Evening with Jacqueline
Evening with Jacqueline
Jacqueline is our very hospitable and gracious apartment manager. She is the one that came to our rescue when our apartment key did not work. Unfortunately we were so jet lagged that we forgot that we had a second set, which did!
Jacqueline lives a dozen or so Metro stops away in a region called Belleville. It’s a complex enclave of literally dozens of nationalities living in harmony. She recalled a visit to Belleville to meet a friend. She looked around at a few of the tired old buildings, the many colored faces, and told herself that se was glad that she doesn’t live there! Voila, now she does and she thinks it’s grand!
Jacqueline is a French National, who married an American and lived in America for 35 years. When she retired, she decided to return to her beloved Paris and start a new life here. She told us she never felt completely comfortable in America. Something was missing that only France could fill. I suspect that everyone who leaves his or her home country to live abroad feels that way, always a stranger in a strange land.
She had delightful stories to share with us in her roomy studio apartment with an unobstructed, distant view of the Eiffel Tower. I asked her if she gets lots of visitors living in France. She said yes, chuckled and told us the story of a young American girl, let’s call her “Sarah”, who had a pen-pal in France. Sarah had saved up enough money to visit her friend, who turned out to live in a village so small that it barely has a cross street. Sarah hated it. Unknown to Jacqueline, her son who lives in San Francisco and knows Sarah, told Sarah that if she had a problem to call Jacqueline. So, Jacqueline gets an evening phone call from young Sarah, huddle in a corner of the Paris train station telling her that she was to call her if she needed help! Who is this girl and why is she calling me? Am I the American Embassy? Later, her son, recalls telling Sarah about Jacqueline and the “Offer”. His explanation: “I guess I forgot to tell you, mother!”
Because of the high tax rate, France has evolved a strong cultural bias to gray market deals. Many folks work with money being passed around beneath the table. Vendors for example are licensed but a large pool of vendors that set up shop at the steamy edges of markets and sell illegally. Technology has caused this need for something-for-nearly-nothing to become big business. Jacqueline told us about an acquaintance who heard about a service that could provide you with cable TV access for almost nothing. The service turned out to be “nothing.” So when he called his cable company and asked to be reinstated, they said fine but there would be a delay. Three months later he could watch the latest version of Paris Survivor! Jacqueline calls this “Punishment.”
Today Jacqueline just got hooked up to a very inexpensive, local phone service using the internet. While we were there, her landline France Telcom phone started ringing and then her new internet phone started ringing. She was running from room to room “Allo, Allo” to both phones. She hopes to disconnect the landline phone but is rightfully concerned over the possibilities of “Punishment” if the new technology doesn’t work!
Sunday, Ralph, Cindy, and Hanna (our Associate Pastor and family), arrive for a whirlwind three day touring visit. We told this to Jacqueline and she laughed and said that Monday should be an interesting day. You see, Sunday is a holiday called “Pentecost”. Historically, the French take off the Monday following the holiday if it falls on a weekend. The French truly enjoy their free time. They have a 35 hour work week, loads of holidays, and generous vacations.
A couple of years ago a terrible heat wave that hit the city. Several thousand poor elder residents died during that miserable summer. There was a huge outcry over the plight of their seniors. You see car registration was started recently to fund support for this class alone! The money unfortunately got spent elsewhere! We’ve all heard that before!
Nonetheless, the French people would not let it go. Several highly appointed politicians were politically guillotined but still the people where not satisfied. Finally a policy was put forward and overwhelmingly approved by all that starting this May Day, that the working French would not take off on May Day Monday and that all the money saved would be used to support the elderly. What an intriguing idea, so un-American in concept.
Well, last year the temperatures were very cool here and the French excitement over the 2005 May Day vacation take back has become cool too. People are saying, “it’s not necessary to do this”, “the old are going to die anyway.” So no one knows what will truly happen until it happens! I just hope the city leaders of Sequim don’t get the idea to take away our Thanksgiving or Labor Day to build another traffic circle, to help the poor elderly people in Sequim get around!
Meeting with Jacqueline in her home was certainly the high point of our day and quite possibly our week!
I have included some pictures from our trip to Giverny home of Monet’s gardens. Also, I extracted some pictures that were taken by Dave and Linda as they explored this beautiful city!
Picture Set 1
Dave and Linda Pics
posted by Bob and Gayle @ 7:42 PM
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