France - Post 21 - Field trip

Hey everyone,

So I had my first field trip as an official chaperone thursday and it was pretty fun. As I mentioned in the last post, it was too a “Piscine à vagues.” It was a wave pool so anyone who has been to one can imagine what the setup was. We all met up in the morning at 10:30 and left by 11 am. There were 6 chaperones not including Wardine and 13 kids. One of us 6 was an adult and the rest were the “new” workers and interns. I say new because they are new to me but some of the people with whom I am now working have actually been there over a year but they only work the summers. This is why it is my first time seeing them since I worked the last month of school and the month of vacation. So out of the facilitators, there was me another guy and three other girls who went. Out of all of us the guy had the hardest name and I’ll just write it later when I have a better idea of how to spell it. The girls had very simple names: Alisse, Juliette, and Louise. 

We took the subway which in all was about 1 ½ hr trip including the switches, the various stops that we took in order to count the kids and make sure that we had them all, and the little promenade between the metro stop and the pool. 

It was a nice walk and after a month I am feeling pretty confident and now more involved with the kids. Even with the other facilitators I am interacting much better. It did take a lot of just watching to see how French people interact with each other and how guys interact with each other and girls to figure out how to construct a nice fluid conversation and I’ll admit that it is much harder one-on-one but in a group the focus isn’t completely on me so I can resp9ond and talk whenever I feel it appropriate or am comfortable. It is probably just a few select cases but in my experience I’ve noticed that girls, both my age and the kids, are easier to understand than the guys. For example, when I was working with Ibn and Foussenou, they were both really hard to understand. This could be due to my lack of having an ear for French and that it was usually just me and one of them in a conversation and not in a bigger group like it is now with the other facilitators and kids. Being in a bigger conversation is also helpful in that if you are listening and don’t understand what one person asked but understand the response that was given, you can backtrack to figure out what they may have said and then figure out how exactly it was said to be understood in a certain way. I do this more than you might think but then again, if it helps me to understand the language and grasp the concept and context of the conversation better, why not use it?

Now I’ll get back to the field trip. We had been given several safety talks before our first outing before on how to conduct every aspect of the voyage from getting on and off the subway to crossing the street and entering the pool. In the end, each one of us had the ultimate say in what one of the kids could and could not do. Some examples of the regulations we followed include but are not limited to: Having a facilitator stand in the road between oncoming traffic and the kids when they crossed the road and they could not proceed unless one of us crossed first, the kids were not allowed to sit in the seats next to the doors on the metro and were required to take a seat if one were available, they are not allowed to enter the water if not accompanied by an adult and the ratio of adult to kids can not exceed 1:3, in busy areas we are to hold the children’s hands so as to not get separated, etc.

When we finished the metro leg of the trip we proceeded to walk to the pool. This was about a thirty minute walk and we finally got to the outer park/playground area by 12:30. From there we had a picnic which consisted of tuna sandwiches, a coke, and a bag of chips. We had ordered from the place for more people than the amount that went in the end so there was an extra partitioning of food. We made a question and answer game in one instance when the extra food being auctioned off were popsicles. 

As much as I would like to say that everything went off without a hitch, this is not the case. When we got to the pool, Louise and Wardine stayed to watch the stuff as the rest of us went in the water. This was also in case anyone wanted to go back and rest since the facilitators had to stay in the water as long as there were kids unless we wanted to be mean and tell them that we didn’t want to.There was a water tube-like slide that one can only imagine caught every child’s eye when we got there.I made two trips with three kids each time up and the first time went fine and the second time also appeared to be fine. I would go last so I could make sure that the kids got down and out fine. When the first kid went down the second time I motioned and told him to head over to where Alisse was with two other little girls in the pool next to us since he had to get out of the area where the end of the slide was. When I finally got down I went over back with Alisse and we thought we had everyone since several had gone back over to the towels. About 10 min later I went over to the towels and he wasn’t there. His brother comes up and asks where he was and I said he should be in the pool with the other intern and he went to look and then I see that he was actually with the lifeguard. I go over with the brother and he starts to tell me how nothing serious had actually happened. What had happened is that he had somehow gotten lost even though the lifeguard spot was next to the water slide right in between where the other were in the pool. We still don’t know how he managed this knowing that there were people at the towels on the grass area.

