20. French Class

 I was about to tell you a story about when we returned to Recloses, the the tiny village we visited over Christmas and where we met Shahar and Tali and their two younguns. Our return became a comedy of errors as we messed some things up and felt guilty about it and so projected reactions onto people that...what I was going to say is that I'm not going to tell you that story, because I started a French class.

That's right. I went to my shiny new French class this past Tuesday. It will hopefully be better than the one I took briefly when we first got here, and it is certainly cheaper. See, the first one I took was a for-profit affair, while this one is offered by the city of Paris.

We heard about this at a Christmas party organized by Paris Urban Adventures, this Meetup group we'd joined to find fun things to do that didn't require throwing wads of cash at something or -one. At this party we were speaking to a rare French attendee (most of the people are either Anglophone in some way, living in Paris and souls in similar straits) about my woes learning French. I tend to lean more heavily on the expense of paying for classes as an excuse than on my reticence to just go out and start babbling until people start understanding me.

This is how it is all the time with me. Except for the part where I can start speaking.

“But the city offers free classes!” she said over her glass of wine.

“C'est vrai?” I replied, demonstrating that I had something to show for having been in Paris for three months.

“Yes. Just go to the mairie in your arrondissment and sign right up.”

We decided to get that all taken care of after the holidays and visits by in-laws and trips to Recloses and Marrakech.

After consulting a certain well-known electronic system of tubes, we found that our native party-goer had been misinformed; the classes were not free. They were, however, gallons cheaper than Lutece Langues, the company I had taken classes from when we first got here. They had charged 250 euros for eight classes-- one month's worth. Paris charges 122 euros for six months of twice-a-week meetings, plus gives you some sort of certificate that would help getting a job or something. I don't need that. And I wouldn't even be here for all the classes; we're heading back to the States at the beginning of June.

The class is one of a horde that the city offers. In addition to teaching French and other languages, you can take classes on everything from computer programming to plumbing to crochet to business management. All of this is detailed in a book the size of a small phonebook. You simply choose what you want to take, fill out the form, mail it in and, when they return it saying you're in, show up at the place on the day with money in hand.

The thing is, though, the sign-up form is in French. As per usual, without my Threepio, the Babel fish curled in the ear of my heart, I'd have been lost.

It's funny; the level of the class I signed up for touted as one of the things it would help you do was to be able to fill out official forms. So what do the people that don't have their bilingual savior do? Maybe Paris doesn't want people that lost showing up. But Megan helped me fill out the form (read as: she did it for me) and we mailed it off.

It came back a week or so later and I had been denied! Said I didn't meet the prerequisites. This was a beginning-level course (I had no illusions that my beer- and croissant-buying abilities indicated any meaningful proficiency); there were no prerequisites. In the phonebook of classes, on the page describing the class, in the little box where it said prerequisites, it said: non, which means exactly what it looks like.

But we've been advised of ways to deal with bureaucratic hiccups like this. They're not uncommon here, and we've run into them before. When you don't have all the things you need to do something, before giving up and allowing yourself to be arrested, try something like this: “Oh, I know, I don't have X (where X is your ID, or a ticket to whatever, or an adequate reason to be behind the security barrier in a government building). I'm sorry; I forgot it. Could we just pretend I do, or decide it doesn't matter and let me do this thing anyway?” It's not guaranteed to work, but it might.

So anyway, despite not having the okay to go to these classes, I figured I'd show up and say, “Hi. I know it says that I can't take this class because I don't meet the prerequisites, but there aren't supposed to be any. Can I just give you some money and sit here each week?”

It comes in such funny sizes and colors, it's like it's not even real!

So that first night I showed up at the elementary school where the classes were being held. I started taking an essay test with everyone else where you're supposed to write using as much French as you know. Just a couple minutes into it this Australian (I could tell by the accent) lady went up to the teacher, whose name was Caroline-- pronounced kare-oh-leena-- and said that she couldn't write anything, she knew no French at all. Caroline was very nice about, told her to just come back next week at the same time, and that's when class would start. As soon as the Australian lady I left I raised my hand. Heh. Old habits die hard.

“Ah, pardon?” Once I got Caroline's attention, I said, “Um, je pourrais...um, can I talk to you?” Caroline nodded. I sat down across from her at her desk. “Hi. So, I signed up for this class-- the beginning level, right?-- but when they sent me the letter back...” I showed her the returned form.

