Au revoir à ma vie en France...

For the last two weeks of my time in France I spent time doing a variety of activities, mainly to say goodbye to people, but with the added purpose of making the most of my last fortnight in Rennes.

So I’ll kick off with the gospel concert I went to and then I’ll briefly fill you in about the rest.  It was the first time I’d been to a gospel concert in France and I have to say it was a bit of a strange experience.  Now it wasn’t really that different from a gospel concert you’d see in the UK.  It was a local gospel choir, about 20-strong, and the concert hall was packed out which was nice to see, we weren’t even sure that we were going to get a place.  The choir were very joyful, they got everyone to clap and stand up and echo things and the audience joined in willingly.  Yet the thing was that all the songs were in English.  Now, I do understand it’s normal for French people to listen to English songs but there was still a kind of paradox for me at this concert.  I knew (through a friend) that nearly all of the performers weren’t Christians.  Some of the choir ladies looked so French and here was this joyful praise coming out of their lips, and they were singing their hearts out, but a lot of them didn’t understand the significance of what they were singing and nor did the audience of what they were hearing, but there was a large attraction all the same to coming along to the concert or to spending weeks rehearsing these gospel songs and then performing them.  I really enjoyed the concert but it did stir up a yearning in me to see more French people really truly knowing the gospel truth and joyfully praising their Saviour in their own tongue (as well as English if they like)!

Following the concert, I said goodbye at the university, a teacher had organised a goodbye lunch for me and Martin and a number of staff turned up which was nice.  On the bank holiday Monday Michèle (lady I lived with) and her son Loïc took me and an American girl Joanna out for a lovely meal and walk in the countryside.

Dan, the English teacher, and me

In the final week I went round to two families from church’s houses for meals, went on a couple of bike rides, chilled out by some scenic ponds with a couple of friends, said goodbye at church and took a bit of English jubilee cheer along to English club with bunting and a flag, a quiz and games.  So all in all a good last two weeks.

The long-awaited photo of me and François,
the oldest member of English club, at 91!

The next chapter: It’s around 10 days since I got back and I’m pleased to say I’ve been successful in getting a job lined up for the end of the summer; training to be a Chartered Accountant with a French company based in London.  It will be a new challenge which I’m both nervous and excited about.

So all that remains for me to say is thank you for your support this year through reading my blog, and praying for me if you did, and goodbye for now (but I hope to see you in the flesh at some point!).  Below is an extra bit if you fancy reading on, about what I like about France and Britain.  The lists are not exhaustive, I’m really glad that I’ve had the chance to live in another country and have my view of the world opened up!

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What I like about France/the French:  - As soon as the sun comes out they sit on bar terraces at all hours of the day drinking, chatting and watching the world go by.  They’re allowed to stay there for as long as they want within reason and can even buy lunch from the bakery across the road to accompany their drink.  – The transport systems are normally clean and well-run and work on trust that most people are paying for their tickets and will occasionally get done by ticket controllers if not.  – Women aren’t expected to wear make up as much.  They also know how to dress modestly.  – They really do appreciate their food and aren’t willing to compromise on its quality.  They eat a healthier diet in general and children aren’t very fussy about their food.   – There appears to be more trust in other people and the assumption is that others are capable of doing the right thing rather than the assumption that they’re going to stuff up or find ways to play the system.  – They have really good childcare put in place before the age of 6 when the kids have to go to school. – French bakeries are great.

What I like about Britain/the British: – There are heaps of charities based in Britain looking out for all sorts of people in both our country and in many other countries around the world.  – We have good deals and offers in our shops.  – We dress in all the colours of the rainbow.  – We allow kids to learn about religions in school and we allow religious groups to use our school premises.  – We make good cakes and puddings.  – We get taxed every month in our wages (The French have to declare tax themselves in the May following the tax year (which runs from January to December) and then pay up).  – When we organise events we normally go all-out and do them well (but there’s something to be learnt from the simple way the French do things sometimes).  – We're generally more encouraging. – Creativity and imagination is encouraged from a young age.  This doesn’t really stop, we’re a bit crazy!

Less writing, more pictures!

Ok, in an attempt to make this shorter than the last blog post I shall give you a bit of a photo update!  

Two weeks ago I took a day trip to visit a lovely town called Quimper with my colleague Martin.  

