Pacing Life

One of the biggest adjustments Americans have to make when living in France is that of pacing. Even after nine months here, we must remind ourselves that almost everything will be closed from noon until around 2 or later and all day on Sunday. We work furiously on the four days of the week when the children are in school (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday) from 9:20-5:00 p.m., and we expect that a special meal like the annual hunter’s luncheon (wild boar and four or five other courses) in the village will last at least three or four hours (not counting the two-hour nap one needs to recover from the meal). To accomplish even the simplest tasks (closing a bank account; getting school-bus passes for the children; the H1N1 vaccination), we have learned to schedule in delays. Offices and businesses are often closed with no explanation, and several of the many holidays on the French calendar “float,” meaning that the actual date is often not scheduled until the last minute. The relationship to time is simply different in French culture. And, after nearly a year, I have become convinced that the French have got it right. It is healthy and sane to slow down, to change priorities; it is, quite simply, more civilized.

Eating is, of course, the prime example. Almost everything in France (except restaurants) really does close down from noon until 2 for a good long lunch. And two hours is really not so long at all for most people. The shortest lunch “out” I had in France was when I visited the local college (the school for kids aged 11 to 14, equivalent to a U.S. middle school). The teachers (and students) only had about an hour to eat, but even there, not a single person had a piece of paper, book or pen at the table. Lunch required conversation, relaxation, a time separated from work and studies. These were not “working lunches”; these were social opportunities. On the day of a recent snowstorm (unprecedented) in May, our friends went to the village of St. Andre to the very popular Bistro de Pays for lunch. As they arrived and sat, the power went out, as all over the region the heavy snow weighed down fragile branches already in full leaf. The restaurant staff scurry around in candlelight, cooking on gas, serving a full house of diners, when Voila! a half-dozen workmen from the EDF (Electricité de France) appear in the entry. All heads turn. And the EDF workmen sit down at a table and order their wine and lunches, which will last until 2, despite the urgent need for their services outdoors. Only the foreigners found this surprising, of course. For the French it makes perfect sense: lunch—and life—before work!

In 2000, the French passed legislation mandating a 35-hour work week. The goal then was to lower unemployment, and, with most people working four days instead of five, reduced commuter traffic and office heat and electricity use have also benefited the environment. Studies in years following the shift showed no significant reduction in productivity despite the reduction in work hours. In a 2008 study, the Romney Institute of Management at Brigham Young University found that a four-day work-week (and this was a study of a 40-hour work-week/four 10-hour days) increased job satisfaction and productivity. The French can begin collecting retirement benefits at age 60, and virtually everyone retires before age 65, many as early as 50. In the United States, 5% of people over 70 are still employed. I expect that I’ll be one of those people who can’t afford to retire; most of my generation in the U.S. understands now that Social Security will run out before we’re eligible. And what about vacation time? Every French worker, from the minute he or she starts the job, is guaranteed at least five weeks of paid vacation a year. In the U.S., we consider ourselves lucky to get two weeks off in a year, and it’s well-documented that many U.S. workers don’t even use all of their allotted vacation time, most because they’re afraid they’ll lose their jobs or simply fall farther behind. In an average year an American will work 1777 hours and a Frenchman will work 1346 (OECD in Figures, 2004, OECD, Paris). What would you do with another 400 or so hours (that’s about sixteen 24-hour days, a month of waking hours!) in a year? For the French, the answer is easy. Spend time in leisure activities. Spend time with family and friends. Spend time eating, reading, and socializing.

The fact is that it is simply healthier to slow down. France has one of the longest life span expectancies: currently 80.98 years, 9th highest in the world. Life expectancy in the US is now 78.11 years; 50th in the world (CIA World Factbook 2009). No one has yet satisfactorily explained the so-called “French paradox,” which is the fact that the French have one of the lowest rates of chronic heart disease in the world despite a diet high in cholesterol, fat, carbohydrates, salt, and alcohol, and more smokers than in many countries. I’d suggest that it might have something to do with the pace of life. A slow meal is a better meal. A life with more time for living and less time working is a better life. After almost a year in France, a life that emphasizes the joy of living (joie de vivre) rather than making more money or having more things than the next person seems to me a key to a longer, healthier and happier life.

As we prepare to return to the U.S., Susan (my partner) has suggested that I make a sign for my office door: “I’ve been to France on sabbatical; this office will be closed from noon until 2 every day!”

