My First French March

Today was the day I've honestly been waiting for since the day I moved to France. My First French March. I missed one small protest a few weeks ago by sleeping in (who protests at 8am?!), but I was determined not to miss this one. It wasn't big, there wasn't any major disruption, it wasn't a proper strike, just a march, but it's the closest I've come to full-frontal French protesting and I was going to make sure I experienced it. At the moment in France there are a lot of changes to funding and how its being distributed - we're all in the same economic crisis - and the French aren't happy about it. I can see why they're upset here. Because of funding cuts, German will no longer be offered as a second foreign language. (In France, pupils are expected to learn two foreign languages, but one is given more lesson time than the other, unless the pupil chooses to follow an academic programme equally weighted between both languages. Most people choose English as their first foreign language and then can choose from German, Italian and Spanish as their second.) This change is a big deal here because of the area's proximity to Germany and Luxembourg: a lot of people who live here work in either of these countries, where they're quite likely to have to speak German (as well as English). There are also going to be cuts to the Italian department, Latin and Ancient Greek are to be cut, as well as one of the technical bac programmes (the French equivalent to A Levels). This will mean that pupils who want the option of these subjects will either have to go private or go to Jarny or Metz, adding a good 20-30 mins to their journey time. Considering that at the moment the school has some pupils who leave their houses at 7am to get the school bus, and don't return until after 6pm, that's a big ask.

So that's what the protest was about. It's widely agreed that it probably won't change much, if anything, but the French would never lose an opportunity to show their displeasure about something. After all, if you let something like this slide, who knows what that thieving Sarkozy and his cronies will try and do next?! You can't let the government think that you approve of something due to your inaction. It's a message which I think us in the UK would do well to heed sometimes, but then again I think this has a lot to do with the national psyche. In the UK, people show their displeasure towards the government through snide remarks and clever TV programmes. Like so many other British habits, it's never about what you say, but how you say it. Here, however, direct action seems to be preferred, even if it's only symbolic. 

I arrived at the appointed time, joining a few teachers and pupils and other general sympathisers. The atmosphere was jovial and we all had a good craic in the sunshine whilst waiting for someone else to decide that it was time to go. I was getting quite excited. Someone appeared with a horse-drawn carriage, another with a big white van blaring music out of the windows, and we set off in a long line up the road towards school. We had a police escort and we were blocking traffic, as well as handing out flyers to anyone who crossed our path. What more could you want from a sunny Wednesday afternoon?! We slowly marched through town until we reached school. There, the van was unloaded and some chairs were pulled out, as well a large coffin-shaped piece of wood, which was placed in the middle. I'm not describing this very well but hopefully the photos will shed some light on that one! The guy in the van started playing a funeral march and we all stood around while someone made a short speech about how uncultured the French were becoming and how disgusting it was that these subjects were being denied to future generations. Then we stood around for another chat before heading in when the sun started to go in.

All in all, it wasn't anything spectacular. Nobody got angry and shouted a lot, nobody was on strike (there's no school on Wednesday afternoons), and there really weren't that many people. There wasn't even any chanting. But I still felt very proud today to stand up and participate in my first French protest, and to support the school that I've really come to love. Now that I've only got a month to go until I finish working here, I'm starting to get nostalgic about the time I've spent in Briey, and I'm glad to say that I was finally able to tick one of the major culturally stereotypical "things" off my list. Vive la grève!


Bises,


Sophia xx

PS On the teeth front, things are looking up! I got my stitches out today and I'm feeling a lot more human, so fingers crossed that's the end of that saga... I also handed in my insurance forms yesterday to get reimbursed for my prescriptions, so we'll see how long that takes to land in my bank account! Wish me luck!

Smile Like You Mean It

Well, the last couple of weeks have been educative, to say the least! After spending two whole weeks on home soil, I woke up the very next day after getting back to France with a toothache. Bugger. I tried to sleep it off but woke up at 5am the next morning with a swollen face that I barely recognised, and a pain so bad that I cried trying to talk to people in the staffroom once people started coming into work. Uh oh. Now please bear in mind here that I've never had to go for emergency dental treatment at home, never mind in a foreign country, so I was panicking! I phoned round all the dentists in town, but out of those who actually bothered to answer their phones, the best I could get for an "emergency" appointment was 3 weeks later. Obviously, that wasn't much use to me, so I lumped my massive face round to A&E, but the nurses there turned me away as well because they didn't have a dentist on call. Bugger. 

Another mournful look into the staffroom and the teachers started to take pity on me, bless them. One offered me his own dental appointment that afternoon, bless him. Another gave me some weird painkiller which would "knock me out for a good 24 hours" (I decided not to try that one), but the best was Aline (I know you read this, so hope you don't mind!), who made me an appointment that morning with a dentist in the next town and dropped me off there in between lessons. 

The dentist took one look at me and announced that it was my wisdom teeth. However, it took me a little while to accept his diagnosis, not just because it was so quick, but really because he was so little... I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but when it comes to healthcare professionals, the ideal is an efficient-looking woman (with glasses on, of course) and a serious expression on her face, or an older man with a kindly expression and white hair, which subconsciously tells you that they've seen this problem a million times before, no it's not that serious, so there's no need to worry - just sit back and let us handle it for you. No such luck here. The guy looked younger than me for a start, and I'm not old enough to have finished dental school, never mind someone younger than me! And he was tiny - a good couple of inches shorter than me - and at 5'5", I'm no giant. In fact, when I first walked into the room and he shook my hand, I thought he was there on work experience. My mistake! However, once I got over my initial forebodings, he turned out to be very nice. So even though he won't read this, I'm sorry for judging! As you can see, I was really in no position to judge someone by their appearance:

This wasn't even me at my worst, believe it or not (you won't be able to see those photos!)

That was two weeks ago - Monday the 27th. This was followed by a trip to the pharmacy for all the pills the dentist prescribed for me (see below) - 8 boxes of things in total. This was followed by an x-ray on the Tuesday, by which time my face had swollen up on both sides, followed by a revisit to the dentist on the Thursday to see the results of the x-ray. The verdict was that all 4 of my wisdom teeth had to be removed. So that meant an appointment with the dental surgeon the following Tuesday, followed by an appointment for the actual extraction the following Wednesday. This Wednesday in fact (the 14th). All under the national health service, all within two weeks. Now tell me that that would happen under the NHS back home!

Of course I'm crapping myself about it now - I'm getting all four teeth out under a local anaesthetic and my face is going to go back to its Moomin proportions from last week, plus a selection of multicoloured bruises to match. This ain't gonna be pretty! Thankfully, one of the families that I do private tuition for have invited me to stay with them for a couple of days afterwards, so at least I won't be on my own. The father is a dentist too, so at least I have backup if anything goes wrong! But it has to be done. Bleurgh. 

But every cloud has a silver lining, and I have to do the best with what I can. I've learnt a lot of new vocabulary! I've also become very au fait with my insurance details, because of course I still have no proof of my insurance, so every time I have an appointment I have to apologise and explain my situation and ask the long-suffering secretaries to phone the company to confirm that I am actually insured. Thankfully so far it's worked...!

So wish me luck for Wednesday!

Bises,

Sophia xx