We had a nice time wandering round the place and eating some delicious food! 

One Monday between English club classes I spent a lovely lunchtime in the Parc du Thabor in the sunshine.  The park, whose flowers are now blooming, looked beautiful! 

I re-visited ‘the chef’s workshop’ with a friend called Sandra and we enjoyed learning how to make a dish.

I spent 3 days babysitting 2 kids from church aged 5 and 9 with Manqi at their house for a bank holiday weekend.

 The girls are really lovely and easy to look after but I’ve never looked after kids for that long and Manqi is not used to looking after kids, so it was tiring for us but a good experience and we had a fun time.  We took them to a patisserie for a treat!

Manqi left me two days ago which was sad, she’s been such a blessing to me this year.  At the beginning of the year it wasn’t at all planned that she was going to come and stay at our house, but God knew what he was doing, praise Him!

I’ve also been really busy in the kitchen these last two weeks making food for various bring and share meals, and making a load of cakes for the people of English club.

Fiona x

Exams and an election - usually dull but not this time

Dear all,

On Monday evening I went round to my friend Halle’s house so we could spend a bit of quality time together before she heads back to America for the summer (this Friday).  She’s been a great support to me this year and we had a good chat over dinner and I slept overnight, then we had American pancakes in the morning with maple syrup and fruit.  It was a welcome break (even though I’d just got back) as Michèle’s daughter was staying over with her two small children who decided to scream and cry, get annoyed and make lots of noise constantly!  This made me glad that the kids Michèle looks after during the week aren’t that bad in comparison.

We said goodbye to Andrew from our house this week, so to see him off I made lasagne, we went to the cinema, had a cake from the bakery and then Manqi organised having breakfast with him on his last morning (although he ate his in his room and then came down to join the rest of us!).  He was eager to be off back to England and has done well to stick it out this year as living abroad was very difficult for him.  I think it’s stretched him in a good way.

On Saturday Martin and I had to invigilate exams (yes, Saturday) for the students from our department in lecture theatres.  I did two, one at lunchtime and the second one from 5-6pm, both in the biggest lecture theatre, with enough space for 281 students to take an exam (though thankfully a lot didn’t turn up – it would’ve been a tight squeeze).  What ensued in the exam hall was a cultural shock to me.

Before we turned up half of the students had entered unauthorised, and the head of department was despairing of them saying half of them had taken answer booklets and scrap paper to write notes on even though they were not allowed, so could we go and take everything back off them while he got them to sit in rows with a space between people.  They were all chatting away merrily and more students arriving by the minute.  Bags with them, mobile phones still out, coffees/cans of drinks on the benches, sitting next to their friends (no seat allocation).  No rules were stipulated at the beginning except ‘you’re not allowed any other materials except your pencil case’.  It took us a while to get all the papers handed out to a couple of hundred students and they were still talking until they got their papers.

When they did make a start they went quiet.  It was a multiple choice paper with 40 questions which some people had finished in 15 minutes and wanted to leave.  We said they couldn’t leave until 30 mins had passed because it would be too disruptive otherwise (seeing as other people would have to stand up to let them out).  Well, when our colleague gave the word that they could leave, (at least) half of the exam hall stood up and left, chatting as they went!!  Giving the others some noise to start whispering amongst themselves and leaning across to share answers.  Unbelievable.  The ones leaving partook in this too, or some would be saying goodbye and ‘bon courage’ to their mates.  We only had 2 students out of 200 left at the end of the hour!  It felt like there was a real peer pressure to get up and leave.

In the second exam, one girl took a cookie out of her bag and ate it.  I had to have a stern word with some students that I suspected of cheating, to put a stop to it.  Apparently it’s well-known that cheating is rife in these exams.  A lot of the teachers don’t seem to care and the feeling is ‘let’s try and minimise the damage’.  Manqi said that as soon as you walk into an exam hall you can tell if the teachers there are going to invigilate well or not.

