Namur

One of our profs here, Philippe, is from this town in the southern half of Belgium called Namur. Namur's about 2 train stops from Ottignies, the "big" gare (train station) 6 minutes from Louvain-la-Neuve. Pretty much if you want to go anywhere from Louvain-la-Neuve, you hop a train to Ottignies (it's probably a 6 minute ride) and switch at the station there. It's slightly smaller than North Charleston, and has a river and a citadel. As a treat, Philippe took us to his hometown and showed us around, because he's such an awesome guy! Prepare yourself for a bajillion pictures.

This is a part of the Citadel. I have no idea which part exactly it is, but it's part of it, hahaha. We had to climb a bajillion steps up a mountain to get there, so by the time we arrived at the top I was way too out of breath to pay attention to those kinds of things.


The city of Namur, as seen from on the Citadel. Chouette, isn't it? (that's French for "cool")

We also visited the citadel perfumerie. Why is there a perfumerie in a citadel, you ask? I'll tell you. The guy who started the perfumerie needed a place to keep his fragrances cold while they were in production. It gets really expensive to rent out industrial freezers, so why not just buy a space in the side of a mountain that's pretty much the equivalent of a wine cellar? Smart guy. That's Mike and Eliana, by the way. It looks like a warm, gorgeous day outside, but it was actually a freezing gorgeous day.

Nick, Karen and I had lunch at a little café in the town square while everyone else was lame and went to Pizza Hut. This is Karen here with her orvalette, a traditional Belgian dish. Orvalette is pretty much the same thing as tartiflette (a traditional French dish with potatoes and cheesy sauce), only they also put in BEER GRAVY. Needless to say, I ended up eating half of Karen's plate.

This is St. Aubin's Cathedral, a giant baroque church that WE DIDN'T GET TO GO IN. Do you know how sad my heart was? Y'all know how I love churches.

And here is Nick, sitting in the King of Fools' throne. Karen explained to us the deal about the king of fools: they crown a new one every year at some festival, and that's his throne. On the back of the seat of the king of fools is a statue of this guy Nicolas Bosret. Coincidence? I think not.

Namur is cool. It's quiet, it's cozy, it's got good food. What's not to love?

The African-American Experience

Hey guys! Long time, no post, I know, but I've been busy conquering Europe. Sorry! Really though, I haven't even been keeping up with my journal. I am slack. Really I've just been saving up to talk about a specific event.

Philippe, one of my teachers, who is pretty down as far as Europeans go (I've mentioned this before), invited me to as a special guest to one of his classes. It's an English class on American history, and right now they're talking about "The African-American Experience" (hence the title of this entry). As I am probably the only African-American who has ever been through Louvain-la-Neuve, he asked me to come help him out with the class.

Have I ever mentioned how awesome being the only Black chick for miles (exaggeration) is when it makes me a hot intellectual commodity? Oh? I haven't? Well it's awesome. I should patent myself.

Anyway, this was a series of 2 classes, and the first one was last Friday at 8:30 AM. I know. Already off to a bad start, right? We talked about slavery mostly, and segregation. We made it all the way up to the 1950s, and stopped right at the Civil Rights movement. We talked about Negro spirituals, songs that were sang in the field, the Black church, house slaves vs. field slaves; we even got into the colorism a little bit (colorism is just a fancy word for valuing one complexion over another), and Thomas Jefferson and all his illegitimate slave babies. The reference to TJ cracked me up; for some reason I find him really hilarious, and it didn't help that Philippe already knew why I was laughing.

THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT JIM CROW LAWS ARE IN EUROPE. When no one knew what Jim Crow laws were, I kind of bugged on the inside. Then Philippe and I taught them, and now Europe is a more educated place. On day 2, we talked about the Civil Rights movement all the way up to Obama. They wanted to know my stance on Obama, the healthcare proposal, and the tea party. When we talked about certain things, I got to tell fun family stories. Here's an example: when we got to the part in the I Have A Dream speech where it says, to be brief, that Black people are living on an impoverished island in a sea of prosperity, I told the story about Sick Granddaddy where he put his own gas tank in the yard when no one in Clinton would sell him any. We talked about passing for white, and why the blues was called the Devil's music, and The Great Migration.

