Les Grandes Medievales 2015

My gorgeous new tent!

 What better reason to break a long silence than to ramble endlessly about my favorite event of the year: Les Grandes Medievales d'Andilly? This French Ren Faire has been going strong for 19 years.. and I have been a fan since early days.  I first went in 1998, when it was a tiny event held in the heart of a tiny village.
These days, it is the biggest one in France.  Over the five days of the most recent festival, there were 57,000 people attending! And there was a new record set on May 24: 18,000 people in a single day!

Check out Severin being awesome!

And I am happy to say that my family is part of what makes the event fun!
Ever since 2010, I get together a group of my pals from the Music Conservatory and we perform Renaissance music. It started out very casual, but now we have great costumes and a big repertoire of songs.
And of course, my kids are there, looking gorgeous and  doing various cool things like sword fighting, calligraphy, embroidery and music.

There was also a great innovation this year, we have our own camp!
We are now officially "La Compagnie de La Rose Anglaise"!

Severin and Mallory battle it out!

Valentine looking epic and  medieval and lovely.

Mallory in the adorable new outfit I made for her!

Severin, Valentin, Alexa and Mallory

Mallory as Joan of Arc. Wow! She could definitely mess up any English invaders.

Life in camp.

Fancy hairstyle by Valentine.

Sisters

Valentine looking gorgeous!

Relaxing after a long, fun, busy day of  singing.
 I am super proud of the head gear I designed and made.
It was complicated and I owe thanks to Valentine for helping a lot!

Life in camp

Valentine and Mathias are so cute!

Valentine making Illuminated manscripts

Coming soon: Photos of our music performances at the event.

We're finally back from our epic camping trip across five states: Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Our farthest point east was camping along the shores of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin.

Mallory's favorite spot of the whole trip was the tiny town of Desmet, South Dakota. In fact, she wants to live there one day...

The thunderstorms didn't sweep us away and the mosquitos didn't devour us, though it was a near thing at times.

Valentine took hundreds of photos.. so expect to see some of those soon!

We're leaving for the south of France tomorrow. By the the evening, we'll be pitching our tents in the lovely hills outside of Montpellier, enjoying lavender, cicadas, pastis, olive trees and people with cute accents.

Lucky, lucky, lucky us!

I don't think, however, we will be enjoying a WiFi connection. So, I probably won't be able to post on my blog until we get back.

So, I'll be back on Tuesday, with lots to tell, no doubt.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

I have gotten a couple of emails that read something like this :

Dear Beth.

I read in your blog that you aren’t happy with your car. If I sign a statement agreeing that your car is the Spawn of Satan On Earth, Working Evil Upon You and Your Family, will you PLEASE write about something else? What did you do all weekend anyway? You live in Africa and all you did was sit around and gripe about your car? Nothing more exciting going on? Really?

Sheesh.

Sincerely,

Puzzled Friend

Well, actually the emails were way more polite than that, but I think that’s what they meant. At any rate, since they asked so nicely, I will tell everyone about my weekend.

Friday night, Valentine and I went with a friend (who has a working car!!!) and went to go see a band in a maquis/nightclub. It was a group made up of teachers from Saint Exupery School. There were seven people in it, all in the 30 to 50 year old age range, just out to have fun. Alexa’s teacher was the lead singer, Mallory’s geography teacher was the lead guitarist and her 2^nd grade teacher was the backup vocalist.

I wouldn’t say they were a garage band. They were more of a “garden shed at the back edge of the property, well away from the house” band.

Saturday morning found us at the US Ambassador’s home for the annual American community Easter Egg hunt. Everyone had to bring a dish for the brunch, so I had made a pecan pie with some precious pecans from my freezer and a bit of that rarest of all fluids: corn syrup. ( I don’t think any nation on earth uses the stuff except for Americans. Nobody else knows what to do with it..) I managed to give myself a nasty round burn on my wrist with bubbling hot syrup and sugar.

Somebody at the party remarked “So, burning ourselves with cigarettes again are we?”

“I just wanted the voices in my head to stop!” I answered, a little too loudly, earning me a few inquisitive looks.

If the Ouaga Rumour Mill starts humming with news that I have a major mental disorder, I won’t be too surprised.

The afternoon passed quickly after we got back home. We invited over a few friend to watch the first tape of American Idol.

Yes, we’re just getting started over here!

