La nourriture spirituelle

The last two weekends have been very spiritually refreshing. Last Saturday, I went to my first assembly here in France and yay! it was in English! It felt so incredibly nice to have a full day of spiritual food in my native tongue. I felt so encouraged, strengthened and rejuvinated. It was the one-day "The Time Left Is Reduced" program and I really enjoyed hearing it again. It was presented in a way that is appropriate for the audience; which was made up of many different nationalities and languages. Many were dressed in their native garb and it had a international assembly quality about it; although much smaller. The attendance was around 500 and 6 were baptized. It was also really interesting to hear about the foreign language feild from the Circuit Overseer's and the branch's perspective.
The circuit is very service oriented and zealous. Many in attendance were bethelites, special pioneers and those who had been asked to serve in groups or congregations. Out of the about 500 in the circuit there are 130 pioneers!
The assembly also made me realize how starved I was for spiritual food. I am studying, reading my bible daily and keeping up with the magazines. Of course I am also attending the meetings. But, the meetings are in French, so I am not getting the flood that I typically get. However, my comprehesion is increasing and I really look forward to the day when I am fully thinking in French and able to use the language to serve Jehovah more fully and be more available to help others learn about our wonderful God.
Today, I had another really wonderful spiritual treat. A sister in my congregation invited me over for lunch after the meeting. Her name is Brenda and she grew up in Southwest England (Somerset). When she moved out of her house as a young woman it was straight into a challenging special pioneer assignment in Wales. She and her partner were assigned to an area where there were no Jehovah's Witnesses. She told me about them finding a hall to rent for the meetings where in the beginning it was just the two of them meeting. They had to use their meager special pioneer allowance to pay the rent. Fortunately, they found a store that was not in use and the man couldn't sell the property and was happy to get any income from the space. They had a man start attending. They had a box for donations and after the first meeting there was just the amount to cover next months rent! Brenda conducted the Watchtower Study and her partner did the school and they organized to have a brother from other areas come and give the public talk. After a while, their study progressed to the point of baptism. Even so, the branch asked the sisters to hold off on giving him more responsibility in the group until he grew spiritually. Her partner was married and Brenda moved to serve with a new partner in Northern Wales to begin again.
Next, Brenda attended the 33rd class of Gilead. It was so great to listen to her talk about the ciricullum. She was assigned with another sister to Morcco. Later, she married a brother and they served together as missionaries in Morocco. She had 30 days of French lessons then was expected to go preach! The first month she had 100 hours of ministry and the next month she was to increase to 150! I really can't even imagine being in those circumstances! It is completely beyond my comprehension, but it is clear that Jehovah supported her and with his help we have "power beyond what is normal."
She showed me pictures and told me stories about some whom she had taught the truth. I felt so built up. She really encouraged me to not be hard on myself for not doing as much as I have. She said we are all like corks bobbing in the sea. Sometimes we are high up on the tips of waves being carried along and sometimes we are low, just under the surface of the water. But we are all heading to shore.
She herself is going through a difficult time as she was recently operated on and is enduring treatmend. So we are making service arrangements to work a territory right near where we live. I can help her and she can help me. Really, I think I am getting the better end of the stick as I get to glean some experience and tips from such an experienced minister!
Tomorrow, I am taking the plunge and going out in service with a couple who do not speak English at all. So that should be interesting. But it must happen.

