Evelyn, Miguel et Moi

Before the holidays, students were as scarce at my French School as teetotalers in France. My class has dwindled down to Evelyn (the teacher), Miguel and me. You may remember Miguel from a previous posting. He is the student from Spain who had trouble getting to class on time. Miguel still has trouble getting to class on time, so Evelyn and I spent a fair amount of time alone the week preceding Christmas. You might naively think that having one-on-one time with your French teacher is a terrific opportunity, but this is only because you don’t know Evelyn.

If I was immature and spiteful, I might point out that Evelyn’s name is eerily similar to the word “evil.” This must simply be a mere coincidence because, Evelyn, from all appearances, seems to be a lovely, petite French woman, just like the millions of lovely, petite French women that one encounters daily in France. In fact, it is only because I have spent endless weeks with Evelyn in class B1 that I know better than to assume she is a pushover. (From what I can tell based on casual observation, I may be setting a record for the amount of time spent at the B1 level.) A less seasoned student would not know that Evelyn has threatened to hit Miguel several times and likes to tell us that we better not embarrass her when we move on to level B2. Miguel told her he had to take a French exam for the off-campus program at his university, and she just said, “Don’t make me ashamed Miguel.” The Fascists among you may find Evelyn’s approach to motivation a refreshing change from the self-esteem building, encouragement-based methods so pervasive in American schools today.

The other students and I actually like Evelyn very much. (Remember that Margaret Thatcher was popular in her day as well.) Despite her resemblance to the Iron Lady, she has her soft spots, her stomach apparently being one of them. She likes to explain the difference between “doux” and “mou,” which both translate as “soft,” by rubbing her skin to show doux and pushing her fingers into her stomach to demonstrate mou. I now cannot use the word mou without thinking of Evelyn’s stomach.

Evelyn’s stomach is weak in other ways as well. She is a chocolate fiend. When she is not coming up with ways to get us to bring chocolate to class (“Miguel, you are late, you must go get chocolate cakes for me and Nancy.”), she is using chocolate to demonstrate grammar points, explain vocabulary and, my personal favorite, to illustrate mouth position for pronunciation exercises: “Miguel, remember when you pronounce the “ooo” sound, your lips should be outstretched like you are trying to kiss a piece of chocolate cake.” (I haven’t had the heart to point out to her that Miguel, being a twenty-something Spaniard, may be more motivated by kissing something other than chocolate cake.) One day, she decided that we would have a “petit dejeuner” (breakfast) together in class, which I suspect was just Evelyn’s way of saying, “bring pastries.”

Evelyn, perhaps more than the other teachers, is into reality-based teaching. Actually I’m not sure if our field experiences with Evelyn reflect her teaching philosophy or her politics. She is not a great fan of France (“Why do tourists want to go to France?”) and feels like it has abandoned the social safety net that it once offered its people. To reveal the sordid side of France, Evelyn took us on a class field trip to Mirail, the “ghetto” of Toulouse. I think we were supposed to be appalled by Mirail, but, by American standards for inner-city hell-holes, Mirail seemed pretty nice. First of all, it was safe enough for us to feel comfortable walking around. While the housing wasn’t exactly beautiful, it was quite clean and had a nice park with a pond next to it. There was easy metro access, and no stoned people sleeping on the streets. Evelyn pointed out all the social services that are provided to the Mirail community, including a police station, job counseling and standard French programs such as free schooling that starts at age three and cheap child care for children under three. Evelyn noted with some disgust that some of the services provided were there, not to be generous, but because Mirail had a lot of social problems. And the problem with that is...? I’m still a little stymied about why we should be dismayed by the fact that numerous social programs were available to a problem area of the city. If Evelyn’s intent was for us to be appalled by France, I’m afraid it backfired in my case. I was impressed that this was the worst that Toulouse had to offer.

Similarly, Evelyn had us interview people in the midst of a street demonstration that included riot police. France is famous for its street demonstrations, and I have enjoyed several demonstrations in my few months wandering around Toulouse (with the exception of the demonstration that delayed my bus for two hours). The street demonstrations, for the most part, are pretty mild, good natured affairs. You get the sense that when people have a few hours to kill, they find a demonstration to participate in. The only demonstrations that included riot police, an exciting dimension that adds a certain tension absent from the more conventional demonstrations, conveniently were the two that occurred right outside of our school. Both of the demonstrations resulted from police evicting the “squatters” that lived in a vacant building near our school. With Evelyn’s prodding, we went out among the demonstrators to learn for ourselves what the demonstration was all about.

On our last day of school before the holiday break Evelyn took us to the Victor Hugo market in Toulouse. The Victor Hugo market is the most expensive food market in Toulouse and a must-see for any visitors coming to the city. (You can see pictures of the market from a visit that Marty and I made on Christmas Eve in a previous posting.) Having been an avid biology student, I particularly love the unusual body parts one can see at the market. The French seem to find a greater variety of animal parts acceptable for consumption than the average American. I gleefully pointed out to Evelyn all the cool body parts I could find, which included brains, hearts, stomachs, snouts, feet, ears, tongues and cheeks. In addition, one can find whole or nearly whole animals in the market, including my personal favorite, the stuffed piglet covered with gelatin and decorated with flowers in its ears. Evelyn, who is reportedly one of the rare French vegetarians, was less than enthusiastic about this anatomical goldmine and finally looked at me with disgust and said, “Nancy, je te deteste.” (I detest you.) Now some students may have been put off by this declaration of loathing from their beloved French teacher, but I knew that such open hostility surely meant that Evelyn was quite fond of me. (Or so I like to tell myself.)

Evelyn can be more subtle in her judgments. One day there was a comment, probably by me, that Americans generally are fat. (Don’t worry, I’m not letting any secrets out of the bag on that one, I believe fat is one of the first words that come to mind when Europeans think of Americans.) Evelyn’s immediate and seemingly innocent reply was “But your husband isn’t fat.” I still have the scar where we had to pull the knife out of my back. (In subsequent conversations Evelyn showed some weakness and generously decided to include me in the “not fat” category, but the psychological scar remains.)

I would describe my time alone with Evelyn not exactly as hell but more like the Last Judgment. There were no other students to hide behind, no other students to distract her from my bad grammar; I stood alone with the sins that I committed against the French language. It was, needless, to say, a bit frightening for both of us and an experience that is best avoided. I was oh-so grateful when Miguel finally made his appearance in class each day as there was other prey available to distract the predator.

Now you may mistakenly get the idea from this posting that Evelyn is mean and hates her students. Wrong. Evelyn, like all of our French teachers, is a saint who really enjoys the students. She patiently and usually with good humor listens to us make the same errors over and over again, despite her persistent corrections and explanations. She will correct us, and in the very next sentence we will commit the same atrocity. It is nothing short of a miracle that no student has been strangled or sustained bodily injuries at the school. Given the superhuman qualities required for such a job, I, for one, don’t begrudge Evelyn the occasional psychological blow; she has more than earned every one of them. And I have faith that my self esteem will someday recover.