Last Thursday morning I woke up early in order to catch the bus down to Marseille. It was, after all, the day for my big civics course and the note for the convocation stated very clearly that it would start promptly at 9:00. Riding on a full bus of commuters, I read the free local paper as we travelled, getting myself in the mood for a day of French. There seemed just enough time to walk instead of taking the metro so I headed due south. I found the building without too much trouble and saw another person carrying a blue folder like mine. Heading up the stairs I found one other woman waiting outside the door. It was about ten to nine and the door was locked. Around nine o’clock there was one other gentleman who had shown up. Five minutes later there was a woman who seemed surprised that the door was closed. She banged loudly, a man opened the door for us, and we all went in.
This woman turned out to be our instructor. She popped behind the desk and puttered around. Her phone kept ringing, and as I listened carefully (as any good eavesdropping foreigner has no shame in doing) I stopped short. Could she be… was she really… yes, she was speaking Russian. About fifteen minutes later, after aforesaid gentleman quizzed me on green card requirements for his family member in the U.S., the woman invited us into the room. At about this time another woman showed up only speaking in English. The woman was very disapproving but said that she could translate the main points throughout the day. That was the last we heard of her English!
As we filed into the room, giving up our letters of convocation, another woman showed up without her letter. This woman was denied entrance. She called her boyfriend on the phone, yelling about how she couldn’t possibly take the bus back home (all in English, again) because she was here and she had an appointment. The Russian lady was unimpressed. The woman then put her boyfriend on the phone to speak with the instructor, who then refused. All at top volume, all right in front of the group. The woman eventually went away, not making any headway, and our Russian instructor answered a few more calls from her family members. Finally, over an hour after the class was due to start, we began.
We all introduced ourselves (in French) and had to state why we were there. The well-duh answer was that we were told we had to come, but that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. The very first man up was a Muslim (important later in the story, I promise) who was on his sixth French wife. He was looking to become a citizen. There were a number of other interesting characters in the room, with varying facility in the French language.
And then the lessons began. Sort of. Our instructor began with an overview of the day. Right off, the man in the back entered into a discussion of why a large mosque could not be built in Marseille. There was a high school girl who attended a private school somewhere along the Southern coast who jumped right into this discussion. (She was dressed in a full-body head-covering, Muslim as well.) The two of them argued and debated with the instructor for probably a good half-hour, maybe more, before we turned to the first REAL topic slated for the day. French history. Yes, we meandered our way through ancient history, medieval times, the French Revolution all the way through the world wars and modern times. The Edict of Nantes, Charlemagne, all of the Louis’, you name it, we covered it.
We covered the structure of the government and the rights of all people living in France. A good deal of discussion was had over the rights of women. And at the end we were given a list of scenarios and asked to verify the veracity of each statement. Pretty straightforward. Could have been covered in an hour and a half by a competent instructor. One who did not engage with every tiny provocation from the peanut gallery.
Because not only did we cover the lack of a large mosque in Marseille, we had the opportunity to sing the French national anthem and discuss in great detail why it was still appropriate to sing in the present day. We also discussed the possibility of marrying a monkey, U. S. health care (complete with pantomime and role-play demonstrating an ambulance pulling up to the scene and asking for health insurance – yes, hop right in – no pack up and drive away), the appropriateness of same-sex couples and the unfortunate lack of support for arranged marriages. There were numerous discussions that took us way off topic, and there were numerous groupings around the room that would have no respect for the classroom environment and simply carry on their own discussion, at top volumes. And the instructor would simply move to a different area of the room to discuss with those few who were still looking at her while she tried to instruct.
It will not surprise you, then, that at the end of the day the instructor announced to us that normally, at the end of the day, we would receive a diploma certifying that we had completed the module. However, for some reason all of the documents that she had for us were marked with the date of September 19th. “What do you mean, that date has no meaning for any of you?” was her reaction. She then passed around several sheets of paper on which we were to write our contact info (why she did not have a list of who we were from the start is not a question I wanted to bring up) and assured us that we would receive our copies via the mail.
I left the building, grateful for my one hour luncheon in the sun, down by the waterfront watching all of the boats (during which time an older gentleman approached me to ask if the scarf I had just started knitting was to be sold as a souvenir for tourists – I had to admit that it was for my son and was indeed also a tourist myself), and grateful that all of the steps in becoming settled here in France were now complete. That is, until the next letter I receive in the mail…
No comments:
Post a Comment