Advice Post

At last, friends, we have come to the end of my TAPIF experience. Though I never saw a lot of the adventures coming - most of all the way I would leave TAPIF - I'm glad that I've taken the time here to reflect on my experiences and record them in a somewhat meaningful way.
While I would be the last person to over-inflate the importance or utility of this little blog, if it could do one thing, I would hope it could inform and advise others who are considering spending a year doing TAPIF themselves. To that end, I have taken notes throughout the year on things I wish I had known or that someone had told my less globetrotting comrades. I've tried to organize and sensibly present them here, so that others can enjoy my rich wisdom.
While I myself didn't enjoy my year in Martinique, I know the experience could be fulfilling and insightful for others. If you're considering TAPIF or study abroad, I think it's generally a great idea. I also think it's generally a great idea to keep the following in mind.

Enjoying your Life Abroad

• Try to think of the things that are different as interesting aspects of a new cultural experience. Things work differently wherever you go, and adjusting to that system takes time and will involve mistakes made, time lost, money wasted. Learn to laugh at yourself and try to take a neutral perspective on the culture / bureaucracy. You'll have time to form your judgments when you get home / go online to whine (like me!)
• Take photos. This isn't New York City, everything is not, in fact, online.
• When (not if) street harassment and generally unwanted gestures from men become a concern, talk to French women about it. Part of the gender warfare of harassment is that it makes you feel ashamed and frustrated and effectively silenced. Learn the culturally appropriate ways of dealing with it from the locals.
• If you see something in person / online that you're interested in doing, do it right then or write it down to do it later. Foreign countries are filled with exciting and wonderful sites, and you think you'll have plenty of time to do everything. You have plenty of time, then you have plenty of time, then you're gone and you never did it in spite of the fact that you lived next to it for months. 
• At least at the beginning, avoid dishing out money for the food you normally eat at home. Pay attention to what locals eat and which local products are affordable. Try to adapt the local diet to your dietary needs. Eventually, you're going to miss home so much that you're willing to dish out 5 € for a tiny jar of peanut butter, or whatever your comfort food is, but at first it's worth making a habit of trying the new stuff. Even if buying a cookbook is not your style, when you look for recipes online, search in French and look out for regional websites or blogs.
• Find your balance between the routine and the adventure. On the one hand, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take advantage of Europe / France / your region / your city, with plenty of free time on your hands to Do All the Things. On the other hand, seven months is a long time to drag yourself along from party to international foray to work unprepared to night at the airport. On the other, it's easy to get sucked into a routine and never get around to all that stuff that seemed so cool the first week once you're neck-deep into work. Everybody's process will be different, but I suggest two simultaneous routes. One, set yourself small, weekly goals. Go check something new out that's easily accessible, be it a party, an attraction, or even a cafe. Two, work your way out. See all the shit in your town while it's new and exciting. Then, once you have your gills, check out the region on day trips. Next, try a weekend in Paris or another big city. This gives you air out of your little town as you get tired of it, and gives you a chance to look forward to and save up for bigger trips.
• Rather than giving your opinion about French / local politics, instigate a local to talk about it. You'll learn a lot more that way.
• Once you've packed your bag, unpack it and throw out everything that you're not 100% positive you need (unless it's paperwork - see below). This applies both coming and going.

Getting Here and Handling the Bureaucracy

• No matter what it is, when you think, Oh, but it'll never come to that, it can't be that complicated: it will be. The bureaucracy is a nightmare. After all, miss, this is France. Check and double check that you have a physical and digital copy of every document you've ever owned concerning your visa, your bank account, your job offer, all that shit.
• Write shit down. When your phone dies or there's no Wi-Fi, you're gonna be fucked.
• This is a carry over from literally my entire undergraduate career: THE SQUEAKY WHEEL GETS OILED. I'm not saying you should be a jackass, but I'm saying a) it doesn't hurt to ask, especially if they're your contact person / there to help, b) remind people about their obligations to you, responding to emails / references phone calls as necessary - obeying the bureaucratic process is taken very seriously here, and c) ask for clarification until you understand. I can't tell you how many opportunities I missed because I didn't want to be a bother. There won't always be an exception for you, but sometimes they'll make one.
• If you apply to the CAF, fill out all the paperwork to the best of your ability, then check your account every day for notifications. They won't email or call. If nothing is moving after a couple weeks, call. If you can't get it sorted out, gather up your paperwork and go to the office. Get this sorted out ASAP. It can be worth hundreds of euros a month, so it's worth getting it settled that first month.

Goodbye Cards: A Cute, but Worrisome, End

I thought there were no victims, only laughs, when I ironically
taught them the worst Valentine's Day poem. Little did I know
it would come back to haunt my last memories of Martinique.

As I mentioned in my last post, my experience in Martinique was cut short due to a family emergency. For my of my classes, my announcement - in French - that I was leaving (as well as the fact that I could speak French) was a surprise. However, one of the teachers in one of my CM2 (11-12 year old) classes told them ahead of time that I was leaving and gave them some time to make me cards. The results are adorable and ... enlightening. In a troubling way. I thought I had been doing a fairly good job of teaching English, but their creative gifts, while adorable, suggest otherwise.

