Saturday musings

As I was walking to the gym this morning, I started thinking for some reason about my maternal grandmother.  She immigrated to the US from Finland in her early 20's and lived on a farm in a Finnish community her whole life, so she still has a very thick accent and never really learned to speak English fluently.

We have all always considered her to be your typical sweet little old grandma.  She is so loving and never wants anyone to fight or have any sort of conflict.  But I've never really considered until now if that is really her *true* personality.  So many of us expats here in France lament about never being truly ourselves in French - we say aren't as funny, outgoing, deep, expressive, etc - and it occurred to me all of the sudden that she has likely felt the same over the past nearly 70 years in the US.  Unfortunately though I don't think her English is good enough to understand me if I tried to bring it up....and my Finnish skills have long gone by the wayside after so many years in France.

As I mentioned, I was in Bulgaria most of last week for work. It's not a country I particularly enjoy going to - in fact, I am pretty sure this was my last trip there, as I have plans to transfer this account to one of my underlings (hey, there has to at least be some advantages to being a manager, non?).

There's just something about the whole country that I find depressing.  Here and there, there are pockets of modernity, especially in the business district of the capital, but everything else is just stuck in time, like the clocked stopped ticking there 30 years ago.

Their national infrustructure is crumbling, and the three hour drive to my customer on their rickety highways always leaves my back in pieces.  I can only imagine how it leaves my (older) interpreter feeling.  But it's when you get off the main roads that really gets me.  Driving through villages that just scream out poverty.  Looking at the faces of young people who look much older than their years.

I want to take out my camera to capture some of the images, but don't for fear of offending my customer and those around me.  But it really just breaks my heart.  Groups of sad-looking, unemployed men standing around. Mangy dogs covered in fleas and scratching themselves.  Crumbling buildings and broken windows everywhere, left-over vestiges from the Soviet rule.

But then there are a few things that cheer me up. Seeing that someone has made a flower out of the colorful magnets on the office whiteboard. The generosity of people wherever we go, always offering a coffee and a small snack, even though they had almost nothing. The connection I had with one particular man on site - even though we have never been able to communicate directly, we shared a special connection. As unlikely as it was - him, an older ex-USSR solider and me, a young American woman.  But each time, we laughed and we made hand gestures and really, sometimes the eyes can say so much more than words can.  And he took great joy in bringing me treats and having me try the regional specialties. As I left them Thursday for what is likely the last time, I listened with a tear in my eye as the interpreter translated his kind words about how much he has enjoyed working with me.  And then he took my face in his hands and did the bises, three times, for that is what they do for loved ones in that region.

As we drove away, my head was reeling from everything I had experienced during the week.  Mainly I just kept thinking - how is it possible that these people are also part of the European Union?   I asked my customer what changes being an EU member has made for these small villages, and he said with disgust "Absolutely nothing".

It just so happened that it was his 60th birthday while I was there, and I asked him when he was going to retire.  And he laughed and said "Retirement?  That is a joke. There is no way I could live off the 180€ per month pension they offer, so I will work until I die."   And I thought to myself, "It's only a three hour flight, but places like Paris and London must seem so far away to these people".  I know it sure feels like a whole other world to me.

Once I got back to France, I began berating myself for being blogging about such foolish things.  Here am I, complaining about my 1000€ gym membership that I can totally afford, while all the while, that is half a year's salary for your average Bulgarian.  I mean, really Ksam - get a grip. Talk about first-world problems. 

I keep thinking back to a trip to Russia I took while living in Finland.  I have blogged about it before, but the image of waking up in the middle of the night and seeing these women starting a fire at four AM in the middle of nowhere has always stuck with me.  You can't choose where you are born (well unless you believe in reincarnation lol), and it's just luck of the draw whether you are dealt a good hand or a bad hand.  And that's probably what I struggle the most with - sure, I have worked hard in life to get where I am, but I also had a head start over a good portion of the world's population. And it just kills me that that poor man with the kind soul has had to struggle day-in and day-out.  I keep coming back to a phrase Fab used to (jokingly) say - "Life sucks, and then you die"....but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't get the joke.

Friday musings

Back in my early years in France, after I had finished my French classes and was starting to look around for a job, there was a statistic that shocked me:

50% of French people earn less than 1500€ a month.  

Of course at the time, I still had my American salary expectations and I hadn't quite understood yet how the French just pay up front for a lot of the things we pay out of pocket for (insurance, retirement, etc).  But the fact of the matter was, I was making more than that as a college student, and I could not wrap my head around the fact that half a country was making less than I was earning while in school.  And unfortunately, I just heard on the news the other day that ten years later, this fact is still true, and it still kind of floors me.

Because of the nature of my job, I spend a lot of time talking to your average French Joe (or maybe that should be Jacques). People who might or might not have their BAC, but who have most certainly never gone on to college.  The working class.  The ones who consider Paris to be far away and things like Paris Fashion Week and who wore what when to be alien.  But because part of my job entails convincing people to take good care of our equipment even though they won't be paid any extra for doing so, I talk to them. Not so much about family since family tends to stay out of work conversations, but about the weather, politics, differences between our countries. After all, it's a lot harder to say no to someone that you have a connection with.

I might not always agree with what some of these folks have to say - all foreigners should be kicked out of France for example - but I have learned a lot from them and it's been an eye into the mindset of a certain class of French people (and yes, IMO, there are still distinct classes in France).

One of the main topics of conversation as of late has been politics.  Those of you who follow French politics will know that François Hollande's approval ratings have been on a downward spiral since being elected. And I can tell you that definitely matches up with what I have been hearing while on the road.

A lot of these people seem so disillusioned by what he is proposing.  The increase in taxes, the likelihood that most of it will come from Monsieur tout le monde instead of the rich. But it always leaves me wondering - what were they expecting?  François Hollande's campaign was full of all kinds of wonderful promises - more money for schools, more money for students, more money for the poor, more fonctionnaires, etc.  And sure all of that is great, but the question I kept asking was - where is that moola going to come from?  Show me the money François!

There were vague answers about taxing the rich (many of whom are now planning on leaving France), but the truth of the matter is, the burden of most of it is going to fall on the average person, either through increased direct taxes or through an increased cost of living due to businesses being taxed more.  To me, it was almost to be expected, but it seems that most people didn't think that far ahead and now they are scared of what is to come.  Many of these people are living off of minimum wage and already have tight budgets, and the idea of having even less money to work with is not a fun one.  But this is the choice they made and they have to live with it now for the next five years. They didn't like Sarko as a person and they voted based on that, instead of his presidency. Of course I never say that to them, but it is often what I am thinking during these discussions. And I guess that is what scares me about the upcoming election in the US - that people will vote emotionally, and not rationally.  

When I was younger, I used to think "Oh, what harm can be done in just a few years?", but after seeing the changes that are happening after only a few months in office, I see how naive that was.  To Hollande's credit, he is at least trying to come up with money to fund all of his promises instead of just increasing national debt, but I still worry about the effect that it will have on France.  Contrary to a a lot of its Southern and Eastern neighbors, France has mostly been spared from the economic downturn, and I wonder if that will be the case five years from now?