Both teachers who had set the papers admitted to me that something in the paper was a certain way so it would be easier for them to mark.  Can’t blame them too much as they’ve got so many papers to mark in a short timeframe but it seemed a bit of a lazy attitude that I’ve not come across so much in England.  Our teachers seem to take more of the view that the exam paper must be ‘x’ way so as to best test the students or so as to allow the students to show what they are capable of etc.  Of course exam papers in the UK are scrutinised by external examiners too which means they can’t just do whatever they like.  We also chatted to some of the good students after the first exam, who said that they hadn’t seen half of the content in their lessons, and the teacher said he had never seen 20 or so students that were sitting the exam in his classes.  Oh my.

The other interesting thing this weekend was the elections of course.  France has a new president and in the Rennes area (strong backing for Hollande) there’s a lot of optimism about the change coupled with a pessimistic ‘we’ll see’.  I went along to the local polling station with Loic and Manqi on Sunday at 7pm to see the votes being counted and Loic got involved.  There were 5 ‘offices’ in different classrooms with 4 tables set out, 4 people at each, and they were given the envelopes in batches of 100.  It was six hundred and something for Hollande versus two hundred and something for Sarkozy for each of the ‘offices’ for our polling station.  There were quite a number of votes which were void too.  One person had managed to put Marine Le Pen’s name into an envelope, which made everyone laugh!

They hadn’t even finished counting votes and we found out the result via the Internet that Hollande was the new president and we got home to see Sarkozy was giving a goodbye speech.  I was baffled, I knew there hadn’t been time for all the votes in France to have been counted in one hour.  Well no, the actual figures were confirmed a lot later that evening but they had announced their president on forecasts and exit polls or something (If someone actually knows how it’s done maybe they could explain it to me)!  It was so tight between Hollande and Sarkozy that Loic, Manqi and I discussed how strange it would be if the vote swung to Sarkozy later that night.

Fiona x 

What next?

Above is a question I’ve been asked with an increasing frequency for a number of months now.  The real honest answer is, I don’t know, but I’m trusting that God does.

I feel a strong ‘pull’ towards moving back to the UK, so that is what I plan to do in June.  I’m also leaning towards finding a job in which I can use my French language skills (but not teaching!), preferably in an office-based environment as this has previously suited me.  I am also looking to learn new skills which would allow me more flexibility for work in the future (i.e. accountancy/IT skills).  Might all sound a bit vague, but it’s a start.  And in the current job climate, it might not be a bad thing to not get too specific!

As for where to look for jobs, where to live and who to live with…that’s all unclear too.  To a large extent these things are interdependent.  I’ve had it pointed out to me that moving back in with my family might not be very easy as I haven’t lived at home for more than 4 weeks for 5 years now.  One thing which is fairly obvious is that most French-speaking jobs are in London.  But I don’t fancy the commute into London every day.  Can’t have everything though.

Since last November I have been applying for various UK graduate schemes which start in September, but have not been successful in getting past the online tests for the few that have shown interest in me (which is strange as it was the maths which proved the problem, yet this was my strongest point at A level).  Though if these jobs aren’t right for me it’s better to get rejected at this stage than much further down the line, so from that point of view I’m relieved.

Voilà, hope that wasn’t too much to get your head around.  I really want to make a move in line with what God wants and where I can reach out to those around me to make an impact for Him.  Prayers appreciated!

Fiona x

A bit of fresh air

Bonjour!

So the week after much movement, I didn’t move much.  I spent a week doing a mix of marking, chilling out, sorting out and trying to build up my fitness levels a bit for the cycle trip which I’ll tell you about below.  The Tuesday night was the highlight of my week as we (Manqi and I) invited our girl’s Bible study/prayer group to our house for a meal and short discussion.  We had lots of vegetables to eat from the veg basket which Michèle orders every week so we had to get creative with that (I think we managed to use about 8 different veg in some form or another!) and the meal was enjoyed by all.

At the weekend (13^th-15^th Apr) I went to the campsite I used to work at in Saint Gilles-Croix de Vie (on the coast in the Vendée region of France) to see my friend Jen and her Dad who are part of a small team putting up tents in preparation for the summer season.  We went out for a meal for Jen’s birthday on the Friday, and on the Saturday visited a little island called Noirmoutier where we sat by a nice castle for lunch and wandered round a bit, then headed off in the car to find a good stretch of beach which Jen remembered from previously being there.  Only we couldn’t find it and we spent ages driving round and getting lost which was a shame!




