Philippe asked me how I managed not to hate white people (really, he did) considering all the dirty stuff that went down between my people and, well, them, and I just shrugged, and told him that no one I knew had ever enslaved anyone, or taken their rights, or lynched anyone, etc. (I did, however, also mention that there are certain movies that I cannot watch because they make me hate all white people for at least a week. Mississippi Burning is one of them) He also asked me if, growing up, I was afraid of white people, to which I again answered no. I wasn't raised like that. And what's there to be afraid of, anyway? Have you met me lately? 2 words: ill-tempered hoodlum. 4 more words: prone to violent outbursts. That answers that, simple and plain.

I talked to two guys Friday after the class, because one asked me how I felt about Obama's relationship with the Middle East and Africa, and how he always seems to have encouraging/positive words for them. He compared Obama's messages to the region to Bush's fear mongering, and I said, "It's easy to create that fear--we don't learn about Africa or the Middle East in school, and the region has been demonized to us." (don't play like it's not true) They both sort of gave me the "...you're joking." face (I'm not kidding; they both went completely flat), to which I said, "Twelve years of public school and I've never learned about Africa."

That is not entirely true. As a child, I learned that Africa is where slaves come from, and in 10th grade we spent a week on the 5 great kingdoms of Africa.

Long story short, they couldn't believe it. They didn't understand how the educational system could skip an entire continent--2, really, because all I know about Asia is the silk road went to China and World War II. I don't get it either.

Truthfully, I agreed to come to the class to see how a Belgian viewed my history, and I was impressed. He knows his stuff, that Philippe, even though I think me being there made him a little nervous. It made me feel important that he even asked me to come, and I felt even better when one of the girls said to me that she thought that it was really cool that I came to speak to the class. I like to feel appreciated.

All in all, it was worth getting up at 8 AM on a Friday morning for.

Rawrawrawr

Thursday in class, I had what I call a "slave rant". "Slave rants" are what happen when I need to rail on someone about how unfair society in general has been to black people. They happen completely spontaneously, and I have absolutely no control over what comes out of my mouth during one.

Anyway, we were in Philippe's class (French Civilization), discussing the differences between English and French like subtle nuances, different ways to say things, etc., when somehow we got on the topic of whether or not it's better to embrace everyone's culture or keep your own under a chastity belt. I made a face (completely on accident) when someone said to embrace everyone else's, Philippe saw me, and asked me my thoughts on the matter.

I told him that I think it's better to keep your own. That is not to say, I added, that you shouldn't learn about other people, but you need to keep what's yours. I kept going, saying that maybe people would disagree, but I was speaking from the perspective of a black American: my people's culture was forcibly taken from them.

I then went on a 2 minute rant about how because of this, I know nothing about myself, really: I don't know where my people come from, I don't know what language we would have spoken, what food we would have eaten; I have nothing that, by divine right, is mine and that I can rightly call my own. There's "American culture", sure, but at the end of the day, is there even such a thing? I don't think so. That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

Not even gonna lie, afterwards I was very impressed that I did all of this in French and didn't mince words too badly.

Now, Philippe's pretty "down" as far as Europeans go. He used to live in Louisiana, he knows what gullah means, that sort of thing. Turns out he's doing a class in a couple of weeks on the African-American experience, and invited me to come. It should be interesting; I'll let you know how it goes.

Philippe also told me that my French is very good and seems effortless. Just thought I'd throw that in. Really though, it's nice to get compliments on it because I think my French is awful. :]

First week of serious business!

Classes have started! Schedules are mad confusing, and everything conflicts but I'm slowly wading through this. I made a chart on Excel to map out all the overlaps, and if only I could figure out one last class I'll be all done! It's exciting. I like making lists.

I had my first Japanese class in Belgium yesterday. Not gonna lie, I was terrified about it. Here I am, with my English speaking self, taking a Japanese class at a French university. How many things in that sentence don't match? What am I thinking? Look at my life; look at my choices.

