I did something pretty mundane the other day that for me was quite remarkable. I walked to the post office and mailed in my ballot! I finally got it just after writing the last post to the blog and returned it the same afternoon. Believe it or not, this will be my first time voting, ever. While I was of voting age the last time I lived in Honduras, the period was between elections and I never got to do it. Afterwards, while living in the US I was never able to vote from abroad. So the resulting situation is that the first time this Honduran casts a ballot, he will have done so as a US citizen from France.

Despite the excitement of that occasion, the day was filled with some minor drama from another source. We finally got the DSL line installed and proceeded to connect the home network. Problem is, I’m strictly old-school and anything to do with high technology is usually beyond my sphere of interest and consequently beyond my grasp. For the benefit of those of you more computer savvy than I am, the situation is as follows. We wanted to hook up our Windows XP laptop as a client to a home network where a Windows 98 desktop acted as a host. To complicate things further, the W98 desktop is all in French. So we got it up and running enough to share the internet connection, but no other network functions (file sharing, hardware sharing, etc.) So, your’s truly decided to fix the problem. In the process I lost the client’s internet access. By afternoon the host’s access was gone. By midnight, R was trying to reinstall W98. That’s when I knew I was in over my head and headed for the safety of the living room to watch a Truffault movie on TV. In the end, we had to do as we were initially told and make the WXP machine the host and W98 the client. Does life really need to be this complicated?

Anyway, as you can imagine, the walk to the post office was a welcome break from the tech issues. Avrille is a growing yet still quiet and leafy suburb about a 5 minute drive from the center of Angers. It doesn’t take too much imagination to picture what was once a farming community may have looked like 30 or 40 years ago. The layout is typical of small villages here. There’s usually a very small and old center of very old stone buildings clustered around a church surrounded by farms and farmhouses. Today the cluster includes a post office, a hotel, shops, and random businesses surrounded by houses on what was once farmland.

While not an expert on post-war development trends in France, I suspect this type of sprawl is typical of villages that found themselves within close proximity to larger cities. That’ s pretty commonplace. What is intriguing is that you don’t have to go far out of town to be in the countryside. And here the countryside is amazingly still dotted with small villages and farming communities. I’m not sure how they manage to maintain a stable population over the centuries without completely collapsing from the flight of young people or ballooning in size. I suspect that most of these villages have a mixed population of locals and commuters. Also, most small villages have strict code enforcement to control development. For example, individuals owning rural property are restricted to how much of the land they can develop and how much must remain either open or farmed.

To me, this illustrates something that I had not expected to find the first time I came to this country. That is, the degree to which this densely populated country retains its rural traditions. Most people think of France and images of cosmopolitan life in Paris or other urban centers come to mind. What I’ve been discovering is a mix of sophisticated urbanism and what seems like traditional village life. I say “seems” partly because I have to rely here on my limited observations and partly because I suspect there is more to it than can be discerned through this kind of casual observation. My overall feel so far is that there is a strong sense of history that co-exists within the national space, but more importantly in the social conscience, with our blindingly fast rush to whatever lies beyond postmodernity.

These are questions that most societies are facing as a result of the pressures from the past and exigencies of some uncertain future. In places like Honduras for example, the result can be a jarring experience of culture shock through extreme incongruences and paradoxes that I’ve tried to describe elsewhere in this blog. Here, these juxtapositions are noticeable and sometimes palpable, but of a different flavor. I’m still trying to figure it out. Unfortunately for the readers, you’ll be forced to go along with me on this as well.

Oh, before I forget: I’ve posted a fourth set of photos from Honduras on the blog. You can follow the link (below or on the list on the right) to the ofoto website. You do not need to join, just click on “view album” and enjoy. Send comments if you have any of these or questions. Click "comments" at the bottom of the post and then "Post a Comment" at the bottom of the page to do this. Feedback is good.

Photos at: http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=82nxgnrb.8fp7ff8f&x=0&y=-emmpfr