It won’t work, of course. American culture is not French culture. If it is only one college professor refusing to work during a long lunch, no one will accept it. Students will bang on my door. Colleagues will schedule lunch meetings. I will be seen as a “slacker.” In France, the whole country (except restaurants, which are only open for lunch) shuts down for all of Sunday and two hours at every lunchtime. Paris closes for all of August. You learn to accept it because everyone else does. There’s no fighting it. And it doesn’t take long to learn to love it. A leisurely meal of three courses with wine and a coffee afterwards is just about right to move into the long afternoon and evening shift. Remember, the French usually work later, so that long lunch makes sense. The French are not lazy; they’re just relaxed. They are simply placing the emphasis where it belongs: living before working.

I know I have been very lucky to have this year off from teaching and university responsibilities. I will admit that the promise of occasional sabbaticals was one of the reasons a position as a professor appealed to me. A writer needs time to write—a reality that is hard to justify on a grant proposal to academic-type folks. Yes, I do research, and this year in France has been very productive in that way too, but it’s mostly the time to write, to sit at a desk and type out the words in my head (which is work, I might add, a bit defensively), that I needed. I’ve worked hard this year. I’ve finished a novel and a collection of short stories, and I’ve started another novel and this collection of personal essays on the blog. A sabbatical is no more a “vacation” than summers off from teaching, at least not for me; as they say, a writer writes. And teaching time (with comments for sixty or a hundred essays, stories, journal, etc. a week, plus consulting with students) is not very conducive to writing time, especially if one actually wants some living time of the French version (family, friends, leisure activities) as well. I know I’m lucky to have been able to be away from interruptions and responsibilities to focus on my writing work. And it’s not that I dislike my work; indeed, I love both teaching and writing. But the reason I love both is that they connect me to other people, and how much better it is to make those human contacts outside of the work context. The unexpected benefit of this year abroad, I now see, is that I have also learned to understand work in another way. I understand that work—including both the writing work and the teaching and university work—is secondary to the rest of living. What I wish, as I return to the U.S., is that I could change my culture, that I could bring home a new attitude for my compatriots: we should all learn to place living rather than working at the top of our lists of priorities.

Sacrifices have to be made, of course, when a culture or one person makes joie de vivre more important than work. In France, customer service is generally lousy, especially when you want something at 11:45 in the morning. Lunch, after all, is near. No need to start a transaction you won’t have time to finish. The other day we were hustled out of the supermarket at noon on a Wednesday, and no one cared how much we had planned to spend. In the caisse (line) at the supermarket, everyone is greeted by and greets the cashier, often chatting and even—if known to each other—exchanging les bises and gossip. There are few “express” lanes and it’s rare that another register will be opened up if lines are long. The French are accustomed to waiting. Each customer takes his or her time, fumbling with money or writing out a check in careful script, and bagging his or her own groceries. No one complains or gets huffy. The social relationship supersedes the financial one. No one expects to meet a deadline or buy gas or get a liter of milk on a Sunday; Sunday is family time, leisure time, time off for life. On the other hand, if an American worker decides to close her office for an hour or two at lunchtime, well, she must not be very serious about her work. If he takes a vacation with his family instead of working to meet the deadline, he must not much want to get ahead. Do we really need to be able to buy food (or anything else) 24/7 (a term that I’m not sure even exists in France)? Is it really more important to accomplish work tasks during lunch than to have a real discussion with other humans?

In France, we learned early on, it’s not polite to even ask another person what they do for a living! In America, it’s the almost always the first question we ask in a social situation. Here, work is simply not to be mixed with real living. Truly, what does it say about us that our economic status or job title is assumed to be the most important identifier of our person? It’s a subtle but huge difference in cultures. Not being able to say what it is that you do for a living, or to ask the other person what they do, changes the dynamics of any conversation and any new relationship. It forces you to connect on other—non-economic—terms.

As I think about returning to the U.S., I’m trying to think about ways to keep this year’s lessons alive in my life. I’m not sure it is possible to make so huge a shift to a slower pace within the American context, but I aim to try in my own little way. I think my mental and physical health, and the relationships I’ve grown with my family this year, are worth it. I’d also like to think that by avoiding shopping on Sundays, for instance, to devote more time to social and family activities, we’ll make a small step toward freeing up more time for the families of others—all those store clerks and cashiers—in our culture. By taking time to simply say hello in the check-out line, perhaps we’ll change the emphasis in the transaction from economic to interpersonal. And maybe by taking a little time out to eat slowly and converse—and refusing to take our work home—we’ll all live a little longer and happier.

