What makes you a feel like a local or a real citizen of your town, village or suburb? For me I felt like a tourist in our second home in France, rather than a real homeowner and local, for nearly five years and it was the smallest event that suddenly made me feel like I belonged.
The Day I Became A True French Villager
Being an expat can fill your daily life with wonder and amazement and also consternation as you try and figure out how everything works around you in your foreign environment or new country.
For some people fitting in seamlessly and appearing to have always belonged to their new life looks easy and for others it takes time and the inevitable faux pas and awkward moments before a sense of belonging is enjoyed. The aha moment of belonging caught me unaware and it was the simplest of things that caused it.
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Recycling in France
Recycling in France is taken very seriously and for the first few years we visited France we honestly didn’t known all the rules. Looking back on it, we bagged green waste and placed it in the landfill bin ... a big No No. We bagged and placed small gardening and building materials in the landfill bin ... a big No No. Thank goodness we never got caught and fined. We did however get it right that all non recyclable waste must, this is serious, must go into black bags. These we found and used easily enough.
We did however recycle our paper and cardboard, glass tins and hard plastics. Everyone seemed to use see-through yellow plastic bags for their recycle rubbish but I could never find the right bags at either the Carrefour or E.Leclerc supermarchés (supermarkets). There was every other colour, size and variation, but never the see-through yellow bags that overflowed every village collection point. I figured that maybe these popular bags sold out first at the supermarket, and so I kept purchasing the vivid frog green, citrus yellow or rosy pink bags for our garbage. Our garbage always added a pop of colour to the village's communal collection bins.
It was by chance one day that I noticed my friend Chris pull out a roll of the recycle bags from her utility kitchen draw and I asked her where she got hers. She laughed and asked "wasn't I getting mine from the Maire". What! What was that! She went on to explain that these were provided free of charge to all residents on proof of home address. You just needed to go to your local town hall or Mairie and record your details including the date to get your bags. There was a yearly limit so you had to record how many rolls of bags you took each time. I honestly couldn't believe it. It had been that easy all along.
Doing the Official Paperwork
So the next day I walked to my Mairie (local town hall) and presented myself to the administration clerk. We are the odd family out in our commune, being the only resident Australians for miles around, so no ID was required - she knew full-well who we were, and a substantial amount of other information about us also! I had been prepared and taken copies of my most recent Saur water bill and Societe Generale bank statement for identification, but as these were not needed, I promptly returned them to my jacket pocket.
As I wrote my name and date on the official recycle bag register, my aha moment of truly belonging to my little village community struck me. Never again would my Coke cans, Le Petit Écolier biscuit boxes or Oui Yoplait jars go in frog green or rosy pink bags ... they would blend right in with all the other garbage in their homely yellow see-through bags.
I had made it - I was a true French villager and it felt wonderful!
