The one interesting thing about being unemployed in Paris is that you get a chance to see who else is unemployed and in Paris. The perfect time for observing this in my opinion is in August, when most of the rich, employed and sociably accepted people are on vacation, and the sparsity makes the freaks more apparent. On a mid-August Wednesday afternoon deep in the heart of a large man-made park in the 19th arrondissment, you have the usual suspects. There are the seniors, usually alone, sometimes walking in ways that make every movement look painful. Or they are simply sitting, attempting to do something mentally active like painting with watercolours or doing the crossword. There are also a variety of young brown, perhaps Algerian, men. Some just walking, some lying back with their head on a soccer ball. All of them alone. All of them eyeing up a young blond girl in lululemon leggings. There is the occasional french hipster, eating a plastic wrapped sandwich looking mournfully off into the distance. The mid-50s woman reading something intellectual to pass the time. The beautiful french couple too rich for the need to work. There is of course, the tourists, who are by definition on holiday and not unemployed, and slowly occupy themselves with taking pictures of ducks and, low and behold, Canadian geese. And then there are the crazies. Groups of people, perhaps handicapped, perhaps mentally disturbed, out for their group excursion. Some rest in a group circle. Others sit alone, slowly rolling cigarettes from a bag of tobacco, mumbling to themselves and looking at the pond.
As I pretended to be a runner in the Parc de Buttes-Chaumont I had to wonder where I fit in to this landscape of characters. I have in fact, been living here for 4 months so I was really past the point of being a tourist. I am however, unemployed. I have no income. I am not working. I am not old, or brown, or rich or crazy (or I hope I’m not). But I have enough to get by, and soon will be working again so perhaps I fit into a non-category. As I made my way home, getting lost in the winding streets without my trusty map, I reflected on this. France has one of the highest number of unemployed people in all first world countries. On the average day you will see teams of people in bars and cafés, lounging, doing all but nothing. You see poverty and homelessness in the metro system and under bridges unlike any Toronto girl has seen before. And when you live in the 20th, you see, every week, the people in your quartier lining up for free food at the local church.
And so it was after my big (non) run in the park I had an especially strong hankering for nacho chips. You can’t really find them as easily here as you do in North America, but I knew exactly where to get them. I slipped on my new camel coloured boots, just because they were new, and headed to the grocery store ten minutes away. As I walked down the little street alongside the church I noticed a line up had begun. Mostly women, brown and black, many of them with scarves on their heads, all with their little granny carts for the “alimentation gratuit” that is provided by the church every week. I strutted down the street, because that is all a girl can really do in camel coloured heeled boots, and thought how the cost of my boots could feed their families for more than a week. And as I passed the women who had already gone through the church and were now haggling over their tins, I felt ashamed about my craving for nacho chips.
I knew that I would go in the grocery store, buy my chips, my salsa, my herbed cheese. I would walk home with them in my eco-bag in my leather boots and feast all night. They were unemployed. I was unemployed. And so what was the difference? How did I manage to have the life I have. Being unemployed was a choice for me. But for them there was no choice. It just was.
As I made my way back home, the line was still strong. I saw a north african man take notice of me. I looked away. Two minutes later he had caught up to me. He had left the line to meet me. He told me, in french that he loved my “elegance” and my style, and that he has a store of african clothing and jewelery. Out of breath, he gave me his number and his address, said he would show me some clothing I would love and maybe take me salsa dancing. He was nice, good-looking even. He bowed when he said he was pleased to meet me. It was all too much really. And wouldn’t it be just like me to do the opposite that any sane, employed, responsible girl would do, and call him back.
Post a Comment