On a trip to France, most people might expect to go visit interesting sites- perhaps the great Cathedral of Notre Dame or the Eiffel Tower.

We are not doing any of that sort of thing with my mom. In fact, today she got to help me clean my house.(Thanks, Mom! Love you!!!!)

But we don't only clean house.
Mais non!
We also....go pick up Mallory when she gets out of school early:

(FYI: My car is the one with the blue "Nebraskans for Peace" bumper sticker.)

Here's Mallory getting her papers inspected as she leaves school:

Back home, Finally!

This is Bob. My mom thinks Bob is kind of cute and sweet.

Bob is actually strange and kind of deformed.
She was like this when we found her and even the vet can't explain how a stray cat could be so hugely obese. She's like a watermelon with four toothpicks for legs. But she's so pathetic that you have to love her....

My mom has been enjoying the lovely fruits and vegetables here in France...

(She took this photo at the supermarket. Kind of pretty!)

She has also sat through two of Alexa's dance classes. She went to ballet on Monday and today was modern dance. As she watched, she had to hold the teacher's dog, Coppelia. Coppelia is quite spoiled and barks at you if not petted and endlessly cosseted.

If my dad shows these photos to their dog back home, my mom could be in big trouble. Bridget seems like the jealous type....

Original Halloween Cuteness (by Mallory)

It's mid-October now.
School has been well underway for a month and a half now and we're heading into the two-week long "Toussaint" holiday.

But my kids aren't thinking "all saint's"- they're all about Halloween.

It's definitely NOT a French thing.
In fact, many people here are actively Halloween-hostile.
Which is weird.
I think it comes from the multiple attempts that French shops have made at promoting the foreign holiday in order to push merchandise. The efforts were such blatant attempts at culturally invasive money-grubbing that it turned many people off.
And, frankly, France doesn't need Halloween.

My kids and I always have a big party for our friends because we're American and like to enjoy this fun holiday that I grew up with.

But I'd really rather not see French people doing Halloween parties. They try to make you eat pumpkin soup and they don't know what candy corn is.
It's just sad, really....

Bad news.
The music festival yesterday was called off on account of the rain. That means no film and no photos.
I feel like a Bad Mom that I didn't do better at their last concert. I can't imagine how I LOST the video off my cell phone.
But I guess that's just how I roll....

Today I've been busy setting up things for our trip to the USA- we leave in 13 short days!! The last time we were there was in 2007, so everybody is pretty excited.
I've managed to get JP's visa sorted out. (He's currently in Ouagadougou, melting in the heat and enjoying only sporadic internet access.)
I've also booked and paid for our campsite in South Dakota.

Now I'm looking at rental cars. I often end up on sites written by French people, advising fellow citizens on their upcoming USA trips.

Here's one that I enjoyed that really gives a feeling for the differences between driving in France and driving in the USA. (I'll translate for you, but you can see the original here, which was written about Arizona):

"Coooool! Firearms may be freely sold here, but it's no problem- Americans are very respectful of the law. It's one of the paradoxes of this great country.
Forget about your latin driving. Here we've never hear a horn honking. And it's not because the light is green that you're not going to let a pedestrian cross.

In the city, you'll have the impression of seeing a film in slow motion. And in front of a school, slow-motion slows down even more.
And everyone respects the speed limits! Forget about passing 'à la Français' and "yes, but the light was orange". Try that on a cop over here and see how far it gets you...
The sign below perfectly summarizes the sense of humor of cops in the USA:


Interesting, huh? From what is said about the USA, you can derive a pretty precise picture of what driving in France is like.

In a word: insane.

People pass on blind curves like they (and everyone else on the road) are protected by magical powers.
And it's open season on pedestrians. Moms pushing strollers containing adorable babies, cute kids walking home from school- everyone is fair game....

And it isn't just me and the internet "authorities" that think so. Every anecdote I've heard from every French person I've ever met that has driven in the USA says the same thing: Americans are polite and sensible drivers and the French are maniacs.

