This blog will take you to places you’ve always wanted to see and to some you may only have heard of. Its purpose – to immerse you in extraordinary tastes and colors, smells, sights and experiences, infecting you, or perhaps aggravating, an already serious case of wanderlust.
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France – Mille. Simon
Madmoiselle Simon was a pro. She had been doing her best to implant the basics of the French language in the brains of foreign students for years. Her uniform – sturdy shoes, thick stockings, dark pleated wool skirt and buttoned up cardigan – never changed. Her hair was bobbed and her age indeterminate.
The commitments of our class members to learning the language she loved, varied greatly, but she was always cheerful, always encouraging. All 10 of us were Americans. Her post-WW II memories of American GIs and the Hershey bars they handed out to her and other kids who hadn’t tasted sweets in years, were still strong. Maybe that helped explain her patience.
Two middle aged couples, one black and one white, were there preparing for missionary assignments in West Africa. Rick and Don from Portland, taking a year off from school to ski, enrolled in the program to avoid the draft. We mostly saw them during bad weather. They slept in sleeping bags on their trunks in the back of an old restaurant van bought in Germany. The sides of the van boasted the name of the restaurant – Alte Liebe (old love) – and a cheerful alpine scene. Pat, from Pennsylvania, and Judy from New Jersey, rented rooms in the apartment of a professor of philosophy.
And me? I had a place to live, a place to eat, friends. Life was looking up.
French became much more than an academic subject. Memorizing the exercises assigned by Mille. Simon would directly affect my pleasure/pain meter during the year to come. My first miserable days in Grenoble provided a powerful incentive to learn.
I began to think I might make it.
France – Rescue!
It is actually possible to get tired of French bread, even very good French bread.
My longing for a change of diet, the need to find a permanent place to live, and the return of a minimal amount of courage, drove me to seek out the University of Grenoble’s one residence hall. The ground floor bustled with students who looked like they knew exactly what they were doing. I stood in the midst of all this activity and my face must have registered desperation. A tall, slender, blond girl came my way, a smile on her face.
“Can I help?” English. More welcome words were never spoken.
It was Jill, Jill from California, who had just completed a year in the U. of Grenoble’s language program (advanced class), and was off to the Sorbonne in a couple of weeks for a second year. She took pity on me. It could have been the tale of my bread and butter diet that got to her.
There was no place for me in the dorm, and I couldn’t have afforded it any way. Together we studied the board of ads posted by families willing to rent rooms to students. She came with me to meet Madame Leiva-Marcon and made sure we understood one another and the terms of my lodging – one dark bedroom in their modest third floor apartment, furnished with a wardrobe, vanity and bed – all huge and heavily carved – use of the single bathroom, and a daily breakfast to consist of bread, butter, jam and coffee.
Jill helped me register for classes and get the student card that gave me access to the AGE (Association General des Etudiants) cafeteria.
Cafeteria – the word doesn’t conjure up a gourmet menu, but having grown up on meat and potatoes, with salt and pepper the only sanctioned seasoning, the AGE cafeteria was a new world.
The broad stone stairs leading to the second floor cafeteria were packed with students every lunch and dinner, waiting for the wide doors at the top to open. The doors did nothing to prevent the escape of potent perfumes – rosemary, garlic, sage, tarragon – that alternated depending on the menu of the day, teasing the nostrils of famished students.
In this monastically plain space, furnished with long scarred tables and folding chairs, I first discovered flavors that opened more than my taste buds to the world’s possibilities. Aromatic stews, whole fried trout, the unlikely flesh of artichokes, eggplant in thick tomato sauce, heady with garlic and olive oil, fresh yogurt in individual glass bottles, apricot tarts, the fruit nestled on custard in a puff pastry shell.
AAAAAAH!
France – Water, water, all around. . . . . .
It becomes all too clear what I have gotten myself into the next morning when I venture out of my hotel in need of food. Grenoble has no lack of cafes and I walk by a number of possibilities. But the idea of sitting down at a table and attempting a conversation in order to get something to eat is way beyond my level of courage and competence.
