love and friendship

Channing Jones



There she stood, clad in a pair of black leather boots and those tight-fitting jeans you’ll often finds when flipping across the pages of Vogue. Wisps of her waving mocha locks spewed over the top of her matching leather jacket; the misty rain outside began to smudge away at the eyeliner under her lids. She and her friends began unloading their suitcases off the athletic buses, while a veil of silence fell over the crowd. I stood at the back of the group. Watching and waiting for her. When our eyes finally met and a rush of excitement propelled our feet toward one another, our brief cheek-to-cheek kiss silently involuntarily spoke the language of two countries meeting in sudden embrace. Salut mon amie. Welcome friend. Amélie Andrea Testa, my French pen pal correspondent, had finally arrived to the U.S., accompanied by nine other students from the surrounding regions near Lorraine. After two years of conversing, they were finally here to live with ten Southern families at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School for twelve days.

For the past three semesters, AP and Honors French students at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School in Sandy Springs have been eagerly communicating with their newly acquired pen pals via written letters and even chatting over the ever-popular internet webcams. French native and teacher at HIES, Gerard Gatoux had been preparing for the arrival of these French students to the U.S. for quite some time. Having taken copious trips to several regions including Spain, Italy, Switzerland, England, Mexico, Costa Rica, and France, Gatoux knows there has never been a dull sojourn since he began taking students with him in 1976.

“Sometimes we [the students and I] just go stay in a hotel. Sometimes we stay with the families of people in different areas. I really love it when my students are able to live with a host though because they get a real sense of the culture and can familiarize themselves with a new language other than their own,” added Gatoux. Likewise, ten hospitable Southern families at Holy Innocents’ greeted all the French correspondents.

“What I think was so great about this experience was that both groups of teens quickly began to recognize that even though we live an ocean apart, we have way more similarities than we realized. And this same lesson can be applied when establishing correspondence with people in countries across the world. It was really eye-opening,” says Sarah Hamill, a Junior and Honors French student at Holy Innocents’.

With the hopes of quenching their thirst for American tourist sites, Gatoux’s students rode buses with their pen pals to visit the Aquarium, CNN center, World of Coca Cola, and the MLK Center. A sea of blinding flashes reflected onto the never-ending glass walls of the Aquarium, as students marveled over the 30-ft whale sharks that have become a popular attraction in the metro Atlanta area. The World of Coca Cola provided students with a taste testing session of 64 Coke products from around the world, while the MLK Center’s striking historic images left lasting impressions on many students from France.

“All in all, everything was really wonderful. But my favorite place of all that we visited was definitely the CNN center,” recalled French correspondent Mélanie Gasparrini. “I loved seeing the way an American news station manages its information. I was really impressed by the fact that the news is constantly playing into the day and into the night.”

Tourist destinations and American fast food chains pervaded the daily schedules of the French and American students, but the learning continued to take place within the classroom during the ten-day period. Holy Innocents’ teacher, Gerard Gatoux and Madame Faye-Gallatinni, who traveled with her students from Lycée Louis Bertrand, held sessions of open discussion with all of the students during class time. The intention was to identify and break down the stereotypes of French and American people, hopefully to create a more accurate understanding and depiction of everyday life in these countries. It is the “only step toward peace”, something Faye emphasized during one of her co-teaching days with Gatoux. Some of the more bizarre rumors left students giggling with embarrassment, while others had classmates questioning the roots of unflattering stereotypes.

“We came into this expecting our pen pals to improve the quality of their language and get a feel for the culture. They were here to learn about us, when I feel as though we’re the ones who, in turn, learned so much about them. It was so much greater to have them visit us in person because there's quite a difference between talking to someone via an internet webcam versus the real deal. We got a chance to become really acquainted with each other and to abolish and false perceptions we may have had about each other. We had the opportunity to make true friendships,” says Junior at Holy Innocents’ and Honors French student, Katelyn Dramis.

Ten days pass quickly, as I and Amélie Andréa Testa—my heartwarmingly shy fashionista from Homecourt France—did learn. Approaching the departure buses, I was forced to reminisce over the short-lived yet momentous experience. An eerie silence of a language barrier that once shrouded the walls within my home had now become peaceful stillness. The series of quizzical glances from miscommunications in conversation had morphed into smiles and fits of laughter and an unexpressed understanding of one another. But the slamming of a creaking bus door jolted my thoughts and I was brought back to the realization that the correspondents were bidding us farewell. The blushing and brown-eyed young woman with whom I had shared common knowledge and sit-down Southern meals embraced me with her version of an American hug. Tears streamed down faces of both boys and girls in the program. Camera flashes erupted onto the scene.

“If I only had one more day to spend here in the U.S., I would spend it with all of these wonderful people I met on this vacation. I would spend my entire day with them because they have all been so welcoming. I truly am not ready to leave here,” stated a teary-eyed student from Lycée Louis Bertrand, Cédric Corzani.

Mr. Gerard Gatoux and his students hope to travel to France in March of 2010. He hopes to continue his work of emphasizing the importance of gearing toward global communication—inside the hearts and minds of his students and out of the confines of classroom walls.

“Just merely on a personal level, “ comments Chris Durst, Upper School Principal at Holy Innocents’, “allowing these kids to spend time with students from another country was such a great experience for all of them. These students got to form lasting friendships with people that will continue to grow after this hosting experience. It was just so fun for them all.”

All of the students of Gerard Gatoux and Madame Faye look forward to future years of correspondence. To the students of HI and Lycée Louis Bertrand, spending time with each other was none other this: très essentiel.