February 2006 Archives

In French, the word "bureaucratie" means both "bureaucracy" and "red tape" - the different meaning comes through by the length of your sigh after the word. Anyone deciding to come to France for any length of time will soon learn that like all stereotypes about any country's government procedures and employees, this one would also prove true.

In August, Geoff and I had made our decision to come to France the following month. Of course, when we looked into it, we learned that if you wanted to stay in France for longer than three months, you need a visa. Sounded quick and easy enough really, but four trips to the French Consulate later, we had our doubts on both points.

On our first visit to the French Consulate in Boston we picked up a sheet of paper that listed all the requirements for getting a visa, including four copies of an official statement of good conduct from our local police department, a letter of intent on why we wanted to go to France, our travel itineraries, multiple photos, and bank statements to prove we would not turn out to be a drain on the already strained French social system. And it all had to be translated into French by a pre-approved translator. Well, clearly we'd need to come back.

For the second visit, we spent over an hour in Kinko's trying to get all the copies together on a photocopier without collating abilities (about 50 pages for each of us and then four copies of each). By the time we made it to the Consulate, we were informed that their office closed at 12:30. Sigh, ok - that seemed like a short workday but who are we to judge?

Visit number three. We arrived at opening time and sat in the room for nearly two hours. As we waited, we witnessed mostly a very simple process of people submitting their applications and being told when they could return to pick up the visa. One student couldn't come back because he actually lived in Maine (the Boston office services all of New England) so he had to go and get a FedEx envelope so they could mail it to him. Finally it was our turn. We had all our papers in order, neatly collated. It seemed virtually impossible that they could ask for something we didn't have with us.

"You just want to vacation in France?" the guy behind the desk said, eyeing us suspiciously. "For more than three months?"

"Yeah," we answered. "Is that allowed?"

He had to go check. When he returned, he informed us that we needed an appointment.

"But we've just waited here for nearly two hours!" I exclaimed. Geoff elbowed me.

"Hmm," the guy said. "Let me see if someone can see you now." After a brief delay, he came back shaking his head. Realizing it probably didn't help our chances to throw a tantrum, we sighed, took down the appointment details and left quietly with our stack of papers and wasted day.

Ah, visit number four. We arrived for our appointment and waited patiently. Finally, a young French woman (i.e. a brunette with an accent) Nicole came to meet us and led us into her office. We took our seats and she asked us some questions. I started to understand what it must be like for a nervous boyfriend to meet the parents. It seemed she wanted to know what our intentions with France were. Of course, we had only the highest - we would respect her and not take advantage of her. We certainly never would make any more serious moves without your permission first.

Without warning, she started speaking French. "Vous savez comment parler français?" she asked.

Geoff looked at her blankly, but I answered, "Oui, un peu."

She raised an eyebrow.

"J'espère que je vais parler mieux quand nous avons le temps pour pratiquer," I added, making sure she knew we intended to learn French on our trip.

At this point, I got a full smile. She stamped our papers. "Ça va se passer," she promised.

We left, secure that we would be approved for the visa, but unfortunately having learned that it would take two to three months to be ready. It also had to be picked up within 30 days of issue or it would be invalid. The problem was that we intended to actually be in France from September to December and of course, the visa can't be picked up in France. So we would have to get clever.

When the visa was approved in November, I asked Nicole to send the papers to Brussels which met the rule of not picking it up in France, but was also only an hour away from Paris by train. However, I didn't want a repeat of the four visits to the consulate to accomplish one task. After calling the Brussels office about a hundred times with no answer, I finally got someone on the line. But my "Parlez-vous anglais?" was met with the inevitable "non." Sigh. A garbled French conversation ensued which seemed like it lasted three days. After several failed attempts, I finally came up with the right combination of French words which got him to look up my name. It hadn't been received. Ah.

I made another call to Nicole and then another hundred calls to the Brussels office over the next two weeks which finally rewarded me with an answer. From that call I did determine that they were there. What I was not able to determine was whether or not I could pick up Geoff's visa as well. Finally I asked (in French), "Can I obtain the visa for my husband too - Oui ou Non?" This sparked a long-winded French response which I didn't understand. Doesn't he understand a yes or no question is just that? Sigh. I finally gave up and decided to just go and hope for the best.

Arriving in Brussels before they opened worked well. There was only one person ahead of me. When it was my turn things went pretty well - in person conversations are clearly much easier than phone calls. I also discovered I was early enough not to be cut in line. The guy after me had two people (not together) boldly get assisted before him. And I left on time to make my train back with two passports outfitted with new visas.

