Vive la France

Praz de Lys was beautiful this weekend – we were often in clouds or sometimes above clouds and it added a sense of mystery to the whole place. Imagine being on the side of an alp in the mist and the only other sign of life besides your own breathing is the sound of cowbells coming across the valley. Here are some memories from this weekend.

I was the only American in a group of about ten other folks and our meetings were in French. At one point one of them asked me in English, “Would it help you if we spoke slower?” I laughed and said, “The only thing that could help me would be a brain transplant from someone who can speak French.”

At another point I decided to show off my French skills by saying, “Sont des mots qui vont tres bien ensemble.” (As in “Michelle, my belle”) I thought I had them fooled for a second until my friend Vincent said, “It’s funny you learned French from the Beatles because I learned English from the Beatles.” He then went on to say, “I can’t believe the same guys could go from writing I Want to Hold Your Hand to A Day in the Life in four years.” That’s an insightful comment. Then he said, “A Day in the Life is ….” and he used a French phrase that we don’t have an English equivalent for (Amanda Munroe – do you have any idea what he would have said?) He explained it to me as “having nothing that led up to it and nothing that could follow it.” Sort of like “one of a kind” or “singular” maybe, but more powerful than that. I’m not sure. Anyway, it was a nice intercultural moment. Vincent went on to tell me about the day he shook hands with Ringo Starr in the Geneva airport, and I told them my theory of the Beatles – that Paul was a musical genius, John a creative and philosophical genius, George the spiritual heart and Ringo the mascot. The French folks stopped for a moment to contemplate the depth of what I was saying and take in this new truth. There were a lot of “hmmms” in French accents around the table. I like France.

At another point in our meetings, when a new idea was presented, one of them said, “I am very disturbalized by this.” That’s my new word of the week.

I learned there are no French words for leadership, fellowship, or discipleship. “We don’t have a lot of ‘ship’ words,” my translator (and our staff person in Lyon) Marie-Aline said to me. They don’t have a word for leader the way we use that term in Young Life, either. I asked what a volunteer leader is called in France and she said simply a volunteer. That loses something in the translation. But then I asked what the team leader is called and she said “animator” and I thought that was a tremendous word.

In the morning they all poured their coffee into cereal bowls and sat dipping bread into their bowls of coffee, before picking up the bowls and drinking. If I could have remembered the term Vincent used in reference to A Day in the Life, I would have used it to describe their morning coffee ritual.

I got confused by the kissing etiquette. In the Netherlands, it is right cheek, left cheek, right cheek. In Belgium it is one time on the right cheek. But in France, where the bise is synonymous with their culture, I noticed some people were starting on the left while others started on the right. I called time out and demanded an explanation from the rules committee. Turns out the bise differs according to geographic region. “Do you ever get mixed up and wind up kissing on the lips?” I asked. “Oui.” Ooh lah lah.

ALL THINGS COME TOGETHER

As I left for the airport, I had the nagging thought that I was forgetting something. I even got out of the car before leaving for the train station and said, “I need to get my phone,” but it was in my pocket, so I got back in the car and left with an uneasy feeling. I fell asleep on the train and it wasn’t until I was in the airport that I realized I had forgotten my passport. After a few moments of panic and self- flagellation, I called Gretchen and asked her to get my passport and come to Amsterdam with it. Maybe, just maybe, if she could get on a train quickly enough, she could get there in time to save me.

Then I approached the KLM counter and told the woman there I had a big problem. She cheerfully said, “Let me see if I can help you.” I love KLM! “Do you have a driver’s license?” I pulled out the Xerox copy of my driver’s license they gave me at city hall in Dordrecht last week. I never finished the driver’s license story, so here goes. I got a letter last week from the medical director of the CBR saying that she had determined I need to wear glasses to drive. My family has known that since the summer when I was in 6th grade and I came into a room and looked at a pair of shoes in the corner and asked, “whose dog is that?” They took me to the eye doctor the next day and I’ve had glasses on since. I got the letter from the CBR on Tuesday last week, in time to take it to city hall to formally apply for a driver’s license before my Michigan license expired. I only had to go their twice on Wednesday morning last week because the first person I talked to made me get a letter from Young Life in the Netherlands about my work status that the second person didn’t ask for, but that only makes a long story longer, so let’s keep moving. They took my 53.20 euro, my documentation, and my Michigan driver’s license and told me in four weeks I will receive a call or possibly a letter telling me I can go pick up my Dutch driver’s license. They then photocopied my Michigan license and gave that back to me and said, “This is your driver’s license now, it’s okay to drive with this.”

So, the woman at the KLM counter said, “Do you have a driver’s license?” and I pulled the photocopy of my license out of my wallet. “This isn’t a license,” she said. “It’s a photocopy of a license.”

“I realize that,” I said, “but this is what your government has told me to use for a license.”

“Do you have any other identification?” she asked. I pulled out my Dutch Residency Card (see blog entry “The Worst Picture of Me Ever Taken.”) She looked and winced, but then recovered and said, “I need to show this to my colleague.” Off she went to a back room where I imagined a group of people doubling over in laughter. I think I could see them pulling back a window shade and peeking out at me. Before long she came out and said, “It’s okay, you can use this.”

I called Gretchen and asked where she was. She was sitting on a train about to leave Central Station in Dordrecht, so she was able to get off the train before it left town. Whew!

Off I went, praying that the folks in Switzerland would agree with the folks in Amsterdam. They did. The woman at the counter in Geneva even said, “Are you just going back to the Netherlands – you aren’t going on to any other countries?” “Yes,” I said. She looked empathetically at me and said, “All you want to do is go home, isn’t it?” “Yes,” I said, “that’s all I want to do.” I was like Dorothy in Oz.

So, what have I learned this week? That you can drive in Europe with a photocopy of an expired American license. That Americans don’t need passports to cross European borders by air. That French people can be fun and interesting and they don’t necessarily dislike Americans. And that, no matter how stupid, hopeless and disturbalizing the situation I create, Gretchen is willing to bail me out if necessary.