We’re the only English in the village!

We live in a tiny village, in the middle of nowhere, and yet there are ten English families living near us. When we lived here seven years ago the only English I bumped into were retired couples who lived in their summer houses or eccentric hippies looking for a different lifestyle. I used to meet them at the recycling depot or wandering hopelessly around the supermarket looking for ginger biscuits.

Now we have an influx of young families. Many choose remote rural areas, with houses they can renovate. Families who move out here take a huge risk, the country life can be lonely and there is no English-language school available. It’s hard for the children, thrown into the strict French educational system. The parents are optimistic and keen to immerse the family in French cultural life. Before signing the papers to their houses they imagine chatting over the fence to their French neighbours and speaking perfect French in just a few months with their new friends over an aperitif.

In reality, their best friends tend to be English. The numbers of English residents has sky-rocketed in five years. There are estimated to be around 400,000 British families in France. In the English café in the local town I browse the monthly newsletters offering English plumbers, carpenters, gardeners…A whole community has materialized to meet their needs. The supermarket has an International section now (baked beans, HP sauce, Tetley’s tea-bags…) and the staff speak English these days.

In the local village school Marc and Nina attend (four classes, three teachers and sixty-six pupils) there are seven English kids. That’s nearly 10%. The seven kids naturally talk English together, even though they are all bilingual. Except in class where English in banned. So far, the linguistic balance is working and the seven English-speaking kids make efforts to play with the French children and integrate through after-school activities. Marc and Nina have friends from both cultures and translate when needed. But in the secondary school I hear that 20% of the kids are English. They have become a separate group and rarely socialize with French kids.

What do the locals think about it? French mothers are happy for their kids to play with the English kids after school (free language lessons!) But furious at the prices the English pay for a country house. There is a distinct feeling that the numbers are getting too high and anti-English comments can be heard all around. The teachers hate teaching English as a Second Language (part of the curriculum) to the English kids, who laugh at their pronunciation.

On the English side some of the parents were rather annoyed to have yet another ‘English’ family join the class when we arrived. One mother, who has been living in our village for four years, was furious to have lost her status as the Only Brit in the Village. There’s the unspoken fear that the English kids will not bother learning French or make any French friends if there are too many of them. This is the case in many countries where, once numbers get too large, an internal community is formed.

Who do you want to win?

We are not a sporting family, but there are some major sporting events, like the World Cup or the Olympics, where you can’t help wanting your country to win. But being a dual-nationality family we are sometimes split on which team we support. When I hear the British anthem being sung, or see Prince William and Henry in the crowd, I can’t help but join in with the chorus of God save the Queen! Seeing the England team run out makes me want to get out the English flag. Jacques has the same effect when he hears the patriotic La Marseillaise.

Which team should our children support? Mummy’s or Papa’s country? It’s tense in our house when it’s an England v France game. There’s always someone who asks the children who do you want to win? England and France are often come head-to-head in the last few matches of an international tournament. In general, Marc and Nina support France, while Gabriel and I are cheering for England (this could be linked to Gabriel having an England football strip that he wears for all sporting events). Should I feel let-down that two of my children don’t support my country? Sport is, after all, about bonding and feeling part of a team or a nation. They live in France now and at school hear kids talking about famous French sporting celebrities.

Luckily there are some players who are admired by both countries. David Beckham. Eric Cantona. Thierry Henry. The Arsenal manager, Arsène Wenger, and five players (who are French, so Marc informs me). French rugby player, Sébastien Chabal, plays for a club in England, even though he cried in public when England beat France in the semi-finals of the Six Nations competition.

Even though we play to win we’ll happily swap sides when our team is knocked out of the game. At the recent Rugby competition last October, when England famously kicked out France in the semi-finals, we all cheered for England in the following match. I would have done the same for France. I was weepy when France lost to Italy in the 2006 World Cup.

That leaves the intriguing question – if one or more of our children was really talented at a sport which country would they play for?

A new direction!

The story of our life continues, but in the meantime I will be posting the Quarterly column that I write for the Bilingual Family Newsletter Notes From the OPOL Family (One-parent-one-language). The OPOL Family stories are real-life tales of being an English/French family, previously living in Malaysia, now in rural France. My three children, Marc (11), Nina (9) and Gabriel (5) read the columns and often add in their thoughts of amusing comments.

I've been writing this column for nearly four years now, covering subjects such as how to explain to your child, who's lost a tooth, whether it's the French mouse or the English Tooth fairy who drops coins under your pillow to how to deal with two religons and two different Mother's Days!

Please feel free to comment on the OPOL Family column, either via this blog or by email: opolfamily@gmail.com. Some of your comments may be edited used in future editions of the Bilingual Family Newsletter.

Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert

Author of Language Strategies for Bilingual Families: The one-parent-one-langauge approach

Thank goodness for Thanksgiving!

After Halloween we were straight into Thanksgiving, the second Thursday in November. I had never really understood this festival, which seemed too close to a traditional Christmas lunch. Did they do it all again on the 25th December? It soon appeared that Thanksgiving was a family get-together, and that made me feel terribly homesick, smelling all the turkey and stuffing, and seeing all the grandparents at school and seeing central Chicago empty as families went home to family.

