Deep in the sixteenth arrondissement in Paris, there is a high school far from chic. You wouldn't think to find it in this famously affluent area, but that's where I work. Our job is to check every person’s ID before we let them into the building but after a year of working there, I find the idea of asking students who I clearly know for their ID ridiculous. Once classes have started for the day we then have to patrol the latecomers. And if you're late, there is a whole process of paperwork you have to do before they let you go to class. I usually just let them through. I'm not condoning tardiness; I'm just saying we punish the punishéd. And make it even harder for them to get in. I figure if they made it to school, let them in. Maybe they would start to feel welcome. Maybe if we looked these children in the eye and said yes I know you, welcome to school, they wouldn't feel so rejected. And maybe if we actually offered them an equal chance at education, that we demanded more from them because we cared, they would, over time, want to participate.
Romina does not share the same point of view. Tiny, 42 years old, this Italienne from Puglia ended up a superintendent at this high school deep in the 16th in Paris. A little gauche, a tad vintage, she's a "painter", but I've never seen a painting. She's the type of person who sacrifices humanity for rules. It was almost 8 am on a Thursday. Romina and I were standing at the gates of school as the majority of students were passing through, or trying to. I was just standing there begrudgingly doing my job and she was yammering on as per usual, hands out waiting and ready to grab those student IDs.
ROMINA
*bold indicates speaking to students
...ID, thank you. You know you think they would get it by now. No? Every morning we ask for their ID. Can't they just have it out? It's like they do it intentionally. These students- just absurd. Last week, you know that student, she almost killed that girl with a metal rod... Wanted to bust her head open... And that boy, what's his name, the firefighter who always is looking at you, who threw himself in the middle so she wouldn't get hit... He's in the hospital. Wonder how he's doing...ID!! Or that boy that attacked you, what was that even about? ID!! THANK YOU. I was engaged to a man in Italy for 11 years... ID. Thank you. 11 years can you imagine? An idiot. ID PLEASE...Every month I would have a crisis, a complete crisis and break up with him. 'I can't do this, I don't love you anymore...' you know, stuff like that. WHERE IS YOUR ID? Anyway, every month I would break up with him and he would suffer and cry for a week or so... ID...and then things would work themselves out. A sado idiot...NO. RULES ARE RULES JEAN. You can't come into school. NO. Everytime Jean. Everytime. In the 11th year, we decided to take a trip to Costa Rica to visit a friend of mine who left his whole life in Italy. He started organizing trips for rich Italians, Americans, tourists who wanted to go on an adventure, you know, tours into the jungle, rafting, diving from waterfalls, that sort of thing...Yoohoo, nice try, ID Adele... So we decided to go on one of his excursions. Thank you. And for a month I was tortured. By a man. But not just a man. Our tour guide... Thank you. Rippling muscles, wild, seductive. Barechested. Wet with sweat, surrounded by dirt and big leaves. A man of the jungle. I became totally obsessed with him, sexually. I was an animal in HEAT. But there was one problem. I was with my boyfriend. But it was impossible, I needed to fuck this man. Thank you. Excuse me, ID, don't pretend we don't do this every day. My boyfriend knew. He knew. It was obvious the tension between us. He smelled it. And things began to get very competitive in the jungle. It started like little boys in kindergarten, 'anything you can do I can do better,' but quickly the jungle man started cutting down leaves with a machete, and of course my boyfriend had to do it too and almost broke his hand. Over the weeks, the jungle man just stopped wearing a shirt completely. It was...distracting. Then he even started diving off waterfalls, at higher and higher levels. And every time, my boyfriend went flying off into the water after him. I remember this one waterfall, a very high one, oh it was bad, he freaked out in the middle. Bellyflop. It was bad, very bad. Seriously, I thought my boyfriend was going to die. It was just like the discovery channel. You know when the Alpha male is challenged by another male...and they fight... Now I understand why the females just stay out of it. There was no way I could have stepped in. It would have been against the natural order of things. I cannot explain it but it was the jungle. Civilized gets thrown out the window. The rules go right back to animal. One night after watching monkeys and generally being in the jungle, we had a Barbecue. And my boyfriend went to bed early. I could feel the heat coming off of the jungle man's body. We were finally alone. I mean I had stopped having sex with my boyfriend for a month because I would masturbate to this man in the shower, you understand? So it was beyond reason. We began to touch each other but then he told me to go back to my boyfriend and I snapped out of it, "what am I doing? You are right." Maybe he was being cruel, maybe he was being honorable...but I went back to our hut. The next day we went rafting. He took us to a rough part of the river. I remember laughter, the kind that is stereotypical of rich people. I was nervous by the waves. They were just laughing as if they were on the Riviera, until the raft hit something and my boyfriend went flying off into the river. No more laughing. He was struggling in the water. I was screaming. The boat continued down. We lost sight of him. It was bad, very bad. The man of the jungle was not moving. He was still. Just... staring at him. No one jumped to save him. No one could. No smarts, no money, no polite gestures of good social upbringing could have saved him. Only one person on that raft could save him. And everyone knew it. He was waiting. He was not just waiting. He was… debating. Should I? The competition between them was that intense. I yelled, "What are you doing?? He's going to DIE." He looked at me very calmly. The boat was rocky. And that's when I thought, No. Some things are more important. I cannot love someone that would let my boyfriend die...You, you're LATE. What's your name, yes yes, that's it. Fabian, whatever, I cannot let you into the building. Your ID is no good to me now. You're LATE. 45 minutes. Oh yes, the metro. Of course. The metro. Yes, I know you, but rules are rules. This is the way it is done. Don't just stand there gawking at me. I don't care how far you have to travel to get here. It's not my problem! Go in and fill in the paperwork or just go home! At least you'll have a long way to think about how you'll start getting to school on time. Madness! What madness non? What a bunch of animals...Don't we do this EVERYDAY?