One of our American friends who now lives in France told us about her return to Nice—a big city, not “slow” at all, except in the French way—after a month of visiting family and friends back in the States. “I found myself rushing down the sidewalk, passing everyone as fast as I could,” she said, “even though I was just going to the market, nowhere very important.” She realized then just how fast American life makes us all. We hurry everywhere. We hurry to work, to home, to the kids’ soccer games, to the store, to school, to the next thing and the next thing, packing in as much as we can. I guess what I’ve discovered here in France is not very much is as urgent than it seems in the U.S. and that the really important parts of life—families, friends, other humans—need to take priority over the economic parts of life. We’ve lived on nearly nothing this year (a sabbatical means partial salary, and only one income for us), but we’ve lived very well indeed. We’ve certainly lived healthier and happier. For me, a pace-of-life adjustment means a slower pace. We’ll get to the grocery store tomorrow. Work that needs doing will get done, but not at the expense of my health and relationships. Life—all eighty years, more-or-less—need living, and that means living with joy.

Health Care, Part 2: The Fickle Finger of Fate

On a rainy Sunday in late March, I open the refrigerator door and a jar of applesauce falls out and breaks on the tile floor. “Drat.” I clean it up, dump the broken glass into the garbage, and continue on about my cleaning of the kitchen and our tower apartment. An hour later—applesauce forgotten, I open the garbage can to empty a dustpan full of dog hair, dirt and dust swept from the floor. The garbage bag is nearly full, so I put my hand on top of the garbage to smush it down… and slice my right index finger open behind the second knuckle on the broken applesauce jar.

“Drat!” My hand under cold running water, I call Susan to help. The finger keeps bleeding. We wrap it in a clean paper towel, and I sit at the table while Susan runs downstairs to get Rosie for a second opinion. Rosie and Susan agree that it might need a stitch or two, and so the kids pack up some toys and snacks for the waiting room, and we head off to Rangueil, about forty minutes away on the outskirts of Toulouse, to the emergency room. The hospital itself is easy to find—atop a hill above a large city park and recreation area—but the emergency room is mysteriously hidden, with the parking some distance away once we find it. Through a maze of dim and empty hallways—me with my finger still wrapped in the paper towel, feeling a little queasy, and James and Izzy disgusted that they have to sacrifice a day off from school for a trip to the hospital waiting room—we wind our way to the E.R., where we stand in line in a room about the size of a small living room, surrounded by a half-dozen gurneys on which lie clearly sicker folk than I.

I feel a little ridiculous. The ambulance drivers glance curiously at us, and the desk clerk ignores us for a long time. It’s a Sunday, remember. A number of senior citizens seem to be sleeping on their stretchers, a girl hobbles in with a Sunday sports injury, the medics wheel in a young man who appears to have been in an auto accident. We send the kids into the adjacent waiting room, and stand behind the red line, Susan to act as my interpreter.

After about five minutes, the clerk summons us to the desk, where Susan explains my injury and our status as Americans abroad. I unwrap my finger and bleed a little on the ER floor. He explains that we will have to pay for the visit, and that the consult will cost at least €100. “Fine, fine,” we say. We’re here; we might as well have someone look at it, though I do have half a mind to forget it and go home. The desk clerk makes copies of my insurance card and passport, and gives Susan a form to complete, after which we are directed to wait. One of the kids needs to go to the potty, so Susan takes both of them off to find a restroom and the snack bar we passed on the way in. A half-hour later, a nurse or aide comes and takes me into a consulting room, where I explain again what happened. She is very nice, but she doesn’t speak much English, and, of course, my French is terrible. She tells me to wait and returns in a few minutes with another nurse, who speaks English well. They look at my finger on an examining table, soon joined by a young man who tells me that he is a medical student in his fourth year. His English is good, and he and the nurse clean the wound carefully, look into it, and wrap it lightly in gauze. A supervising doctor will be in soon, they say. Other patients are brought into the room—a young man with a gash on his head, a woman in athletic shorts with a hurt ankle. Each is treated by a rotating group of nurses and medical students and residents. I’ve been at the hospital for about two hours now, and I haven’t seen Susan and the kids for an hour. I wonder at how they are getting on. I’m still thinking that eventually someone will just put a stitch or two into my finger, give me a bill and send me on my way. I feel like a dope for not being able to speak French. A woman doctor returns with the medical student, unwraps my finger and opens the wound a little to look inside. She frowns, shows something to the student, and then tells me—in English—that the tendon might be damaged. A surgeon will need to see it. My medical student escorts me to be x-rayed to make sure there’s no glass in the wound. I add another hundred Euros to the bill in my head. I am returned to my table in the examining room where I sit and try to understand the French conversation between the guy with the gash in his head and the young woman who is stitching it up. Fifteen minutes later, the med student, the woman resident and a nurse return with the surgeon, a nice officious man of about forty-five, who takes a quick look at my finger and tells me that they will need to cut it open and fix the tendon.

