictionary, I tend to look for the packaging I know. Larry needed gelatin so I looked for a Knox type box only to be shown hanging sleeves with sheets of gelatin. I wanted some lactaid in this land of where there are entire aisles devoted to cheese and yogurt and milk. I finally asked a pharmacist who got it from a drawer in the back of the shop. I wanted some mineral oil to have on hand and got nothing but confused looks when I asked for “huile de mineraux.” It’s called paraffin here, a fact I learned by looking up mineral oil in wikipedia and translating the entry into French. We are learning that there is much we can find here to make life comfortable but we have to learn how to see it. Ellen and I have been known to take time just to look slowly at what each aisle holds at our local Migros – a grocery store with clothes and appliances and CD’s and more.
Prickliness In the video-based French course we took in the US, there was a scene where the heroine’s aunt went to a restaurant and made it quite clear that nothing was right. She was described at “rouspeteuse” or hard to please or exacting. There was the implication that it was a French national characteristic. A related word is “epineux” or prickly. And those words describe some of our early experiences. Our house is “epineux” with a finish on the walls that discourages getting within an inch of the wall. It’s a rough stucco that can give a brush burn. The garden is replete with roses and their thorns. Early on I decided to pull down grape vines that were overwhelming some trees and discovered that a number of the tree were hawthorns with inch long thorns. Then I was pulling weeds and found that what I thought looked like mint was a nettle. One of my thumbs ached for a day. I now have a better sense of what the word “nettlesome” means. When the phone and internet connection went out, our attempts to deal with technical assistance were in the end met with “Find someone who actually speaks French.” Discouraging.
But there have been other adventures that show a different side to France. Around a month ago I went with my friend from up the hill, Ellen Taylor, for a spin to find the bridges that cross the Rhone River. Trying to turn around out on a country road, I got stuck in a ditch. Some new words for the day were “fosse” or “ditch“ and “degats” or “damage,” which fortunately turned out to be minimal. Our insurance covers road assistance; and once I got the number from Larry, I called assistance. A young man with a four-wheel drive had stopped to help us and gave directions in French to the assistance people who did speak English but I didn’t know where we were. Then the woman who lived at the end of the lane I had used to turn around drove down to offer us some tea. Ellen had gone off to look at a gite or vacation house for her sister so when Ellen came back we both walked up to the house. It was spectacular -- on a ridge with views of mountains on two sides and the Rhone Valley all around. The floors had much appreciated radiant heat. Our hostess spoke some English from summers with her aunts in England. Her father was English and had married a French woman and stayed in France after the war. So we had a pleasant time chatting with her. She had been married to someone who worked at CERN but divorced him and then married a farmer who had built the house. Ultimately the tow truck came – I had to give him the final directions in French which was another victory – and he hauled the car out in a few minutes. It turns out there is a law that says cars have to have hooks or “crochets” (which was another new word and a faux ami.) My Opel has one in the front and back bumper. Larry’s Opel has a panel that can be removed to reveal a hole to screw in a hook which comes with the tire changing kit. One pull and we were off and did find the two bridges that cross the Rhone. I took pictures of the car in the ditch and will ask Larry to put them on the website.
The next week we took a British acquaintance into Geneva to show her how to use the local bus. We had a visit to some of the high spots near the railroad station – we showed our guest the American Store (if the store is an indication, we have a terrible diet) and the English Library and discovered a great Japanese lunch place. We also learned about the bus line’s lost and found before we realized that Ellen had not lost her coin purse but had been the victim of a pickpocket. When we got back to where we’d left the car, I found I’d left the car lights on and had a dead battery. It turned out that the warning sound module had died but I didn’t know it. Ellen called her husband to come and jumpstart the car since Larry was in the States. But before he could reach us, four young men came to a car at an angle to ours and took the jumper cables I had out and with much joking started my car. Sometimes the French are not prickly but are warm and helpful. And to reflect on the opening statement, what was disorienting is beginning to be comfortable.
Little observations:
The octagonal red signs at corners to alert drivers to stop say “Stop,” not “arrêt.”
Switzerland does not observe Armistice Day. It wasn’t in either of the World Wars.
The State of Illinois and 11 other states have deals with France so that I don’t have to
take the French driver’s test – notoriously difficult even after taking an expensive course.
While much is made of anti-Americanism, officials looking at my passport give me the green light.
The word for “lawyer” is “avocat” which is also the word for “avocado.” “Let me run that past my avocado” -- the joke possibilities are endless.
For anyone who made a sit-upon in Girl Scout, I want you to know that it is still possible to buy oil cloth in France. The patterns are so handsome we have an oil cloth tablecloth which is proving to be better than our plastic ones in the U.S.
French dogs go everywhere and are very well-behaved. There are signs in Switzerland that read “Good dogs have good owners.”
Future items
Exercise class
Christmas trips
AWOJ
UU’s
Wine-tasting in Pressy
Walk on the rue de Battoirs
50’s
language time delay
easy language hem
a week-end in Paris.