As April comes to a close, so does my time in France as a language assistant. Unfortunately, the academie de Dijon does not allow for contract extensions (some academies will allow assistants to extend into May/June), so April 30 was my final day as an English assistant in my two schools in Dijon! I’ll write up an overall review of my time as an assistant this past year, but for the moment, I’m going to focus on what April was like, given it was not entirely how I had anticipated it to look.

The School Situation

If you’ve been following my journey as a language assistant (no pressure to have been doing so), you’ll know that things were looking a bit dicey for schools at the end of March. On the 30th of March, Macron gave a speech, which was pretty indicative of some form of confinement coming our way (Macron doesn’t speak to say just *anything*). That prediction came true as a nationwide confinement was imposed, in addition to the 19h curfew already in place. This confinement is less strict than the one from November, which itself was less strict than the one from spring 2020. As Macron has put it, confinement doesn’t have “one definition” so we’re obviously viewing all the different forms a confinement can take. ANYWAY. This confinement restricts you to within 10km of your house, but you don’t need an attestation to move about within those 10km. Travel outside of those 10km, and your region in France, is prohibited except for strict reasons. Non essential stores are also closed again. The confinement within itself wasn’t shocking given the way numbers were trending, and the overall situation in France. What was surprising, however, was what Macron decided to do in relation to schools. In addition to the confinement, he announced that schools would be closed for a minimum of three weeks. The way that played out was as follows. Students went to school for the two days following the announcement to finish out the week. The next week (April 5-9) was online school for everyone, followed by two weeks of vacances. Where the April holidays are usually staggered between the zones so that the whole country isn’t on break at the same time, they’ve decided this year that everyone would have the same two weeks off at the same time. This will be followed by primary schools reopening the last week of April, and secondary schools the first week of May.

With the announcement of schools closing came a definite feeling of mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was glad the government finally made a decision to close them because it’s indisputable that there were cases coming from those environments. However, there was also a feeling of sadness because working in secondary schools meant that my last day of work in my schools in person was going to be April 2, instead of the 30th, which is a pretty big difference. This meant that I luckily got to have *some* closure with my middle school classes, but none with my high school classes as I had seen them before the announcement was made. It was definitely difficult to wrap my head around going into work on April 1/2 and seeing those as my last days when prior to the announcement, I had been planning to have twelve more days of work. It was certainly abrupt, and I believe I can speak for many assistants in saying that it wasn’t how we had expected our year to be wrapping up, unfortunately.

I did get the pleasure of doing a virtual class though in the week the schools were shut down before les vacances. It was a short one, luckily, but I will say that I give major props to teachers and students who have been doing this for months. It’s hard to be speaking into your camera without actually seeing your students’ faces or getting any visual feedback (for my class, none of the students turned their cameras on, which wasn’t a massive issue, but I can imagine it being more difficult in some subjects than others). There’s also a lot of awkward silences after asking a question while you wait for someone to either turn their microphone on or to put something in the chat, while you awkwardly smile at the camera hoping someone will say something. The class I was leading was chill, and only half an hour so it wasn’t a super painful experience, but I do get why so many people aren’t fans of the virtual method of teaching.

Discovering new places

Of course my final month in Dijon wouldn’t be complete without at least trying to discover some final new places. With the confinement in place, and schools closed, I had ample time on my hands (frankly too much, if you ask me). The weekend after schools closed, I decided to walk by my middle school to take one last picture of it, and decided to take a long way home. In doing so, I discovered the Parc du Château de Pouilly. It’s a pretty small park, and the château isn’t a castle by any means, but it’s certainly an old structure with fancy gates leading into the park. It’s another one of those small insights into what life was like in Dijon way back when, and how much old architecture has survived in France.

I also went for a decent walk (mostly uphill) to the neighboring city (within the 10km radius, don’t worry) of Fontaine-lès-Dijon. There’s the beautiful Basilique Saint-Bernard at the top of a steep climb that gives you a sweeping view of Dijon (although with so many trees in the way that there was no good photo opportunity, unfortunately). There’s plenty of forest surrounding it to make for a beautiful descent back into the city, and you can walk along vineyards/sweeping fields of grass as well. It’s very picturesque, and dare I say quaint. It had a totally different feel from my wanders around Dijon, despite the fact that I was only a 30 minute walk away from where I live!

The Pandemic Situation in France

I would be remiss to not do a final update on the pandemic situation in France, given that it’s my last month here. I’ve already touched on the confinement, but even with that, the situation on the whole hasn’t vastly improved over the month of April. Despite this, the government has assured the French that the third wave peak has already happened, and that since things are ameliorating, the lockdown will be removed on 3 May. The curfew will remain in place for the time being, but travel between regions can recommence then. This seems completely nonsensical to me given that daily case numbers still aren’t good, and ICUs are at over 100% capacity. I’m not sure that this will be changed vastly in the 12 days between the government announcing the easing of lockdown and it happening. One step forward, two steps back.