To exit the island we went along to the ‘passage de Gois’, a special road which allows you to cross from the island to the mainland when the tide goes out.  I enjoyed waiting for the tide to go out and seeing the first cars go across, then going along ourselves (photos above).  The rest of the time was spent chatting, enjoying food, playing games and inspecting tents, it was good to catch up with them.

Last Monday I travelled home on the train, stopping off for coffee in Lille with my friend Nicola, a brilliant way to spend the waiting time between the TGV and the Eurostar!  This past week back in England has been brilliant.  I’ve enjoyed Mum’s cooking (goes without saying?!), a game of badminton with Dad, going to housegroup with my sister and spending a day at Stratford International Station participating in the second training day for the Olympics volunteering programme I’m part of.  This was topped off by the International Café Isle of Wight Cycle Trip 2012, a fantastic weekend which I feel privileged to have been a part of.

It’s the fourth time I’ve been on this cycle trip which has happened in April/May time for the last six years, and it’s just got bigger and bigger every year.  A team of Christian students (although we’re not all students now) takes a group of international students (largely non-Christians) to the Isle of Wight, leaving early Saturday morning from near the university, cycling down to the docks to take a ferry and then we cycle across the island in two groups (with lots of breaks and two different routes), taking in the scenery and trying not to lose people on the way!  Our destination is a guest house on the south of the island, where we enjoy dinner and comfortable beds, then hold a church service on the Sunday morning before setting off back to Southampton via a different route. This year there were around 70 people on the trip (including team).  Despite the weather forecast showing imminent rain for both days the whole week before, God was amazingly good to us and we had sunshine (with some clouds) on the Saturday and on Sunday it only rained on and off from the middle of the afternoon onwards!  He also blessed us enormously with a lack of serious bike problems and accidents.  We were able to share our faith with the students and get alongside them.  The sense of achievement and togetherness is great afterwards and we’re praying they’ll remember it for years to come and come closer to God because of it. I really enjoyed catching up with old friends and making new ones.

I’ve got another 5 or so days here before I head back to Rennes for the final stint.  I would really appreciate your prayers concerning my ‘next step’ as I don’t know what to do next!  (More to come on that soon).

Love,

Fiona x

Clocking up the miles

Within just one week from Saturday to Saturday I set foot in Dorset, Eastleigh, Southampton, London, Rennes, Martigné-Ferchaud, and Vannes! It was hectic but I mostly had a good time. Let’s start with my trip to England…

The wedding in Dorset was a lot of fun and seemed to speed by. My friends and I enjoyed getting ready in the morning and waiting for the beautiful bride to arrive at the church. Afterwards I mingled with some university friends I hadn’t seen in a while and ate scones with jam and cream, then we followed on to the reception venue, which was a school although you didn’t really feel like you were in one! After a little while waiting we were able to go through to the tables, where we enjoyed a delicious 3 course meal, and there was a humorous twist in the middle as someone on each table had been designated as ‘the chef’ (with an apron and chef’s hat) to carve the beef for the main course! After the meal we listened to the speeches and then went off to the hall for a Ceilidh which was a lot of fun.

I then spent a couple of days in the Southampton area, meeting up with friends for a catch-up and spending some quality time with Mel and Tom who I stayed with. On the Tuesday I spent a day in London at the first of three training days for the London Olympic Ambassadors volunteer programme. (For those who don’t know, it’s a scheme which will see 8,000 volunteers welcome people to London, at the airports, stations, where the big screens will be and many tourist sites, throughout the summer. I’m looking forward to it). In the evening I met up with Mum, Dad and Katie for a meal in Pizza Hut which was soothing to the soul.

On Wednesday I was ‘de retour’ for Rennes, after an hour and a half’s delay to the plane taking off which was frustrating, followed by an afternoon of coming up with a backup plan for how to do the listening test on Thursday if a certain piece of equipment wasn’t available to me. Praise God, all went well (eventually) and on Thursday I carried out the tests confidently. I also said goodbye to the students (with mini eggs!), as that was the last time we were in the classroom together. It hasn’t really sunk in yet, I’ll probably see a few of them about, but it’s a weird mix of relief and being sad to see them go.

On Friday morning I did some work at a lycée (6^th form college) for a guy from church who’s an English teacher there. He brought me in to do mock baccalaureate oral exams with 12 of his students and despite the pressure to get it right in terms of marks I actually quite enjoyed it and some of them were really good.