Other than that small incident everything else went off well without much of a hitch at all. Anyways, tomorrow is bastille day so I will probably write about that after.

Thanks for reading and until next post!

(Alisse and lyoustra)

(Juliette... I

I'll put name later)

Group photo!

France - Post 20 - No CPU

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to say yay for having published my 20th post which may not seem like a big thing to many but for me, being someone who has never liked writing or reading too dearly, it is an accomplishment. Think about it, 20 posts some abridged to one page or less and other reaching to around 4 pages and if we give an average 2-3 pages for each, that’s around 50 pages of freestyle writing about my particular French experiences abroad.

Also, I have never really been too good at keeping deep contact with many people at once so establishing one source from which all the people to whom I would normally, in person, retell my adventures is really nice for me. It also gives me one space where I can respond to the thoughts, comments, and suggestions of my fellow readers instead of being all cluttered between several social networks and email addresses.

I am now in my last three weeks of my internship. After my I finish my internship I am off to Serbia to attend one of my best high school friend’s, formerly Evita Sonner and now Evita Jovic, 3rd wedding (Same person just different locations with different groups of people. Next week I am off to Barcelona, Spain for 5 days with my bulgarian friend and one of her friends. For both of these big trips I will not hesitate at all to take lots of pictures and post the best of the best on here with full stories.

Here, July is when summer vacation starts for schools which means my hours change as do my responsibilities. The whole atmosphere is actually changed. The other interns with whom I was working, (Ibn, Foussenou, Maura), are also now in vacation. I believed I had mentioned at one point that the internship was required by their schools just as community service is more commonly required by US universities like Wittenberg. Now there is a new group of interns working with me, two girls and three other guys. The youngest is 15. We had our first meeting together last Thursday and started going over rules and ways to use common sense to keep the children out of danger. We are doing these workshops now because during the vacation month, we will be chaperoning many field trips for them and need to know basic safety guidelines and how to always be in control of the situation even if we aren’t. We did some readings and split up into groups to make presentations on the first day and were sent home with further online reading. Some of the situations included where each chaperone should be seated or standing when in a car, minibus, or the metro, rules for going into the pool for beach trips, how to handle different types of situations, etc.

I won’t be participating in all the field trips but we are going tomorrow (Th. July 11) to La piscine à vagues, de base loisir de créteil. Below are 2 sites giving a bit of info about it. If I’m not mistaken I think it is a waterpark.

http://www.guide-piscine.fr/val-de-marne/base-de-plein-air-et-de-loisirs-de-creteil-184_P

http://www.base-loisirs-creteil.fr/7,9,131/Espace-baignade.html

There is a field trip every day until even after I am gone but I will not be going on all of them. My main job now is to go with other interns and workers to the gymnasium and organize sports and games. All the kids of the neighborhood are signed up to have access to this but not all actually show up. Even less will show up due to the beginning of Ramadan. For those of you who don’t know, I guess it’s a type of fasting only during the day that lasts a month long. It is from 3:40h-22h here. I can’t explain much more because I’ve had it explain to me just that way and not the entire history and reasoning behind it. I should also mention that it is for the muslim people and not the entire France although there is a big muslim population.

I work not from 9am-1pm, an hour break, then 2pm-5pm. I will go into more detail later but I am without a computer currently and so I don't know how pictures will be.

