Le banlieue

In addition to being nearly impossible to spell, the banlieue is also an extremely underrated part of Paris. It can have a negative connotation as sort of the outcast part of the city, but the literal translation of the word is simply "suburbs." My friend Henry studied abroad in Paris this time last year, and most of the friends he made during his time here live just outside of Paris in the banlieue. He visited last week on his spring break, and introduced my family and me (my mom and brother came for a week) to the real Paris, that is, the region outside of the 20 arrondissements, where normal people live. It is a part of Paris that I can actually relate to because it looks more like my own home.

The banlieue was refreshing for so many reasons. One, it was nice to get out of what can be a suffocating Parisian bubble. Paris is great, but it isn't the center of the world. It's nice to be reminded of that. Two, it was nice to finally see some BLACK PEOPLE! With a few exceptions, the only time I ever see people who look like me is when I see black nannies taking care of white children. Other than that, the center of Paris, especially the bourgeois 16th where I live, is pretty white. However, if you ride the train any distance away from the center of Paris, the further away you get from the city proper, the more colorful your métro car will become. This is no different from any other city. Boston is the exact same way. The further you ride from Kenmore square, the more racially and economically diverse the trolley becomes.

Race relations in Paris is something that I've had a hard time figuring out. With the exception of a drunken Arab young man who called Henry the n-word, there haven't been any blatant indicators of how things work in this city. From what I can tell, there is definitely a recognition of the different attitudes of French people towards the different parts of Paris. For example, when I told my new friends who live in Villiers, about 40 minutes outside of the city, that I am staying in the 16th, they gave me a kind of, mmmmm sort of look. Like, oh, the 16th, huh? I guess it has a reputation. I immediately rushed to assure them that this was just a temporary set up, that it was not something that I chose, and that I'm not stuck up or snobbish, just in case that's what they were thinking.

The people I've met from the banlieue have also been the most welcoming group of friends I have met during my time here. One couple that Henry introduced me to, a man and woman who moved to France from the Côte d'Ivoire, invited not only me to their home for dinner, but also welcomed my mother and brother without ever having met any of us. (Fried tilapia and plantains, and a made-from-scratch cake with brandy ice cream for dessert....so good!)

All of the people I met during Henry's visit were from some part of Africa, mostly Gabon and the Ivory Coast. I have been mistaken a few times for African, usually for Ghanian. My family is West Indian, though. Sorry, y'all.

The day after dinner, Henry took us to church in St. Denis, an area that a lot of Parisians dismiss as not part of the real Paris, though it is only a métro ride away. (Check this out if you have an extra three minutes and forty seconds [and understand French....] Whole new perspective on St. Denis.) Again, my family and I were welcomed like old friends. (The church experience warrants its own entry.) Later that same evening, we met up with some of the folks from the church for dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Paris. And again, though I had never met the people with whom I had dinner, by the end of the evening, I felt completely comfortable with them, and was ordered by them not to leave Paris without going over to their houses for dinner at least once. (Incidentally, one of the women with whom we ate dinner stars as Nala in the "Lion King" here in Paris. Definitely have to see that show, now.)

My mom asked me where I would want to live if I stayed in Paris. Initially, I would have said Montmartre or the Marais, but after this week, maybe the suburbs wouldn't be so bad. If nothing else, it'd be a heck of a lot cheaper.

Vive le banlieue!