On Friday evening, Manqi and I ventured off to Vannes (which is about 110 km/70 miles to the South West of Rennes) to see our friend Ruth who has come to stay with us a number of times throughout the year to come to church in Rennes. We booked a journey with a car sharing scheme for the way there, but the lady texted us to tell us her car had broken down, so at the last minute we had to find another car to go in, and then they were 35 minutes later than what they’d said so we arrived at Ruth’s at 9:15pm tired and hungry, but she had kindly waited for us and provided us with a nice meal. The following day we wandered around Vannes which is lovely, and went on the bus to a nice picnic spot and really enjoyed ourselves.

I was due to look after the kids at church on Sunday morning, so had to get back to Rennes Saturday evening, and Manqi was coming back too. We had planned to use the car share scheme for the return trip as well, but there were yet more issues - this time with places in cars - so on Saturday morning we decided we’d take the train back as it was a reasonable price and probably more reliable. Then Manqi realised she didn’t have her young person’s rail card so I said she could take a place in a car and I’d go by train. Her departure time was a little earlier than mine so I was left to my own devices to find the train station. To cut a long (and distressing) story short, I missed the train by minutes and although it wasn’t late at night, there wasn’t any other way of getting home until the next morning, so I had to spend another night at Ruth’s, finish prepping the kid’s group, instruct Manqi about what I wanted bringing from home, and go straight from the train journey to arrive at church at roughly the time the kids would be let out! I was very grateful for the support of Manqi and Ruth.

Au revoir for now,

Fiona x

Very much in France yet crossing cultures

Hi again,

I’m enjoying some lovely summery-spring weather and hoping it lasts until the weekend for my friend’s wedding. I’ve got my window wide open and I’m just hoping a bird doesn’t want to come into my room and say hello!

This week there has been a flurry of activity. I was quite pleased with myself for going to the pharmacy and the hairdresser’s for the first time in France. The pharmacy vocabulary was easier than the hair stuff, but both went smoothly! On Wednesday I was at work as usual when a colleague popped her head round the door and amongst other things told me that a teacher from Southampton University was visiting Rennes and she had arranged to have coffee with her at half five, and if I wanted to join them then I could. It turned out it was one of the nice teachers that I know, so I said I would like to. So we went for a drink and a crêpe and then my colleague had to leave to catch a train, but my teacher Juliet wanted to have a walk around Rennes for a bit so I gave her a little tour and we chatted away. She was very surprised by everything that I’ve been asked to do in my job and the lack of support given, but at the same time she was very encouraging and was impressed that I’d handled it and said it would stand me in good stead.

Last Thursday there was still no available video projector despite the fact I’d booked it again. So I’d made sure I’d prepared something else just in case which didn’t rely on a projector. I’m not taking the risk for this week as it’s the last class before their test, so I gave them homework with details of how to access the video on youtube at home and we’ll just do a short class going through the answers. In the evening after work I went on a prayer walk around Rennes with my house group which was good.

On Friday night we celebrated the 18^th birthday of one of my church friends, Sandra, who couldn’t wait to be 18. It was a relaxed evening with some of the food cooked Togolese-style and there was a fun African vibe to the soirée. Saturday night was also pleasant with our Indian friend Ruth staying over and cooking us a curry.

Then on Sunday my friend Halle came to see what our church is like as she’d been meaning to for a while and she is going to write some kind of guide for students as to what the different churches are like I think. A lady called Marie at church invited me round for lunch and said I could bring two friends so I took Halle and Manqi and we piled into the car with her three kids (9, 6, and 4) to go off to a village called Liffré to the north of Rennes. Another couple from church rang up to see if they could bring their lunch along and join us, so they did. We had a great time together eating and playing with the kids and talking to each other. Marie’s husband was away in Pakistan for a week leading worship at some evangelism meetings. He skyped during the afternoon for a bit and told us some of what was going on out there. They’d had more and more people coming to the meetings every evening (we’re talking increases of 5,000, so there were 30,000 on the last evening!). There were hundreds of healings (including the deaf, blind and lame) and thousands of people decided to follow Jesus! This was through the ministry of 3 ordinary guys who travelled across from France in cooperation with the local Pakistani Christians! Wow.

Fiona x