I was invited to an overnight birthday party for Sarah, a girl in the branch, who was celebrating her 20th birthday. It was only the second time I was the only English speaker at a social event, the first being Adélie’s raclette party. Sarah had invited other friends from church, none of which were in our branch because Sarah and I are the only Jeunes Adultes in the Poitiers Branch. Her other friends came from as far as Rennes to celebrate and spend the night. There were nine of us total, including her younger sister. We played games, ate elaborately presented food, and went to church together the next morning.
Sarah and her family don’t live in Poitiers, but in Châtellerault, a small town in the country. From Poitiers centre, it’s 30 minutes by car and a short 15 minute trip by train. I arrived at the train station at the same time as two other girls, and Sarah’s mom was there to get us. Their house was small and humble, but very cozy, with lots of portraits of children on the walls, stone floors with rugs, heavy wood furniture and china cabinet. They had set up a table with a tablecloth and fruit juices and chocolate candy. However the very first thing that happened when we entered the house was that Sarah’s mom went to search for some slippers for each of us to borrow. Since she has mostly daughters, she apologized to the boys who were already there that she didn’t have slippers for them. It was then that I began to learn the importance of slippers in French culture. Sarah had spent what must’ve been hours preparing a scavenger hunt, with clues and riddles leading to “missing pearls” hidden all over the house. I wasn’t much help with this, and occasionally Sarah would lead the group in collectively translating or explaining some of the clues to me. There were 20 some pearls, so 20 some clues as well, and the hunt took us several hours. Finally we lined up all the clues on the floor to decode a secret message. We never actually got around to decoding it, however, because I think at this point people were losing interest. So next we played a very active game of charades. Sometimes I needed help with the word I was supposed to act out. Obviously if you don’t know the word, you can’t very well act it out....
We continued to play games, sing karaoke, and talk for a while Sarah’s mom finished with dinner. At around 8:00 her mom brought out trays and trays of snack-like foods, including chips, bruschetta with cheese, meat, eggs, or olives, pizza cut into squares, etc. All of this was followed by a large salmon paté and more horderves. The grand finale was a giant chocolate cake with “Joyeuse Anniversaire, Sarah!” written on the top. We turned the lights off, sang, and Sarah blew out enormous candles with fat, sparkling, whistling flames. Sarah’s mom served up enormous portions of the cake, so rich and huge that I thought I might get quite sick if I finished it. I’ve noticed that the French seem to have an extremely high tolerance for rich foods when it comes to celebrating or lunchtime. Almost all of the girls finished the cake, but there were a couple, like me, who set it down for 30 minutes or so and then finished it on round II.
It was interesting being the only anglophone at a relatively long lasting social event. There were times where I was quite frustrated or embarrassed that I couldn’t participate more in the games or help more with the scavenger hunt, but it’s true that the whole time I was fascinated by being in a French family’s old stone house eating their special celebration food and wearing their slippers. But the more I learn about France and the world, the more I realize how prominent English is even outside of English speaking countries. For example, about half of the songs for the karaoke were in English, at which time they would throw me a microphone and tell me to help them. I also had a long conversation with someone about books and movies, most of which happened to be originally written or scripted in English.
This party didn't differ in lots of ways from a typical birthday party in the US; there was still games, food, decorations, presents, and cake. However there were enough differences to be very interesting and culturally enlightening. I don't think in America we would find very many 20 year old birthday celebrations with salmon paté, capers, and slippers distributed to all the guests. What a lovely party it was, and all our feet stayed nice and warm!
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