Second hand first impressions - Clichy-sous-Bois

(Versão Portuguesa)

So, truth is I still don't feel like much has changed. Sure, I'm in a new country, speaking a language I barely knew how to speak before, I live with people that two months ago I knew nothing about, I'm not a student anymore,... hm... what else? (Well, obviously everything changed). But somehow France surprised me with this sweet feeling of familiarity. 

Usually when I move, or even for visiting, The Doors sing to me in their tune of advice "people are strange, when you're a stranger", I think they mean to remind me that I'm the "other one", but it appears that this time they decided to be quiet: people are not strange, every day I become less of a stranger - don't get me wrong, I love the feeling of having my concepts of comfort challenged. And yet, this is not to say I haven't been facing a new reality, for sure I'm not in Porto, I'm not in Angola, I'm not in Cape Verd and for sure (!) I'm not in Krakow. Clichy-Sous-Bois is kind of a mix of all these places, and so many others, that I just realized this may be the reason why I feel so much at home.

Well, I do remember that "thing" pushing my stomach while I walked to Orange Bleue for the first time, how I was trying so hard to look the least uncomfortable as possible following the map on my smartphone, how the streets looked so "weird" and how much I was wishing to arrive to my destination as soon as possible. And the train, the train to Paris and the metro, felt really scary after sunset, or maybe even before. Luckly these feelings lasted as long as first times are concerned, and as far as I remember, The Doors never took the stage again.

One more time for the pleasure of it

The reason why my passion for Clichy-sous-Bois has been growing every day is hard to explain without throwing away a bunch of clichés that may fill the minds with these stereotypical images of my beautiful and so unique town, and so it is that I shall start by the things it has taught me so far.

One of the things that appears to be more a less general is that its inhabitants like to live there. I work with children and their families, mostly mothers, and it's frequent that these kind ladies, that from the first moment took the patience to understand my horrible "French" (I feel I can say it is French now, not so good, but also thanks to them, I can have conversations as an almost normal person), have told me they prefer Clichy-sous-Bois to Paris. The justification generally is that in Clichy people are nicer and, very shortly, they can be themselves. Another thing that also appears to be general is that people are indeed very nice. During the week, when the sun is up, the streets are full of life - children and families everywhere, but not so many cars actually -, there is a street market on my way to Orange Bleue every Wednesday and Saturday that is usually full of people, it's not a big market but I can buy most things I need and pretty nice fresh fish and vegetables much cheaper than in any store.

And then, in a smaller scale, Orange Bleue shows me day after day the art of doing things out of love and passion. I’m lucky to be in a team of highly motivated people, who are willing to give their best to the community and so it happens that their best is really good and I do believe their work influences a lot of lives. The center is a bunch of pre-made rooms, not very comfortable that turned into this thought throw, welcoming space for children and their families – and once again I realize that good walls don’t make the best houses.

It is true that I only know a small area of Clichy-sous-Bois, but my testimony is worth for what it is: a drastically different perspective from the pictures and speeches that Google gives you back in a search about the town. The buildings are not the best, there are definitely some problems concerning the high rates of unemployment, mostly among the youth, and multiculturalism comes with interesting and many times hard challenges, but the truth is that it is the fact that I live and work in a place where people have all the colors, where I can listen to so many different languages a day, where most of the time it doesn't feel like I’m in Europe that makes me wish for more, want to learn as much as I can, and give my everything.

Francisca

EVS - why?

Probably the resons of doing EVS for everyone are very different. And it is not very unexpected. Surprisingly, the reason for going in to this journey may change essentially in your own way during the time. And if I had a list before leaving Lithuania, now there would be completely different one. I believe, after 9 months (this is how much we have left) I will have one more list. Hopefully - the new one.

And it is nice to reflect how your own aspirations change according the time and experiences.

Nothing stays in the same and the shoes get dirty while you walk.

En voyage!

You've always been curious on how is it to live in the French Department 93? Well, here is your chance, directly from the lives of four young Europeans living together during their 11 months of European Voluntary Service!

We are on the way to our "On Arrival" training course. It has been one month and a half and the time has come for the world to know the exciting life of Department 93 (well, don't worry, there are some boring details as well!).

But first, for those of you that have no idea of what or where Department 93 is, in the map it looks something like this:

We actually live in Montfermeil (there on the right) and work in Les Pavillons-sous-Bois and in Clichy-sous-Bois.

Quality of life has been going up since we all landed in Paris on the 3rd of October, we got to experience a shity hostel with our friends, the cockroaches, and the strong smell of weed from the neighbors. Luckily we moved up, really up, awesome upgrade to our clean and huge 4 bedroom, with big kitchen, living room and garden, house, and everything was great, but Pierre couldn't wash his clothes or anyone else by the way, for a couple weeks. Internet was also a challenge, open network with low range, which was impossible to use when Alexandra was using Skype. Everything it's perfect now, we smell nice and the internet runs fast.

Our home in Montfermeil

One thing we all agree from the beginning: French stereotypes of rude people, not opened to foreigners, have shown to be exactly that - stereotypes -, at least in department 93. Everyone is so nice and kind, our house was furnitured with the help and good will of our new friends, and we got extra free French culture and language classes from the best teacher and our good friend Sebástien. Neighbors, bus drivers, people in the market, almost everyone greets us with a smile wherever we go - Francisca and Radvile are best friends with the fish men from the local market. Well, there are still a lot of people that look at us like aliens because we don't speak the language, but not in a bad way - oh and the fact that most people in France don't speak English, that one feels quite true.

Living out of Paris allows us to have a more comfortable stress free life, the prices are also quite affordable (transports are the most expensive thing, going to Paris on a week day costs us 2 hours and 10 euros), but still, the City of Light is ours any time. :)

If you want to know more about our EVS's read our personal posts that, if we are not too lazy, will soon come up :)

Alexandra, Francisca, Radvile and Pierre
(17/11/2014)