French Exchange

I am thinking of a holiday in France. Well more than thinking, planning a holiday in France. God, I am so proactive. Well actually I am not. I have given my input and someone else is planning it. I originally put a plan together but given that my Geography skills are non-existent (I gave it up at 13, didn’t really want a life of wearing wellies and going on strange field trips. We went on one once where a man ate mud. I don’t need that in my life), my plan would have involved a good three days worth of driving and shares in Esso. So I was removed (therefore my actual plan, worked perfectly).

So I am off to France. I have been there before. I went on a school French exchange when I was 15. I think I can safely say that it was one of the more horrific experiences of my life. My exchange partner was a fat voluntary mute who stayed with us for two weeks without changing her clothes once. As you can imagine I was longing to get to France and stay with her and her family. I arrived and was told to sleep in a room full of dolls. Admittedly they weren’t to know of my terrible fear and my French didn’t stretch to “excuse me I am scared the dolls will come to life in the night and kill me” so I waited till everyone was asleep and slept on the sofa every night. Mute remained a mute. To be fair I didn’t help her much. I was always reasonable at French but actually being in France demonstrated to me that I had been cruelly failed by the education system. I was completely unable to talk to anyone. If Mute had been willing to have an animated conversation about sandwich fillings or directions we would have got on like a house on fire. I could have even sung her a song about things I could see (voici le port, voici le camping, voici le chateau, et le sandicat d’incinative). But sadly she wasn’t interested. So instead we sat in silence. Her mother seemed to watch insane porn on the tv, it could have been a French soap opera as it was on telly at reasonable hours of the day and her father amused himself by walking in on me having a shower. Occasionally we were summoned to the table to eat some under cooked horse and then we resumed our silence.

Thankfully I was away with the school so was able to escape now and again. This also enabled me to hear stories of other people’s exchange families which made me think I was quite well off. One girl was kicked out by her family when she refused to let her exchange partner sleep with her boyfriend in her bed. Another was taken to an all night rave where she was abandoned. Another girl’s exchange partner went on holiday for the last week so she came to stay with us. She was made to share a bed with me. Which was nice given that we hadn’t ever spoken to each other at school. Also meant I couldn’t escape the dolls. On our trips out we pooled together knowledge for survival. My friend was given no food. I was sent off everyday with 2 french sticks filled with sweaty ham, a family sized bag of crisps, a WHOLE BAG of fun sized Mars bars and 4 litres of water. All I needed was a pack horse to carry it around on. I practically fed everyone on the coach. We must have been the only people in town longing for traffic jams so we didn’t have to go home.

Part way in to this delightful trip the mute broke her silence to tell me “we are going to my grandmothers today”. How lovely I thought. I collected my book and my purse and was good to go. I was wearing a light summers dress; it was a lovely day, no need for a jumper. Mute and Mother gave me some odd looks but I ignored them as I settled myself in to their Citroen ready to enjoy some delightful French pop music (sadly not by the group Téléphone, made popular by the Tricoloure books – Fifi LeFolle was a massive fan). 6 hours of driving later I realised the meaning of those looks. We stayed with her grandmother for four days. Not only did I spend my days in that dress, I also had to sleep in that dress as I had to share a bed with the mute. It was also about 90 degrees for most of the time I was there. No one commented. The grandmothers flat was decorated with posters of the tour de france, so I was able to use my vocabulary of transport words. In many ways these were the halcyon days of the exchange.

This trip to France will not be like that. I shall take a variety of outfits, I shall speak about topics other than the Tour de France and I shall put a lock on the bathroom door. Bon Vacance.