La fête des amoureux

Before leaving for the two-week vacances d'hiver, I discussed Valentine's Day with my primary school kids. This evoked a lot of giggles and excitement among the 8-10 year-olds. When I asked them how la Saint Valentin is celebrated in France, I got some cute comments, e.g. " Moi j'ai un amoureux - c'est Brice qui est dans l'autre classe" and "Le jour de la Saint Valentin, on va au cinéma et... je ne sais pas ce qu'on fait apres (impish smile)". Also some not so cute comments from the CM2s- "Qu'est-ce qu'on fait pour la Saint Valentin? On fait l'amour!"

I had them cut out little photocopied Snoopy Valentines after explaining the U.S. tradition that all elementary school students give a little Valentine's Day card to each and every one of their classmates, and asked them to fill out the blank spaces after "TO" and "FROM". This elicited a lot of confusion in the manner of "Can I give the card to two people?" "Can I send the card in the mail?" "How do you say belle-mère in English?" and my favorite, "Je suis obligé de le donner à une girl?" which was satisfying because at least one word was in English.

Valentine's Day itself was spent, rather appropriately I suppose, at the American consulate in Marseille getting the certificat de coutume and the certificat de célibat (which doesn't quite translate literally as "certificate of celibacy") which I'll need before Ahamed and I can get legally married at the mairie here in Montpellier. We arrived early in Marseille and did some sightseeing, including le vieux port, pictured above.

Bonne année 2007!

I am writing from my sister-in-law’s dorm room – after paying for internet since October, we finally bought an ethernet cable !
We had a lovely few days during Christmas vacation when Mom and Dad came to visit. They only stayed four nights, but we were able to do a good amount of touring: Montpellier, Nîmes and Sète. Accordingly, here is a photo of each town:

Montpellier, the opéra by night:

Nîmes, la Maison Carrée (commissioned by the emperor Augustus):

Fishing boats in Sète:

I’ve been lucky in my two years of working as an English assistant to have been assigned to two beautiful towns, Nîmes and Sète. The legacies of Augustus and Georges Brassens… what more can you ask for in the way of culture?
In Montpellier we’ve got culture too – as proof, check out this example of men’s underwear displayed in Galeries Lafayette during the hols (the mannequin on your right):

Autumn update

I've been having some trouble getting reliable internet access. For a while I was poaching a network in the neighborhood where I live, but was afraid to use it for email or Blogger because of the possible lack of security for passwords etc. Now I am at the University using my wireless card, which is convenient but involves lugging my laptop to school with me - my shoulder muscles complain a little.

The biggest piece of news is that I have been renewed for a second year of the assistantship. I am now working in two primary schools in Sete, a fishing town on the Mediterranean about 20 minutes from Montpellier by train. The kids are cute, at least for the moment - we'll see how long that lasts! So it's a change from the brooding and the hormones from the high school experience last year.

It is Toussaint vacation so I'm not working this week, although classes at the fac are still going strong. On Sunday, Ahamed and I went to Aix-en-Provence for a night. Aix is the location for the CAOM, the Centre d'Archives d'Outre Mer, which he uses for his Master's thesis research. I took advantage of the trip for a change of scenery from Montpellier, and a day of profitable work in the Aix university library (which is a lot nicer than the one here in Montpellier!).
Here is a photo of Ahamed from our brief stopover in Marseille:

Adieu, Koko

On Wednesday afternoon, my parents took our cat Koko to the vet to be put down. He was about 16/17 years old and had been steadily declining in health over the past few months. It was a difficult decision for my parents to make, but I think it was the best one.

Koko was a Greek cat, born in Athens of a Siamese mother (we think that’s how he inherited his characteristically loud yowl) and a black and white father who lived on Athens’ streets and whose enemies had left him only a raggedy end of a tail.

I remember picking Koko particularly from the litter of three cats, because he seemed to be the most playful and energetic. When we brought him home to our apartment, he skittered across the wood floor and put down his feet tentatively on the bedspread, having never before felt the touch of cotton fabric.

We brought Koko back in the plane to the U.S. with us in the summer of 1997. He had to spend the night in London to be checked by the veterinary authorities, but arrived safe and sound a day after we did. Koko became an American cat, watching rabbits eat green beans in the garden and staining his fur with the red North Carolina earth.

Koko, I'm sorry I wasn't there to say goodbye. I know sometimes as a little girl I annoyed you, but it was only because I wanted to pet you and be with you. I hope you enjoyed our games as much as I did.

Koko, we loved you very much and we will miss you ; you were a part of the family and we’ll never forget you. You traveled a long way in your life ; good luck on this last journey - kalo taksidi.