On another note I wanted to mentioned a way to pick out where the street markets can be found. Many of the formal places can be picked out because there is a very typical look to them even when they are not running. You will see rows of metal poles in the form of boxes normally connect in some manner with a blue tarp rolled up and pushed over to one side on the top of each one. I am not sure how many of these have recognized names that differ from the streets where they can be found but if you do as much wandering and walking as I do, you will start seeing here these are and it is nice to make a mental note of street corners and landmarks to be able to look them up later if you don’t currently have the time to just walk through. The ones that I’ve noted fall on the Rue Ordener and I can’t remember landmarks but it was going through the Line 12 Jules stop. Another big one is starts at the back entrance of Line 4 stop Barbés-Rochechouart. Since I get off at that stop every day I can tell you that the market is open all day wednesday from sunrise to evening. The ones that I’ve walked by just by chance seem more fruit/meats/fish oriented by there’s always been other nick nacks from shoes, undergarments, kitchen utensils and even toys. One thing I noticed at the Barbés market is that you can find decent formal and semi-formal clothes like a button-up collar shirt for 5€ and dress shoes for 15-20€. Now, I can’t vouch for quality but I can say that they look just as good as the store bought ones.

There are even informal markets where people don’t have stands or anything. One is in the exact same area on the same stretch of pavement. People will lay out there things on pieces of clothes and most of it are smaller items like batteries and there is a much smaller array of options.

Thanks for reading and until next post!!

France - Post 19 - Fête (pt. 2)

Hey everyone,

This is the second part where I speak of the festival. As unfortunate as it may be, due to unavoidable complications I do not have any personal pictures of the events but I will leave links to videos of the performances and other pictures however.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvPsW1xYYYw

Solo singer Melissa

The second day was not just confined to the square between the church and the park. This time we opened up to another park, “Square Léon,” a block away from the concert stage.

(Zé Samba et Banda’ê-tribal Bande)

Since there was free food served throughout the three days we also helped in the preparation and even the serving of it. One of the fruits we worked with were apples where we took would take out the centers and the seedless apples were then cooked and filled with a strawberry jam to make a dessert called “Merguéz” if my memory serves me right. There were official cooks so we did mostly preparation which included a lot of chopping. They even lets some of the younger kids help. We were working most of the time even when the event started still with food since a lot of it had to be handed out or sold from several little stands stationed out during the events.

(Stage being set up. At that moment I was over with two others gather the lighting equipment and they were waiting on us)

There were several food tents which took charge of selling typical festival foods like hot dogs, cotton candy, chili cheese fries, burgers, and beer. Where I was helping was in the free food. These were mainly finger foods and there was one station that gave out free drinks of two kinds: the first was a kiwi blended mix and the second was an orange juice which could be taken with or without alcohol. The trays that we passed out had many different foods ranging from different simple food types of cookies, muffins, cheeses, etc., to more complex ones like tuna salads, quiches, and tortillas. Since the first thing that people ask was “C’est quoi ça?,” “Qu’est-ce que c’est?,” ou “C’est à quoi?,” I made sure I knew exactly what I was giving before I went oçut there. What I handed out were cheese based muffins, chocolate chip cookies, raisin cookies, and a sample chicken salad dish with tomatoes, cucumbers, and a sauce. Where this was going on was at the “Village Festif” at “Square Léon.” The surrounding decorations were Afro-Euro-Amer-Asian influence in every location to create a unifying ambiance for everyone.

(The opening inauguration/ceremony. You can actually see me with my hand in front of my face in a blue shirt around the center of the picture)

A couple other little activities in which I was not deeply involved but I did oversee was face painting for the kids and the little kid-friend train for families. And having a very music based theme to bring together everything and everyone, there were more open stage shows and appearances where any artist could sing, dance, play an instrument, etc.

Sunday I was only there for a couple hrs at the beginning and to help clean-up at the end. Sunday was very focused on the foods and cooking aspects of many different regions and country titled as “Cuisine en Fête” or, Cooking Party instead of neighborhood party. Another mini theme was the “Repas de Quartier” or, Neighborhood Meals. Being a very culturally mixed neighborhood the idea was that people would bring small things that were typical to their origins or houses and share in a pique-nique style manner letting others tastes flavors possible foreign to them.