There’s no consultation with me—the patient—no questions, no second opinions, no hesitations. This is what needs to be done, and I shall take his word for it and follow directions. They ask me when and what I last ate. A Diet Pepsi in the waiting room, nothing else since breakfast, pancakes. It’s now about three o’clock. Have I ever had surgery before? Tonsillectomy when I was twelve—the only night in my life I’ve spent in a hospital—and colonoscopy (as an outpatient) last summer. Have I any allergies? Any problems with anesthesia? Is there someone here with me?

Susan and the kids come in. Izzy and James are crying, worried now, and Susan’s eyes are wide and amazed, which is basically how I feel. For goodness sake, it’s just a little cut on my finger from a broken jar of applesauce!

The nurses have told Susan that it’s unlikely that I’ll be released until morning and that she should go home. I put on a brave face for the kids, laugh and say, “I’ll be fine! It’s nothing. They’ll take good care of me here, and I’ll be fine. Nothing to worry about. They just need to fix my finger,” I tell the kids. “I’ll be home tomorrow, no problem.”

I kiss each of the three goodbye and send them on their way, despite Susan’s worries. “I feel like I’m abandoning you here,” she says. I ask her to write our telephone number on my hand, since all my clothes and belongings have, by this time, been taken away. There’s nothing else to be done. The kids need to get home. The surgeon will be waiting in the O.R. I’m alone with almost no language skills in a French hospital, about to go under the knife! I can’t believe it.

Suffice to say that it was, indeed, all fine. I was wheeled through the endless dim hallways in the weekend-empty hospital to the orthopedics wing, where the anesthesiologist and O.R. nurses—one of whom spoke English—asked me all the same questions again and prepped me for the surgery. They all sympathized about the stupidity of the injury—accidents happen to everyone. Clearly, they thought, any of them might have forgotten the broken jar and tried to smush the garbage down as I had.

It was decided that I would not have a general anesthesia because of the Diet Pepsi, but they gave me something to relax me and then numbed my right arm from the shoulder down. We chatted about why I was in France, my job as a writer—and the necessity of being able to move the index finger to type—and the book on which I was working. Eventually I zoned out, and the surgeon arrived and set to work on the lump of lead behind the drape that was my arm and injured finger. I tried not to think about the cutting, tried not to listen, and eventually heard, “Voila!” from the surgeon.

Soon thereafter, he left me to the care of the nurses, who sent me on to the recovery room, and then, after I was more awake, on to a room, where a kind and funny English-speaking fellow took down all my details and called Susan on his cell phone, using the inked number on my palm. I assured her and the kids that I was just fine and told Susan to just come in the morning after she’d dropped the kids at school.

So I’ve experienced French health care from the inside now. The hospital—like any city hospital—was a little frayed at the edges, but clean and relatively efficient. The quality of the staff was excellent. Every nurse and aide I met—from the gurney-pusher to the food-service staff to the O.R. nurses to the night nurses and nurses’ aides—were intelligent, kind and friendly. Everyone went out of his or her way to find a way to communicate with me. I genuinely felt safe in their hands in what might have been a terrifying situation.

I never saw a doctor after the surgeon’s Voila! in the O.R. It’s clear that doctors have a kind of authority in France that is different from their authority in the U.S. Maybe it’s a kind of trust for their expertise, or maybe it’s just a more traditional patriarchal attitude toward medical authority. Part of me wonders if this is partially the result of having the element of expense and payment removed from the equation? Do we Americans demand more options, more information, and more control in a situation such as mine because we suspect that the doctor might be padding his paycheck with an unnecessary surgery? Do the French, on the other hand, assume more readily that the medical professional is their employee, paid with their tax dollars to attend to their well-being with nothing to gain from giving different care? It’s an interesting question, and one for which I have no answer.

In the morning, I was released with a prescription for pain-killers and a wound-care kit, and extensive instructions for the visiting nurses. Visiting nurses? we asked. What a concept. These wonderful women came to the chateau every other day for two weeks to clean my wound and change the bandage. I had an appointment for follow-up with the doctor, but as it quickly became clear that United Healthcare—my U.S. insurance company, who had sworn they would cover all emergency care abroad after the deductible—were going to make it as difficult as possible for me to collect on my claim, we decided that I could wait until I returned to the States. The hospital bill came to €1600, about $2000 at the current exchange rate, the prescriptions to about $80, and the visiting nurses to about $100. Had we been French, of course, all of this would have been covered. As it is, United Healthcare “might” reimburse me for about a third of the cost three or four months from now, and we are surely going to have to spend a lot of time fighting them for it. The bill itself, for instance, must be translated from French into English by “expert translators” at our insurance company, an expense that we will, no doubt, have to foot ourselves.

And my finger? It works fine. It bends most of the way at both knuckles, though it seems a little stiff. It occasionally gets sore after I’ve been working with my right hand (hammering, gardening, etc.). And, as one of the nurses pointed out, I’ve also got an excellent mark-of-Zorro scar.

