Eyes wide shut

Eyes like saucers and mouth open wide with my lower jaw practically reaching my knees. That must have pretty much been how I looked hours after returning to my flat in Ecully. Before elaborating on my complete astonishment and the reasons for it, I should probably set some things right. Three weeks in I had already accused some of my colleagues of merely tolerating me rather than liking as such. Ever since coming back however and showing my face at work, I almost start thinking the opposite. Everyone is very friendly, I do not know why but perhaps I will find out one day. Maybe I changed after four days on my own in the country. Maybe things here changed. Whatever it is, people wait for me before going off for lunch or otherwise drag me with them by my hair, they say hi really quite enthusiastically and one of them came to see me on Wednesday evening.

Karmen is her name and she was in the training group with me. Apparently she had spent a large chunk of the weekend by herself which made me feel a bit sorry for her because it can get quite lonely then. So she came over to check if I was back. Coming in she announced to be in a bad mood due to some issues whilst buying chocolate. As she had perhaps been a little alone over the weekend and moody I figured my marbled teabread, tea and chocolate Easter eggs were the way forward.

Over tea and chocolate she updated me on the latest developments at work involving another of our colleagues and some of the interns. Her story resulted in the huge eyes and overall totally unintelligent look on my face. Astonishment and sheer disbelief took hold of me. I will explain. As it happens the youngest colleague we have has not been very well for the last weeks. Nausea and throwing up. Now if that takes a day, food poisoning is a logic explanation. Bit longer…some kind of odd virus, infection, whatever. But longer and being a girl, that makes people think. As she too was in our training group we had fairly soon inquired whether pregnancy was a possibility. Technically yes was the answer. Since Wednesday, the technically is no more. The girl in question was sent home by our boss and told to think about it very very carefully. Overall impression amongst new colleagues about this approach.

Strangely though, where older women tend to wait sharing this kind of news until the third month, a 17-year-old, or perhaps just this one, managed to have everyone on the floor know within hours. To say some of the reactions are rather surprising is an understatement I suppose. Most of the female interns were very enthusiastic, one even started crying apparently. I now wonder whether me and the two other girls that are not over the moon about it are the odd ones out. Does not anyone of them grasp the implications of this? That the girl is 17, going on 18? That she has no certificates whatsoever? That she has no fixed job either as this is seasonal work? That in her behaviour she is still fairly young? Does none of them see all this? Or do I have to conclude now that there is a serious age difference here? That the older you get, the more you worry and the less impulsive you get? Or is this what they call ‘experience’?

It is a somewhat strange sensation though to know that someone who is a lot younger, is pregnant. Next week she comes back and I will look at her and think that when she has reached 26, she’ll have a nine-year-old, abortion not being an option to her. I will look and wonder how she’s going to cope. Taking care of herself is a major challenge as it is. How is she going to take care of a baby? Luckily her parents are very enthusiastic too. I don’t understand but perhaps this child then is wanted by some if not entirely by its mother at the moment. I will look at her and realise that despite being nine years older, I am nowhere near ready to have a child and not because I cannot take care of it, financial issues being left out of consideration. The mean reason is that a child means huge responsibilities and living to your child’s clock and needs. Baby first, self second, or that is how my parents told me it should be. At seventeen, I doubt she can do it. At twenty-six, I do not want to do it, but then, I have the luxury of thought.

La tranquillité de la campagne

Four days in the country. Nice and quiet, don’t need to talk to anyone. Walk through the garden, see how everything grows. Hours stretching out before you. Or at least, that is what I thought when leaving Limonest. Somehow life in the countryside is a lot busier than one thinks. In my enthusiasm I had taken my language courses Arabic and Italian with me. After all, in four days there is plenty of time to work on those. However, as things turned out, not really.

All right, I did sleep a lot. And spent quite some time cooking and baking. I like doing that and the oven here is terrific so I figured I’d take the opportunity and try out some new stuff. In addition however there are always things to do. Like taking pictures of everything that grows here. The parents like being informed about how their fruit trees, berry bushes and other new plants with names I have long since forgotten do. Now prune, apple and pear trees are fairly easy to spot. They are about as tall as I am, I know where they are, can’t really miss them. However, at some time when I was not here, the parents have also planted rather obscure little things here and there. Somewhere around the edges of the garden where the grass grows tall. All right, the grass grows tall everywhere now due to a broken lawn mower but even with a mower in working order I think finding these twigs would have been a serious challenge. “They have been marked with silver foil papers”, I was informed over the phone. Please check on them, there’s five. So there I was, walking through our garden like a boy scout with a camera, looking for tiny twigs with silver foil on them. If you have never been a scout that is not easy. Eventually I found three out of five, all doing very well indeed.

Apart from checking the growth of new plants and trees and taking pictures of them considerable time is spend paying social visits to the neighbours. A little way up the road is the farm of an elderly French couple who thought it very nice of me to come and pay them a visit. As they keep an eye on the house whenever no one is here they had already spotted me arriving, although when you are driving around in a car as green as an apple, literally, I doubt it is hard not to see. Although I went for half an hour, I think I ended up chatting to François and Odette for an hour and a half.

Tuesday was delivery day. Tiles previously ordered at Gédimat were being delivered on a pallet. The delivery people do not put them inside and so I saw myself forced to carry them in box after box. Muscle ache in my arms and back being the result of this carrying tiles. Later during the afternoon I went to see acquaintances of my parents who run a campsite nearby close to a village called St. Bonnet de Vieille Vigne. It’s an odd 10-12 kilometres away. Having first considered going to see them on Wednesday, my leaving day, I was glad I didn’t. When going to see them it is wise to take some time for that as they love chatting. Their daughter was there as well and is quite interested in doing the same job as me next summer. She now works on camp sites and in hotels but compared to that, this is luxury with two compulsory days off per week, at least eleven hours between each shift and paid overtime.