I want to end this post on something that I’ve noted about the neighborhood where I work. It is like a community in itself where people know each other and will stop several times when walking down the street to give a handshake or a kiss between each other. People have their own little hangout spots which could be something as small as a street corner where some stand on the sidewalk while others will sit on the fence that separates the road from the sidewalk and they will just chat and laugh all day. I am starting to actually recognize certain people since they are always in the same spot and even around where I live in my neighborhood there are people that I will start a light conversation with just because I see them so often. This happens so much, with good reason, to the boss of the NGO where I work since she has worked there in the same neighborhood for so long.

Well I hope you enjoyed reading. I’ll admit this wasn't one of my greatest posts but I have many more things to mention in later posts.

Until next post!

France - Post 18 - Fête du Quartier - Le voyage et L'ailleurs, (pt.1)

Hey everyone,

So in this post I want to talk about the previous weekend Friday, June 28-30 and what the NGO with whom I work and I did. To give a very quick overview, this is the 28th year that NGOs and close partners along with local business have chipped in to hold a 3 day festival for the 18th district neighborhood. Fill with many activities for kids and adults from concerts focused on the particular talents of individuals and groups based in the 18em, facing painting activities, free food and drinks, parades, etc., all with a flavor from Africa, France, and the particular district.

We were on the clock from Friday until Monday starting at 10am until between 7-10pm depending on what was needed. Friday began like this...

We arrive at 10am. Since Friday was not only the first day of the three day festival but also focused on the music and performances our jobs were primarily to help set up the area including the stage and to give everything around the area a more festive feel.

The performing area and where the stage was going to be setup had to be altered then. This area was located in between a park and Saint Bernard Church. The spot was one of those that at one point was probably a road but then cut off so it was a decent amount of space. The inside part of the gates on the church side was going to be cut off and covered so that performers could enter without being seen and then go up onto the stage from one of the side doors. In order to make this possible we closed the gates and shielded the fence parts with a cover made from pieces of bamboo tied together creating a wall for the all the artists. Next we tied up ribbons to the lampposts around the square giving the area a more festive feel. Thanks to other NGOs and companies/businesses alike, we were able to attain things necessary for a successful all ages festival: Stage pieces from Centre Musique Barbara, lighting equipment from Paris Mix, etc. I can’t remember right now all the names and possessions that we acquired from other associations but the items included speakers, tables, big and small tents, other interns to help, food, etc.

We actually had a choice of whether or not we wanted to work the event and I was one of the ones who had decided to give up their weekend for it. There were however several perks to this: Two free meals a day not including the finger food to which everyone who came had access, the rights to be behind the scenes and backstage during the concerts, a bit more authority, and just all around more access to the events.

Friday’s first event was the “Zé Samba” et “Banda’ê-tribal Bande.” This was the absolute beginning of the festival. It started about ½ mile or so from the church with a small walking drum line that played their rhythm for about 10 minutes before they started walking. As many people know from sporting and school events, drum lines can be loud and in a small area they attract a lot of attention. This started at “place de l’Assommoir.” At the beginning of the day all the older interns and workers were given shirts to wear to show their participation in the festival. The workers and interns that went were therefor wearing these blue shirts and walked with the drum line on either side and behind redirecting traffic and keeping people at a distance and away from the traffic. The musicians alternated between different beats and rhythms while the workers and other motivated people joined in and danced down the streets while the spectators took various pictures and videos of the spectacle. The entire show lasted for about 1 ½ hour from start to finish and the musicians more than doubled in number being composed of both groups by the final beat. This attracted many people and previous fête-goers knew that this was only the beginning. After that was the official inauguration on the stage to let the festivities begin. We were about an hour off but there was never an official stop time for any of the three days.

The rest of the night, beginning around 8:30, took place on the stage. We had a time where all types of artists from the district came and performed as individuals and groups. After that there was the soul-rap group “Sentinel Diego et le Jamen’s Band” and the blues group “Josfax” until past midnight.

This is how Friday went down and later I will go into detail about Saturday and Sunday. Monday was just a massive cleanup.

Hope you enjoyed reading and until next post!