Accidents happen: anyone can cut a finger on a broken jar of applesauce on any rainy Sunday morning. In the U.S., the emergency surgery to repair it will likely depend, in part, on your ability to pay. After all, do you really need to bend your index finger if you’re not a concert pianist? In the old comedy sketch on Rowen and Martin‘s Laugh-In, the “fickle finger of fate” was awarded to government boondoggles or famous people for dubious achievements. This year, I win the literal fickle finger of fate, but the winner of the prize should be those U.S. politicians determined to let insurance companies control the debate over whether that index-finger surgery is really necessary regardless of your ability to pay.

La Grippe

It’s a much better word for the flu, isn’t it? La grippe. Spooky. Dangerous. Exotic. Something that grabs you and holds you tight, maybe never lets you go. In this year of pandemic panic, we crazily took off with two small children for a year abroad. We left Vermont in October, just before the H1N1 “swine flu” vaccine became available in the U.S., just as the whole health care reform debate got into full swing, and traveled to that most dangerous of foreign lands: France. When Susan talked to the pediatrician before we left, he teased her, saying, “Oh, you’re not just afraid of germs; you’re afraid of International Germs!” France, according to the World Health Organization, has the best health care system in the world. Universal coverage. Great research facilities. Doctors who even make house-calls. As the U.S. Congress debates how to improve or fix the American health care system, we have had the opportunity to observe, first-hand, a different—and maybe better—way of taking care of the health of a nation. Our experience in the shadow of la grippe seems instructive, not only in the basics of so-called socialized medicine but also as an insight into the ways the French—and, by contrast, the Americans—see health and government and medicine in general.

Before we left the States, we did everything we could to be vaccinated against the H1N1 virus. We did get the regular seasonal flu shot, but the vaccine for H1N1 was not yet available before our departure date. Not only did we call our doctor but I went on the Internet as late as the day before we left Vermont to search for places to get the shots. James, our six-year-old son, often develops breathing difficulties at the end of a bout with the common cold or a flu, twice requiring Albuterol treatments. He’s prone to bronchitis and pneumonia. With all the reports we read about the H1N1 being especially hard on children like James, we thought that his risk factor was high. Alas, no vaccine was available. We decided we’d probably be able to find a way to get it in France. At that time, Europe had had only spotty outbreaks of the virus. Vaccinations weren’t really even a priority for most people.

We arrived in October to gorgeous, summer-like weather. Paris was blazing hot. Our friends there, who are doctors, met us at the airport with la bise—the traditional French greeting of kisses on both cheeks—all around. We asked them about the H1N1 pandemic. The government had not yet outlined the plan for vaccination, they said. In fact, they would attend a required meeting in Paris that night for general practitioners (les generalists). They acknowledged that doctors were concerned. But the vaccines were being made in France. It will be fine, they said. There will be plenty of vaccines. Not to worry. It’s not really here yet anyway, they assure us. And so we visit the Eiffel Tower, hand-sanitizing at every turn, and boarded the train south to Toulouse and Saint Araille.

After we settle into our long-term lodgings in the château, we ask our hosts, Pete and Rosie, who are preparing to go to Australia, if they have had any word about the H1N1 vaccine. They laugh. “Is that the swine flu?” they ask. I tell them about how serious it seems in the U.S., about the college freshman from Boston who went off to school and died within a couple of weeks. I explain that we are concerned about James’ lungs. Rosie says that with the regular vaccine one might get it at the pharmacy oneself and have a visiting nurse inject it, or even inject it oneself at home. She assumes it will be the same with the swine flu “jab.” But the pharmacist has no information. We ring Rosie and Pete’s (and soon to be our) doctor, Doctor T. He seems rather cranky about our questions. He explains that les generalistes will have nothing to do with the vaccines, that they will all be administered at newly created “vaccination centers.” We Google “H1N1 vaccine France” nearly every day for updates. The news reports that la bise is no longer recommended by the government, a hotly debated political topic, but everywhere we go, this is still the greeting. In early October, the government rolls out its vaccination plan: everyone will be able to get the shot from an official centre de vaccination in turns in order of risk. The French health care system, the Ministère de la Santé, will mail a letter—a bon—to every citizen in France with his or her place of vaccination and the date when he or she can receive the vaccine. No one will be required to get the vaccine, it is assured, but everyone in the whole country can be vaccinated before the end of January.

