Things in Marseille

It’s been another super successful week in Marseille!! The first two week session of Cesemed orals ended Saturday afternoon, and we start the orals for the next program (I’m forgetting the name at the moment) tomorrow. We get new staff…which means more cool people to meet! We sing and dance for the candidates, and we even got a goldfish (named ‘Rougey’ which is the French equivalent of ‘Goldy’) for the lobby! There’s even a little Photo Booth where we can take crazy selfies and print them!

There have been some things that I’ve noticed in public, that are much different from the US, and I’ve been wanting to address them, (although I haven’t had much time until now), so here it goes…

1. Back to the bank issue. SERIOUSLY, IF YOU DON’T HAVE A CHIP IN YOUR CARD, YOU’RE SCREWED. Every place (except one ATM) I’ve tried to use my debit card I’ve been denied, and I even called the bank to make sure that my card still worked (they assured me that it did). I can’t even begin to describe the multitude of looks and questions I’ve gotten from cashiers when they look at my card and see that there’s no chip. Although, in their defence, I do live in a suburb (aka the forest) of Marseille where there’s not a lot of foreigners. Major U.S. banks are just starting to get on the chip train with some credit cards, but for traveling abroad, this chip is almost essential unless you want to withdraw large amounts from your checking account for fear that ‘even though it takes my card today, it might not take my card tomorrow.’ Just the magnetic strip does not suffice.

2. Open carry (aka armed civilians). Contrary to what people might think, open carry is not a thing in France (or at least not a legal thing). Everyone has to have a permit to own any type of weapon (including knives that aren’t for cooking), and there’s a limit to how much (and how often you can buy) certain items. It is very difficult to get a permit, and the reasoning of ‘for self-defence’ usually does not suffice. Out of curiosity, I googled some statistics/laws about gun ownership and found that while the number of privately owned guns per 100 people in the US was 102, the rate in France was about 35 per 100 people. After talking to some friends here there’s very few places where you can buy weapons, and they are often run by the Marseille gangs and obtained/sold illegally.

3. Military presence. There is a very high military presence on the streets in France. Especially after Charlie Hebdo, French military guards are outside most schools, a number of universities, almost every synagogue, and a few businesses. They check IDs before people are allowed to enter the school. It is not uncommon to see a group of 4 or 5 of them, with a military weapon, walking through a train station, an airport, a mall, a highly populated area, or just walking down the street. I have mixed feelings about this, considering things had to be pretty bad for it to get to this point, however, overall I feel really safe knowing that they’re around.

4. Respect towards women. The city of Marseille is about 40% Musilm, that percentage increases the further north you go, and I’ve observed that while Islamophobia is a very prevalent thing here (much worse than in the States), women who are covered and/or where a hijab, are less harassed by men on the street than those who don’t. The primary targets are white women between the ages of about 16 and 40. When I speak of what happens daily, it’s being called at, honked at, or mildly followed. North African, Caucasian, and Arab men are all guilty of the harassment, but generally the Arab men that run the small grocery and produce shops in Marseille are respectful to me, even though I don’t wear a headscarf or have a male escort (but I do make a more conscious effort to be more covered than I normally would when walking around in Luminy). Moral of the story: women who wear a hijab seem to get more respect (or left alone) by creepy men on the street than women who don’t. Don’t EVER give out your nationality, even if they ask where your from (due to your looks/accent), especially if you’re American, if you don’t know them, and a police/military officer isn’t asking you.

5. Victims of crime. It is criminal offence in France to not help (or call for help) a victim of a crime. I thought that was really interesting, especially since in the States, I’ve heard about (or seen) people just obliviously pass victims of crime because it doesn’t concern them.

So now that you’ve listened to my rant…I finally figured out how to post photos!

War Cemetery in Marseille from WWI and WWII

The Mediterranean

War Cemetery in Marseille

The Beach!

Marina at Point Rouge

Vieux Port

Street outside my apartment

Castle-looking thing at Vieux Port

Adrian burning the sausages at the cookout

Wild boars outside the apartment (I live in a National Park)

Napping center at the school I work at (UM could use one of these…?)

Teaching cup stacking!

More fun with cups at work

Teaching water pong…this was a crowd favorite

Rougey, the gold fish that we got for the lobby

KEDGE!

Go Blue!