France - Post 17 - Updates

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to start off by saying that after my last post about 2 weeks ago, my computer, who had provided me a long and prosperous 5 years of flawless service, finally kicked the bucket. I had made an abortive effort to write this same post 2 weeks ago but my cpu died before I could finish.

That being said, I haven't been able to do much without a computer except focus on my French by watching lots of French television instead of being on the computer. There is a small TV about the size of a mini laptop screen in my room that I have been encouraged on several occasions to watch and one thing that is nice about it is that there are subtitles. I advise people learning a new language to watch TV/movies AND with subtitles both in the target language.

You may ask why and my reasoning behind it is that you are exposed to the language on several levels. You might even consider it similar to taking a class except there is no direct interaction. I say this because you use more senses just like you would in class: You learn to read, you develop an ear, and you get something that one cannot always learn in academics, colloquial sayings and jargon. Another thing by listening and reading in one language is that you won’t always always have to refer to your native or stronger language if you are learning everything from context. This can help you develop skills in explaining what you are trying to say or what a word means in instances where you are with people who only speak said language.

It is just as good to be able immediately translate a word when someone wants to know but I personally think one of the purposes of learning a language is to be able to communicate effectively through it and it serves me better to learn everything through context and looking up definitions in the same language and not so much to use translators. Translators aren’t always helpful especially when you are trying to get a personal view across and it is better to know how to explain yourself even if you don’t know the word versus using a word that has several meanings and just ends up confusing the reader. To give some sites for dictionaries that I use:

(1) English - www.oxforddictionaries.com

(2) Spanish - www.wordreference.com

(3) French - www.le-dictionnaire.com

These are all pretty well known but I thought I would put it out there regardless. Even though these all have translators I use the english-english, spanish-spanish, french-french dictionaries and not the translators. This is how I use them and I know they have many other uses but you can find that out for yourself. There will always be words that you come across that you don’t know no matter what language you speak and even more so when you practice other languages since a word in Arabic or Swahili may be used in a different way than in English or Spanish due to cultural differences, regional differences, etc., or it may not even exist because it could be a word that describes an action or a series of events that is uncommon in other places or just doesn't have its own word. I know many people who mix the languages they know depending on who they are talking to and even I do this now in French if I am talking to someone who speaks French and Spanish because some words just make more sense in one language than another or come easier to the mind.

On another note, these are just a couple things I wanted to share with people that I noticed on the metro and walking down the street.

I am one of those people that, being well traveled, likes to observe other people with different habits from my own to try and better understand them. For example, on the metro here I will look at what shoes and pants people are wearing to get a better understanding of how people dress and combine their clothes here in Paris. While waiting in line I will listen to how the customer conducts himself with the cashier or whoever is attending to them in order to adjust my behavior accordingly to not stick out and, consequently, not be targeted as a foreigner. Below are a couple things I do differently since I first arrive include the following:

(1) Make sure I know where I am going before going on the metro and not look around so much so as not to look lost and foreign to the area.

(2) I don’t wear my backpack around anymore and I haven’t been able to locate a drawstring bag because for guys there are either backpacks or man-purses here.

(3) I say “bonjour” or “bonsoir” when I enter a small 1-2 person store or when going up to the cash register in bigger supermarkets or other stores and say “Au revoir” or “Bonne journée/soirée” when leaving and sometimes throw in a “ça va” if they are small places or places where I am recognized due to my frequent visits.

(4) When in a store I try to talk to the people working if it a small one since people here are generally nice if you are respectful of French mannerisms.

(5) I try not to pull out my phone too much

(6) Pretend to know only a small amount of English while speaking as much Spanish or French as possible. I was told even by my Bruno that the French in general love the Spanish people.

The next post I will post pictures and talk about the 3 day festival that my association along with the help of others put together over the weekend, my work and part in it including the 2 weeks of advertising prior to the event, and the amazing turnout that we had as a result to all our hard work.

Thanks for reading and the next several posts may be a bit abridged so as I can write more since a lot has happened in the last 2 weeks.

Until next post!