In France, everyone is covered by health care centralized in the government social security (Securite Sociale). The medical card each citizen carries is imbedded with a microchip that records all medical history centrally. Since the French decided that the H1N1 vaccine for children should be given in two doses, both of which should come from the same “batch,” this centralized system would not only assure that the vaccine was distributed according to relative risk (rather than to Wall Street bankers or professional hockey teams) but that both doses came from the same batch. General practitioners would be free to care for the sick rather than swamped with vaccination requests. The government revealed a complex, stratified plan that provided the vaccine to health care workers first, in October, and thereafter to pregnant women, children three and under, and to those with chronic conditions that placed them at a higher risk. School children and everyone else would be vaccinated after that. The government website opened, listing the vaccination centers—assigned by postal code—and their open hours. Everyone should bring their social security card and their bon when coming for the vaccine. The steps that would be carried out upon arrival at the vaccination center were detailed. Volunteers were signed up to administer the vaccines and process the paperwork. (Have I mentioned the French love of bureaucracy?) The plan was ready. The doors opened at the vaccination centers.

No one came.

The French are typically skeptical of their government, oddly not unlike the conservative right in the U.S. Conspiracy theories were trotted out. The vaccine had been developed too quickly. It wasn’t safe. Lawsuits were filed charging the government with an attempt at mass poisoning. The H1N1 was not, after all, much to worry about. Only a few French people were even sick. In the first week of November, a poll shows that only 20% of the citizenry plan to be vaccinated.

At the same time, I search the Internet every day, trying to discover how we—non-French citizens, non-holders of a social security card or a medical card, folks for whom a bon will not appear in the mailbox—might get the vaccine. We Americans—right next door to Mexico where the virus first appeared—are clearly more concerned than our French neighbors. Pete and Rosie depart for Australia without being vaccinated. We ask new friends with small children if they know where or how we might get the vaccine. They shrug. Not important. Clearly we are over-reacting. The American Embassy (in Paris) issues a statement that Americans who are part of the French social security system (working for French companies) will get their bon in the mail, and they list English-speaking doctors (in Paris) who might prescribe a bon that one can take to a vaccination center. Nothing for us. We find the vaccination center assigned to our postal code—Rieux-Volvestre, open only on Wednesdays from 3-7. Should we just show up and see what happens? We look up the French word for asthma (asthme). If he were French, James would be in one of the higher risk categories. We have our medical records. Should we call our pediatrician in Vermont and ask for a letter to support us? The news reports that several centers have had to throw out vaccine because no one—and these are the medical professionals who were first on the risk list—has shown up to be vaccinated. Our doctor friend in Paris emails to say not to worry; there will be plenty of vaccine for everyone who wants it. The government opens the vaccination centers to those in the next risk category: pregnant women, babies, and those with chronic diseases. Still no one goes to the centers to be vaccinated. A few schools near Paris close due to outbreaks of H1N1. A young woman dies in Toulouse. One of my Google searches reports the order in which people will be vaccinated with “homeless people and foreigners in their turn”; our turn, it implies, being at the end. Another Wednesday passes. And then two-dozen people in France die within a week from complications of H1N1.

Up in the tower, we all become sick with something that seems flu-like—the kids vomiting a few times, then each of us with sore throats and coughing. But none of us ever runs a fever over 100. The kids and I are well within a couple of days, though Susan’s symptoms seem worse and hang on longer. We aren’t sure whether we’ve had the swine flu or something else. James breaks out in a bizarre rash of welts, but by then he has no fever or other symptoms. And another Wednesday passes. By the end of November, 240 schools are closed around the country and nearly one-hundred people have died. Suddenly, the formerly deserted vaccination centers are jammed. In Lyon, they have to call out the riot police to control the crowds. When we cancel a birthday lunch with our friends with the baby because we are all still sick, they get in their car and drive to the vaccination center and stand in line for two hours. The government drafts all medical and nursing students. They call upon the military to assist in meeting the need. That Monday, in the children’s Cahier de Correspondance (the little book in which the teachers and parents communicate) a Xeroxed notice has been pasted in—school-aged children are the next group to be vaccinated, if the parents so wish; we are to go to our appointed vaccination center with the bon we should have received in the mail. We decide it’s time to just show up.

On Wednesday, December 2, at 3 in the afternoon, we drive to Rieux-Volvestre, about 25 minutes from Saint Araille. We bring our medical records, passports and visas and some cash, just in case. It’s a cool bright day. We arrive twenty minutes after the center opens, and the line already snakes through the parking lot. We have to park far down the street. I take the kids to the playground—one structure swarming with about thirty children (I have hand-sanitizer at the ready)—and Susan stakes our place in the line. We wait. Everyone waits. A lady hands out numbers like those at the deli counter; we’re number 162. It’s a cross-section of French society. The vaccination center is the only place to get the shot. Everyone in our area has to come here. There are well-dressed retirees, an Asian man, many young women with strollers, a whole extended family of farmers with mud on their shoes, some of James and Izzy’s classmates with their parents, and, as the afternoon drags into evening, office workers still in their suits arrive to join their families. Line cutting is rampant, people coming and going, but though people are disgruntled, no one is really angry or ugly. This is just the way things are done here. People chat with their line-neighbors. The parents of toddlers whip out snacks, but the rest of us are unprepared. We all look up to watch a distant hang-glider. As we creep closer to the front, the method becomes more clear. The rec center doors open and about twenty people are allowed in. One of the officials comes out and asks for pregnant women and mothers with babies, setting up a second queue for these special groups. Their line moves no faster than ours. I go to the car and gather all the library books and markers and activity books from the backseat. James sits on a curb and reads Garfield in French, a small throng of other children looking over his shoulder. Finally, after two hours, the sun beginning to set, we reach the door, still unsure if anyone will give us vaccinations at the end of this long wait.