I still drive like an American (safely and kindly) and make the other drivers here a little crazy- especially when I stop to let pedestrians pass, rather than running over their toes as they try to get across an intersection with their lives intact....

Italy: sunny, sophisticated, stylish.

While France may have a rep for being sophisticated and seductive, our neighbor to the south takes the cake (or rather 'torta'). Though I often see dowdy French folks sporting faded jogging pants in our local supermarket on the weekend , I think it might be forbidden by law for Italian people to go out the door looking less than impeccable.

At least, that's how it looked to me- based on a one-day whirlwind trip to the north of Italy on Tuesday.

You may be wondering how I ended up cruising around the Val d'Aoste in a giant doubledecker bus bursting at the seams with 76 junior high kids?

Well, I'll tell you, I wondered about that myself as I struggled to open the window and get some relief from the hormonal whiffiness of a herd of 12 and 13 year olds mostly unacquainted with deodorant.

I also wondered that as I turned on my iPod about half an hour into the three hour trip to get there and the screen promptly froze. I had nothing with me to read. And I had nothing to listen to but the chattering and the squealing.....

(Mallory does love her candid shots. I was giving some rowdy kids my "Look of Doom". Don't I look like a crabby old thing? )

Not that they weren't nice kids. And not that I wasn't happy to be asked to accompany the twins' sixth grade class (and a few other classes!) on their trip to a Franco-Provençal festival being held in the tiny alpine village of La Thuile.

Hey! I figured. A free trip to Italy! What's not to like?

Well, it turns out there were a few things not to like, like the fact that it took so long to get there. We left at 7am and drove for three hours. Then we had to be back on the road by six . So we had had only eight hours of visiting for over six hours of travel..

But mostly it was fine and a good time was had by all.

The majority of the day was taken up by the festival. My twins (and all the other kids on the bus) study Savoyard a few hours each week as one of their language options. So, after they've been to French class, English class and German class, they head to the classroom of Monsieur B. He's the math teacher, but has a not-so-secret identity as an accordeon-playing Savoyard activist.

Savoyard is a local dialect that is slowly dying out and not getting any support from the French state, in contrast to the more prestigious dialects of Brittany and Alsace. The Franco-Provençal family of languages (to which Savoyard belongs) is found in a pretty small area and the speakers tend to stick together. So, our school was of many in the region invited to this big three-day festival.

-I'm going to stop here for now. Blogger is bugging out and refusing to let me post any more photos. I'll try again later tonight and tell you the rest of the story....

I was in Thonon today, dropping off my sewing machine to be repaired. It's an old Kohler that belonged to JP's maternal grandmother who was a seamstress. Widowed when her only daughter was just a year old, she earned her living making hats and dresses for the good folks of Luneville. And she had to work hard, as there wasn't a penny of insurance money.

She's planned to pay the premium on Saturday, but the baby (my MIL) was crying and fussing in her stroller. She decided to go right on home and get to the insurance office on Monday.

The next day, her husband died in a motorcycle crash...

So, that's my sewing machine.

The repair guy thought it was great. A real classic.

"An old metal machine from the early 1960's? These things are indestructable." he said.

If nuclear bombs go off, it seems, the only things left standing will be the cockroaches and my sewing machine...

I had it with me in Burkina, but it didn't do well on the trip back to France. The six months in transit were hard on it and it hasn't worked quite right since. I need it working again because I need to be making curtains, cushion covers and cloaks for the girls (renaissance faire stuff).

I also want to give Valentine a few more sewing lessons, as she's been asking me...

Does French culture even exist anymore?

While living here, I’ve managed to get US pop songs stuck in my head, watched the latest über-popular US films, and even bought Dr. Pepper in a local supermarket..
I sometimes fear that my blog might give my readers the impression that France is just like the USA, only smaller and populated by people that talk funny.

