To pof or not to pof?

When it comes to expats, there seems to be two general categories: those who assimilate and integrate into their new society and those who don’t. I’ve always aimed to be in the former category; no surprises there as it’s generally the latter that receive the bad press. Coming to Fontainebleau, my aim was to blend in as a local; for some reason being ‘of’ my new home was important to me.

To give you some background, the aim of my stay in France is linguistic and cultural immersion. From day one I knew that Au Pairing for a bilingual family would mean speaking some English and I’d be writing in English too, so to ensure the most intensive immersion possible I resolved to avoid other Anglophones. This meant resisting tapping into the immense population of English and Americans climbing, au pairing and living in the area; I’d be making friends with the locals, an achievement in itself.

The open and friendly nature of the locals, and climbers in general, meant that making friends was easier than I had expected. What I naively hadn’t anticipated were the occasions when my new and native cultures conflicted and as my cultural bath progressed I met an unforeseen hurdle: I couldn’t fully assimilate into the local culture because there were some local practices that I simply couldn’t bring myself to adopt, such as pof.

If you’re a climber, chances are you’ll know what pof is. If not, here’s a quick recap: apparently named after the ‘pof‘ sound that it makes when you hit it against a rock, pof is dried pine resin that has been crushed, wrapped in a rag, and tied with a shoelace. In Fontainebleau it is used by climbers to improve grip and adherence to the rock when climbing; but over the channel using pof is considered to be cheating; damaging to the rock; and a criminal offence worthy of exile from your local crag.

On the contrary chalk, which is used fairly freely in the UK and serves a similar purpose to pof, is regarded as an unnecessary pollutant in Fontainebleau, creating an eyesore as well as eroding the holds, all the more so when applied directly to the rock. This overuse and pollution is generally attributed to tourists, who are seen to be neither invested in, nor concerned by the preservation of climbing in the forest.

The pof vs. chalk argument often lack diplomacy and only anecdotal evidence exists on either side of the debate. As a result, reasonable discussions quickly deteriorate into finger pointing and contests over who’s climbed the longest or the hardest.

I learned to climb in the ‘anti-pof’ community, and was initially shocked upon witnessing its use when climbing in the forest. However as I became more involved in the local climbing scene I grew indifferent to pof. There were multiple reasons for this, and I found that my integration into the local climbing community enabled me to listen to and accept arguments for pof and against chalk that I would have dismissed before. Under the influence of my climbing partners, I became more aware of erosion in the forest and adjusted my practices according to local ideas: I learned to clean my shoes like a proper Bleausard to avoid polishing the rock with dirt, and curbed my chalk-use to only when necessary. Nonetheless, I continued to quietly abstain from pof-use.

My pof abstinence hit a snag at the end of a climbing session with some friends when I received the ultimate gift of acceptance: a rag, a shoelace, and a box of pine resin – the ingredients for pof. I felt like I’d achieved my goal: I was a local, a Bleausard! The crunch came, however, when faced with the idea of putting my gift to use. Quiet abstention had be fine in the past but now that I had been explicitly invited to take part in this practice, refusal seemed insulting. At the same time using pof was something I couldn’t bring myself to do.

Why? Because no matter whether it’s destructive or not, the moment I smack a rock with a rag full of pine resin I’ll be betraying the values of my culture.

My ideas of integration and assimilation were misguided: the idea of cultural immersion should not be to forget or compromise your own ideas, but to bring ideas together and open dialogues in order to profit from and enrich each other’s experiences.

Pof and chalk both have their pros and cons, they are employed with the same purpose, and overuse of either generates harmful consequences. Instead of picking one side or another, we should be acknowledging the reality of each practice and working together in a mutual attempt to care for and look after the forest.