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| Bienvenu à un jour chez Vichy! |
The trouble with being busy is that when one finally does take the time to reflect, the first feeling may be regret for not having slowed down enough to even notice, much less be grateful for one’s life. December has come and gone. It’s already Saturday morning, January 7th. Those precious weeks of Advent and Christmas, have left me breathless -- there must have been moments that were difficult and tedious, others enjoyable, delightful or amusing. But all I can remember today are a few thoughts and feelings from what now has become a blur of events and images. It is always possible, however, to piece together what daily life has been like, here in Vichy, for this not-so-typical student of the French language.
Mornings are quiet at our Maison du Missionnaire in Vichy, since we don’t really see each other until the midday meal. I begin the process of “getting up” around 5:20 am, when the first of my alarms sounds off. It takes awhile to get moving these days, but after some 30 minutes of simple calisthenics, getting cleaned up and dressed, a gulp or two of strong French coffee, I’m ready for daily prayer. Praying by myself in French (it is still for me “someone else’s language”) can be a personal struggle as I self-consciously recite out loud the words of the psalms, the liturgy of the Mass, hoping one day to “get it right.” Still, the effort and routine, although occasionally tedious, seems more than worth it during those moments of connection with the Lord and concern for the community.
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| Through the neighboring Parc des Sources (trottoir couvert) |
There’s barely enough time for another coffee and a brioche or fruit before I’m launching myself out the front entrance of the Maison for the 15-minute journey to what must be Vichy’s largest private enterprise, le CAVILAM. Much smaller, cleaner and “manageable” than Paris, Vichy can be delightful – even restful – to stroll through with it’s 18th century covered walks, ubiquitous parks and plazas and intersecting alleyways. Unfortunately, I have little time for all that first thing in the mornings, as I half-march / half-jog through alleyways and across streets to arrive on time.
On most mornings classes commence at 8:45 and can be in a variety of settings – sometimes a laboratory with computers and headsets but most often in a traditional classroom with narrow tables and chairs arranged in a U to face the instructor. During their "high season" between May and September, the school expands to other buildings throughout that section of Vichy to accommodate as many as 1,500 or more students during the summer months. These days, however, there’s little more than a skeleton crew of instructors and administrators for the 50-75 students attending classes. Unlike my experience of language study in Guatemala which was commonly one-on-one, here a typical class ranges in number from six to sixteen. Much of our work, however, consists of practicing conversations in pairs or small groups; the instructor keeps the process going, clarifying the tasks or drills, correcting mistakes, encouraging, setting the pace sort of like a high-school sports coach. Our classes run for 90 minutes straight, each followed by a 15 minute pause for coffee and a breath of fresh air (or cigarette for a suprising number of my classmates). There’s time for two such sessions each morning, then a two-hour break for the hike and hot lunch back at the Maison and hike back to le CAVILAM, and then another 90 minutes in the afternoon. After five such workdays you can imagine how ready we are for a break; on Friday afternoons one hears plenty of enthusiastic “Bon Weekend!” as students and teachers rush away to their homes. In addition to the class routine there are plenty of optional events, cultural trips, social gatherings during the evenings and weekends.
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| Our general neighborhood around la Maison du Missionnaire. |
By 4:15 pm I’ll be back in the neighborhood, at our residence, our Vincentian Maison du Missionnaire. There’s always time enough to complete homework for the next day classes but what I enjoy most are the meals – lunch and supper – with the confrères and the residents here. We are a smallish group now with a total of six for the rest of this winter (the five-story house could accomodate 30 guests) but conversations can get lively as stories abound about Madagascar (one Vincentian here is a native Malagash, another has been a 30-year plus missionary there) or local church politics, or – my favorite -- how to properly prepare any one of seemingly countless French dishes…
After supper I’ll watch the televised news (l’information, they call it here), along with Père Roland Pécoul, our most senior Vincentian resident. Aided by my I-Pad’s Larousse dictionnaire along with the program’s subtitles, I can usually follow what’s happening – at least in France. Then finally I return upstairs, to complete our little homework assignments (devoirs), or to study French using free Internet sites or even YouTube, or to communicate with friends by SKYPE or email.
Sometimes such open-ended study can be quite enjoyable! Lately I've found a few chansons françaises that are more than worth the effort. Try copying and pasting into your browser the link just below this paragraph -- it's a YouTube site with the song's lyrics of one of my favorites. The title is Je suis malade. It was written by the popular French singer-songwriter Serge Lama and sung by Belgian-born Canadian resident, Lara Fabian. Elle est fantastique!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIIL5p7_WKk
Evenings seem too brief for me with so much that one could do to use the time... But I’m asleep by 11:30 or so on most nights.
All in all, I find language study a demanding experience and often I am sorely tempted to do something else… anything else. It’s also worrisome to realize that after the immersion studies here (12 weeks) I’ll be communicating at the level of a French toddler. Still, on those occasions when the fog clears a bit and I can actually grasp the meaning of a conversation and can successfully express an idea, the labor certainly has its rewards. Voilà! … yet another new world of peoples, culture and faith begins to open its doors, and… for me, life becomes all the more rich and fascinating.
dpb