But this is very wrong.
Consider just this small fact: On last Thursday, the cafeteria at the junior high (collége) my twins attend served frog legs for lunch.

The above is a true fact that has not been fabricated to impress you with scary French-ness.

The above is also a definite sign that we aren’t in Kansas (or even Nebraska) any more…

What really got me thinking about this was two things: 1. The frog legs and 2. A recent post on a blog that I keep up with. It’s written by a Canadian woman who plotted and planned for years to get her family of five to France for a sabbatical. In this particular post, she remarked the fact that Dora, Spiderman, and that gang of pastel-shaded toughs referred to as the "Disney Princesses » are hard to avoid, even in the heart of the EU. It seems like every book, dvd and tv show is just a US product translated into French. As the whole point of the sabbatical is that the whole family get a taste of another culture, this stuff is just not up to the task. So, she put out a call for ideas for « real » French stuff for kids.

I quickly wrote back with a few suggestions, and it gave me the idea to write a post of my own:
What TV programs are uniquely French?

Here in France, when you turn on the TV you can watch a group of madcap, wacky NYC pals having humorous adventures in French (So I’m told. I hate « Friends » and have never watched it) . Homer Simpson insults everyone in French. Heck, there’s even ‘Extreme Home Makeover’ and ‘Wife Swap‘ in French. There is, in short, no end of US shows imported to France and dubbed into the local lingo.

But if you want to get to know French culture, it’s sure not what you should watch while you’re here.

What you should watch is the stuff below. I’m not saying it’s all great, but it’s all very French and you’ll learn lots. Trust me.

1. Fort Boyard: this is the ultimate French game show. It’s now in its 21st season and has imitations in many different countries, but don’t be fooled - the French version is the original. It takes place in a real 19th century fort sitting out in the middle of the ocean. It features tigers, dwarves, gold coins and, that favorite element of any French entertainment, D-list celebrities.
The concept is this: little-known « celebrities » form a team and pass through a series of trials to earn keys that will eventually unlock a « treasure room » . These trials may involve physical prowess (having to cross a room in the fort without touching the ground, for example), mental toughness (crawling into a room full of tarantulas) or intellectual skills.
The latter type of trial is typified by a visit up to the tower of Pére Fouras. This character asks the contestants riddles. His makeup is not exactly state of the art and makes him look like he’s approximately 180 years old. On the other hand, his riddles are pretty good. (And I LOVE it when I get one right! It may be silly, but it makes me feel like I am really fitting in)
The « gold » coins won in the end are weighed and « turned into » real money, which is donated to a charity chosen by the winners. So that’s nice.
At any rate, the whole spectacle is rather entertaining and very French, in a strange way.

2. Intervilles- This one dates back to 1962. During each weekly episode, teams from two different French towns are pitted against each other in a series of completely ridiculous games. The teams may, for example, have to dress up in giant otter costumes and slide down into pool to gather huge foam anchovies. At least one of the games invariably involves « Les Vachettes ». These are irritable , sharp horned cows from the Landes region of France. Competitors are usually sent into the ring to fetch objects (ex: giant plastic turnips) and get chased around (and not infrequently trampled) by the animals.
It’s all really weird and you must see it if you want to understand France. EVERYBODY knows about this show. Last summer in Montpellier, Mallory was talking to a little three year old boy that could barely speak. He managed to convey to her his love for Intervilles, though. « I like Rosa! » he announced, and promptly tried to gore her with pretend horns. (Rosa is one of the « star » cows of the program.)

3. La Carte au Tresor- Here’s another fairly old one. It started back in the 1980’s and was significantly modernized in 1996 to its current form. But the idea remained the same. Two teams compete to follow a series of clues and compete to find the treasure box full of cash. The special thing about this show is that each episode focuses on a specific region of France. And solving the clues involves going from place to place, learning about the local landmarks, historic sites and activities. The teams get to use a helicopter for some of the game, but they are mostly on foot and have to resort to asking strangers for rides. This can result in some pretty funny scenes, as the French are not, in general, « hey! Hop into my car! » kind of people.

