Ay-Rabs and Cowboys

Walter Agnew Moore II, Roving Reporter
23 October 2001, Amiens, Somewhere in Northern France 

After more than two weeks among the Brave and Noble French Nation, I think I have a plan: we give the French people monetary incentives to settle in small groups throughout the world. That way they can help everyone by improving the local trains and cooking, two things that they do fairly well without even trying that hard. And, being in small, groups, they would probably never again be in a position to govern anybody. 

I teach two days a week, which gives me three days to waste navigating the French system. Everything you do in life here is interconnected, and yet there is no real effort to coordinate it. It seems to be assumed that you will just, sort of, wander about, that you have nothing better to do, that, yes, all of that could have been done in one visit to the Prefecture if they'd remembered to tell you some tidbit that they wanted, but wasn't it so much better to spread it out over two weeks? 

Get this: today I was trying to get my "carte de sejour", my work permit, and I had all the paperwork. All was going well... but wouldn't you know it, I didn't have photocopies of my landlord's identity cards! But that's just me, the Bama Wildman, thinking I could pull one over on the clevair Prefecture, haw haw haw. 

But the joke's on them: let them keep their work permit, because at this rate, I don't even think I'll get paid anytime soon. Every other time I fill out some vitally important form for my employer, they loose it. Every other time. 

The bureaucrats here tend to be either nice little ladies with vacant smiles and flickering lightbulb brains, or else posturing Very Important Men who sit in their offices thinking Deep Thoughts and then come out and make pronouncements like they are the Second Coming of Julius Caesar. 

There has been one exception to this trend so far: I'm in an office, and I think I've died and gone to Bandera Texas: a guy who looked like Willie Nelson in a Harley t-shirt sets me up with my national health insurance number, and he does all they paperwork for me, and makes sure I know how it works. I was dumb-founded. I asked him if he'd maybe gotten that Native American bracelet in Texas, and he said no, it was at this Communist Party rally outside Paris. Well how bout that; the first person I meet who is efficient and friendly is a Commie Cowboy. 

He asked me how our insurance system worked in the states, wasn't I covered somehow? "No maaaan, they're all down on th'workin man, y'know?" 

Thank God for the Arabs here. If they weren't here, there would be nobody who understands me. The Arabs smile when they are happy, frown when they are mad, are polite to strangers, and whenever France is in danger they come here and fight for the French and die in their thousands. In short, they are similar to Americans. Naturally, the French despise them. 

I was at the bar last night explaining my bureaucratic woes to Maher, my Tunisian pal, and he couceled me to go raise hell next time. It is expected. In fact, you will be ignored until you do, indeed, act like a big screamy baby. 

I told him to hell with that, I've got more dignity. I'll sooner change the date of my return ticket, go back home, work, and get paid. Those people in those offices know what they should do, and if they don't, let em learn. Maher was persistant: " No, no, be patient, do not leave..." 

Paul the Irish Bartender shouted "Begoorah ye best not fookn go ome and leave me ere all boy meself!" 

There you have it. I'll stay for the people. It sure won't be for the system. Except for one so far: I'll lift a glass of Red Wine to the hope of France, the Commie Cowboy.