Through the storm and into calm waters

Sitting here, watching Money Drop, a French quiz game that "we" watch every night from the dinner table. To tell the truth, I'm becoming a bit fond of the plump, blonde hostess of the game — it has become something familiar in my life now, hearing the familiar music and seeing the blue and red lights and the tension! Mon dieu! Tres exciting! Jacqueline is one sharp cookie. I haven't heard her get one wrong answer in all the evenings we've been watching. I usually absolutely have no clue — even though the script of the questions is written on the screen, I usually can't even decipher what they are asking, let alone, what the answer is. But, last night I understood the question about the colour of Mars, and, very surprisingly, Jacqueline didn't know the answer! Found that hard to believe. Mais, I had the answer: rouge! This was definitely one of the easier questions. Une question about the U.S. department of defense came up and she made me get up from the dinner table so I could more easily read the tv screen, and, thank goodness, I knew that it was related to the Pentagon. Would have been tres, tres embarrassing to miss that.

Jacqueline's young friend, Martine, just arrived and I gave her the traditional kiss. I am sitting sitting here, writing this, excusing myself, saying that I am writing to my family (hoping my family is reading this, so it turns out I am not lying). We just had an aperitif, Frontignan, made from the grapes grown locally. I'm thinking of buying a bottle and bringing it home.

I read somewhere a few months ago about the stages of …. can't think of the English words… this is becoming a problem… ah, yes, culture shock. The stages of culture shock. Like grief, there are stages of culture shock and, although it may be needless to state it, I've had a pretty rough time of it these last few days. Ananda's arrival has been a bright spot, not just because of who she is, but the fact that she knows no French at all, and so we speak in English. I told her today that I felt like I was cheating, speaking English. Anyway, during lunch today, I told her that this trip was much more difficult psychologically than the trip I took to Nepal. My difficulties with Nepal were all before the trip — dealing with an incredible amount of fear; but once I arrived, despite many challenges, I was very happy there. But this trip has been so difficult in so many ways.

I have been practicing centering prayer for many years; however, I found that I couldn't even practice that here. Centering prayer has many similarities to meditation. One must centre and quiet the mind. I've been practicing this for quite some time; however, here, whenever I would sit in quietness and try to pray, all I could hear were French words and phrases and echoes of French words and phrases, and the feeling was "who's in here with me?" When I said the other day that I felt I had no where to go for comfort and retreat I wasn't kidding. I couldn't even enter my own interior without feeling disoriented!

But today has been a good day. I feel as if I have navigated the storm and arrived in calm waters. I feel better, not only psychologically, but this is also the first day I haven't felt tense and exhausted. So, thank God for breakthroughs.

The "laugh of the day" (which I always seem to unintentionally provide) was related to my trying to tell the class in French about Henry County being the hog capital of the world. When one thinks about it, it could be understood that it is the capital for the hogs of the world. I don't know how to explain how it was understood, but we had a gigantic laugh.

After lunch I navigated the train station, figuring out where the ticket office was and how to get a ticket to get in line to buy a ticket and which platform to get on and how to get on the platform. A kind woman answered my question, "is the for the train to Sete?"And I said I would follow her onto the train. She kindly accommodated me, finding a seat so I could sit with her and for the 20+ minute trip, we conversed in French.

Once I arrived in Sete I had to check the time for the return train and then to figure out how to get a bus to the centre of town. On the bus, an elderly woman with shopping bags, returning from Montpellier, took it upon herself to "adopt" me. She was very kind, touching my arm, holding my hand, and then walking with me after we departed the bus. She told me to stay with her and she would lead me to the "five best photos" to take in Sete. She walked me to a local bus at the Hotel de Ville, and explained to the driver that "she is an American" and asked him to let me off at a designated spot. How very, very kind of her.



The driver apparently agreed to take over from there and motioned for me to sit down. Sete is a lovely town, full of ancient, narrow, winding streets, and the driver navigated the huge bus in an expert fashion, only rolling over one curb. We travelled through and around and up and up, past the deep blue of the Mediterranean and up and around streets lining amazing steep terraces with lovely homes and tropical trees and flowers. Once we reached the very top — Mount St. Clair, he motioned to me and pointed to the bus stop where I needed to wait, in order to return.

I was concerned about making the train back to Montpellier in time for dinner and so I just took a shots and then went back to the bus stop and got on the bus back down to the Hotel de Ville, from which I needed to walk several blocks to the bus which returned me to the station.

It turned out to be a whirlwind trip — kind of crazy in a way. But it only cost me 12 E round-trip, and I felt quite happy in navigating my way in French. Also, I''m now more comfortable with the idea of traveling elsewhere once I leave Montpellier.

Well, Jacqueline is dishing out the soup — "a soup Arabe" as she explained to me. If I've understood her correctly it is a soup that Muslims eat during Ramadan. (Jacqueline lived with her husband in Algeria for 10 years.)

Note: the Britishisms in spelling aren't mine. That's the computer, and it has something to do with the fact I'm in Europe. (blogspot automatically gave me an .fr address for this blog.)

That's all for today.