A hope for an end is an end in itself. You would ask, why hoping for an end? Of what? The end of something new that happens to anyone who leaves his homeland behind for a new country like France. Especially for someone who comes from a country where the sun shines 365 days in a year or almost ; half the year in the sky and the rest in your heart. Compared to the frost of France’s winter, especially in the north part of the country, who wouldn’t want an end of this new change imposed on one’s body, on one’s mind?
It’s not just the cold, it’s more than that : the food(cheese, cheese, cheese and milk too), the new language, a new mentality and a new lifestyle. Where it’s not the bus/subway that waits for you but it’s you that has to do so; where it’s not enjoyable to take a bath late at night(in winter) and most importantly : where there’s no sea. A sea that one can’t swim into is not a sea : it’s French sea. White sand would be asking for too much.
I could lament like this for hours : oh actually that was what I often did when I came in France. On top of all this, I was run through tons of paper processing : paper for this, paper for that.
I was stuck. Held back by the craving envy of returning back home, and leaving all this behind : like someone asking to wake from a bad dream. When one day, while lamenting my stay to someone dear to me, who is a French : she made me think by asking me that question. It wasn’t questions that were lacking in my head at that time but that one was different from my own point of view. That person asked me :
… and you think that’s not difficult for the French people too? What should they think of this, all the bad thing that are imposed on them on top of the bad weather? We wouldn’t live if we’re to think like that all day long.
Thinking like that? Thinking according to my point of view : a hope for an end to all this. The “all this” that I described like a bad dream. Those words marked me and was running through my head. I was constantly asking myself : but how can one enjoy a stay in such a country?
The answer didn’t come on the spot. It came when I was walking down the street at 7H30 in the afternoon, when it was still day and I could still hear the birds singing their joy in this month of March. Still day at that time? It seemed so new to me, where back home, it’s pitch black at that time. I felt like flushing all my bad feelings about France just to grasp and enjoy that particular moment. It felt like I couldn’t be distracted by the penchant of my thoughts, which were against enjoying something in that country.
The real joy comes from the waiting of such moment where one pays more attention to, making one leave everything behind to enjoy those peculiar moments. That moment brought rays of sunshine in my heart and kept it warm, even if the wind was freezing my body outside.
It’s not hoping for an end, it’s a new start. It’s coping with those new changes. Enjoying new things you fall on that you like ; sure that would be different to those things available in your country : like the sheer change in foodstyle in France. Even if I don’t like many French dishes(beurk, mussels, beurk beurk), I’ve found many new ones that I truly enjoy and love. Even if there are many things on TV that I loved back in my country, I looked for new things that amused me on TV here in France. My hope for an end blinded me for liking those new changes, it was like a cloud, a rather big smog that was hiding the sunshine in my heart.
It’s not about forgetting who we are by leaving behind our love for those things in our homeland, it’s just remembering that France is a new start. A start that brings you something different, GOOD too, that often takes time to notice for one to enjoy it.
It’s in that sense that I created InDaFrance : to guide people into seeing those “new changes” around them and making them enjoy them through their stay; making them enjoy what France has to offer. The beginning of a GOOD change and start…
Links to the photos in this article : 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th one.