De retour à Montpellier

I've been back in Montpellier for two weeks now, and have been running around most of that time. My soutenance went well - at least, I got a 18, but then my two profs critiqued my paper for approximately two and a half hours, 95% of which was negative critique. So that, combined with the high grade, leaves me a little unsure as to the overall quality of the work! But it's a new year and a new thesis paper around the corner, so I'll try to improve this time around.

Another piece of good news is that Ahamed and I had our Muslim marriage ceremony. So we can now live together without those nagging moral doubts - yay! We will be going to the mairie at some point in the future for the official papers, but that will probably be at least some months dozn the road.

It is Ramadan and Ahamed's sister, Ahamed and I have been taking turns cooking the evening meal. Yesterday I did a Mexican night with Spanish rice, spiced red beans, and quesadillas with salsa and sour cream.

I hope to be able to write more fully and more regularly soon, but internet is a bit hard to come by right now - I hope that'll change soon.

Caution: Menses at Work

This post is about feminine hygiene and gives away too much information about my personal cycle. You’re forewarned.

I noticed that Always has a new uplifting message for women as they open their sanitary napkins :

What’s funny is how it’s been translated into French. Unless in Canada, “semaine” is the word of choice when referring to menstruation, something’s missing in the version française. I suppose “bonnes règles” would have been going into too much detail for the francophone ladies ?

A provençale friend told me that entre copines she says “j’ai mes ran-yan-ya” instead of “j’ai mes règles”, so perhaps French women simply shy away from discussing their periods in a direct way. My friend’s version, although a bit little-girlish, is certainly a lot more tasteful than “I’m on the rag,” a phrase I’ve never been able to warm up to here in the States.

Absence and the Heart

In a little over a week, I will see Ahamed again after being apart since June 20th. We both left Montpellier the same day, and said goodbye at the airport. My plane to Paris was before his, but it didn’t feel like one of us was leaving the other – we were both going home for the summer.

When I had to say goodbye to Ahamed for the first time, in July 2004, I was the one leaving. He came up to Paris with me and we spent two nights there. It was Bastille Day and we could see the fighter jets doing their air show in the strip of sky above our hotel, although we didn’t make it to the Champs Elysées that morning for the parade and a glimpse of Chirac. The night before our respective flights (his back to Montpellier and a stifling summer in a university dorm room, mine back to North Carolina and a summer full of family and activity), we walked back from the Arc de Triomphe along the Champs Elysées. I’d seen both of these sites before, but it was Ahamed’s, the native Frenchman’s, first time in Paris. One of the worst humiliations must be to cry in public, but I couldn’t help it – I was just so frightened of being away from him. That’s what it was – absolute terror. I was terrified that I would get home after those eight hours of flight and need Ahamed when there would be no way for him to come to me.

I’ve only seen my boyfriend cry once. It was the night before we left for those two days in Paris, before going to sleep in his narrow dorm bed in Montpellier. I was crying about leaving, not for the first time, and all of a sudden the tears were running down his face too. It only lasted about 15 seconds, but it was enough of a shock to get me to stop weeping and try to comfort him instead of the other way around. It was the first time I’d seen him cry, and he hasn’t since.

We were apart for about five months, that first time, while I finished my last semester of college. At a certain point, sitting alone in my little apartment in Chapel Hill, I just couldn’t face another semester. The next day I went to see my advisor and put in a request for early graduation – and bought a ticket from expedia.com. I left for Montpellier the day after my last exam in December.

Although it seems unbelievable as I write it now, we talked on the phone almost every day of those five months. Sometimes twice a day. I’ve never calculated the combined cost of his phone cards and my 10-10-987 use, but I’m ashamed to admit to so much money spent. I used to cry sometimes on the phone to him, which I regret – it must feel awful to be too far away from someone to be able to comfort her the way you want to.
This summer I’ve gotten teary-eyed while talking to Ahamed (we’re now down to talking every other day), but not from missing him. They’ve been tears of PMS-induced rage and frustration, or tears about something as idiotic as him not complimenting me on a photo I sent over the internet.

I don’t miss him the way I used to. The first night back in my parents’ house, that summer of 2004, I lay in my bed and couldn’t adjust to the feeling of him not lying next to me. While I’m looking forward to lying beside him again, I don’t have that amputated feeling anymore.

I don’t know whether I should feel reassured or worried about this change in our relationship. I love him and I want to be with him, but I can bear to be away from him too. It will be three years soon that we’ve been together – I heard somewhere that three years is the average lifespan for love. I told Ahamed this, and he laughed. But somehow I want to miss him in that raw, terrifying way when we're apart– and I want him to miss me like that again too.