Paris, the Beautiful!

Ah yes, Paris the beautiful - Belle Paris.  That is what everyone thinks when he hears "Paris"!  The city of lights, the city of cathedrals and museums and art galleries. The frequency of art galleries and men in berets and women in fashionable clothes, the haute couture houses!  All of these are Paris in our thoughts.  And there is that aspect of life there.

But there is another Paris, and that is the one where we lived! The language students who had finished a year of study, and were now slated to soon leave for various countries in Africa, met us at the boat train - that's a train that meets the big ships and takes passengers directly to the heart of Paris.  They had also arranged for our housing, for the most part in the rooms or apartments where they had lived for a year.  And they accompanied us to our new digs!

Remember, we had been on a beautiful brand new American ship, being served with linen and crystal at all meals. Sleeping in clean, modern staterooms.  And now we landed in the City of Lights, Paris.  The center of the city is indeed well lit and has beautiful buildings, but everything in Paris is hundreds of years old, including the plumbing and furnishings in the homes!  And it was this Paris that we were now to experience for a year while we learned the French language.

About the extent of Dad's French was "Passez le beurre, s'il vous plaît" - I have no idea why that was the only sentence I had taught him!  I was pretty much at home in the language as I had spoken French all of my young life.  The Arnolds were in the same condition as we were - only he was the one who spoke French and Jan spoke no French and they had one toddler son, instead of two girls like us. There was also another couple, who did not last in Africa through their first term and three single ladies. And that was our Alliance group for the year.

The missionaries assured us that we would have a nice apartment with kitchen, living and dining room and two bedrooms - but it was not ready yet. And so they had arranged for us to live for six weeks in a pension (boarding house).  It was explained to us that our meals would be provided and we would have our family, all would be well. And it was close to the Alliance Francaise, where we were to attend classes.  And so we were taken to the pension on rue Stanislas.

We lived on the second floor - no elevator of course.  The room was small with a smallish double bed and a three quarter bed in it.  There was also the curtained off bidet and wash basin. And the toilet was out in the hall and used by everyone else who lived on that floor!  Problem number one:  we had just potty trained Cheryl and had brought along a plastic toilet seat insert so she could sit on an adult toilet.  No way we could allow the kids to use that toilet. It was often in stages of complete filthiness. Dad tried to keep it clean using bleach. One night someone had thrown up all over it and left it to be cleaned by someone else - guess who???  So back into diapers went Cheryl, protesting, but nothing else we could do. So now we had two babies in diapers (there were no disposables then - just cloth ones that had to be washed by hand.)  At night the diapers festooned the bedroom and tiny window porch, drying in the air. 

But we didn't have to cook - what luxury! There was a common dining room and we ordered from a limited menu.  The plate of food usually had a ring of grease around the food, but it was edible.  Steak was a favorite and was always extremely rare - actually raw!  We would send the meat back to be cooked more and the French cook could never figure that out. One lady sent her steak back twice to be better cooked and the third time it came back a pork chop. How could anyone cook steak til it was not bloody looking??  We got a glimpse of the cook in her dirty apron, through a basement window. Cats were also lounging around her kitchen! No food inspection there! The oily food was giving the girls diarrhea - remember how we had to wash out those cloth diapers??  Yes, it was an interesting beginning of life in belle Paris!!

We decided not to take the girls to the dining room but to get an alcohol burner and cook for them upstairs. The manager did give us another small room with a table where we could cook for and feed the girls. And Dad was also able to study in there. One afternoon while Dad was fixing food for the girls in that extra room, I came down the hall and saw the whole room aflame ahead of me - where he was fixing supper for the girls!  I grabbed a fire extinguisher on the wall and we put out the fire but not before bruning up a couple items!  The alcohol burner had tipped and caught fire - fortunately no one was badly burned. And we went on cooking for the girls like this until we could move into our apartment.

We were told to go immediately and sign up for classes at the Alliance Française just down the street and around the corner from our pension.  The other missionaries also had to attend there.  Most of us ended up in the first class, except for Dave Arnold and me - we had both spoken French and studied it in College, so he tested out in the fourth and I in the fifth classes, which were the top classes in that school. They only taught the fifth section in the morning so I had to attend that while Dad watched the girls at the pension. Then he went in the afternoon.  This was not a good arrangement, as mornings were the best time for studying.  He says that at the end of the first month, he understood enough to know that the teacher was saying he should take the month over again!  

I finished my four months of the fifth level and Dave Arnold and I sat for the famous French exam.  No matter how well you have done in class, all is based on that final exam for the French. There is a written part and then an oral part with several profs present.  The lists were to be posted a week later in the late afternoon, and one of our single ladies offered to take care of you three kids while we two couples went out to eat and checked the lists at the school to see if we had passed.

We checked the lists, I had passed and Dave had not.  He found out, upon asking, that in his orals, there were certain subjects not allowed and so they had asked him some very complicated vocabulary, some of which he did not know. So they failed him. French exams are for the birds!  And still are....  So he stayed on in that school and I left.

Later in the year Dave Arnold heard that the Sorbonne was giving a French exam and anyone could sit for it and if you passed, you would have a certificate from the Sorbonne, which was worth something.  He told me about it and suggested we leave the kids with our spouses and we would take the all day exam. Which we did.  At noon break, we went to the American embassy restaurant for lunch and were eating together when our Alliance singles came in to have lunch too. They thought it interesting that Dave and I were there eating and our spouses and kids not around, so we had to tell them. The cat was out of the bag!  We went back and wrote all afternoon.  After those pm questions, I was sure I had not passed it. The subjects were things I had never studied and knew nothing about so I just faked it - in French of course!  I would never have gone to the Sorbonne to check the results, I was so sure I had not made it, but Dave checked. And sure enough both of our names were among those who had passed. I still have that old certificate from the Sorbonne among my papers somewhere!

So that was our studying, but we had another life there as well.  We had to move and live in the suburbs, another learning experience which I will continue in the next chapter!