The Ski Shop

There is a ski shop I have now been to a great many times here in Albertville just past downtown and across the bridge. It's a bit hard to find if you've never been there before - tucked in the corner of an odd intersection. It's always the same in the ski shop... The same old man with deep wrinkles and a square-shaped face; the same friendly dog; the same hollow bells that ring when you open the door; the same middle-aged French woman with short, blonde-brown hair, glasses and tall black leather boots; the same tall skinny man with longish, brown hair and an earring. I've seen the three of them taking their lunch break at a café across the street, and making a bread run at the bakery, always the three of them in a little group together.

Inside, the walls are lined with skis, rows and rows of skis. Skis of all sizes and colors, poles of varying lengths and shapes. Rows upon rows of ski boots. Snowboards, helmets, poles. A hard, wood bench where you sit and make sure the ski boots fit you. On the walls, there's an eclectic assortment of ski posters both old and new, ancient wooden skis, and a black and white photograph of someone (I'm 95% sure it's the old man) in his skiing glory days. I wonder what kind of a skier he used to be. I can only imagine it was something incredible to behold.

Today was my last time skiing for the season. Sad but true. I've frequented the ski shop often enough that they know who I am, they know the size of my ski boots, and they know which small pink skis are my favorite. He calls them the "Barbie skis". True, they are pink, but other than being pink there is absolutely nothing on them that has anything associated with Barbie. Usually, you go to the ski shop Friday evening, get your skis, ski on Saturday, and bring them back on your way home from skiing. Sometimes it costs 10 euros to rent the skis and boots and poles, sometimes 13, sometimes 15. They write down your name on a piece of paper, and sometimes you pay before you ski, sometimes you pay after. No electronic system, just a box of papers and a pencil.

But yesterday, yesterday when I got my skis there was something a bit different about the interaction with the ski shop personnel. I had everything I needed, the boots had been fitted to the skis, and I was mustering myself up off of the bench to go...and then they asked me a somewhat unexpected question, "Où est-ce que vous allez en Afrique?" ...Where in Africa are you going?

So they know I'm from the school, they know that all the people from the school are learning French not to stay in France but to go to Africa, and they're clearly curious about it. They had all stopped what they were doing, and stared intently at me, an undeniable curiosity in their eyes.

I explained who I was, how I know a team going to Burundi but I myself have just graduated from high school and am taking a year off before college. I told them about Haiti, they were intrigued by the thought of an orphanage on a tropical island of great poverty and persisted in asking me more about it. They asked me what I want to study in college, they asked me when I was leaving France and if I was going to become a missionary after college. A missionary. I wonder what they think of that word. I wonder what that word entails for them. I wonder what kind of people they saw when all the school came in twos and threes to rent skis for the skiing field trip. I wonder how many people in Albertville know that the Centre d'Enseignment du Français exists in their city as a place to train missionaries in the French language. I wonder.

Today when I dropped off my skis, they asked if this was the last time I'd be skiing. Yes, yes I told them, the last time. Apparently the season goes until April 22, for a whole month longer, but today the lower parts of the mountains were a bit slushy and icy. The ski season is over for me. And so I bid them farewell and stepped out of the ski shop one last time.

My little pink skis. I kid you not when I call them little -