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“I am a hero. I am American. I am a cowboy” 

This is how I introduce myself to the children I teach. Not really, it’s a phrase from an English work book one of my profs gave me to see what they’ve been learning. Turns out the British accent is way cuter than ours, so of course they’ve been learning British English. The cover of the book is the union jack, for crying out loud. Aside from simply implying that all Americans are in fact, cowboys, the book teaches some other ‘british-isms’ that are gonna be interesting to work around. They’ve been taught GArage instead of gaRAGE. They spell “color””colour,” and this phrase is found a few after the American cowboy phrase:

“I’ve got a blue pen. Have you got a rubber?”

They’ve also been learning the verb got. In my mind, this isn’t a real verb. I know it exists, but I don’t think it should be taught to kids. They say “have you got any sisters?” Who says that? Maybe it’s just a British thing, but man I don’t like it. Also, Ten Little Indians is in this book. I’m pretty sure that song stopped being PC a good ten years ago in the states.

But enough about my qualms with British English.The BBC America taught me enough about the differences in the two to find the whole thing more humorous than annoying. So obviously I’ve started going to school, finally. Well, sort of. This past week I was supposed to sit in on classes at all three schools. Monday I went to my main school, the Salentine. It’s sort of a small school, and I think the kids are fairly well off. I work with only three classes, so each class gets to see me twice a week. In one class the teacher introduced me as English, and when I said ‘actually, I’m American,’ all the kids sat up straighter and made various ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ type noises, while the prof said ‘oh that’s even better!’ Apparently at least one of my classes prefers my culture. Let’s hope they can spell color. I work with one class of teeny tiny little kids, probably 5 and 6. In this class the prof put up a world map on the board and asked if anyone could come up and point to America. All of the hands in the room shot up. But here they don’t raise their hands, they point to the ceiling. It’s like being in a southern Baptist church service after the pastor asks “and where gonna go, lawd?!?” I’m telling you these kids are equaly excited about knowing where America is. One girl ‘raises her hand’ every time the teacher askes a question and she gasps when she does it. I really think she might be trying to remove her shoulder from the socket with how hard she reaches. AS it turns out, this is the girl who was chosen to show the class where America is. She came up to the board, and after a few moments of serious consideration, pointed right at it. It being Russia.

One thing I’ve noticed about teachers here is their methods of discipline. Maybe it’s just because I was such a well behaved kid (no really, I was an angel), but it seems to me like these kids are in general incredibly rowdy. They talk while the teacher is talking, they get up and walk around the class whenever they feel like it, and it often takes multiple requests to get them to do what they’re asked. My profs at the Salentine are really nice people, and in general they seem to be great teachers, but at least 3 times in all of the classes I sat in on, the prof would straight up yell at a kid. And the weird part is, this didn’t seem to phase the kids. When my elementary teachers would yell it was like the apocalypse. You did not mess around for at least 3 hours after something like that. And it would never happen more than once or twice a month. Here, it seems like it’s just part of the regular teaching method. I’m not sure if it’s normal, but I don’t like it.

My second school called me Monday afternoon to tell me that they were on strike and not to come in Tuesday. So after a long mid week break, I went to my third school, the Ferrière, on Thursday. This school is bigger and less well off than the Salentine. I work with five classes here, so they only get to see me once a week. I also noticed that the teachers were much friendlier. I only heard one yell all day. After my two hour lunch break, I was crossing the street back to the school and I heard tiny voices yelling ‘salut!’ I turned around and a group of 3 girls from one of my morning classes ran up to me and very excitedly started testing out their English. It was mostly just ‘hello’ and ‘how are you?’ followed by giggles and running away. When I got into the schoolyard this same phenomenon recurred five or six times, several of which involved the same groups of kids. They would run up, say ‘hello,’ giggle, and run away. It was precious, and I don’t even like kids. 

After school I walked 8 blocks to the post office only to discover that the package I’d received was too heavy too carry back that distance. During this walk I passed by a wonderful example of how serious this grève has become. It’s not just the students who are grèving; the sanitation workers haven’t picked up any trash for a good two weeks now. I walked by a park that was entirely littered with Styrofoam boxes. As I got nearer I could smell what they contained, and I unfortunately got close enough see. 

Fish. Fish heads, fish guts, fish skin. It was disgusting. The piles of trash in town have grown taller than me. I’ve been told that the government has to clean up the trash because it’s becoming a health hazard, and here the government means the military. So there are military guys out shoveling fish heads into trucks. Weird.

The weekend, briefly:

Friday morning I was awoken by the peaceful sounds of a jackhammer on my roof. Literally. They’re doing something to the roof of the foyer, so there’s a guy with a jackhammer and a blowtorch from 8 to 6. That evening I ate with Celeste and Cecilia and went to the circus to meet Kate and Richard, but we’d missed the free marionettes by then, so we enjoyed a 1euro glass of wine and then left. The girls watched a free show which involved guys in zoot suits rising out of bushes next to the giant elephant and playing 50s wedding music, then we headed to meet up with some others at a house party where we played a one person long game of 2 truths and lie, a game of 21 which involved a rule to use only the formal vousvoyer, and one of the longer lasting rounds of ‘I’ve never’ I’ve ever played. After missing the last tram home, we called three taxis and somehow my group got the only one that showed up within the hour. We went back to the gay bar by the castle but alas, no Isaac, and I headed back to Kate’s for the night.

Saturday I felt similar to my first day in Nantes, but this time I couldn’t blame Amadhi. Around 2 I packed up my bags and lugged them into town for some more free events at the circus, which included a ‘duo abracadabratesque’ who made far too much use out of their spinning mic stand (think stooges), as well as a supposedly comedic knight on stilts. We didn’t stick around long enough to discover if he was actually funny, and after some vegetarian fajitas I caught the last train to Angers. Sunday I joined Sue and the AHA gang on an excursion to a mushroom museum, goat farm, and cave dinner (if you followed my blog two years ago, this dinner was the exact same thing). Highlights include the tour guide telling us how to use mushrooms to slyly knock someone off, consuming somewhere between a half and a whole bottle of wine in the cave (circa 3pm), and “caressing” goats at a cheese farm (caress is French for pet…). The goats rather enjoyed chewing on my fingers, and one of them ended up breaking the skin. Needless to say, we’re no longer friends.

“I am an American. I am very strong. I am not a cowboy.” Not possible, this guy doesn’t exist. (turns out it was Popeye).