French driving lessons

About 7 years ago Agent Wife arrived in our fair mother city equipped with one of the more useless languages of West Texas: French. She grew up attending 'French Immersion School' (a Canadian thing, I guess) and even earning an undergrad degree in French from the University of Laval in Quebec City. Later on in life, HER plan was to become a life-long missionary in French speaking West Africa. Well, the CEO sends her to French-less West TEXAS to get married to me. An no offense to the great people of Africa, but I hope I never have to live on your continent. Ever. I've been there and it ain't for me. I'm a western hemisphere kind of guy...(the dancing-est hemisphere on earth). So basically, Agent Wife ain't moving to Africa anytime soon.

Well low and behold...within the last 18 months the CEO moves a small piece of West Africa to us here in the fair mother city. Abilene is a new host to some government related group, the IRC, which helps people fleeing from war-torn persecuted countries to our nation. Now...WHY they chose Abilene to host 100+ French speaking people is beyond me. I mean, at least New York City or even Dallas would have more French speaking resources for them, if not a larger community for them to feel 'at home' in. In Abilene, Agent Wife is probably...1 of 2 people in our 120,000 population who speaks their language. I may be exaggerating, but probably not. Somehow or another, as fate would have it, Agent Wife finds one of these families (or they find her) and a friendship developes. And over the last 3 years Agent Wife has forced me to learn French by training our dog (since puppyhood) in French. So basicaly, I can tell these Africans to go sit and fetch.

The family we've befriended, the Franco's, are a sweet, friendly, God-fearing family. They don't expect a hand-out in life...they just want to flee their war torn country so they can...you know...live. These fine folks, who were fairly educated in their homeland, arrive here and do janitorial and factory work because they have a language barrier. BUT they ain't complaining! They'd rather be in the US doing jobs most people don't want than be back in the homeland getting raped and murdered by warlords. Welcome to America...we won't kill you, but clean our toilets dammit.

Mustafa Franco, a 22 year old guy who worked as some sort of journalist in his homeland, wants to advance in OUR society by earning a driver's license. Sounds honest...and noble. Somehow or another I stumble into the role of driving instructor.

Now I can teach. I even received a degree in education for an artistic field (never did anything with it, the public ed system can do just fine without me). But I discovered it's EXTREMELY DIFFICULT and DANGEROUS to teach a guy to drive who:
A) does not know your language well. EX: you can't yell last second instructions just before you crash, and
B) did not grow up in a culture that revolves around automobiles...

Basically...ANYONE in westernized worlds understands the nuances of a car EVEN if you don't have a license. I was riding bigwheels (and a 'green machine' - remember that?) at age 5. And at 10 my mom took me to go-cart tracks. So by the time I get a learner's permit at age 15, I understand things that I NEVER thought I'd have to explain in my dog-command-laced French. Things like the relation between steering wheel and the front wheels...when driving down a straight, lonely backwoods highway at 70mph...DON'T TURN THE WHEEL REAL HARD AND FAST. Man...I thought we were gonna die.

Well, somehow or another...Mustafa got his license. He's had it less than a year and already been in 3 minor wrecks. If I was the state of TX I'd make him practice for at least another year. Guess you just gotta go out there and do it...

So all you Abilenians reading this...if you see any African-looking guys driving like a drunk, they're NOT drunk. Just normal. So stay out of their way.