That announcement also confirmed that schools would be reopening in the timeframe the government had provided when the confinement was announced. High schools will remain on the hybrid model, and 8/9th grade classes in the worst affected regions will be at 50% capacity. In theory, students and teachers should also be getting access to self tests through the government, which (if implemented) will hopefully help catch cases at schools. All students over 15 will be allotted one test weekly, while teachers will have the right to two a week, or ten a month. This government has made several promises to schools and teachers in the past that it hasn’t managed to keep, so I’m dubious if this will happen, but I’m crossing my fingers it does to help make schools reopening a little more safe.

Another baffling item was Macron going on CBS and sharing with the American public that his plan was to reopen French borders to vaccinated Americans by summer, without breathing a word of it to the French (borders reopening was addressed on 29 April with France’s roadmap to reopening, but Macron spoke to CBS in mid April). I completely understand that travel is a big boost to many countries’ economies, and that opening borders is something they want to happen, but I struggle to see how Macron can be talking about that when things aren’t even open within France, yet. Restaurants, bars, and tourist destinations have been closed since November, with no official reopening date (the goal is 19 May, but that was a recent announcement), and yet they’re making promises to allows tourists into the country. I’m all for allowing it once France is in a situation where it’s safe and makes sense to do that, but I fear they might open the borders too early for the tourists (as reference, they’ve given 9 June as the target date for opening the borders, take that how you will). Given France’s track record with handling the last couple months, little seems to surprise me about how they handle things now. It unfortunately feels like the confinement was just a way to “calm the public” a little since people were getting tense about rising cases, but that the government wasn’t committed enough to it to see it through to numbers being good enough to reopen. It’s interesting (and not in a good way) how the parameters used to determine the situation as being “good” keep changing as the pandemic evolves. The numbers needed to come out of confinement now are way higher than they were in November/December, and even more so than the first confinement.

As I mentioned, there’s now a quasi roadmap with plans through the end of June for reopening things. I’m not even going to go that much into it because it’s confusing to say the least (one example being that when museums/cinemas/theatres etc can reopen with a max capacity of 800 inside, you still aren’t allowed to have gatherings with over 10 people). A lot of it relies on la situation sanitaire being “good enough” to reach each target, but of course, there’s nothing published on what that actually means. It’ll be interesting to follow what happens in the coming weeks and how France handles it.

Getting ready to leave

In true French fashion, not even leaving the country permanently is an easy thing to do. Having to cancel my phone plan, WiFi plan, and bank account are of course, bureaucratic endeavors that involve sending letters (tracked and certified) to complete the mission. My WiFi box is giving me the biggest hassle as I have to mail it back to my phone provider, as opposed to being able to return it to the bank, since they gave it to me in the first place (what I naively assumed I’d be able to do). I had to send a lettre recommandée to my provider so that they could cancel the service – seven days after receipt – and then wait for them to mail me (which ended up being an email instead) back a tracking sticker so I could return the box. Heaven forbid it be easy! Not only that, but heaven forbid it be straightforward… My major gripe with French admin is that a lot of the info you get told is either wrong, or just subjective. As a fun example, I was told that my WiFi would be cancelled seven days after they received my cancellation letter. Instead, they’ve canceled it four days after they received it so now I have fun WiFi less times for longer than I anticipated. My list of things to do before I leave is almost as long as the list I had before I left for France, but the major difference being if some of the cancellations don’t go through, I’ll continue being charged for them. My biggest word of advice for anyone needing to cancel services in France is to be proactive about knowing the myriad of steps it’ll take to accomplish your goal, because it’s guaranteed to be anything but easy. Packing is also a whole endeavor, and I’m dreading the journey to the airport (there aren’t any direct trains from Dijon to CDG). Wish me luck that I can get everything packed and keep it from going overweight!

I’m sure I’ve said it before, but it does feel very weird to think that I’ve been in France for seven months, and that my time here is coming to a close. In some ways, it makes absolute sense that that much time has passed, but in others, it feels like it went much quicker than when I was an assistant in Angers (although perhaps my memory of that is distorted now). Part of me wishes I could stay in France longer, but between the pandemic situation here, and the fact that I will get vaccinated more quickly in the US, I know that it’s time to go back. All good things come to an end, right? This year wasn’t what I had planned, nor did it play out the way I would have dreamt it to go, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not thankful for it nonetheless. I’m glad I got to experience being an assistant again, and to live in another French city. Despite the fact that France isn’t where I see myself long term (a fact that I sometimes struggle to understand myself), I won’t complain to have spent seven months here, and gotten another opportunity to indulge the part of me that longs to be abroad. I wish I had more to write about my final month in France, but between confinement, and schools being closed, it’s been a low-key, fairly uneventful month. In retrospect, that’s probably not the worst thing given the stress of my impending international travel, but it is certainly a different feeling to how I felt when things wrapped up in 2019. A plus!