Approaching 40 was a wake-up call for me. If I was going to do the things I always said I wanted to do one day, it occurred to me that 40 was the age to get going otherwise what was I waiting for – 50, 60,70?
The three ambitions at the top of the ‘do before I die’ list were: go to university, speak a foreign language fluently, and experience life in a foreign country. Having learned French at school, a French degree seemed the way to go. Although being back in full-time education was a shock to my brain, my French soon improved and with it a huge interest in French history and culture. Two years on and I was as ready as I ever was going to be for the Erasmus experience. The University of Caen, in Normandy, was my destination.
The first thing I learned from my year abroad was that I was a foreigner. The way I looked, spoke, behaved marked me out as different. I was no longer seen as me, with a family and roots in my own community, I was simply a foreigner. Bit by bit I managed to assimilate into my new surroundings. A new haircut, glasses, clothes and accessories and I could ‘pass’ for French. But my new French-ness was as thin as my passport. The moment I opened my mouth, my accent marked me out as English and I became the target for any and all conceptions and misconceptions about what it was to be English. And yet I have no English blood… I am the product of three generations of emigrants from and to different countries. And now I too was experiencing what my forebears must also once have felt, with their foreign accents and ways.
At first I had the overwhelming fear that if I said the wrong thing something terrible would happen to me. But I realised that entertaining the locals was the added bonus to my mistakes and nothing bad would come of it. Being a chatty sort, I chatted and made mistakes and learnt from them and nine months in to my year abroad I suddenly discovered that I understood everything that was being said to me and around me, and when I opened my mouth, to my surprise, French was coming out without any effort. My ambition to be able to speak a foreign language fluently was well on its way to being accomplished.
However, the Erasmus programme not only gave me the opportunity to improve my French and to give me insights into what, not only my own family experienced, but what, presumably, most immigrants go through when they arrive abroad, it also allowed me to discover how people live in another country. I learnt to accept that everything would shut for two hours over lunch and the pleasure of spending those two hours eating well in a local restaurant. I learnt that the French love their food and I too fell in love with shopping in the weekly market, buying my fruit and vegetables in season, sampling the many delights of Normandy produce: creamy camembert, salty butter, apples in all possible forms; tarte aux pommes, cider, calvados and the local aperitif, pommeau. Buying wine was no longer about what was cheap and palatable
but going to the wine tastings held by our local wine merchant and learning that one glass of wine can contain a succession of different flavours.
It was a year that was constantly interesting, engaging, puzzling and sometimes hilarious. My language skills have improved no end and I have started to understand a little of what it is to be French. I have fallen under the spell of life in Normandy and there is no way I am going to call an end to this new relationship. Once back for the start of the final year of my degree I am applying for an MA in European History with the firm intention of going back to France to discover more about its past and present
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