It was our first family holiday of the school year, well just a couple of days off, but better than nothing, but we all felt sad; the kids disliked school, I missed Malaysia a lot and Jacques was not too happy at work either. Winter had arrived, and we were cold, and had to rush out and buy skiwear and boot for all of us.

To cheer up we went to the Chicago Thanksgiving parade. Chilled to the bone, with only a Starbucks for warmth, we watched the floats and balloons line up and go down Michigan Avenue. Later on in the day we were invited to eat with Elisabeth and David, our new French friends who had lived in New York and enjoyed celebrating Thanksgiving. The food was gorgeous, roast turkey, cranberry sauce, real gravy and pumpkin pie, and the five kids played nicely together. It was cosy and we felt good. Even though the school and life was not what we have expected at least we had good company. Thank god for friends I thought.

The Limousine

My parents came at the beginning of November to celebrate my dad’s 70th birthday. They loved Chicago, and seeing it from a tourist view it did seem quite charming too. We visited the town, zoo, Navy Pier and around the lake. The children were delighted to have guests and showed them around.

On my Dad’s birthday we had a surprise, we told him we would eat at the Rainforest café downtown, and would call for a taxi. It was a long black limo for eight. Dad was surprised and we all climbed in for a cruise around Chicago as night fell, we picked up Jacques outside his NBC building office and were dropped off at the red-carpeted Rainforest café. It felt good! I was proud to have hosted his birthday and it made up for all the family tensions we had had in 2005.

My parents were relaxed, they liked America, were great with the kids and helped with the homework in the evenings. They could walk to the schools to pick up the kids and so their time with us was refreshing for me and I felt miles better and began to think we had made a good decision to live in America. The week went too fast though and before we knew it they were heading back to England. We were left, alone, wishing Grandpa and Nanna could be around every night for the school pick-up or to read the kids a story…

The Sweetest Halloween ever…

I have always loved Halloween, and was delighted to see the effort the Americans put into this festival. It started in September, with pumpkin patches in the local city-farm, weekend Fall Parties in the parks and stuff to buy everywhere…before long we had a collection of twenty decorated pumpkins and thanks to the cheap imported junk from Walgreens we had a decorated house like never before.

The local neighbours around Lincoln park competed for who could have the most decorated house. Round the corner from us a competing trio of huge Gothic style houses showcasing witches and wizards who moved, ghostly yhands sticking up out of the garden, spider webs everywhere and spooky lighting. It was like a theatre and I was amazed no-one stole the whole lot…

On the 31st October each class had a party. Gabriel went as Batman and was promptly told he could not wear a mask (rules, rules…) so I dried his tears and grabbed some black paint and painted a mask for him. Nina was a witch. Marc was Shrek, with borrowed green tights and green face-paint. After school we invited our French friends for a gouter, or afternoon snack, with some decorated cupcakes. Around 6pm as it got dark we went out trick-or-treating as a group. I thought it would be short half-hour trip…

Houses were bursting with activity, and kids trailed in and out with huge bags. The occupants were often in costume, some funny, some scary, and handed out generous portions of wrapped sweets (or candy as Gabriel would say…). I was stunned at the sheer proportions of it all, how much could they get? With all our coat-pockets full and our plastic bags over-flowing I tried to get them home, but the lure of sugar, lights and so many dressed up people was addictive and we didn’t get home until 9pm…

Six months later when I spring-cleaned the front hall cupboard I found a whole bag of candies, unopened and forgotton! And as a bitter-sweet reminder Nina had to have five holes filled in by the dentist, that I was sure was linked with the Halloween excess….

A good class mom…

Being a mother is taken very seriously in America. You are asked almost immediately which team you play for: Working Mom or Stay-at-Home Mom. The Working moms all looked overdressed in suits and busy as they picked up their kids, while answering their Motorola and driving a tank. The Stay-at-Homes wore trendy sports clothes and always had a huge Starbucks in their hand, or in the drink holder of the trendy stroller they were pushing with their new baby or toddler. They liked to jog with strollers around Lincoln Park, often with a dog attached, running along too.

So, for me, it was a tricky question, since I work and stay-at-home. I don’t dress chic, but I am not sporty either and I hate jogging. We don’t even have a car as a status symbol or a posh address, which confused them. When I said that I was English with a French husband living in America, they could not categorize me and gave up.

I felt miles more comfortable with the French mamans, who looked well-dressed even at eight in the morning, didn’t overdo the sports thing, went to cafes for their coffee, and had much better conversation anyway. But I felt I should try with the Americans, so I offered to do a class trip to the Botanical Gardens with Nina's 2nd Grade class.

The trip was over-booked, eight mothers for about 25 kids, and we had to sit in threes on the antique yellow school bus. The moms were excited, proud to have been selected and trying hard to be better than anyone else. Instead of going round as a group we were split into groups of three, and we rushed off, trying to give our kids the best school trip ever. Nina was clingy, but I understood why, the American girls all had a Best Friend. The two French-American girls in her class had no interest in Nina, probably because they already had a Best Friend in another class, or perhaps didn’t want to seen speaking French with Nina in class, which was frowned on. I saw that Nina was terribly lonely and missed her KL friends. And I felt the same way.

The only mothers in the whole school who talked to me for more than five minutes were divorcees. They were incredibly candid and open about their situation, telling me more than I wanted to know. I guess we both felt somewhat excluded from the perfect Lincoln life the moms were trying to have.