A month in France!

COUNTRY: France
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Language and tutoring English
WRITTEN BY: Siobhan Calafiore

I have been thinking just this last week that we are now reaching a stage of familiarity and comfort. Through my own experiences as well as speaking to the other girls most of us are feeling a lot more relaxed in our surroundings and better connected to the people and life around us. Our French is continually improving so that communication is becoming easier, the region where we live is becoming familiar to us, public transport and getting around is now second nature and every day our relationship with our host families is strengthening. I am spending less time thinking about home and my family or wishing that the people around me would suddenly speak English. My mind is here in France, not elsewhere. By being part of the here and now I am not at all homesick. When you become familiar and comfortable you become confident and it is a nice stage to finally reach.

But enough about that, what have we done in the last two weeks?




Jess has been busy helping out at her host mother’s school during the week and watching her host father play soccer. She has now had a chance to try a range of traditional French cuisine and has found a love for brioche. She has also been lucky enough to do a few French cooking classes. Last weekend Elisa (a girl from Brazil who we meet at our hostel in Paris) came to stay with Jess in Le Mans and Jess had the opportunity to show her around and go for a few bike rides through the country side.




Phoebe has settled into a busy routine of French lessons in Vannes, teaching English to the family, helping out at the high school where her host mother works, going to pony lessons with her host sister and sporadic local travel whilst also planning travel further abroad. The best parts of the last two weeks for Phoebe have been watching a forty year old man sing 80’s rock at the local café, being constantly asked about partying and clubbing in Australia by the French high school students, sharing different tastes in music with her host parents and being told that her French is improving.
During the weeks I have been busy visiting many schools in the area as fortunately my host mother and her friends are teachers.

I have sung nursery rhymes with kindergartners, done presentations on Australia in primary and middle schools and helped out in English classes. I am continually blown away by the kindness of the teachers and the eagerness and enthusiasm of the students. It is also nice to share my country with them and let them know that yes we do sleep in beds, yes we do have electricity, no we don’t ride kangaroos and no French isn’t the language we usually speak. On the weekends my family is eager to take me places - an old medieval village, the wild coastline, the beach, art galleries, the remains of an old fort. I also had the chance last Saturday to catch up with my two host sisters from my last trip to France. It had been nearly three years since I last saw them! They came to my village Hennebont and we spent the day together walking through the botanic gardens and eating crepes. We had so much to say to each other that for eight hours straight we did not stop talking in French!



I also have had the chance to speak English from time to time as Phoebe and I have caught up in Vannes and an American girl my age named Rachael has just arrived in Hennebont. She is also teaching English to a family who is fortunately friends with mine. Every day I am meeting new people – extended family, friends of the family, teachers, students and other foreigners. It is nice to have a network of people here in France. It is nice to be connected.