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“Bonjour,” she said.
“Today is great because it’s Wednesday,” she added, first in French and then in English, as she handed out Post-it notes for participants to use as name tags. The club meets weekly on Wednesdays, alternating between evening and daytime hours.
Finkelstein, a Hanover-based French teacher known to her students as Madame G, had placed several objects intended to inspire conversation on a rectangular table in the middle of the room, including a collection of cards with colored illustrations of familiar things such as trees, foods and animals.
During the first activity of the hour, 9-year-old Uchasha Sarker picked up a card with an illustration of make-up on it. She shared a story — first in French and then in English — about how she once sneaked into her mother’s make-up kit while her parents were sleeping. When they woke up, her parents said, “Oh my God. You’re like a clown.”
Seated next to her, her mother Dipa Sarker smiled and nodded to confirm the veracity of the story.
Though Quebec is nearby, French is not a regular part of most Upper Valley residents’ lives. Though it may not be a daily activity, small groups of Upper Valley residents gather once a week, every other week or once a month to speak French.
In addition to the club that meets weekly at the Howe, free French clubs meet regularly in East Thetford, Enfield and Sharon. The Hanover-based International Women’s Club of the Upper Valley holds monthly discussions of a preselected news article written in French at the Norwich Public Library, as well as a monthly lunch for French speakers, usually held at the Canoe Club. And a Vershire French teacher is offering a six-week course at her home to help people brush up on the French they learned in high school or college.
Participants in the clubs and courses have a range of abilities and reasons for seeking out fellow French-speakers. Some aim to keep up or build their language proficiency, broaden their worldview, expose themselves to other cultures, or share their native culture with friends in the Upper Valley.
Uchasha and Dipa Sarker, who now live in Hanover, spent the past two school years in Montreal for visa reasons, said Pallab Sarker, Uchasha’s father and Dipa’s husband, who joined the Howe French group toward the end of the meeting.
The Sarkers are originally from Bangladesh, though Uchasha was born in Japan, where Pallab Sarker, now a research assistant professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College, earned his Ph.D.
In Montreal, Uchasha’s classes were taught in French. Sarker said he hopes attending the French club at the Howe will help her to maintain her proficiency in the language.
“My daughter is going to lose (her French) if she doesn’t practice,” said Pallab Sarker.
Patricia Borden, of Enfield, also hopes a weekly informal gathering with fellow French speakers will help her language skills. Borden has been taking weekly private French lessons for five years, but found that the once-a-week classes weren’t enough “to be able to actually talk to people.”
The Rassias Center at Dartmouth College offers community language classes, but Borden, who works 10-hour days as a nurse at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, said two evening classes a week would be too much for her.
The Enfield group, which began a couple years ago, meets for an hour each Saturday morning at the Community Lutheran Church on Main Street. The sessions regularly have six or seven participants of varying abilities, Borden said.
Topics of discussion include participants’ families, vacations, activities of the past week and movies they’ve seen, Borden said.
Being able to speak French on trips to Montreal, France or other places where she encounters French-speakers has made it possible for Borden to interact with people in a way that would otherwise not be possible, she said.
“The culture is wrapped in the language,” Borden said. “It just opens up other avenues of ways of thinking.”
When she hears French being spoken on her travels, it’s an opportunity to “find out a little more about people,” she said. “It’s just fun.”
Joel Berns, a participant in the Howe club, met his late wife, Marie-Antoinette (Manette) Loevenbruck Berns, when he was stationed at an Army base in France in the 1950s. Berns, a retired oral surgeon, lived in a rented room above a gas station, off the base, in an effort to learn the language. Since the couple who rented him the room did not speak any English it only took him a few months to learn French, he said.
He first met Manette at the officers’ club. Later, she taught French at the school on the Army base. The school happened to be close to the oral surgery clinic, and they spent more and more time together, eventually marrying.
