Tales from the industrial heart of France. Nancy -je t’aime.
The other day as I came out of the train station in Nancy, I arbitrarily decided to take the Place Saint Leon exit, the exit I had taken upon my arrival in France on a rainy September night in 2010. The memories came flooding back instantly of that 10 hour journey from Chesterfield, England to Nancy, France (chez moi for the last seven months). So much has happened since my arrival in the industrial heart of France I can hardly believe it’s all coming to an end.
Integration in France got off to a good start when three days in I caught sight of myself in a car wing mirror. Wearing a stripy top and carrying a baguette under my arm (the beret and garlic were to come later), I had already ousted my inner Française. Perhaps it was this pivotal moment that set the ball rolling for what was to become an incredible seven months.
After learning I would be teaching in what is known as a ZEP school in France (that is to say a school which is given extra funding and more autonomy due to the generally underprivileged area (quartier) in which it is situated) I had my reservations. The looks of pity I got from just about every French person I came across in Nancy during my first two weeks as I told them I was working in the Haut du Lièvre quartier nearly drove me insane. Matters were made worse during my first day at work when I discovered one of my students had a dog called Sniper. I was more than a little concerned….
Fast forward a couple of weeks of teaching and strikes broke out across France (no surprise there- they were striking over Sarko’s decision to raise the normal retirement age for public pensions from 65 to 67). Luckily my school stayed open throughout the protests that almost ground France to a halt (schools were closed and fuel supplies were running out).I became blasé about seeing manifestations (protests) that had seemed so exciting at first, although found it hilarious when one of my 6ème students facetiously declared he was on strike when asked to take his pencil case out of his bag. Luckily hardly any of the teachers chose to ‘faire grève’. The P.E. teacher who spends every moment of his spare time fishing went on strike, only to remain chez lui. When asked by another teacher if he went fishing while the strikes were going on, he chuckled ‘Pas d’essence’. No petrol. Mais oui.
As I worked in a ZEP school, there were students who had real behavioural/ personal issues that often made teaching English a challenge. There was also the task of teaching English to students who could barely speak French. Take B, a 13 year old 5ème student who came to France last year from Algeria where he never went to school- he looked after the family goats. I couldn’t expect to perform miracles- the general level of English at school was below the national average, but oh was I going to try…
Oh and when they got it! That made everything worthwhile! When I had an enthusiastic group who were prepared to speak (and make mistakes), teaching was thoroughly enjoyable. My favourite classes were the 4èmes with whom I made a television programme in English. I helped groups of students write scripts before filming them and putting everything together to make a 30 minute video. Everyone got involved (including the deputy head!)- there were presenters, sports stars, weather forecasts and even a film preview. The tables soon turned when two of my students politely requested that I present the weather forecast for Britain. Nerve-wracking to say the least- and I was speaking my mother tongue!
As my school was a small one (around 250 students and 30 staff members), I got to know everyone pretty quickly. I often went out for meals with the history-geography teacher who has visited EVERY country under the sun (or so it seems). There’s also N, who advised me ‘Il faut manger locale’- ‘You must eat locally’ when it comes to finding a French boyfriend and A, a French teacher with whom I often talk about books, music and shoes (très cultural). Two of the classroom assistants have become my cinema/ soirée friends and constant sources of amusement. I feel incredibly lucky to have had such welcoming and hilarious co-workers- definitely helped me to settle in sans problème.
Given that my timetable was a mere twelve hours a week, my life in Nancy was not all about school. I made friends with students at the nearby Ecole des Mines (engineering school) and consequently got to go to their soirées! This included a ‘rave in a forest’- we were driven out of Nancy to the nearby Fôret de Haye and dropped off at a normally derelict building which had transformed itself into a boîte de nuit for the evening. Dancing the night away in the middle of a forest until 5am was definitely a brilliant Year Abroad anecdote, particularly due to the fact that the toilets turned out to be non existent...Thanks to the ridiculous number of bank holidays the French have we didn’t have to work the next morning either! Win win situation!
Suffice to say I profité-d bien from my assistant salary/vast amount of free time. In France I visited Metz, Strasbourg, Colmar, the Champagne Region, the Vosges mountains, Paris and Lyon. I also went to Luxembourg, Brussels, Saarbrücken, Basel, Krakow, Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna and Prague. My responsable, S, called me la voyageuse (the traveller) and teased me whenever I stayed in Nancy for a weekend. Not only have I fallen in love with France all over again but I’ve been able to travel across Europe visiting countries and cities I’ve read so much about in books.
It’s not only the ‘You’ll never guess where I went this weekend’ moments that I will look back on fondly. S, my responsable always gives me a lift to/back from school if we start or finish at the same time. It enables us to chat, discuss, and more recently have a gossip. Even if it’s just pointing to something and saying ‘How do you say this in English/French?’ the time I’ve spent with her has been not only invaluable but remarkably enjoyable. This summer she’s leaving her lifelong friends, parents and two sons in Nancy and moving to Toulouse to be with a man she met last summer who works as a doctor in Africa. Why? ‘C’était un coup de foudre’ she told me one day- ‘It was love at first sight’.
Things I will miss about France
ÿ The people. Clichéd but very true.
ÿ Filler words in conversations: Bah oui, bah non, bah je ne sais pas, bah franchement! I started imitating for a joke but have now found I do it naturally…
ÿ The food. The French find it amusing that I like strong cheese à la Roquefort/Munster ‘Mais t’es pas une vraie anglaise!’ (you are not a real English girl’) they say…Bah oui!
ÿ Paul the baker’s. Think of it as an upmarket Gregg’s.
ÿ The constant ‘Where is Brian? Brian is in the kitchen!’ jokes from French people. This catchphrase refers to a sketch by comedian Gad Elmaheh who remarks that the same characters appear in every English textbook in France- Brian, Sophie, etc. Most French people I have come across have re-enacted this ‘hilarious’ sketch much to my amusement.
ÿ Double decker trains. We have to get these introduced in Britain. The novelty just doesn’t wear off!
ÿ Nancy in particular Place Stanislas- main square and meeting place for all. Dubbed ‘la plus belle place du monde’ (I can vouch for that) there’s nowhere I’d rather be when the sun is shining.
Things I will not miss about France
ÿ The parking. Oh have I seen some sights this year!
ÿ The lack of queues. It’s in my British nature to form a line quietly without complaining. Don’t judge.
ÿ Avoiding patisseries. I could win a gold medal for abstention when it comes to boulangerie dodging, which isn’t an easy task when the bloody things are round every corner.
ÿ The notorious French bureaucracy. Social Security always on your back asking you to send in passport photos/ birth certificate copies, your right arm, etc.
ÿ The famous Nancy winter weather which came out to play in November (it proceeded to rain virtually non-stop for 15 days; there’s a reason why I went through 6 umbrellas this year!).
Yet all those ‘things I will not miss’ dwindle in comparison to the great memories I’ve got from this year, meeting and teaching people from completely different backgrounds to my own, speaking lots of French and quite frankly having the time of my life. I travelled a lot, I learned a lot and I most definitely laughed a lot.
Sitting here now, I’m feeling nostalgic to say the least. It’s my penultimate day at school, the weather is beautiful and conversation in the staff room today has focused on cheese, smoking, contraception and 60 year old prostitutes. I could only be in one country- la belle France!