Inside, we are crammed into a lobby and hallway, herded, eventually, into the bleachers in the gymnasium. The children clamor to the top row in a rowdy pack. Susan and I sit, clutching our number, with the other forty or so adults. One of the young mothers has to leave her infant with strangers again and again to chase down her toddler, who we deem “the escape artist.” We all pitch in to block his assent to the rafters. Every five minutes or so, a man calls out a few numbers, and those folks hurry down the bleachers, along the hallway and into a small room. After awhile, they come out and pass along the front of the basketball court (barricaded off—Aucunes chaussures de rue premises!—no street shoes allowed!) again to stand in line in another hallway under the bleachers to enter, finally, through a set of double doors. We wait in the gym for a half hour before our number is called.

In the small room, we are directed to stand in line at the first of three tables. There are perhaps twenty people crammed into the room, attempting to move from station to station. Susan steps forward for our little family. They ask for our health cards and our bon. Susan explains that we are Americans and do not have such things. What? No health card!? The volunteer is shocked. “Tell them James has asthma,” I say. Susan launches into James’s issues with asthme and the fact that we are living here for a year and the children are attending public schools here. The Frenchman in charge shrugs. The woman official with whom he’s consulting makes the same gesture. He says, well, in principal, we vaccinate “tous” (everyone), n’est-ce pas? Well, of course, they must be vaccinated. Papers shuffle. Susan hands over passports, visas, documentation of health records. The volunteers are unsure how to fill out the forms for us, the strangers, the foreigners. Meanwhile the escape artist and his mother and infant sibling are behind us, the infant fussing, the mother trying to talk to the officials at the table. I open one of the children’s library books and show the baby pictures. He smiles. He wriggles in his stroller straps. I show him another picture—Une girafe? I ask. And another. “Un chien?” The baby laughs. His brother, the escape artist, and a couple of other kids turn to watch the book. Susan gathers her documents, papers and forms—two for each of us. We’re to proceed to the next table to fill them out. Susan gives me one for James and one for myself. “Just copy everything I write on these,” she says. I can read enough of the French to fill in our names, dates of birth, address, phone number. I recognize the usual list of questions: allergies, cold symptoms, etc. We finish our paperwork and proceed to the third table, where we stand in line for a few moments before sitting down to discuss our answers with what I assume to be a medical student, a nice young woman. We are released to the next step.

Out of the small room, back through the gym, we join the line in the next hall. The children are very hungry, and tensions are rising among all of them—vaccination time is near. I open one of the children’s books from the library and try to figure out what it’s about, holding the book open and reading the French words, asking the kids questions about the pictures. “Prout de Pompier,” I read from the cover. “I wonder what that means?” The kids shrug, but they’re interested, distracted from the needle-moment at hand. The elderly couple beside me look over, eyebrows raised. I open the book and we look at pictures. “What do you think is happening here?” I ask, pointing to the bright illustration of a firefighter with a wisp coming from his pants. I read the French words aloud. The couple behind me smiles a little. I turn the page and read again. The double doors open and we all move through. Susan whispers to me over my shoulder, “You know that book is about farting, right?” I did not know. I’ve learned a new word in French: prout. Fart. The mother of the escape artist thanks me. This is enough.

At last, we enter a large room—a cafeteria in other times—set up with screens manned by nurses and medical personnel in white coats. But we—the foreigner family—are ushered through this room and into another small office, here to meet with a regular doctor. I have written on one of the forms that I am allergic to Thimerosol, a common adjutant in vaccinations, and Susan has confessed to cold symptoms. The doctor is very nice, very professional. The vaccine does not contain Thimerosol. Susan isn’t feverish. We are finally cleared for la piqûre (the puncture) and returned to the line in the other room. The children take their markers to a cafeteria table to draw. We all take off our coats in anticipation. We’ve been at the vaccination center for well over three hours. A kind man—a volunteer—comes in and dumps a bag of candy into a basket. The children, who are starving now, spot it right away. We’ve promised them anything, everything, in exchange for their cooperation with this ordeal, and they’ve been remarkably good, even though now, all around us, babies are screaming behind the little curtains. Everyone is exhausted. Even the kids seem relieved when it’s finally our turn. James and I go together, and Izzy and Susan go to another little curtained booth. The nurses are kind and efficient—though James’ nurse has to show mine, who is much younger, exactly where to give me the injection. As soon as we’re done, I grab a handful of bon bons and pass them to James. He deserves it. We all do.

