Submitted by Haleigh Kidd on the 2019 fall semester program in Paris, France…
This week, I started my internship! My internship is with an urban farm near the edge of Paris that uses sustainable growing techniques and they also serve much of their produce fresh in dishes at the attached canteen and bar. I really feel so lucky to work with a company that uses green methods and also reaches out to the surrounding community. French work life is definitely a little bit different however. For one, lunchtime is set in stone and takes at least an hour. This may be the exception with my company, but those who work in the gardens drink coffee (literally coffee after coffee after coffee) and smoke cigarettes throughout the day, and everyone for the most part is really relaxed with one another and they joke around quite a bit at work. I already feel included and like I can do a lot to help out – they’re not shy about having me do some heavy lifting or dirty work in the gardens. I was even allowed (invited actually!) into a work meeting where the events of the past and coming week were discussed. What’s more, it’s a great opportunity to practice my French – my supervisors don’t let me get away without it! Often times, I’m given directions first in French and any clarifications are in English. And there are other interns as well, some American and some French and many of the French interns stopped learning English after elementary school so it’s an even better opportunity for me when the main form of communication has to be French. Other than starting (and loving) my internship, I’ve met some French students who have been so kind in showing me the more everyday parts of Paris like lesser known parks, the canals, the best Chinese restaurants, etc. rather than just the tourist attractions. They even invited me to a housewarming party for a friend and I got the chance to talk to a lot of French students about the differences between American and French school, work, life and everything in between. It was a great experience and we all agreed that speaking a foreign language is the hardest aspect of learning so we worked out a system where they would speak to me in French and could understand my replies in English and vice versa. I have never had conversations like that where using two languages at once actually made it clearer and easier to understand one another. I was stupidly proud of how much I understood and much of my anxieties melted away as the French students reassured me that I knew much more than I thought I did and even though pronunciation in French is difficult for me, they thought my accent was very charming. And so of course I didn’t document this party with any pictures, I will share some from my internship!