Ok, now maybe it's just me, but this part doesn't make any sense. Any American can come to France for three months without any special paperwork. But in fact, our visa was only for three months. So this meant we just did all that work for basically the right we already had. Nonetheless, it was necessary because the next step was to apply for a carte de séjour. And you can't do that without the visa. So there you go.

I didn't have high hopes at this point that getting the carte de séjour would prove simple. I researched on the internet the right Préfecture de Police to go to and yet still inevitably went to the wrong one.

But when I did finally arrive at the right one (in the 17th arrondisement), I was amazed to find only one woman ahead of me in line. At my turn, I sat down with a woman and within five minutes had an appointment (granted for two and a half months later) to discuss a carte de séjour. Luckily I didn't need the birth certificate or marriage license that I didn't have. They did need the visa and one photo - both of which I did have. Hmm, that was too simple I thought. The complicated part must be ahead. I guess I'll find out April 21. To be continued...

When I first arrived in Paris, I decided I wanted to get a job. Although I have my internet work, it's nice to have some actual human contact. Since I had read that English teachers were in high demand, and since I not only speak English, but also studied it, I figured that was perfect.

I asked around about how to find these types of positions, and a few people mentioned FUSAC, a classifieds advertising magazine for English speakers. Lo and behold, there were tons of positions for native English speakers to teach at professional, business and conversation language schools. I applied to most of them. Being the naïve American, I decided to ignore the fact that the majority of them required 'working papers'. I mean, how hard can those be to get?

Sure enough, I wound up with plenty of responses to my queries, but all ended the same way -- nothing happens without working papers. So I looked into getting this French requirement - la carte de séjour. But once I discovered that it can often take over a year for an individual to get one, it didn't seem worth the effort since we might not stay in Paris that long.

Fortunately, Paris has an industry just like the U.S. for workers 'sur la table'. I wound up finding two private English tutoring jobs of two separate 13-year old French girls. I found the positions, for which there appeared to be little competition, through the bulletin board at L'Alliance Français. During my first job interview (in French, ironically), I was not only offered the job, but immediately given a raise from 13 to 15 euros per hour. On the second interview, my soon-to-be-employer told me I was the only one who responded to the position, but no matter since I seemed perfect! For tutoring his daughter, I'd receive 20 euros per hour.

My first tutoring lesson proved to be a bit of a challenge. Mostly, I was there to provide conversational practice which seemed easy enough. However, both my students are taught English by native French speakers who I presume to have thick French accents and who I've learned spend most of the class speaking in French. So it was no wonder that I got some very strange looks those first few days as they tried to adjust to my accent (or lack thereof depending on how you look at it). I also needed to adjust to hearing their English with a French accent. During my first lesson with Mathilde, we discussed the show Friends which she was quite passionate about. I spent several minutes trying to understand what was 'chewy' until she finally got some paper and clarified by writing the word 'Joey'.

In fact, I would learn a lot about the differences between French and English by tutoring. It's funny how when you know a language, you just know what sounds right. As I was teaching Mathilde about prepositions, I explained (as instructed in my Oxford Guide to English Grammar) that "on" usually suggests being on top of something. For example, the book is on the table. Of course, this made it awfully difficult to justify why we say "He's on a plane," since presumably the person isn't actually sitting on top of the plane but is actually in the plane. Languages are funny that way -- there are often more exceptions than there are rules. Unfortunately French is equally chaotic with prepositions, which explains why I almost always use the wrong one.

Geoff has pointed out that my other tutoring job with Judith is not actually tutoring, but in fact baby-sitting. Judith needs to take a half-mile walk, a bus and a metro to get from school to home. This makes no sense to me since she attends a public school, but apparently that's how it works here. So what her parents needed was someone to pick her up one or two days a week from school and accompany her home. They figured picking a native English speaker would help give her some practice in a subject she was floundering in, and the lesson could then be continued at their house for a short time. However, her commute is quite long which leaves most of our time together on some form of transportation. There are two problems with this - first, the bus and metro are too crowded to concentrate on a conversation, and second, Judith hardly can put a sentence together and rarely understands what I'm saying.

This week, I re-connected with my two students whom I hadn't seen in over a month. I was quite proud to see that Mathilde was doing well in English and we had a very mature conversation about politics which was surprising not only because she could carry on such a complex dialogue, but because she was informed enough about the Iraq War and politics to have formulated some serious opinions. As for Judith, it turned out she had failed her most recent test which isn't a good sign considering she's still only on the present tense.