I have to be very careful when I’m at the gym watching the television, because people often put on an entertainment/celebrity show while I’m there (it’s on right after Dr. Phil). The show often mentions what’s going on on Idol. Once again today I saw the AI logo come up on the screen and had to avert my eyes, plug my ears and drone “la la la la ” until it was over, so I wouldn’t get even a hint of what the news was. This behaviour might also be contributing to any reputation for mental instability that I may be developing here in Ouaga.

That evening, we went to Mass. No chance of missing it, because from 4 pm onwards, Mallory was asking every ten minutes “Is it time to go yet? We need to go early you know. Is it time to get ready yet?” You have never seen a child in such a hurry to go to church. You’d think they were giving away free Barbie dolls.

But no, Mallory wanted to get there early so that she’d be assured a place as one of the four altar servers that would assist the priest during the mass.

Now, the twins have served at the altar several times and enjoy doing it, but this time they both seemed especially adamant that they would get the coveted white albs with red crosses over the heart. I kind of wondered about it.
A sudden religious fervour, perhaps? Future twin nuns?!

In the car on the way over, I was quickly disabused of any notion that an elevated spirituality was behind this sudden overwhelming desire to get to church early and help our kindly Burkinabé priest, the Abbé Anicet.

“Charlene is EVIL” Mallory announced.

“Uh…she seems like a perfectly nice girl.” I ventured.

But no, it seems like the Anti-Christ is alive and well and going to Sunday school with my daughters.

“It’s all an act” Alexa informed me. “She pretends to be all nice around the parents, but she’s really MEAN and HORRIBLE!”

“And she’d do ANYTHING to be an altar server!” Mallory added

“Yes! I bet she’s already there! I bet she got there an hour ago!” Alexa said indignantly.

By this time, the older kids and I were starting to really laugh.

Valentine said “Actually, I heard that Charlene took her tent and CAMPED out in front of the church last night so she’d be sure to be the first!”

I couldn’t resist, either.

“Well” I said. “I heard that ANOTHER little girl had had the same idea and camped there first, but Charlene killed her! Then she burned the body and the tent and buried the ashes so her horrible crime would be hidden. Yup. She’d do ANYTHING to be an altar girl!”

So, we definitely all had a severe case of the giggles by the time we pulled up to the church. (Valentine remarked just the other night as we sat around laughing: “I’d sure hate to be in a normal family”. -which made us all laugh harder, but I think this is the kind of thing she thinks she’d miss by being “normal”)

The twins scrambled out of the car as fast as they could. There were already a few vehicles there. Competition!

We saw no evidence of camping, thank goodness.

The twins quickly claimed two of the coveted positions in a distinctly un-Christian spirit of complete victory and went off to get suited up. Two other kids were chosen (neither of them was the “evil” Charlene)

I sat down with my older kids, near the front -which I came to regret..

As it was our Palm Sunday service, everyone was given a cross made from a palm frond. But in the hands of my son, a palm frond is a dangerous thing.

As the choir sang “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” I looked over and saw Severin lip-synching, using his cross as a microphone. I wanted to look severe, but it was all I could do not to laugh.

“Dude! If the priest sees you doing Jesus Karaoke you are SO busted!” Valentine whispered to him in mock outrage, which about did me in totally.

I figure it’s all my fault. I let them watch way too many Monty Python dvds.

Sev is sick. We had the doctor come have a look at him last night. It looks like a throat infection and malaria, with bit of typhoid fever thrown in for good measure. I'll admit, it all sounds dreadful. But that's life in Burkina for you. The common cold is a rare bird. We go in for the exotic around here: meningitis, cholera and the like. But at least the cures are readily available, for the wealthy, at least. So, Sev is on antibiotics and Malarone. He's sleeping right now and hoping to be miraculously cured by tomorrow at noon, when he is scheduled to take off on an overnight New Year's Eve camping trip with a group of friends. The church youth group has been planning this since September, so he really doesn't want to miss it.
In the spirit of optimism, I did start gathing his camping gear today. (As it's a church activity, I figure that God might at least make a little effort in the miracle department) I got out the tents and asked Sev which he wanted. I was quickly informed that there was NO WAY he was taking something as geeky as a TENT on a CAMPING trip. Geez. What was I thinking? Only very uncool people sleep in tents. Cool people sleep under the stars.
And I predict that they will be very cool people, indeed, as the night temperatures here now drop down to below 60°F. That may sound warm to you folks living in temperate climates, but to those of used to tropical climes, that's freezing cold!

