Parlez en francaise en Congo - Am I nervous? Bien sur! - June 26, 2012

I’ll be in Kinshasa by dinner time. I’m looking forward to a vastly different experience from my everyday in Toronto, Canada and my vacation week in Paris, France. I’ve heard about the Congolese people from new friends on Facebook (thanks Sabrina and Zaya) and I saw beautiful, adorned women in the lineup at the airport to go to Congo. Women in long dresses with sequins and jewels adorned, bright colours like fuscia and black, bright pink and aubergine, red and silver. Heads wrapped in matching or complementary scarves. Some with babies wrapped around their backs. All dressed up and made up. Wow! I cannot match them in my yoga pants, tired face and head wrapped for travel in non-matching scarf. But I hope to match them if I can by borrowing a little Congo culture when I’m there for 11 weeks.

A good friend asked me if I was nervous, if I had butterflies. I said ‘no, not really’. But it caused me to think about it. I was okay before being in Paris, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, nearly everyone I encountered spoke a little English; it’s like everyone in customer service, travel and hospitality was bilingual. I won’t exactly be a tourist in Congo, so I know it will be different. My experience in France will not compare and I don’t expect it to. I am most nervous about ‘parlez en Francaise toujours’. At the airport, I needed people to repeat questions and directions, and I barely understood the spoken French. I can read it but listening and hearing is different.

Am I nervous? Do I have butterflies? Yes, I do. Mostly because I will be in a foreign environment but mostly because of the challenge I have hoisted upon myself to ‘get bilingual’. My boss asked me if I had a plan to learn French. I thought it was obvious. Immersion! I have always considered
immersion to be my best plan for learning and practicing French. But I also recognize I actually do need more study, so I’ve got my grammar book and my French-English dictionary and I will need to practice reading, writing and speaking. Practice is something I will get in Congo, what I am most happy about being in Congo is that I will have little choice but to ‘parlez en Francais’.

I know it will feel odd at first, but the years of study and the conversations with friends, listening and watching Quebecois television will become useful somehow. Talk about getting out of your comfort zone. I’m putting myself out there and taxing my limits to become a better, stronger
person through this experience. I can only do this by the grace of God and with the support and love of family and friends and through the fellowship of the Filles de Marie Auxiliatrice (Daughters of Mary, help of Christians), Salesian Sisters.

I hope the next blog will be bilingual. J’espere ca la prochaine blog sera bilingue.

Learning French not as easy as I thought - June 22, 2012

I'm in Paris for a mini-vacation and cultural experience before I embark on my volunteering service with the Salesian Sisters in Kinshasa, Congo next week. I had hoped the experience of being in a strange land though westernized and speaking a foreign language would prepare me for being in a more foreign land and I might have better French by then.

I'm testing myself today and realize I need more practice and more faith in my abilities. It is scary being here on my own and barely speaking French, but I got myself some books and will find myself at a cafe reading French and practicing. Courage!

Everyday is a learning experience, my comprehension is getting better and understanding the accent and doing it right makes a world of difference. This is me getting ready for Congo.