Word: gourin
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...tourist trade is seasonal at best, for tourists come only when the wet, ragged winds from the Channel let up in the summer, and a pale sunlight ignites the Montagnes Noires. But tucked away in the bleakness of Brittany is a village that doesn't quite fit. Gourin (pop. 3,000) is fat, smart and happy...
...reason for Gourin's eminently un-Brittanic appearance is simple: "les Américains." That phrase defines the hundreds of Gourinois natives who have spent years in self-imposed American exile, then returned to Gourin with a tidy nest egg. Brittany has long been one of France's few labor-exporting regions, thanks largely to the peninsula's unyielding poverty. But of all the towns that send Bretons to the U.S., Gourin sends the most...
That fact is made evident by the tall, whitewashed houses of les Américains that set Gourin apart from the earth-hugging towns near by. The sound of carpentry rattles constantly through the town's tidy streets as 60 houses are currently under construction. Thanks to les Américains, Gourin's construction industry is Brittany's largest, and in the past generation, more than $1,000,000 has been spent on houses alone. Gourin's biggest and finest grocery belongs to an Américain, as do one of the town's three...