We are planning a trip to the USA this summer. The main goal is to see family, but JP and I also want to take the kids camping. Years ago, before the kids were born, he and I did a couple of big camping trips, driving around the western US and stopping to pitch our tent wherever took our fancy. It was amazing. We saw Mount Rushmore, Old Faithful, the Grand Canyon and lots more. We vaguely agreed that one day we would come back and show it all to our kids, if we ever had any. We never dreamed there'd be four of them, but there you go. At least they'll be lots of help pitching the tents.
I have already gotten out the atlases and travel guides, thinking that we could use our preparations as informal US geography lessons. So far, the kids love it. They are so excited, trying to figure out where we can go and what we can see. Well, everyone except Mallory. She was the only one that didn't seem at all excited. In fact, her eyes were full of tears that first day.
"How long are we going camping?" she demanded tremulously.
"Well three or four weeks. It depends. What's wrong?"
She burst into tears. After some coaxing and hugging, the problem came to light. "What about Grammy and Grampy? We won't have time to see them!"
She was very concerned that the delights of touring America was distracting the rest of us from the main event: time with her grandparents.
We all rushed to assure her that we'd spend at least as long with my parents. But she'd just rather skip the whole camping thing. I even hinted that a trip to Disneyland could be in the works. No deal. (Her twin sister would sell both her parents into slavery for a chance at Disneyland!)
I also proposed that we get my Dad to camp with us a bit, but that didn't help. "Bridget couldn't come! She could get lost!" Mallory said indignantly. (Bridget is my parents' Wheaten Terrier.)
We are still working out the details, but Mal has consented to go with us. What finally sold her was Giant Redwoods. We'll definitely be making a stop in northern California!

As soon as the SIAO finished, I embarked on a program of household improvement, to make up for the month or so of neglect. First of all, I had the house fumigated. (Fewer bugs is definitely an improvement, don't you agree?). The problem was ants. Previously, they hung out in the kitchen. I was ok with that. But recently, they started venturing out into the livingroom. Onto the sofa, even. I think they were just hoping to have good seats if the kids put on that Bug's Life video again, but that's no excuse. Anyway, filling the house with poison meant we had to go live in the house of our kind neighbors for three days. They are in Germany right now and said their casa was our casa. Not to say that it was stress free - I spent the whole time lunging at the kids shrieking "DON'T play with/touch/use/look at/breathe on that! This is not our house!". Few things kill a friendship faster than having your home destroyed. (Don't worry, Tony and Kirsten. Your house is still standing) We ended up staying about a week, as I had our place repainted immediately after. Then a mason joined in the fun, as there was a hole in the wall to repair and new tile to install. Then the water heater had to be replaced...It often seemed overpopuated around here, what with my three household help women, six painters, a mason , two air-con installers, the carpenter, the plumber, the gardener, the security guard and the driver...not to mention the four kids, their pals and a partridge in a pear tree.
No wait- that's next month.
The house is taking forever to finish. My car has been breaking down every two days. Alexa has a cold. Mallory has headice. Again. And gave them to ME, which I figured out at about two in the morning, which caused me to LEAP out of bed as though I'd received a severe electric shock via a cattle prod to my pancreas. I spent the next four hours shampooing my hair with lethal poison and combing it with a tiny, sadistic comb. Yeah, lice. I am about ready to set off a thermonuclear device on top of my head. I figure the residual radiation would kill off any lice left on the kids. Damn I hate these things. It's roaches for hair! How messed up is THAT? A good (?) pal of mine just wrote: "I guess that the shortcut of locking Mallory in the house whilst it was being fumigated didn't occur to you, did it? You should consult with me on these things." Always one step ahead of me, that Barb!

Anyway, what with all the running (and riding) around for Papiers, organizing the house and keeping up with life in general, I have been getting a tad exhausted. My solution? Take eight children camping in the African wilderness! Of course! The kids rode bikes, rode horses, played baseball and re-enacted all six StarWars films. I got no sleep. The four younger girls, who I had thought would chatter all night, promptly fell asleep, while the three boys howled like maniacs until about 3am, at which point I unleashed my flying monkeys.
I am still not feeling very perky, but life goes on. The car is still not fit to drive, so I am home today, blogging, answering emails for Papiers and making a giant cake shaped like a turkey. Don't ask.