Ne pas de Laisser Faire

I suppose part of the adrenaline rush of living abroad is that there is always this slightly dangerous chance that things you don't know or understand about other cultures can back fired. Today I learned that in most European countries, if you travel in a car you must carry an appropriate amount of reflective yellow vests in case there is an accident, as opposed to wearing clean underwear, I suppose. (An old American adage)


And then there is the challenge of living, thinking and existing in a language that is not the language your were born with. A lot of people describe that fear they have when called on in Spanish 101 and they just sit there in a cold, silent stare down, for what seems like AGES, until their professor decides to move on to the next person. I think that's the reason most people stop taking foreign language in college. Fear. Discomfort. I, on the other hand, got off on it. This should not give you any foresight into my sexual proclivities, mind you, its just that I knew that in order to learn the language, in order to survive, you had to take that discomfort and dominate it. And slowly, little by little, you can begin to recognize sounds, then words, then tenses, and suddenly you can function at a low level. Then you move to slightly more philosophical topics.

Yesterday, our group went and watched the film Les Invincibles, a film about the game petanque (bocce ball if you're in the states) and also about the racial tensions faced by the pied-noir/Maghrebis in France. It was a GREAT film, but objectively speaking, I could see where my education had paid off. I had taken classes on the struggles of racism of the North African people in France (It's VERY comparable to racism faced by Mexican and Latino immigrants in the US) However, had I not taken that class, I would have probably stared blankly at the screen unsure of what was happening and why these people did not want the Algerian as captain of the French National team.

The moral of the story is my intelligence is of a situational, but not always practical, variety. So when it comes to handling of immigration paperwork, explaining exactly what is wrong and making people understand, I am not always capable.

I also fear that as an American I have incessant need to be constantly on the move, have things done, be working on them, or making sure that someone else is working on it. Re: The problem with my OFII forms. It was not my mistake. The emission that I sent them proves that, however the overall response seems to be "we'll see what happens. They won't check that and fixing it will just make too much work for everyone."


And I'm trying not to let the fear overwhelm me and let me sit silently until they move on to the next person. I have to try. I had a choir teacher once say "If you're gonna screw up...screw up big so I know how to help you." It's sage life advice. I am stressed that I can't seem to have anyone explain a good way to fix the error made by the OFII (Not even the OFII) but I know that I have to keep trying. It's frustrating but it's making me better. It's making me better at expressing myself in a practical way. I've even learned some new vocabulary...although most I can't repeat here.