Tell people that you live on the "Boulevard Barbès" and there is a collective intake of breathe, usually accompanied with "faites attention!!" "Regardes ton sacs, baggages et objets de valeur!" Yes, I am very aware of this fact, thank you. In fact, my housemate's iPhone was stolen right out of her pocket at our front door! The only way she knew it was gone was because the music she was listening to suddenly stopped playing.
While my host family lives in a very large and nice apartment 5 floors above the actual street, Barbès, I have come to learn, is not a particularily good or safe street in Paris.
Getting off the metro at my stop, "Barbès-Rochechouart", and getting on the escalator to the surface, the first thing you encounter from Barbès are the calls of "Marlboro! Marlboro! Marlboro Black! Marlboro Red!" Then once you reach the surface, you find your way out to the street through a turnstile that somehow someone has rigged to rotate backwards to allow constant metro access for non-paying riders.
Then get ready to be bombarded by the contraband cigarette sellers. They are lierally hanging through the bars to the metro. I do not know why they chose this stop out of all the stops in Paris to sell their illegal/discounted cigarettes, but they have. Honestly, no where else in Paris have I encountered such activity. Next, if you are a girl, you are guaranteed to face constant jeering and cat calls from said vendors that literally seem to do nothing else in their lives except make women feel uncomfortable and sell illegal cigarettes.
I have learned that putting two headphones in drowns outr the daily (insert thick French accent) "Baby! I love you! You are so beautiful! Come home with me!" I usually tend to keep my head down and ignore every single human being on Barbès until I get to my door. But sometimes, I life my head up and take a real look at these people that call Barbès their home.
First, of course, there are the cigarette vendors. They are out there, every day, starting as early as 8am and going on until darkness, leaving trailes of cigarette packaging in their wake. Do they believe they are doing honest work?
There is the man with no arms that sits in the same spot every day. He never says anything, just sits there with his money cup. He always makes me wonder what his story is... how did he loose his arms and wind up where he is now?
There are the women wearing Hijabs selling what I believe to be some sort of alcoholic beverage. Either that or they put orange and cranberry juice in plain water bottles. Either way, I wonder what it really is that they are selling, and why they chose such an item.
There are the Latino men selling actual stalks of corn-on-the-cob, that are being grilled on some type of contraption on top of a shopping cart. They are always fanning the flames in their make-shift grills to get them to cook the corn.
And then there are people that seem to be selling things that I cannot find a word to describe them with other than "trinkets". Little things such as dolls and baseball cards that someone, somewhere, might buy.
Now, what part of Paris to I like the best? The easiest answer would be to say anything far far away from the Boulevard Barbès. But, the truth is, experiencing my part of Paris has made me really appreciate what I have and also appreciate that not everyone is as lucky as I am. Not ever seeing this part of Paris would have given me an unrealistic view of the city. The “nicer” parts of Paris really are only a short metro stop away. And besides, walk one block over from the Boulevard Barbès, and you are in the center of Montmartre, full of tourists and home of the famous Moulin Rouge and Sacre Coeur!
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