First, the logistical news for next year: after much attempted finagling with the Académie in
June, I did not get the school assignment I wanted for the year, but
was at least placed in two different middle schools. One is in good old
La Roche-sur-Yon and the other in a small town called
Belleville-sur-Vie, an eight-minute train ride north. I am writing to
you from first home wifi since June thanks to my host family for whom I
just started working as an au pair. This year, I'll be chasing after
three kids (an 8-year-old and 6-year-old twins) and teaching English to
the whole family.
On
top of that, I'll be continuing to teach the same American civilization
courses at the University of Nantes next spring of it works with my
schedule, and adding four more sections at their branch in La Roche. So
please, please do your best to get rid of Donald Trump before January;
it's already difficult enough to explain the circus of American
elections...
On
to the summer! I was lucky to have been able to spend the first month
and a half in La Roche and in the Vendée (the name of the department
where I live...like a county, but bigger). It's a shame that most
language assistants only get to see this area in winter. The Vendée is
well known in France as a non-ritzy, outdoorsy summer vacation spot
thanks to its wild beaches, campgrounds, and biking trails. I can't
believe how beautifully green the countryside became; I guess the rainy
winters are good for something. La Roche itself has a very flat
terrain, but moving eastward, you'll find rolling green hills with small
towns and farms tucked away in unlikely spots.
I also enjoyed staying with several colleagues from the collège, a week here and a weekend there.
The English teacher with whom I stayed at the beginning of July lives in a house at the Lycée Nature just
at the edge of La Roche; her husband is an administrator there. It's
an agricultural high school, so there are regular buildings with
classrooms, but also stables with sheep, goats, horses, and other
cattle, and barns and tractors and ponds and areas for practicing
farming and cultivation techniques. Many students studying there are
high schoolers, but they also have a program for adults who want to
continue or change their education path to learn about farming and
cultivation.
The
next English teacher I stayed with for a few weeks lives in a small but
modern area just southeast of the center of La Roche; it's an
eco-friendly neighborhood, and their houses are designed to use as
little energy as possible. It was there that I fell in love with the
garden culture of the French; almost everyone has a little garden if
they have even a small yard. Their home-grown berries, carrots,
radishes, and cucumbers can't be beaten anywhere. We enjoyed nearly
every meal outside on the patio.
One weekend, the same colleague brought me to a family reunion on a farm a bit further east within the Vendée. Each year, the reunion has a theme; this year's was les livres (books), and everyone brought old books to exchange.
The
annual reunion, with about eighty cousins, is held in a clearing of a
farm that's been in the family since the 1200s. I got the tour of the
house (the interior has been completely redone), stables, and caves. La cave,
I learned, is a rather sexist Vendéen tradition: every old home in the
region has a small dirt-floor underground wine cave where, for those who
follow the tradition, only men are allowed to go to drink, smoke, and
talk apart from the women.
Back
near La Roche, I spent a long weekend in Poiré-sur-Vie, not far from
Belleville, where I'll be teaching next year. This colleague, a math
teacher, has a beautiful home out in the countryside and a giant yard
and garden. Her oldest daughter, Lisa, will likely be one of my
students next year. Lisa and her two younger siblings left me
completely exhausted after the weekend: we wrote stories, went to the
park and fed donkeys, played soccer...I learned never to let a
five-year-old give me a makeover...but best of all, they have a
beautiful piano that I got to play. Lisa and my colleague Sophie both
play too, and I accompanied them on flute. We also enjoyed meals in
their backyard; they have a nifty crêpe machine that can make five or
six small crêpes at once; I was impressed. |
| Poiré-sur-Vie |
Another
pleasant surprise was La Roche's 14th of July celebration. In a large
clearing packed with...well, the entire town, near an old abandoned
castle, they set off the most spectacular fireworks display I've ever
seen. It was coordinated with several music clips and lasted a full
half hour, but was never boring for an instant. Later in the summer I
visited Bourgenay, a small town on the ocean, for their Fête de la Mer (celebration
of the sea); their fireworks display over the ocean was a definite
letdown. At least the Vendéen folk dancing show beforehand and dancing
afterword at the port made up for it.
The
region is known for its always-changing weather; some days, it
alternated between sun and rain every thirty seconds. Luckily, it was
the one part of France that didn't experience this summer's massive heat
wave and drought: we wore coats and scarves some evenings. During the marée haute (high tide), it was fascinating to watch the rapidly-changing color of the water as clouds rolled overhead. During the marée basse (low
tide), the water cleared out, leaving boats stuck in mucky silt; you
can walk through it to what are normally islands just north of the
peninsula. Every year, tourists neglect to look at the marée schedule
and end up stuck on the island, sometimes until two or three in the
morning. The beauty of the place is best described visually, so here is
a bit of my Saint Jacut photo gallery:
I don't go back to work until October, but this week, the rest of France is all abuzz with:
la rentrée - back-to-school
