Sunday, December 1, 2013

A little thankfulness never hurt!

So Thanksgiving came and went.

I am not much of a religious person, in fact ever since the day i realised i did not have to go to church because no one obliged me to, i pretty much stopped going. But i have and i am am always thankful to the the powers that be for whatever i have. The food, the family, friends (even though they may be few and far in between) a roof over my head, health and my son. I am thankful for life and the air i breathe that i do not have to pay for, yet; en fin bref, i am thankful.

However when i look around me i wonder how many people i come across are thankful even for the gift of life.

It will soon be three years since i moved to France and living amongst the French people i do not think i have ever come across a people so unthankful or is it so ungrateful for that which they have. I doubt i have ever met a people that complqin as much as my French cammarades. And why should they not complain you may ask me? After all they can!

Well for starters they should be grateful for the food, the health services that are available to everyone and free to the most poor, education that is free for all, heck they even get coupons to buy children toys for christmas if they have so many children! And they have the guts to still complain.

And what do they complains about? Basically everything and nothing at all as long as they deem it worth complaining about and as long as there is someone to listen then they will go off. If its not the politics, about how Holland is worse than Sarkozy, the very Sarkozy they hated and christened thief because he apparently stole all their money, then they are complaining about the foreignors. If its not the foreignors its the economic crisis (trust me the shopping malls show another crisis all together and it ain't a lack of money!) and when they are not going on and on and about the lack of money they are on about the horrible weather. Seriously winter is winter and when its winter shut the heck up and dress warm! No the French will complain anyway.

Shoot me but yes this is a country of whinners that never learnt to shut the heck up and appreciate the roofs they have over their heads, the food on their plates and warm beds to crawl into in the night!

I thought i was being hard on the chaps until my snooping around on the internet drove me right to this article published in 2010  by the Daily Mail about a survey that had the French admitting that they are the best at complaining in the world. They are even proud of it, les cons!

According to the article, i quote "the French believe they are the biggest moaners in the world, a poll has revealed --and they appear to be rather proud of it. More than 72 per cent of those surveyed believe they can out-complain any other nation, compared with 17 per cent who thought the Italians held the honour.
Surprisingly, just 3 per cent voted for the British as the greatest whingers.The principal reason they put forward for all their complaining was: "You have to grumble in life, otherwise you get trampled on."

So there now i rest my case if a people think that they have to groan and moan to and that that is a life worth living then let them complain. But i on the other hand will continue to be thankful because i know what it really means when you really do have to moan for the right reasons.

As for the French whinners maybe wait until food becomes a luxury and health care is only for the rich then you will understand why you had no need to complain before. Talk of Chicken Little and his tale of the sky falling!

As for me i am hell bent on plucking that seed or trait of complaining out of my French son before its too late.I am not letting it push into un herb!

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Yes thats me!

He interrupted my me-time the only time of the day i get to sit down, smell the fresh the fresh air and have a coffee without worrying that in the next minute i am going to hear that call "maman" and leave whatever it is i am doing to rush to my son's beckoning. Yes he interrupted me not to be kind or say hello but to insul me. He interrupted me during that one moment when i did not have paperwork to think about and was pretending to be that carefree single woman having a coffee in a street side cafe to ask me if i was in France because i was so poor back in my country and i wanted papers! Yes he had the sick sense to do just that.

And no he is not the first one and i bet he will not be the last. I have had it all, weird questions, that start from whether i had a French child to get me a French Visa and whether i am looking for a French man to get me papers to stay in France. 

The thing is simple, i am a black foreign female or as i would say in FrenchUune Femme Noire Etrangere smack right in the middle of a small town in south western France who seems to have nothing going for her, probably, yes most probably poor and uneducated! The perils of being who i am i could say.

How can i ever forget that i am a foreign woman of colour living in the South Western part of France. to be precise, in the Midi-Pyrenees. It follows me everywhere i go, i am reminded of it by the looks the strange questions and the stares and strangely its become part of my daily life!

Seriously it ain't much fun being la femme noire etrangere in this part of the world. I have had it all and more. The not so young man who interrupted my coffee with his insults was not much of something if you ask me and living in France, i have learnt to be mean. So i gave him as piece of my mind after asking him what he did for a living and he replied "je suis au chomage mais j'etais jardiner" I am officially jobless but i was a gardener, i asked him to pick up his silly self and leave my table. In fact the old me, the old journalist succesful me who achieved more in ten years as a journalist than that insulting French gardener ever will all his life would never have given his sorry butt the chnace to even share a table with me.

No i am not mean but yes i can be when i am insulted and so that is the new me, meaner and leaner and yes still black foreign and female. BFF!