Now that I am back in my natural state of being, an outsider in a foreign land, I observe my fellow wanderers with the deja vu of having seen their sort before, in different places. I always maintained that people don’t know why they are going to a place as much as they know why they want to leave where they are. It’s the difference between the past and the future, experience vs knowledge, between what you have lived and what others have lived. People for the most part are such hopeless imitators, always following whomever they think is emblematic of their own brand. Such is the sausage factory wherein ‘types’ are squeezed into casings and to be found wherever you go. Many people go abroad for some negative reason, be it financial distress, lack of employment, family traumas, societal dislocation, or whatever twist of fate had them angling for an exit. There’s nearly always a back story. In my case, it was a banal mix of middle child syndrome, a dose of too smart for my own boots, a broken home and what felt like at the time, economically, a broken country. Leaving was a balm for my discomfort. The separation from family, friends, farm and country was like finding an alternative therapist for a cranky back. It didn’t fix the problem but it sure as hell made it less painful. Naturally, I packed all the dysfunctional behaviours and attitudes I’d picked up in my particular pickle, and brought them right along with me for the ride, as we set off on a glorious adventure to foreign shores. My previous sojourns were in Asia where the non-locals were for the most partly younger, and largely, in the circle I moved, North American. For the first couple of months in Provence, we didn’t run into too many English speakers. But here in Neffiès things feel decidedly different. I’ve been here a week and a half and at least half of the people I’ve spoken to have been English. These are people who live here, have made businesses here, know the local mayor, keep up with the local goings on. They are not living in a gaijin ghetto, as we used to call a foreign enclave in Japan. That said it kinda feels like it is a little ghettoised. I make a point Irish style of saying hello and waving at any and all. Partly, this is due to my experience in Provence where the locals were generally disposed to greet you on the street or walking path. Here the response is patchy. I’m not here long enough to know, but already I’m wondering if there is a stay in your lane unwritten rule, the foreigners do their thing and the French theirs, separately. The non-natives are into their status symbols unfortunately. The Swedish couple drive a late model Volvo SUV, and there seems to be a doggie arms race to have the most exotic version of chunky, hairy breeds that resemble European mountain sheep hounds. The well-to-do retiree is the dog that caught up with the car. They have created the lifestyle they dreamed of and now they are stuck with it until death do they part. The locals are the ones you are likely to see cheerfully driving an old beater of a car. They also speak French the learning of which is one of my chief goals. Two good reasons to seek out the company of French people, rather than the stale pot-pourri of the imported class.
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