This teaching gig doesn’t pay the best, so I’ve been supplementing my income by tutoring. (Don’t tell the French government — it’s technically illegal for me to have multiple streams of revenue).
On Thursdays I work with two teenage siblings. The girl, 14, is grumbling through simplified Shakespeare, and the boy, 19, is starting English-immersion technical college. Since any use of English counts as practice, we usually just chat. I prompt them with questions and correct their grammar. Simple stuff, and I think they get a kick out of it. Sometimes their mom makes me tea.
On Tuesdays I babysit two young girls, 8 and 10. They and their parents used to live in Alabama, of all places. They were there for three years for their father’s job. Now that they’re back in France, their parents don’t want them to lose their English. That’s where I come in.
The girls get a two hour break from school for lunch, so I pick them up at the schoolhouse gate and walk them home. It’s only a couple minutes to their apartment, and apparently on the days I’m not with them, they walk alone.
As soon as I get there with the girls, the mom disappears out the door to… do errands? Have me time? Not sure. But the girls set the table and serve the food. They strictly forbid me from helping put out the plates and silverware — which, I must note, they are doing for lunch. We always have a small salad, a hot main course, a side of beets, a cheese plate, and homemade yogurt. They make me cross myself before we eat. Their mother insists that I eat with them so that they are comfortable with me, and also so that I have food in my belly. Apparently she is concerned that Americans don’t feed ourselves properly. In any case, I was raised better than to turn down offered food.
The girls are endlessly fascinated by things like my cell phone and the place where I grew up. They aren’t allowed any technology, like most French children, so it’s a real treat for them to sit next to me and ask me to Google pictures of tigers and ducks.
The main thing I do with them is sit and read. They’re both reading English books, and I take turns with them while they read aloud to correct their pronunciation and explain hard words. One is reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, and the other is reading about a poor girl in North Carolina and her dog. I’m having as much fun reading the books as they are.
The questions they ask really throw me off sometimes. For instance, I mentioned how much I enjoyed their mother’s cooking, and they asked me what my mother cooks when I am home. I told them the truth: that my dad does the cooking. They were taken aback by this. If your mama does not cook, what does she do all day? Well, she goes to work. She goes to what?! She works in an office because she has a job. Does your father not have a job? He makes her work?
This was extraordinary for them.
Who is your saint, Allison? Sorry, what do you mean, my saint? The saint you got when you were born. I didn’t get a saint, I guess. Maybe Joan of Arc, because my middle name is Joan. Why did your parents not give you a saint? I think that’s only a Catholic thing, and I’m not Catholic. You are not Catholic? I don’t understand. I’m Protestant. I’ve not heard about that.
Never let anybody tell you France is a secular country.
Bises,
Allison
Flan in France 