February 1

Whether the recent uncommon snowfall or the late January gloom or the coming weekend or my perfunctory lesson plans were to blame, my students were up to no good last Friday afternoon. 

I had hardly begun writing the day’s lesson on the board before one student complained that another had said a gros mot (swear word), hadn’t even finished the grammar course before another had tipped over backward on his chair, and was not more than half-way through explaining the assignment when a third boisterously refused to stop hitting his neighbor with a notebook.

Whatever the cause of the afternoon’s fracas, I wasn’t going to stand for it.  So I set down my lesson book and as sternly as I could manage, I put on a tough face and told the little ones that the fun times were over and we weren’t going to do anything else that day but they would sit and think about how they’d misbehaved and I would think about what had gone awry and we were all just going to think and be quiet.   The intoxicating part about speaking French is that you can convey directives like this with so much more force than in English.

There are some who think that being able to speak French makes you more inclined to dribble love poems or craft lofty manifestos out of thin air.  The more likely truth is that the French language is best for expressing all sorts of denunciations and criticisms.  There’s nothing like the raving lunatic who hangs out around the town square on market day, spewing vitriol in his southern patois while protesting some new law or tax hike, all the while implicating you in his charge. It makes you admire the French’s unashamed criticism of change.

So it was no wonder that admonishing a roomful of nine year olds in rapid-fire French felt cathartic.  After about ten minutes of silence and supposed self-reflection, the bell rang and my students grabbed their coats and backpacks and bolted outside, cheering and whooping the whole way.  They were certainly not repentant and neither was I.

I walked down the street to a café and ordered an elfin espresso and watched the people going home from work, and I felt fine.  I took a few pictures of the surrounding hills enrobed in rare snow, and then walked home along the river.  Like most of the small inconveniences that come from living as an expat, I forgot all about the afternoon’s bedlam.  I know my students well enough by now to understand that they are good ones, if a little wild.

The following week, on Monday, I walked into the schoolyard, the malaise of the previous Friday gone from my mind.  As I struggled to close the old iron gate behind me, students came running up until I was surrounded by a crowd ten or fifteen deep.  They pulled on my coat and told me to wait for the others; there was something they needed to say.   And then one by one they told me they were sorry; that they loved my English classes and would do better next time. 

“I was so worried you were never coming back!” said one of my favorites. 

I told them all that of course I wasn’t going to leave just yet; this village was home for me, as least for a few more months.  We would all try not to let our emotions get the better of us in the future. 

After all, it is hard to stay upset or frustrated or angry in this place.