Now in his late 80s, Berns, who lives in West Lebanon, said he enjoys the Howe French club as a rare chance to speak French in the Upper Valley.
With his wife of 63 years now gone, Berns said, “I would like very much to meet more French-speaking people.” Perhaps even a French woman, he said.
A group of French-speaking women gathers on the second and fourth Mondays of the month at the Norwich Public Library to discuss an article from the francophone press selected by Hanover resident Josette Malley, who is originally from France, or semi-retired French teacher Margaret Parsons, of Norwich.
The group, which is a subset of the International Women’s Club of the Upper Valley, comprises women who are proficient in French and interested in world events. Topics are varied and include immigration, art and museum exhibits, Malley said. The discussion also covers the way a story is written. Malley and Parsons select articles with an eye for interesting expressions, Malley said.
The group was founded by the late Micheline Lyons about 25 years ago. Lyons, who was born and raised in France, taught French at Dartmouth College.
Her membership in the women’s club has been “a good way to meet people both Americans and people from all over the world,” said Malley, who is retired from the World Bank.
For Parsons, who formerly taught French in Westchester County, N.Y., and still teaches part-time at her home, the women’s club discussions are a way to maintain her French skills and to make friends.
“It magically opens doors when you speak a foreign language,” she said.
Slightly farther afield, Kathy Astrauckas holds a monthly French circle at her home in East Thetford. The group has been meeting since the ‘90s and usually attracts six to eight people for conversation and potluck, she said.
The group used to attract about twice that number, said Astrauckas, a former French teacher. She speculated the reasons for the decline is due to people having other things to do and fewer people graduating from college with the ability to speak French.
Most of the participants in the East Thetford group are “fairly proficient,” Astrauckas said. Discussions include reviewing vocabulary that participants might not have learned in school, words related to information technology or to foods that have become popular only lately; kale has come up for discussion.
While some people spend their free time playing in a band, singing in a choir or painting, Astrauckas said she organizes this French club.
“It’s just fun,” she said. “It’s something that we all share in common that we like and we don’t have many outlets for.”
In Vershire, semi-retired French teacher Sam Moffatt is offering a six-week French refresher course for six to eight students at her home. It repeats throughout the school year. The course is conversation-based and intended to help those with a background in French to brush up, she said.
Ours is a “very uni-lingual society,” Moffatt said. “A lot of people have French in their schooling or even in their background (and) just don’t use it anymore.”
Once students begin, Moffatt said they often find they remember more than they thought they would. She said she hopes to help people feel more comfortable speaking the language so they’ll put it to use.
“My main goal is to enable people to speak more,” she said.
French Club meets at Hanover’s Howe Library on the first, third and fifth Wednesdays of the month from noon to 1 p.m. and the second and fourth Wednesdays from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. More information is available by contacting Gloria Finkelstein at gloriafinkelstein@gmail.com or 603-381-4311.
French Circle meets on the third Thursday of the month in East Thetford at 6 p.m. More information and directions is available by calling Kathy Astrauckas at 802-785-4311.
The Enfield French club meets at the Community Lutheran Church Saturdays at 10 a.m.
The Sharon French Conversation Group usually meets on the second and fourth Fridays of the month from 5 to 6 p.m. More information is available at 802-763-2875.
The International Womens’ Club of the Upper Valley holds a discussion group for French-speaking members on the second and fourth Monday of the month at the Norwich Public Library at 1:30 p.m. There is a $20 fee to join the club. Those interested in joining should contact Renie MacArthur at reniemac@gmail.com.
The club also holds a luncheon for members on the third Wednesday of the month at the Canoe Club. To participate, call Robbie Dodson at 802-296-3099.
French teacher Sam Moffatt offers informal French courses at her Vershire home. She is in the midst of a six-week series right now, but is considering starting a second group. There is a $72 fee for the series. Moffatt can be reached at samantha.moffatt@gmail.com or 802-333-9791.
Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