Finally, hunger getting the better of fear and desperation setting in, I join the housewives queuing up inside an epicerie. A few cured meats in various shapes hang in the display window guarded, on either end by baskets filled with tall loaves of bread. Shelves to the ceiling hold all manner of mysterious jars and tins and boxes. Clerks use long poles to grasp items from the higher shelves as shoppers call out orders.
This is not the A & P.
It is obvious I will have to do something more than point. The urge to escape before my turn comes almost wins, but hunger drives me on. I am fairly confident of the words for bread and butter (pain et buerre) and I practice them to myself as I wait my turn.
“Madmoiselle?” From behind the counter, the thin woman in her white jacket peers at me. The backs of my thighs quiver. This is it.
“Du pain et du buerre.”
She says something in return, something I don’t understand. Is she asking how much I want? I take a chance and hold up one finger. The shop grows quiet. Heads turn in my direction. It must be obvious to the clerk that any further attempt at communication is futile. She pulls a baguette from the basket, wraps up a piece of butter cut from the slab in the display case and hands them across the counter. From the bills I hold out, she selects one. I turn to flee.
“Madmoiselle!” She is holding out my change.
Squeezing between shoppers, I push my way to the sidewalk, grateful for the morning air that cools my burning face. Baguette under my arm, I retreat to my hotel room and devour my first meal in Grenoble.
Many more meals of bread and butter are to follow.
NEXT: Rescue!
Foreign Writes To Go World-Wide and a Saudi Update
Foreign Writes to Cover the Globe
So glad to be home, up and about, and ready to carry on with Foreign Writes. In not too long Foreign Writes will go world-wide – you’ll be treated to guest posts showcasing terrific writers whose overseas experiences have had an impact on their lives and writing.
Saudi Update
Some things are on the move, albeit slowly, in The Kingdom. A week ago hundreds of women braved an official injunction and DROVE. Although several were harassed, it appears there were no arrests this time, a change from a similar demonstration in 2011. Have a look and check out the thumbs up. http://youtu.be/k4tP6Hr4A1o
In another hopeful sign, a female Saudi film maker, Haifa Al Mansour, was given permission to make the first feature length film shot in Saudi Arabia. ‘Wadjda’ features an all-Saudi cast (though she had a Saudi-German crew) and tells the story of a young Saudi girl pushing the limits of her freedom. In an interview on NPR, Haifa Al Mansour recounted the difficulty of directing a film via microphones from inside a van with tinted windows while wearing an abaya. Despite the official permission, she knew that her presence outside the van would draw crowds and probably the religious police. Here’s the link to her interview. http://www.npr.org/2013/09/22/224437165/wadjda-director-haifaa-al-mansour-it-is-time-to-open-up
I saw the film last night and was stunned by its realistic depiction of the middle-class Saudi world. In scenes from Wadjda’s school, home and daily life, the total attention Saudi society requires to any act that might provoke the attention of men, however unwanted, adds complication to each moment of this young girl’s day. Exhausting, just thinking about it. The film has received the highest praise at major film festivals (Venice/London). Make an effort to find a theater showing it!!!
During my ‘down’ time, I listened to a delightful book on CD “The Girls of Riyadh” by Rajaa Alsanea. In the form of emails posted to the internet over the period of a year, it relates the tribulations of four wealthy young Saudi women – particularly their struggles with the men who come in and out of their lives. The book’s frankness caused quite a major stir in the Arab world.
A couple of other books well worth a read are “In the Land of Invisible Women”, written by Quanta Ahmed a Muslim female surgeon of Pakistani/British background, recounting her two years working at a prestigious hospital in Riyadh. Very frank. For those curious about how this bizarre country came to be, you can’t go wrong with “The Kingdom: Arabia and the House of Saud” by Robert Lacey.
Down for a Bit
Dear Readers,
Sorry to let you know that I had a bad riding accident followed by surgery. I’m doing much better and am in a rehab facility . I hope to be posting in a week or so. Bye for now.
Sharon
