Ma Première Émission de Radio

October 2005
St. Girons, France
The Radio Station

During my undergraduate 2005 Fall Semester, I was stationed in Toulouse, France. There were two battalions of study abroad students, drafted from all over the nation. One battalion, comprised of 16 highly capable individuals, was responsible for conducting an extensive individual research project and producing a 40-page paper, which detailed the results of said research upon completion of the semester. My battalion, comprised of 6, was responsible for a less intensive research project, a shorter paper, and improving our passable, intermediate French language skills.

I entered this study abroad experience fully prepared to immerse myself in the exciting cultural and scholastic adventures that waited for me in the well-charted wilds of southern France. The two battalions all flew to Paris on the same flight. As soon as the entire roster of my battalion was drunk on Duty Free liquor, I knew I had to shift my expectations.

Once in France, it rapidly became evident, that while the six of us brought a lot to the table in terms of experiencing cultures different than our own, none of it would look too good on a Fulbright application. After weeks of almost unbearable struggle, our teachers applauded any efforts we made to open our mouths to allow French-like grunts to dribble out. Our teachers were so pleased when we showed up to class, and when we showed up only barely hung-over. We were the B-Squad, and damn proud of it.

It was a big adjustment for all of us. And after many weeks of methodically haunting the same three bars, thereby dubbing ourselves near-native experts of Toulousain night-life, we were all shipped off for two weeks to the remote and rural department of Ariège. Upon arrival to the St. Girons town hall, we were debriefed by several local officials—the St. Girons mayor, the head of tourism, and Gégé.

Gégé, from what we could tell, was the ceremonial king of Ariège. He was old, fat, lame, and blind. He spoke in a brassy tenor, frayed with phlegm and age. And he had the most powerful accent I have ever known a human being to possess. If you are familiar, for example, with Pépé LePew, high school language learning tapes, French movies, or for that matter French people, then you know that the French language, with a Parisian accent, is velvety and elegant. R’s are pronounced with the gentlest flip of the soft palate, hard consonants are cushioned by h’s, and the vowels naturally cause the mouth to prepare for a sensual kiss. Word endings are vaporized and the spaces between words are melted down to form seamless liaisons.

Gégé was not from Paris. He lived his entire life in a rural French village near the foothills of the Pyrenees, where the spicy, sun-choked essence of Spain cannot help but seep through. Gégé’s language strongly reflected this geography. His meaty r’s rolled like those of a Spaniard. Each vowel was pronounced distinctly, with rhythmic care, like an Italian confectioner. And the ends of his words were hammered forth with the unmistakable regional twang known as l’accent du midi. The northern pronunciation of the word for bread (pain), for example, is known to most Francophilic Americans to rhyme with Gauguin. Pain, when pronounced with an accent du midi rhymes with wang.

After our orientation, each of us joined forces with a different local host family who lived in remote, rural villages of the department. My host mother was Claire, a woman in her mid-sixties who, as a young hippy woman, had fled from Paris to live the simple life in the lush, hilly village of Alzen. She was a puppeteer who fashioned her puppets out of bits of foliage, mushrooms, and twigs. She drove an immense white Renault van and was never shy about pulling over to the side of the road to pee in the bushes.

Due to my above average command of French, reasonable work-ethic, and diplomacy with my B-Squad compatriots, I was chosen to be their representative during a special taping of the daily St. Girons radio show. I would be joining Carlos and Laura from the first battalion, superior students and accomplished French scholars. I was extremely honored and was determined to make my second-tier companions proud.

Arrangements were made for Claire to make the hour drive to St. Girons from Alzen so that I could seize my moment of Ariège celebrity. We set out early in the morning, and I filled the van with cheerful, clumsy conversation. I spied a hitchhiker on the side of the road and wondered how hitchhiking in France differed from doing so in the United States. I concentrated very hard on all of the French words I would need to express this for a future conversation I could have with Claire. For me, I would only hitchhike under the direst of circumstances, where it was a question of life and death. Under no circumstances would I ever pick up a hitchhiker. My ex-girlfriend’s uncle went hitchhiking across America when he was around eighteen. He disappeared without a trace.