Turns out it wasn't so bad! We mostly watched a series about a guy named Yan who likes this girl Okata, but Okata has OBVIOUSLY friend-zoned him and is moving to the country with her parents anyway. Sucks to be that dude. In class I met 2 girls: Amélie (like the movie!) and Bathilde. Maybe one day I'll make Belgian friends? Fingers crossed!

This story I'm about to tell is proof that I can make just about anything a political statement and/or a lesson Black People (it should honestly be class). Today, we had Modern French Civilization with Philippe, who is the lovely, whimsical Belgian man that helps run our program. He wanted to spend some time getting to know us, and I don't rightly remember how exactly this exercise was relevant to the class (it was though), but he went around the room asking everyone where their families were from (historically).

Now I know what y'all are thinking. How am I supposed to answer that question without doing 1 or a combination of the following:
1: looking totally lame and going "America" since I can't rightly break down what countries my ancestors came from because of that whole slave thing
2: going off on a rant that would go something like, "What the heck kinda question is that my people were SOLD and no one kept records RAWRAWRAWR!"
3: just going, "Africa." and give everyone the gimp eye
4: just going, "I'm Black." and being done with it.

All those options ran through my head. I have no idea what country my people came from for obvious reasons. This has always worked my nerves, so to speak, because I've always been really interested in genealogy and that sort of thing. Everyone I've ever known can go, "Oh, my family is -insert 10 countries/nationalities here-" and I can't and I hate it. Fortunately, I recently learned a bit about my family history and was at the end of the line, so by the time Philippe got to me, I had formulated a proper response.

Philippe: Et toi, Alyssa? (And you, Alyssa?)
Me: Ma famille vient des pays africains, et de l'Allemagne, et j'suis amérindienne aussi. (My family comes from African countries, and Germany, and I'm American Indian as well.)

He made the greatest face at me. Philippe always makes REALLY great faces; he's very expressive. This one was sort of like a kid that's found a really fascinating toy. Anyhow, he makes this great face at me, and then says,
Philippe: Tu est comme Tiger Woods! (You're like Tiger Woods!)

I laughed on the inside. Seriously I did. Never made that comparison before, but I guess it works.

Who wins at being fascinating? I do.

Yes, that picture was necessary.

Happy Black History Month!

Classes!

Yesterday I finally got off my bum and emailed Peebles about the classes I need to take next semester at UCL. There's this tricky little rule (i.e., the reason why I'll be graduating in May instead of December) (yes I'm bitter about this) where students doing the French Language Immersion Program (which will henceforth be known as FLIP because I'm lazy) have to take a crash/immersion course where you pretty much sit around and speak French for 3 hours for the first few days in Belgium, 9 hours of French courses (3 classes) and may take 3-6 hours of classes in other departments (2 classes) in order to remain full time students. This is what I'll be taking:

French 312 -- Writing in French I
French 317 -- Contemporary French/Francophone Civilization
French 398 -- Intermediate Oral Practice
Marketing 427 -- International Marketing
English 316 -- Writing & International Trade

I'll be doing 398 twice, because it's also the crash course all of us have to do at the beginning of the semester. Fr317 is only offered to the Clemson students, so I'll have that with the kids in my program (and I think Dr. Denis, one of the chairs of this program from Belgium, teaches it). Everything else? I get to mingle with foreign kids! :D

I'm only taking Eng316 at the insistence of Touya, my academic adviser, who I am loathe to listen to anyway because he neglected to mention that study abroad will put me behind graduating in the first place ('cause you know...that's only his JOB), and then proceeded to tell me (after I reamed him for it), "Well, sometimes, staying a little longer can be good." Do you wanna pay my tuition? No? Then sit down, shut up and GO HOME. Ugh. I am seriously about to pay for a whole semester + some change to eat chocolate, get fat, drink beer, and meander around Europe for 6 months. How about I just take a semester off and wander anyway? It'll be CHEAPER.

I think we'll end this on that positive note, hahaha