All in all my four quiet days in the countryside became rather filled up days. Very nicely filled days though and when being away from work and home even, very quickly it feels like you have been away for a very long time. A phone call from a colleague therefore becomes a reminder that it is only a few days and that after a long weekend, it is time to go home and back to work.

Sanctuary

Everyone should have one. You know, a place to go and spend some time alone or if you must with people you will never tire off. Mine has become my parents’ fermette in the French countryside. After working and spending the weekend with colleagues as well, I think it was a very good idea to come here. All right, I am on my own here, no one to talk to, to laugh with but no one to get on my nerves either. It is not that I want to spend my time complaining, but whenever I spend a lot of time with my compatriots I feel different.

Compared to other seasonal employees and interns, I am by far the eldest. Difference with them varies from two to nine years. Especially the latter is a huge difference and it feels that way too. I felt that way when starting university a couple of years ago when I was surrounded by people just leaving home and now I feel the same. For a couple it is apparently not easy living on their own in the sense that everything seems to have been easy for them. Never met any real obstructions in their life and now that they have to take care of things themselves they spend a lot of time complaining. About everything. They also spend a lot of time ventilating a rather strong opinion. Also about everything. To say I am uncomfortable with that is an understatement.

Then there is a few that is even younger not by age but by behaviour. Still stuck in puberty and thinking they know everything whereas they do not have a clue. One of them thinks she might be pregnant at 17. This does not prevent her from obviously flirting with one of the interns, desperation dripping off. I have decided it best not to say much about it because I find it so wrong I can hardly watch it. A number of the female interns turn out to spend a lot of their time gossiping about others which is hardly surprising with a disproportionate number of women together. One of my colleagues kindly directed me to one of them if I wanted to find out what is being said about me. I told her I am not in the least bit interested in hearing what people that do not know me at all think about me, whilst internally laughing at the relative naivety of sharing this information with me.

Luckily there are not only girls and once again I have to conclude that I get along much better with men. If they don’t like you, they just don’t talk to you or say it out loud. No gossiping behind your back as soon as you’re out of ear-shot, no female envy, no big opinions about your behaviour and/or looks. They tease you though, but I can put up with that. And some like talking about themselves. A lot. Still, annoying as that can be, I prefer it to having the creepy feeling that whatever I do or say is disapproved of and that I am merely tolerated rather than liked.

Constantly feeling different and watched does get on ones nerves though and after spending twelve days with the same people it is time to spend some time alone. Not having to behave, not having to be friendly and flexible, not having to ignore minor nuisances. Whenever you feel like that, there should be a sanctuary. A far-away or a close-by place to go to. To be safe at. To be alone at.

First impressions

Coming Friday it will be three weeks already. Three weeks since I arrived here. Three weeks in my new home and in my new job. Although I have to admit that I have not yet done much work in those three weeks. Everyone is started off by three weeks of training during which you see a lot of insurance policies, learn to work with the computer systems and take a look underneath the hood of a car. Very interesting stuff. With three weeks almost over though I have to say I do want to start the real thing. Familiarity you only get by doing the same thing again and again and again. Most insurance policies you will have to check anyway and I learnt how to look things up and then to use the relevant information a while ago. Still, I am not the only one.

As it happens, the other three people doing the training with me are pretty much fresh out of secondary school and sometimes seem to find it rather challenging to listen all day long to someone explaining things and to deal with a lot of information. Then again, these are not the only tasks they find challenging. Being relatively far away from everything is difficult, having to take the bus to work every day is annoying and not having internet access for a day which prevents them from chatting to their friends is a life-threatening situation. Apart from the bus-issue which is a problem of course, I find it rather challenging to work up some understanding every day. I don’t know if it is me, but I just want to put them in the ‘spoiled brats’ file and tell them to go and try living in Bradford. Try sharing a flat or worse, a room, with other people for seven years. One of them was surprised to find out today that this is the first time in my life that I have my own kitchen block and bathroom. I am surprised they don’t have a clue. The guy seems to think my mum’s Little Green Micra runs on horse manure, one of the girls that having to walk to everything for at least 20 minutes is a big deal.

In the meantime I try and remain friendly. When appropriate I give a hint, although writing a book “Halls for Dummies” might be a better idea. For people like this, such an insight in house sharing might be an eye-opening affair and consequently an excellent gift for when they leave the nest. No the fridge does not fill itself, yes going shopping takes a lot of time, yes you are completely dependent on public transport and your own feet and no there is not internet everywhere. And that is only the start of it. About half-way through the book people should find out that walking to the supermarket is a laugh compared to challenges ranging from filth in various categories to deranged flatmates, also in various categories. Where a book is concerned though, it is particularly the filth and the deranged flatmates that result in interesting, moving, funny and disgusting stories. Especially where the latter is concerned, it is pretty much a never ending story as I found out virtually upon arrival.

Despite the enormous fun one has with these stories on birthday parties and the like, this does not want me to spend more years in flatshare though. Quite the contrary. It is unknown luxury to be able to enjoy having your very own kitchen and bathroom. I can leave the door unlocked when showering, I can put nice desserts in the fridge without them getting stolen and I can put my stuff everywhere without feeling guilty for taking up a lot of space. I do not care about having only two electric plates. They’re mine and that is all that counts. The dirty dishes in the sink are mine too as are the three towels in the bathroom. I like it all so much that I’m a little worried I’ll get used to it. That I will forget what it was like to share and that wherever I go next that is exactly what I will have to do. Again. And yet, I am here now and I am here for the next four months at least. Better enjoy it while it lasts. I should know by now that four months flies by and that before you know it, you’re back in the cold and the rain.