Claire slowed down and pulled over next to the hitchhiker. He was in his thirties and his dirt-black hair was long and tangled. He jauntily slid in next to me and for the rest of the trip he and Claire had a very spirited conversation about what I think was politics. I tried very hard to dissipate the smell of fear that was slowly seeping from my body, filling the van. After twenty very tense minutes, Claire dropped off our friend and continued on to the radio station. During this time, feigned a casual and improvised conversation about the differences between hitchhiking in the United States and France.

I was the last one to arrive at the station. A radio technician took me to a sound recording booth, which consisted of a bench and a microphone attached to a little tape recorder. They performed a sound check where the technician asked me about my favorite French foods and I excitedly Frenched into the microphone. “Fantastic!” he said. “You’re going to be terrific.” I realized that the “sound check” was to just to make sure I wasn’t retarded.

In the main studio, built like a one-room schoolhouse, Carlos, Laura, and I sat around a large table in front of antiquated microphones. To my right sat Laura and across from me sat Carlos, Gégé, and Gégé’s assistant. This man was bald, mustachioed, and bespectacled, resembling a character from Milton Bradly’s “Guess Who”. I had noticed him at the orientation and figured he was just one of Gégé’s helpers. At the end of the program, it was confided in me that he was an agent with French intelligence. The show went like this:

GÉGÉ

Good Morning, my friends. It is I, Gégé, coming to you live from St. Girons. Today, we have a special treat. Three American students, who have come here to our little community, to learn about what life here is like. Bonjour mes amis!

CARLOS, LAURA, ME

Bonjour

GÉGÉ

Carlos, where are you from?

CARLOS

I’m originally from California.

GÉGÉ

Yes, but where is your family from? What is your ethnic background? You are not from the United States.

CARLOS

Uh, well my father is from the Philippines.

GÉGÉ

And how did he get to California? Did he swim?

CARLOS

No, he came on a boat.

GÉGÉ

So Laura. You are a very pretty young lady.

LAURA

Thank you very much.

GÉGÉ

How much exactly do you weigh?

LAURA

What? I’m sorry, did you just ask me how much I weigh? I don’t really feel comfortable answering that.

GÉGÉ

Pardon me, Laura. It is a rather normal question in French culture.

LAURA

Not for Americans. You cannot ask a woman her weight or her age.

GÉGÉ

Haha, okay. So, monsieur, which are better: British girls or French girls?

ME

I’m going to have to say French girls.

GÉGÉ

What do you like about French girls?

ME

They are very beautiful, romantic, and mysterious.

GÉGÉ

Do you find American girls are this way?

ME

Sometimes. I think Americans and the French are actually very similar. They are both very patriotic, strong, and proud.

GÉGÉ

I don’t know about that! Americans, like Jews, love to pretend that are being threatened them so that they can use force with impunity on anyone they like. Well, I see we are out of time! Please join us tomorrow when we discuss the perils of the wine harvest.

The three of us limped out of the studio with wide eyes. I was filled with a subtle but undeniable sense of violation, as if some ghostly hand had been resting on my genitals for the past hour. We had been successfully reduced to the burlesque versions of Americans especially delicious to the provincial French psyche. While I am very doubtful, that any of my compatriots actually heard the broadcast, I am almost that an archived version of it lives in a dossier somewhere in a French government building in order to gain further insight into the American mind.

Epilogue
At the end of our stay in Ariège, we all gave presentations about mini-research projects we conducted. The most moving and beautiful presentation was done by Carlos on the subject of Love in Rural Communities. After we had all enthusiastically wept and clapped, Gégé decided to put in his two cents:

"You know, in small rural communities such as ours, there is a big problem with inbreeding. Children these days are often born with birth defects or with mental handicaps." The room was silent as Carlos took his seat.