French Quarter Journal
  • Home
    • Around the Block
    • Barstool Astrology
    • Behind the Scenes
    • Boho Back Pages
    • The Eyes Have It
    • Full Plate
    • Hunkering Down
    • It's a Living
    • Lit Life
    • Passing a Good Time
    • Personalities
    • Quarter Beats
    • Quarter Notes
    • Rainbow History
    • Sketchbook
    • Stanzas
    • Storyboard
    • Transformations
    • What's in Store
  • About
  • Sponsors
    • Reader Support
  • Archives
  • Krewe

Hunkering Down

House Arrest in France

3/17/2020

 
FQJ's Hunkering Down blog
Picture
Even in the picturesque village of Verteuil-sur-Charente, residents - and visitors - may leave home only for emergencies. Even then, fines are issued if one doesn't have the correct paperwork.

​Confined to a cottage in a countryside village, our FQJ editor gives an on-the-ground report of drastic changes in a timeless place.

- story and photos by Rheta Grimsley Johnson


​VERTEUIL-SUR-CHARENTE, France – When you think of Europeans locked down due to the heartless coronavirus, you mostly think of big cities. Crowded train stations and airports filled with tourists desperate to leave. Italians singing with robust voices from the balconies of their high-rise apartments. The plucky French picnicking in Paris parks despite orders to isolate and stay inside.
​
There are citizens quarantined in the countryside, too. Some are miles from grocery stores and gas stations. Not to mention hospitals. I know because I am one.

I am self-isolating in a small village in Southwest France, the department of Charente. Some might call it “la France profonde,” or “deep France.” The real deal, bona fide and rustic. 

Picture

Picture

Yet our village has everything: a great restaurant, a post office, a boulangerie, charcuterie, a bistro with live music on weekends. Did I mention the castle, and that a river, the Charente, runs through it? 

When I rented a cottage called "Sunrise" for three months here, it was meant as an experiment to see if I would love this country as much in the winter, warts and all, as I do the rest of the year. I’ve visited many times and always believed I could live here year-round. But my only winter experiences were the run-up-to Christmas in Paris.

I chose this location on the recommendation of a friend who once lived in a large town in the Charente. He loved it.

​I now love it, too. Despite some disagreeable winter weather, for six weeks my husband and I – and one New Orleans visitor, here for 10 days – put a million miles on the rental Yaris and saw everything from ancient abbeys to Oradour-sur-Glane, the ghost town left just as it was after the Nazis butchered 600 people in a few hours, many of them women and children.

We drove to the Atlantic seashore twice, ate amazing French meals that look as good as they taste and walked around in bliss, looking forward to more meals, more visitors, more day trips, more time. Our passports were good till the end of April. We intended to suck them dry.

Picture
The door to Sunshine Cottage

Then the virus hit, except it didn’t exactly “hit.” It oozed into our lives like that old horror movie, “The Blob.” At first it seemed as far away as China. Then it was next door, in Italy. And, then, it was here. And France was closed for business. 

For the last couple of days our cozy village suddenly has been eerily empty, and for the first time seems a long way from help should I, or my husband, need it.

​Tonight, for the first time, there is a curfew at 6 p.m., and 100,000 police and soldiers are set to enforce it. You may leave your house for emergencies, but only if you fill out the paperwork and carry it with you. There are fines if you do not.

​Hotels and other “nonessential” businesses are being requisitioned for hospital space, for suddenly the real hospitals are at capacity. When did that happen? In the blink of an eye, that’s when.
I decided to do what I normally do in stressful times: I laid in a supply of food and spirits. The grocery store six miles away in Ruffec was doing a brisk business yesterday. Word was out that President Macron might announce more stringent measures, which he did last night.

It was somewhat of a comfort to see that boulangeries, where the French buy their daily baguettes, are considered “essential.” Thank god. And pharmacies are open. We went to one for some ibuprofen, and I got a swift tongue-lashing for stepping in front of a barrier of blue plastic boxes that were protecting the “hostess,” as the French call cashiers, from her customers. Even tongue-lashings sound pretty in French.
​
But closed are all schools and universities, restaurants and bars plus most businesses except grocery stores and newsstands that sell tobacco and stamps. From what I saw today, going to shop for groceries might soon be a waste of time anyhow. Oddly enough, one aisle still full was the one with toilet paper, much of it in the signature Parisian pink. Maybe it’s because a lot of French folks have bidets.
If you have to hunker, I am in a good place. I am in a rural setting in a department not yet ravaged by virus cases. I have nearly a month and a half left on my passport. The rent is paid through April. I have tickets to fly home then, if the airline is still in business.

My French is elementary, and when I ask a question in the native language I dread getting an answer. I can understand only when people speak slowly, which they rarely do. 

Last night President Macron said repeatedly, “We are at war.” I understood.

​This country knows about war, fought on its soil, and about the inconveniences of fighting it. A lot of Americans, myself included, are about to find out for the first time what it means to be inconvenienced. We are about to learn how to queue up and shut up and act for the greater good.
Picture
The entrance to Oradour-sur-Glane


Picture
Rheta Grimsley Johnson is a veteran reporter and former syndicated columnist for King Features Syndicate of New York. She is the author of eight books, including "Poor Man's Provence; Finding Myself in Cajun Louisiana" and "Good Grief," the only authorized biography of "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles M. Schulz. She is the recipient of the Ernie Pyle Memorial Award and the National Headliner Award for commentary.


Comments are closed.
    Support this project.
    Like what you're reading?
    Give a one-time amount or subscribe below to help support our writers and our publication.
    Picture


    Archives

    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020


    Categories

    All
    Artistic Outgrowth
    Christy Lorio
    Core Krewe
    Ellis Anderson
    Food
    FQ Businesses
    Frank Perez
    Hunkering Down
    Jackson Square
    Kim Ranjbar
    Layth Sihan
    Margarita Bergen
    Music
    Photographs
    Public Awareness
    Reda Wigle
    Rheta Grimsley Johnson
    Social Distance Dining
    Social Distancing
    Videos

    RSS Feed

French Quarter Journal is published by Ellis Anderson Media, LLC.   Unless otherwise attributed, all written content and photography copyright 2019 by Ellis Anderson Media, LLC.  By using this website you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.   
​
Interested in the Mississippi Gulf Coast?  Check out our sister publication, The Shoofly Magazine - Bay St. Louis Living
Picture

  • Home
    • Around the Block
    • Barstool Astrology
    • Behind the Scenes
    • Boho Back Pages
    • The Eyes Have It
    • Full Plate
    • Hunkering Down
    • It's a Living
    • Lit Life
    • Passing a Good Time
    • Personalities
    • Quarter Beats
    • Quarter Notes
    • Rainbow History
    • Sketchbook
    • Stanzas
    • Storyboard
    • Transformations
    • What's in Store
  • About
  • Sponsors
    • Reader Support
  • Archives
  • Krewe