I haven’t had much to say on the subject of French culture and living as of late because I have now readjusted to living in America.  Thank you to all of you who continue to check in from time to time.  As things stand now, I should be back in France at the beginning of the New Year and I look forward to sharing living French with you then.

~Katie

This summer I am in New Mexico, the place where I spent my childhood.  One of the things I am doing is cleaning out, getting rid of all of my things that I will not be taking with me to France.  I will be allowed two suitcases and a carryon bag so bringing things like my bed or my dog are out of the question and so shortly I will be giving them away. 

There are other things that I will not be bringing with me.  As I go through closets full of stuff I am finding things that I’ve kept since my childhood.  Today I found a couple boxes of stickers, greeting cards, & stationery.  Going through them I rediscovered Lisa Frank papers and envelopes which I collected during elementary school, stickers that my grandmother had given to me, and many years of handmade Christmas cards.  I found postcards that I bought at Carlsbad Caverns and Washington DC and Chicago.  I even found one of my high school graduation cards.  A part of me wants to continue to hold onto these things but it is only out of fear.  I am fearful that one day I will want these things and that they won’t be there because I gave them all away.

I am here in New Mexico this summer, the first home I ever knew, to say good-bye, adieu, to the life that I had once planed to live.  It is the right thing to do because until I let go of things here they will only weigh me down, stopping me from what God is calling me to do.  Today I am choosing to let go of my childhood treasures and follow God.

“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” –Matthew 4:19

I love living in France!  I somehow can’t describe it any better than that.  French culture fits me and I fit it but the something missing from life there is my family and friends from New Mexico.  I have a family and friends in France too and I tell them all about my family and friends in New Mexico.  I want to share them with them because they are a part of me.  This summer, as I have been in New Mexico, I have continued to share with my family and friends about my family and friends in France.  I want to share them with them because they are a part of me.  So no matter where I am there is always someone to look forward to being with again.  Leaving home to go home, either way I’m with family and friends.

I’m finding that the adjustment to returning to New Mexico is more difficult than my adjustment to France. Why? Well one reason is reverse culture shock., expectations play a major role. I expected to have some difficulty when I got to France, speaking a different language and learning the rules of a different culture . . . But New Mexico? . . . I know that place!

It took coming back to New Mexico to realize how much I have changed while living in France. In adjusting to life abroad, my perceptions, habits, and even values have changed. All of a sudden, in coming back to New Mexico, I’ve been faced with just how different I have become. I no longer want to live in America with its big cars and fast passed stressed lifestyle. I want the simpler things in life like long leisurely meals celebrating with people I care about. I am shocked by how loud most people speak in America and frustrated by their indirectness. Funny, I use to not mind those things.

I suppose that in time I will become reacquainted with living in New Mexico, probably just about the time I’m headed back to France.

I have always experienced reversed culture shock more strongly than culture shock.  When I go to another country, another culture, I expect things to be different than what I’ve ever known, what I’m use to and thus I am prepared to adapt and feel out of sorts for a time.  But, when I come back to the states I usually think that I am coming back to the same place I left, just exactly as it was x number of years ago.  This has not been the case.  Also, during my time abroad I have changed and now see the world through different eyes therefore making the place I once called home not so comfortable anymore.

 After spending a month in China it took me almost that long to readjust to American lifestyle.  I was horrified by the vast amount of consumerism and the fast passed life.  It took two weeks before I even wanted to leave my own home.  My father was concerned because he thought I was depressed when in fact I just felt more comfortable in my room or playing with my puppy.

 I have now been living outside of the US for nine months, the longest I have ever done so.  Now I am about to board a plane headed for a home I once knew.  This time I am prepared for the revered culture shock but will that make a difference?  Maybe so or perhaps not, we will see.  In any case I am soon to be in my mother’s arms and that one thought brings me contentment.

I always dreamed of time traveling back to a place where life was simpler and not filled with money obsessed workaholics, a place where families still sat down and ate dinner together every night and men were gentlemen and women didn’t try to be so domineering.  Some may call me old fashioned but I enjoy the simpler things in life and that is just what I found in moving to France.

In France people work about 35 hours per week and get 6 weeks’ vacation time in comparison to the average American who works 40 to 45 hours per week and gets 20 to 25 days vacation.  That means that the French work 20% less than Americans.  And the difference is not all in the number it is in the mentality.  Americans spend much time and energy stressing about work while the French do not.  And because the French are not spending so much time preoccupied with work they are spending more time with their families.  There is more time and effort devoted to the things that really matter like family and taking care of one’s self.  French families actually eat dinner together every night and not in front of the TV, no, they sit around the table and take pleaser in each other’s company.  Less stress and more time with family, wow, what a concept!!

Maybe I just surround myself with good company but men here are more gentlemanly than most in the states.  In this culture, men still open doors for women and offer to pore them a drink.  Here, it is the man who always drives the car and who pays the tab when they go out.  And no, that doesn’t mean that here a women doesn’t know how to drive a car or can’t drive herself places, it’s just that it is the man who takes responsibility for things which in turn allows the women to sit back, relax, and enjoy the scenery.  And women here don’t power struggle like they do in America.  They let a man be a gentleman because she knows that doing so doesn’t make her a weaker person but allows her to be more of the person she was created to be.  Women of America take note, when you are frustrated because you feel like you are having to do it all (job, raise kids, clean the house, manage every personal aspect of your family life) just take a note from the French and go for a drive.

I never found a time machine but I did take a flight across the sea to a simpler place which I now call home.

