Akila @ MindSay 
Since I arrived, everyone that I have met has told me how amazing Akila’s couscous is. Of course I believed them, but I was secretly wondering when I would get to try it. Finally Akila told me that she was going to invite some friends over for the weekend and she was going to make her world famous (or at least it’s pretty famous here in Montpellier) couscous.
We woke up early in the morning to go to the market and get some last minute items and then came back and started right away.
She told me that she usually starts getting everything ready in the morning so she isn’t rushing toward the end. The couscous was in two huge bowls on the table and in a pot she had lamb and chicken cooking for hours.
It was really cool to see how she prepared everything, and hopefully I will be able to remember it long enough to make it for my family when I get back. (I know they’re all hoping that too.) Anyway, we got ourselves ready throughout the day, and when the guests arrived everyone was remarking on how good the apartment smelled and that they couldn’t wait to eat it! I have to admit that I couldn’t wait either.
I invited a few of my friends over and Akila invited some of her friends too, and the only rule of the night was that no one could speak English (or talk American, as Akila puts it.) I invited Steph, Missy, and Jess, my friends from the program, and Akila had some of her friends that I had already met at another dinner party I went to last week. I’m quite the social butterfly.
Anyway, the night went off without a hitch and we just talked and had a great time, and at the end of the night Jess played on her guitar for us. My favorite was a song that she had written about her trip to Marseille, and half of it was in French!
It was so impressive, and she has a lovely voice. Anyway, Akila and her friends loved it, and it was an amazingly fun night. I know it’s really cheesy and girly, but I had so much fun that I started to get really sad about leaving here in only a few days. I called my parents after everyone had left and Akila and I finished the dishes, and I told them about how much fun I had and started to get a little choked up even.
You know, I realized right away that I would meet people in France that I wouldn’t be able to see very often because they live so far away, but I never really thought about it with the American friends that I have made here. I just kept thinking, oh, when we get back to the States, we’ll see each other again. But, now that I think more realistically, Steph and Jess live all the way in Pennsylvania which is pretty far away from Indiana. I’m going to have to make a special effort to keep in touch with everyone I’ve met here. They’re too amazing to forget anyway. And hey, I can always write letters, in French of course, for practice.
So, now I’m back in France, and I think my weekend jet setting to different countries might have come to an end. My bank account is telling me that it’s over, anyway. I have realized that it is easier for me to speak in French with my host mother and my friends also. I met some more French girls in my literature class today, and I found it easy to understand what they were saying and I was pretty quick to respond.
Lately I have been dissatisfied with my progress and I have been thinking that I’m not improving very quickly, but I have to think of it on a larger scale. Of course it’s hard to notice progress from week to week, but when I look at the way I spoke when I moved in with Akila, I have definitely improved a ton with my grammar, my accent, and my speed.
Conversations are flowing more easily and I find myself adding my two cents in where I used to just nod and smile to make things easier for myself. It is also nice because I feel so comfortable with my host mom now, and that way I feel less self conscious when I speak. This is key because I feel fine trying new vocabulary, even if I’m not sure how to say it or conjugate it if it’s a verb. I have found it helpful to ask my host mom what words I can say to express how I’m feeling by describing it in other words. And this is where I can really tell that I have improved—I can always get my point across. There is never a time when I am just blank and have nothing to say. Even if it is in the most roundabout way possible, I always find some way to get my point across and make myself understood. Akila says that this is very good and that I am starting to hear my own mistakes when I speak and correct them the next time I say the same type of sentence. She says that I should be at a good speaking level and be able to speak without pauses when my time is over here, which isn’t actually all that far away.
I can’t believe it is already November, and I have to leave in less than two months. It has been really amazing to travel all over Europe and see things that I have read about in books forever, but I am really content to stay in France for a while and learn more about the culture and discover more about the region I live in. We will see what my first weekend at home will bring. I bet it will be fun. Maybe I will even find some more places that I am too tall for. That is one quality that most countries in Europe have in common…5’9” isn’t really that tall is it? The metro thinks so…