First, I was suddenly made aware of the fact that I never actually wrote down my name for them, but I stubbornly pronounced it in English, rather than how a French person would pronounce it. Apparently my students had widely varying ideas of what my name actually was.

Secondly, only on my last day did I realize that I had taught them all how to say, "I'm in love," but never, "I love you."

Third, while we did go over how to express that one feels ill oneself, we never discussed the right thing to say when someone else is ill. Apparently, their teacher googled it and came up with, "We wish your [relative] a speedy recovery." Some of the students, like the one's whose work is featured just above, got that more or less down. Others struggled a little more and came up with much funnier sentiments.

What I really hadn't expected was that, for many students, the correct way to say goodbye to an American assistant was to draw her homeland's flag.

As in the above case, for many of them, "United States of America" seems like some sort of blessing. Is this the over-estimation of globally-reproduced American culture? A response to perceived homesickness? A middle-schoolers best guess? I don't know, but it's both sweet and funny.

As I mentioned yesterday, most of my students really don't
have it down that the U.S. and the U.K. are separate
countries.

For context, "passe" is the verb one would use in the French
sentence roughly equivalent to "Have a good day."
I think he just wanted to prove he knew a bonus word in
English. Or maybe "lake" has a special place in his heart. 

"Coucou" is a cutesy greeting that isn't really what kids are
supposed to say to their teachers.

"I wish your [grand]ma well / I love
you? you / Rose are red / I love you
with all my heart."

Finally, their artistic exercise reminded me that middle schoolers are really fucking naive. When they made these cards, they didn't know I spoke French. But most of them still used French on there somewhere. Allow me to emphasize, they were all 100% stunned that I knew any French at all. Yet it never occurred to them that if they wrote in French I wouldn't be able to appreciate it. Luckily, I can appreciate it, because it's really fucking cute.

In the end, the only good thing about being in Martinique, besides a few interesting cultural and natural quirks, has been my students. Kids give me the energy to work, and they're honestly the only humans I'll agree to work with for any extended period of time. They're the only thing I think I'll miss about Martinique - shocker, not even the buses make the list. I'm honored to have these little reminders of the fun we had together.

"What is American Culture?"

Following a family emergency, on April 8th, the last day of Easter vacation in Martinique, I bought a ticket on the first flight out, which was two days later. That left two days, one at each of my schools, to try to close out my year of English classes and give my students, especially the older ones, some sense of closure. First, I finally spoke to them in French, and the jaw-dropped look of surprise on every last one of their faces was priceless. Then, I let them lead the class by asking any questions they had about the U.S., other English-speaking countries, or traveling abroad. That hilarious ordeal is the topic of today's post. My oldest classes made me going away cards / hope your grandma gets better cards, which, if things in my family continue to mellow, I'll share soon. While I miss all my students and hate changing my plans / not using my lesson plans, I'm glad to be out of Martinique and where I need to be with my family. They're not nearly as funny, though, as my 5-11 year-old students, the best of whose questions I present here, translated and unfiltered.

What the Heck am I Doing?

Today I'm 23, and, besides learning all kids of neat stuff about Martin Luther King, Jr (whose fest day is on my birthday), I'm spending a lot of time, alone at home, reflecting morbidly on how I'm wasting my youth.
My year here in Martinique has proven to be the loneliest and most boring of my life, though I acknowledge that memory isn't perfect and that my preteens were pretty bad (amiright?). I don't feel like I've grown as a teacher, but, rather, that the quality of my teaching has declined since I left my summer teaching fellowship because my teachers undermine me and haven't cooperated with my English immersion strategy. I really got hardly any training at all, and none of quality. Sure, I speak a little creole now, which is fun, but I doubt I'll ever use it again. I've picked up a little drawing and listened to some podcasts, but that's been to avoid desperation. While the women I've met here have proven exceptionally decent people, the Martinicans I've encountered have been more close-minded than I had anticipated. With the exception of Easter, which I happily spent in the company of a gracious local family, I've hardly socialized with locals. In fact, several of the other Martinique assistants and I commiserate about resisting leaving the house because of all the damn street harassment.  I don't feel that owning a car is conducive to a sustainable lifestyle - or safe, here - but without one I've hardly been able to take advantage of the beaches and hikes, and I can't even go for walks or hang out by the beach without being incessantly harassed.
In short, I'm tempted to say that I've wasted seven months of my youth here. I know that's a little dramatic. Surely I've grown as a person, I've gained soft skills, I've seen natural wonders, etc. But I've also grown really bitter and been really sad.
Luckily, Fairly Nuts Ben and Jerry's ice cream is marketed here, which it is not in the U.S., so I do have one thing to look forward to on my birthday and, hopefully, will have more fun once my friend returns with our car rental for the rest of the Easter vacation.