Yesterday I bought my train ticket to leave Saint-Dizier.  This one small act followed months of prayer for guidance which was answered a few weeks ago.  The decision is that I will go to the states this summer and return to France in the fall.  It has yet to be determined if I will get to come directly back to Saint-Dizier or if I will be in Paris for a time.  I am both happy and sad about this.

It has been nine months since I last saw my family and friends.  A lot has happened in that time.  I have grown and changed, I have adapted to a new culture, a new way of living.  I am no longer the same person that I was.  I never felt like I quite fit in there, with that life, and I struggled to be just me.  Then I left and found a place where I could be just me, a repose of sorts.  Now I’m going back to my first home and get to put into practice all that I have learned here.  It’s final exam time and I’m curious to see the results.

Being in New Mexico this summer, I am looking forward to camping with family, seeing people at church, eating Mexican and Chinese food, and playing with my puppy.  I am also looking forward to visiting with family and friends, telling them all about my life here in France.  (This blog is only the tip of the iceberg.)  I am also eager to see what changes have passed during my absence.  Babies have been born, friends have gotten married, and my sister cut her hair short (something I never thought would happen).  And those are just the things I already know about.  What other changes have occurred there?

I am happy to be seeing family and friends soon and at the same time sad to be leaving France even for just the summer.  Imagining my daily life without needing to use French to get around seems dull.  Where’s the challenge?  Where’s the fun if it’s all so simple?  I will miss the wonderfully delicious food and the at ease pace of living but most of all I will miss the people.  I have friends here, I have a church here, and I have a family here!!  All who are very dear to me and whom I will miss and think about often throughout the summer.  This week I am soaking it all up, spending time with the people that I’m closest with.  Last night at the weekly bible study I am a part of, Ennio said something to me that really stuck.  “Si le Seigneur veut que sois revenu tu te feras la rentrée, et s’il veut que tu sois resté en bas tu resteras en bas, mais je prie que tu nous retourneras, notre Kate.”  (“If the Lord wants you to come back you will come back, and if he wants you to stay down there (US) than you will stay down there, but I pray that you will return to us, our Kate.”)  To this I smiled and said, “Amen”.

This week for the first time since arriving in France nine months ago I have been living in a house where only French is spooken.  Everywhere else I have stayed people have spoken English to one degree or another.  Upon first arriving I found that speaking some English was a comfort because of my lack of practice in the proceeding years.  During thoses six months I became more confident in speaking French.  Then I was comforted by spending a week living in a house where I spoke nothing but English.  Then I moved into a house for three months where I spoke nothing but English and my French language skills suffered.  For the past five days I have been with people who only speak French and I’m loving it!!  I mean, I’m glad that I didn’t come right into such a situation nine months ago but now at this time it has been a good thing for me.  I am learning so much!!  My reading, writing, & comprehension skills are already quite good it’s just my speaking ability that is yet a bit lacking.  And that in itself has been a learning experience for I am a person who likes to talk.  It’s been a good thing, though, because it has provided me with the drive to keep speaking, making mistakes along the way, learning from them and improving.

Ahhhh… le pain (the bread)!!!  This is truly one of the best things in French cuisine and a daily staple.  To fully understand why French bread is so good one must first understand why American bread is so not.

American bread is slices of sandwich bread massed produced by machines, bagged and kept on store shelves for weeks before it is consumed.  To the contrast, French bread, the baguette, is made fresh daily by real people and then eaten that very day.  Fresh bread, wow, what a concept!

A baguette (meaning stick) of bread is a variety of bread.  This bread is emblematic of France, particularly of Paris but today can be found all over the world.  A standard baguette is about 5 to 6 cm wide with a high of about 3 to 4 cm and about 65 cm long.  The different sorts of baguettes are characterized, among other things, by their weight – 250 grams in the Parisian region, but sometimes only 200 grams in province(the south).  The baguette crust is very crunchy and gilded, while the interior is white and soft.  As a rule, it keeps its form and cracks when you break it.  This is a criterion to know if the bread is quality.  Just watch the movie Ratatouille.

In France, it is not rare to have some baguette with butter and jam for breakfast or to dip it in a bowl of coffee or hot chocolate.  Short baguettes are sometimes used to do sandwiches.  These smaller baguettes are called demi-baguettes (half sticks).  One can also serve a demi-baguettes with pâté or a cheese.

Since bread is eaten the day it is made, what does one do with day old bread?  Well, you dip it in egg and pan fry it of course.  This is called le pain perdu (the lost bread) or what we Americans know as French toast.

Overall, a baguette is one of my favorite things to eat and a delicious addition to any meal.

Doors, doors everywhere, how many can one house have?

Here, every room has a door to be opened and shut after entering a room.  This house has seventeen doors, none of which lead to the outside.  Then there is the front door, the back door, two in the garage, and one on each balcony.  That means, in this one house alone there are twenty-three doors!!  Just to go from my bedroom into the kitchen I must open, pass through, and close four doors.

The doors are there to section off the house.  Some of them make sense to me, like the bathroom door, the water closet door or the bedroom doors.  The ones that sort of make sense to me are the kitchen door and the living room doors which can be useful on the occasion when one is entertaining and wishes to hide an unsightly mess.  Also, when the house is sectioned off then it is less to heat in the winter.  Makes sense to me I suppose, especially in a colder climate such as this.  But still, so many doors and so much effort wasted on opening and quietly closing each one over and over and over again.  I’m not sure if I’m always so crazy about all these doors.