Even after the vaccine, there is another line, everyone putting on their coats and the children eating unlimited sweets. At the final station, more forms are completed, stamped, and the children’s bons for their second injection three weeks hence (two days before Christmas) issued, along with paperwork detailing the shots we’ve just received. We leave the vaccination center well after dark, starving, exhausted and sore in the shoulders, but somehow elated. It’s as if we’ve passed some kind of test.

Does the French system work? Yes. We paid nothing for our vaccinations. We saw people of all classes in the line, everyone getting the same fair though tedious treatment. Was it efficient? Absolutely not. All those papers, all those stations. But the French seemed to take it in stride. Remember, the word “bureaucracy” originates in the French. And it wasn’t just a glitch caused by a last-minute unexpected rush; we go through almost exactly the same process when we return for the kids’ second vaccine three weeks later. The only things that have changed are that more people come prepared with blankets and food and entertainment, we have bons for les piqûres this time, and the vaccination volunteers provide sweets at almost every step rather than just at the end.

In our other encounters with the French medical system so far, Susan decided, finally, to get treatment for her lingering sinus infection. She went to Dr. T., our local generaliste, who will not prescribe antibiotics without an x-ray. The offices here have no staff to speak of—no receptionist, no phalanx of billing clerks trying to negotiate the myriad levels of insurance company rules and regulations. One person answers the phone and sets up appointments. You arrive and sit, and the doctor him- or herself comes out to fetch you at your time. That medical card with the imbedded chip is scanned and the information about the services you’ve received, your medical condition, and prescriptions are automatically recorded in the state database. If, like us, you are foreign, you pay a set fee for the visit—€22, about $30—and pay the pharmacist and radiologist in cash as well. The medicines are pricey, of course, but cheaper than they would be for the uninsured in the U.S. The x-ray of Susan’s sinuses costs €48, about $60; in the U.S., the same x-ray costs $120. We will attempt to get our U.S. health insurance provider to reimburse us, but we know it will be a nightmare of paperwork and negotiations.

The price of health care is lower here, and the anxiety we all feel in the U.S. when we are uninsured or if we become ill with some catastrophic illness that may or may not be covered by the insurance we do have is non-existent here. You need a vaccine; you get a vaccine. You’ll stand in line for awhile, but you’ll know that no wealthy person paid to jump ahead of you. You’ll know that you won’t be bankrupted should the doctor find a cancer when she grabs your arm for la piqûre.

From across the ocean, it’s hard to invest a lot of energy in trying to understand the various permutations of the health care bills being debated in Congress, but we try to keep up. The French system is also complex—not exactly a single-payer system, but close to one, funded both publically (by government) and privately (by employers). Citizens can choose their own doctors, go to as many specialists as they want, and pay out of pocket if they want to go to private hospitals where waits for surgeries may be shorter. But those out-of-pocket costs will be much lower than bills for the same procedures in the U.S. because the government caps prices. According to a (very good) report in Business Week, “France spends just 10.7% of its gross domestic product on health care, while the U.S. lays out 16%, more than any other nation.” Doctors earn less here, but all medical school is paid for by the state, malpractice insurance costs are negligible, and French doctors don’t pay the income tax themselves. The French system is also expensive, paid for by taxes at 20-40% of income, and most people buy supplemental insurance (about €200 a year for a family of four) to cover gaps between government reimbursement and costs (such as for glasses and dentistry), but the French are mostly satisfied with their health care, far more so than are Americans.

We strangers in the village are certainly satisfied. While on sabbatical, our family of four existing on a substantially reduced salary from the university in Europe with a decidedly unfavorable exchange rate, about $600 is deducted from my salary each month for our family’s (required) health insurance coverage in the U.S. We pay out of pocket for all our medical expenses here in France and must apply to our American health insurance company for reimbursement. Frankly, it’s probably not worth the effort; between our $500 deductible and the $20 co-pay for each visit, full price for doctor’s visits and medications in France are cheaper. And for the H1N1 vaccinations, there was never even any question that the benefit to the society of a fully protected citizenry far outweighs the price of the shot. Money never entered the discussion. After all our worry about la grippe, this new peace of mind about our health and its protection while in France is priceless.