Les Premiers Jours

May 11^th 5:03pm

So culture shock has set in and I’ve only been here for a few hours. At two o’clock we were finally picked up from the airport and taken to the university. Looking back on the four hours we spent waiting there I realize that it actually was quite fun and I bonded with a lot of people. I think it made it a lot easier to spend a day conversing in English before being thrown together in French. Now we know a little about each other as well as each others fears abilities and weaknesses. It was nice to be able to talk about my worries and know that fifteen other people are feeling the exact same way. It’s funny to see where everyone came from. Nova Scotia is definitely representing, out of the fifteen of us at the airport, five came from SMU. It’s really nice to see some familiar faces as well as meet new people. Though we all came from different parts of the country we are all university students and a lot of experiences seem to be reflective of each others. I was starting to relax…until our ride came and drove us in the heart of Chicoutimi, having the densest French speaking population in Canada.

This was my first big taste of culture shock. At first I could understand, people talked fairly slow and used gestures. I have reverted to squeaking out the odd sentence, mostly nods of agreement, nervous laugh or the occasional “oui”. Katie and I talked about this a little as we sat in the airport but it was not until I got to Chicoutimi that I realized that all my French conversation skills seem staged. Since grade four I have learned that you greet someone and say “bonjour, comment ca va?” but I am now realizing that no one actually says that! I have met my goodness knows how many people today and not once did someone say that phrase to me. And if no one says that to me then the response I have prepared for when they do is then rendered useless. Within minutes I learned that the French I have been learning for the past eight years isn’t very useful for conversations. Shock number one. Shock number two is that I can’t understand half the words people say. It was fine at the university, everything made sense, there was a purpose for what they were saying and all I had to respond was “oui” or “non”. However, driving home with my host, a lady by the name of Lisette, who also happens to own a pool she is hoping to open up next weekend, I had no idea what she was saying half the time. Of course she was only making small talk and when I did understand I attempted a response but most of the time I just sat there and smiled. She has been taking in university students through this program for the past 15 years- that much I understood- so I don’t think she honestly expects me to reply to everything and is just more or less talking at me, not with me.

Lisette’s house is not very far from the school and every morning a bus will pick me up at the bottom of the drive way to take me there. Chicoutimi is actually a very picturesque place. On our way home we drove through wooded areas and across a bridge over a lake. There are multiple steeples poking out from behind trees in every direction. Lisette’s house is on a fairly steep hill and is more like an apartment building in which it is L-shaped and houses three different family members; Lisette and her dog in the middle, her son, his wife and two children on one side and Lisette’s sister on the other. It’s quite the family affair. My room is down in the basement, it’s very eccentric and quite shocking but to each his own. It might not feel like home but it will be a stay I won’t soon forget. I also have a room mate, Andrea, so at least I’m not in this alone. I am honestly questioning what I got myself into and it is only the second day.

I have decided that each day I will post a “French Word of the Day” for you all at home to guess the meaning. So today’s French word of the day is…

Chou-fleur: What Justine incorrectly assumed all the white stuff on the ground to be when we flew into Chicoutimi. However, chou-fleur is not snow but a sort of vegetable.

Jour 2: May 12^th 8:01

Culture shock number two: food. My food experiences might not be truly considered culture shock but most of them definitely have not been what I wanted. Last night, Lisette and I sat down for dinner before Andrea arrived and of course we had steamed vegetables, of which I despise. But that was okay, I survived, and my parents should be proud to hear that I ate all my steamed, mushy fiddle heads along with the other indistinguishable vegetables that were on my plate. Second experience happened this morning. We had toast and jam for breakfast along with fruit. Much to my surprise Lisette was stocked with yellow apples, my favourite! So I sat down at the table, took a giant bite of my apple and realized that it could not possibly have been an apple at all. While it looked like an apple on the outside, the inside was as watery as a watermelon and it really had no taste. After a few more bites, I gave up in disappointment and later found out that it was in fact a strange cross of an apple and a pear. Honestly I don’t recommend it and thought it’s probably not a “Quebec” thing, I’m going to add it to my culture shock because it happened here. The last reference to food for tonight will be dinner, and this I enjoyed. It was a meal made in Ben heaven, cheese on everything! To start, Lisette had bought four different types of cheese for us to try, along with cheese flavoured crackers. My favourite was this weird cheese covered in jam, inside a bun. Don’t judge it until you try it. My least favourite however, was the cheese that tasted like raw fish. And to end our incredibly cheesy meal we had “Coquilles St-Jacques”. This I loved. It was a little bowl of spiced mashed potatoes with shrimp and scallops hidden inside, topped with cheese and baked for an hour. Delicious! So enough with the food, let’s get on to my day.

So we got up super early, it’s 6:30 mornings for me for the next two weeks, had breakfast and caught the “minibus”, which happens to stop right outside our door. After picking up a few more students we were off to the school. In the morning we had an assembly to go over some important information and then we went on a walk around the downtown area of Chicoutimi, or as it is known “Centre-Ville”. Chicoutimi is actually a very pretty area, with a lot of impressive buildings but the side walks are slightly treacherous. One wrong step and you are off the narrow sidewalk and in the mercy of on coming traffic. It is possibly for this reason that we keep seeing a lot of unsettling pictures of children curled under oncoming cars at bus stops. There is one just outside our place that I will have to take a picture of to prove this point. After our walk we came back for lunch and then prepared to write our written exam. It was hard to say the least however the oral exam which came a little after was a piece of cake. I walked in, the lady asked where I’m from and what I’m studying and then I got to spend the next five minutes talking about what I learnt in my development classes. So tomorrow I find out where I landed in the placement test. I’m not too worried because I figure that as long I do better at the end it was all worth it. I was kinda shocked to find out the levels of some of the students here. I was worried about coming here and I’ve been working on my French for eight years. I met one girl today who has not studied French for nine years and another who was home schooled and has never spoken a word of French in her life, she simply decided to come here and try to learn it! It’s kinda nice to have a wide range of backgrounds because it’s a little less intimidating. So after all our tests we went home, had our cheesy dinner and watched the news and “Qui Perd Gange”. So now I am here, sitting in my bed, talking to Andrea about our favourite Disney movies, hers happens to be Beauty and the Beast too, and how we should probably be reviewing some French but would much rather watch a movie. As you may have noticed I can’t post everyday because we do not have wireless at home so I am going to do my best to make it to the library every few days to upload my postings. Wish me good luck in my placement, I’m aiming for anything but the lowest category!

French word of the Day:

McDo: Probably only a Quebec saying but still something I learned today. It might be evident by the spelling but McDo is the restaurant I have to constantly drag Ben and Crissy out of because they love it that much.