La nourriture

This entire blog entry will be dedicated to food and wine because the food and wine here deserves at the extreme, very least, that. Seriously, volumes have been written on French food and wine; so if I manage to keep it to one entry, it will be testament to my amazing writing skills (though I say so myself).
First of all, a disclaimer: Helen is English and Marc is half Greek, so I fully acknowledge that I am not being exposed to full on French food, but an English hybrid of French food. And Helen is not even traditionally english in her cooking; there is quite a bit of hippy, health food conscienceness in the mixture.
I have had a couple of full on traditional French meals. The first one was very soon after I arrived. I had been "tricked" into helping a sister move. I say tricked because at the time I really didn't understand anything and just nodded and said "oui" to everything. I spent all morning running up and down stairs with miscilleneous objects involved in the most innefficient moving process I have ever seen. I had a chance to escape when Marc showed up, but everyone said that I had to come partake in the meal, since I had helped all morning. So Marc, the jerk, left after five minutes and two hours later I sat down to eat.
French meals are very structured and very formal. The purity of the food is protected and appreciated by keeping all courses separate and each dish on its own. Those of you who have children who do not like one type of food touching another on their plate have witnessed not childishness, but a truely culinary and sophistacated approach to food. The French would never, ever have more than one type of food on a plate.
So first come the aperitifs. Which consist of nuts, pickled vegatables, or some other small warm up for the extreme work out your stomach is about to get. Usually apertifs also consist of champagne or a very small (about 4 oz) gin or vodka beverage. Then comes a salad. Also fairly light, just green lettuce with light dressing. Usually at this point the wine begins to flow along with the bread. A couple interesting things to point out at this juncture. When you sit down to your meal, you have a full setting of plates, knife, spoon and fork and THREE glasses. Because not only must the food be kept pure, but the beverages CANNOT be intermixed, not even a splash. There cannot be a drop of water at the bottom of a glass that could potentially be mixed in with the wine, and heaven forbid a droplet of white end up in a red. Also, the bread. Bread is a mainstay. There are as many boulangeries here as there are Starbucks in Seattle. And the cliché of people walking down the street with a baguette is completely accurate. And continuing with the abhorrence of cross-contamination on a grand scale; we do not put our slice of bread on the plate, it goes on the table, next to the plate. Interesting, no?
Ok, back to the first meal. So after salad often comes the main course. all though I have been to meals where there is a kind of pre-main course, usually a quiche or something similar. At this particular meal, we were served a pasta with a créme-fraich sauce with bits of ham in it and on top was half an eggshell with a whole raw egg in it! I watched in horror as a sister nonchalantly poured the raw egg into her pasta then merrily set in! But I could not allow them to see my fear. So feigning a "oh this is quite typical in America too" pose I did the same and tried to control the shuddering. I mixed it in REALLY well, then took a bite. It was delicious!!! No sign of the egg. Then a brother came around with some parmisean to go on top. Already having a sauce of créme-fraich, I didn't feel my interolerance to milk could handle the addition and I politely refused. He misunderstood my refusal as a sign (I am sure they were looking for it) of not knowing what it was, and proceeded to sprinkle a small amount on a corner of my pasta.
"Non, je connais avec parmesean!" I cried. "Phh, Americians ,ne connais pas avec la norriture" he scoffed. I really think he was waiting to pounce on me with this and had most likely been thoroughly dissapointed with my well-acted non-chalance in the raw egg incident.
The whole experience really sums up the French view of food and of Americans. And I am coming around to their side on a few points. They do inacurately view us as a complete nation and culture without any appreciation of food and I do in someways see thier point. Our lives in America are not built around enjoying a good meal and our overindulgence in multitasking has squeezed out any time we would have for the joy of preparing and enjoying a really good meal. Much of my day lately is taken up with food. I cook, eat and clean, then its time to begin the next meal. This sort of cycle was completely unfathonable to me before. In France the kids come home every day for two hours to have a meal with their family. Schools, works, shops, even the gas stations shut down for two, some even three hours to go eat. Its wonderful. Markets are open every morning till 11:30 and you get to buy produce, bread, eggs, cheese, fish and poultry from the people who grow it themselves. The French can enjoy purity of food because everything is fresh and local automatically, its not a movement here, its the way it is.
Anyways, after the main course is cleared from the table, its time for cheese (thankfully, a chevre is always amongst the selection). After cheese its time for desert. Desert has been pretty light. I think as Americans we definitely have them beat in the desert department. Although the meals are so geogeous that desert is completely unnecessary. And finally coffee!
Needless to say this takes a really long time to eat. If there is a dinner party, it usually starts around 7 or 8 and we don't leave until around midnight and we have been eating the WHOLE time.
One final note on dining on France. The host always lets each guest know where he or she is to sit. Men and women are alternated around the table. Unless you have been married for less than two years, husbands and wives do not sit together. The host also always makes sure that wine glasses are full (it is completely inapropriate to serve yourself) and manages the conversation. No one is ever left out of a conversation. Its really nice, and lends to a very enjoyable, beautiful meal.
So, I realize I haven't really touched on the wine. That will have to be saved until later. I guess I need to work on my writing skills!