Caroline looked at for a moment. “Hmm. See, it says here that you do not meet the...but there are none. I do not understand.” Good news, that. “Maybe...maybe they meant to check here, to tell you to show up...well, tonight, but instead they checked the box that they did.” See? Oh, well, they may have meant to say come on in, but instead they said no you can't play. Oh well.

“I tell you what. I will talk to le directeur and see if he has your name. You come back here next week and we'll see if you can stay. You can go now.” And that's what I did.

And I waited until this past Tuesday night when I headed back over there. It's about a twenty minute walk from Le Petit Bateau to the school, and this past night's walk was much nicer. It's still cold here, but in a way that isn't just obnoxious. The previous few weeks it has been frigid, ladies and gents.

My feet felt like this for two weeks straight.

I arrived just as the door was opening, so I didn't have to wait around. Most of the students knew where they were going, but I found a group of them standing in the hallway outside the teacher's lounge. A nice lady with white hair was answering their questions in sweet, fluid French, which, judging by their faces, wasn't helping the students very much. Then one of them looked off to the right at the stairs and said, “Caroline!” and all their faces lit up. Caroline came down the hallway, smiling and bon soir-ing at everybody. She held up her finger- just a minute, please- and went into the teacher's lounge. I was reminded of my time as a sub.


When I was working as a substitute teacher, I once subbed for a second grade class. I do not like to do this. I don't like to sub for any group of kids under, say, twelve, preferably fourteen. The younger they are, the harder it is for them to deal with the upheaval of having a different teacher in their room. But it was a job so I was doing it, following the teacher's plans she had left for me, and there were kids saying, “No, that's not how Ms. Schultz does it! Circle time is after math time.” One of them seriously almost started crying on me, and I wasn't being mean when I explained how I was only following Ms. Schultz's instructions, I was totally nice. But they had one person that they trusted to lead them through this morass of education, and that was Ms. Schultz.

I was this guy to them.

About midmorning Ms. Schultz stopped in to check on us. She was on campus that day, but in meetings or something. But these kids, their eyes lit up and they were so happy to see her. They started telling on me, how I was doing things wrong. She explained that I was doing just what she wanted, that she had left specific instructions and she had a reason and everything was going to be all right. And after that it was. Because Ms. Schultz said so, and that's who they trusted.

These was the faces I thought of when I saw the other students see Caroline. These were adults, mind you, but they were adults who, for one reason or another, were living in a country where they couldn't speak enough of the language to get by or ahead. So far they had only spent a couple hours with Caroline, but now she was the face of how they were going to learn this impossible language. They had become comfortable speaking to her in their halting, terrible French. They trusted her not to judge them. Or maybe I'm projecting a lot more onto this exchange than there was, but in their faces I saw those second graders, so happy that Ms. Schultz was there and now everything was going to be okay.

I tried talking to the white-haired lady, but mostly I just showed her my returned form, the checked box saying I didn't meet the prerequisites, and saying, “Mais, j'ai besoin de la classe A1.1. On n'a pas pre-requis.” My delivery of this sentence, halting and slow while I searched for the words and conjugated the verbs before saying them, was supposed to reassure her that just because I was able to say, “I needed class A1.1. It has no prerequisites,” that didn't mean that I in fact did not need it, that I was still a dullard. It worked. She got Caroline's attention and showed her my form. Caroline looked up from whatever thing, saw me, and said, “Ah, ouais, ouais. Ma classe.” Ouais, ladies and gents, is to oui as our yeah is to yes. Just so you know.

I include this only because ti was the third result when i did a search for ouais.
  It has no real connection to anything. But dang, lookit that gut!

So I got my class. It was in the same classroom as it was the week before, and I recognized several of the students who were already there, sitting quietly with notebooks and pens at the ready. The only open seats were at the very front center and off to the back corner. Normally I have no problem with front and center because I'm a nerd that way, but this time...I was shy. So I sat in the back next to a Russian girl. I found out later she was Russian because, well, if I go on to tell you all about that first night, with the je m'appelles and the annoying guy who sat next to me and the desks that seem to date from the 19th century we'll be here all night. So I'm closing the curtain now, and will tell you more about this after I've been to the class some more. For now I need to go get my textbook and do my homework.