Learning French

OH LALALALA! Learning the language is sooo difficult!!! First there is the fact that there are so many words! I feel like I will never know all the words I need to know just to get through a normal conversation. But the really, really difficult part is pronunciation. To be honest, I have never had a good ear (hence my refusal to sing loudly, even when we are encouraged by the F & D slave)so I have a hard time hearing when I am not pronouncing something right. Then the fact that my mouth, tongue and throat just will not cooperate and make the right shapes and sounds at the right time. Even making the proper vowel sounds is challenging;then trying to combine them with the "r" is just beyond my capabilities at times. Finally, to add the cherry on top, I usually can not understand what is being said to me in French. It usually is something I know but French spoken by the French is difficult to understand. So what this all adds up to is: I don't know very many words, and may never. I can't say the words I do know to make myself understood. I don't understand the words I do know when spoken by the French people. It is beyond anything I could have possibly imagined.
A good example is last weekend when I was invited to a dinner with the other young ones in the hall without the Dubarrys. This meant an entire evening in French with no hope of translating when things got tough. (I actually pray all the time for help from Jehovah and the energy to not give up!) One brother at some point said to me "tout t'ennui?" I heard "tu ton nuit." He was asking if I was completely bored-probably my eyes were glazed over at this point. I thought he was saying "you, your night?" And was completely baffled. It was straightened out.
The sentence structure in the previous example is something I love about the French language. S'ennuyer is a reflexive verb. If you want to say "I am bored" you say "Je m'ennui"-meaning I bore myself. Isn't that great! I love it because built right into the language is the fact that you are responsible for your own feelings! If you are bored, its you own fault! Its the same with se fâcher. I anger myself.
I am pressing to improve - I am going to try the next level up in classes. I am at the point where I am progressing very slowly in my class and while it will be very difficult-one can only improve by surrounding oneself with those who are better. I also bought a French grammar workbook to do extra work. Boy, I am a geek!
Paris is all about improving oneself, though. I have been exploring the St Germain and St Micelle parts of Paris-which I LOVE!!! The Sorbonne (a beautiful, imposing university) is surrounded by bookshops, libraries, parks, paperies, cafes, everything that makes learning fun. The shops overflow with French, American, Canadian and other european students. Yesterday, after purchasing my new workbook, a new pen and highlighter, I made my self comfortable with a grand café and set in to do some work. Before I knew I was in a French/English conversation with my neighbors. They decided to help me with my pronunciation (thus helping me to see how far off I was) and I helped them with their English. The converstation started very basic-me making a fool of myself trying to make vowel sounds-like Eliza Dolittle in "My Fair Lady" and constantly interupting eachother to correct words or sounds. Then we discussed the history of France and Paris and the implications of the French seperating church from state and therefore leaving themselves open to the Muslims taking over with no competing religion. At this point I felt like Audrey Hepburn (again) in Funny Face. No, I did not break out in a beatnic dance and was not wearing a black turtleneck and leggings (too bad!)
But it was a fun day, the sun was shining and it looked like Paris had brought out her best, recently shined and polished jewels of jade, gold and diamonds.
Bientôt, mes amis!