Another very French thing about this show is that the people go to a huge amount of effort and they actually win very little money. The "treasure" is 3000 euros.
I always loved this show, though. You get to see so much of the country and learn interesting stuff .
Sadly, it was just cancelled last September. This was mainly due to a lack of interest by young people, who mostly prefer reality shows like « Koh-Lanta » (A French « Survivor » imitation.) You know- a show where you don’t have to see boring old stuff and learn about history. Sigh. But if they start re-runs, give it a try. And it may come out on DVD, as old episodes of « Fort Boyard » already have…


This is getting a bit long, so I’ll stop here. Be sure and click the links and have a look at a YouTube vido of the opening sequence of each show.
I’ll be back tomorrow with a few more.

BTW: The builder and his crew showed up again today! It was right after lunch, so it was only a half day. But that’s better than nothing. They installed the big Velux window in the roof and put on the gorgeous copper gutters!

Back in Ouagadougou, one thing JP and I spent hours discussing was our house back in France. The main topic was how to enlarge the living space. He was all for knocking out some interior walls. I was more a proponent of adding rooms in the loft of the huge garage.

It was all fun to daydream about, at any rate...

But as the time for the move back to France drew nearer and our family grew older, we began to realise that at least a few of our idle daydreams would have to become a reality if all six of us were to fit comfortably in our moderately-sized, old-fashioned home in the Alps.

The first big project would be to take off the existing sad little hovel serving as a back entry hall:

...and replace it with a good-sized room that could serve as a giant cloakroom and staging area. Something like this:

It would have closets to store all the coats and shoes. Plus, the space would make getting ready to go out in the winter SO much less painful. Having four big kids in the kitchen, struggling in and out of their ski gear is very claustrophobia-inducing, as well as messy.

But getting from the first photo to the second one is not proving to be easy. Right away when I arrived back in France in July of 2008, I began trying to contact people about getting work done on the house. Wheels began to turn, but with glacial slowness.

It's now October 2009- 15 months from the day I started trying to get this project going and it's only this week that the real action finally started up.

On Tuesday, a team of men arrived, tore down the old shack (which is SO not missed) and began digging the foundation.

Looks like fun, eh?

They also worked at the front, preparing to pour new stairs to access the main door of the house:

So, there's plenty of action around here lately and not just outside the house. There have been people constantly in and out of the house. On Wednesday, when my second group of English students left, I was sure to follow them out the door and say loudly "Good English lesson! See you next week for another English lesson!". I was afraid that the guys working outside were starting to suspect that I have a home meth lab and am dealing from my living room.

Or maybe not. Do they even have meth labs in the French Alps?

I digress...

That day there were over twenty people in and out of the house (students, friends, family). I don't know why, but I'd thought that my life would contract when I moved to France. It's far from the case (and I think that's awfully nice). However, the fact that my home seems to be a central traffic point is becoming an issue, as our entrances and exits become increasingly blocked by the work. This morning, for example, the back door was sealed with plastic sheets from the outside and the path from the front door was completely blocked by the backhoe. Mallory was afraid of missing her bus and crawled out a window on the north side of the house.

When I got home this morning (I had to take JP to Geneva), the guys were pouring cement in the pouring rain. I had to squeeze between some drippy shrubs and scramble up a muddy incline to get to a door. But when the cement is all poured, they've promised to build us a little bridge across the wet cement. And that's very good, as I really don't want to be crawling in and out the window all weekend...

In the "comments" section of my previous post, I was repeatedly congratulated for my restraint in not offering the erring English teacher a hearty punch in the face.

That would have been a very unlikely outcome. Even if he'd gone beyond telling me that "Americans sound dreadful" and ventured into "your momma wears army boots" territory, I wouldn't have offered him physical violence.
I'm from the "stern glare and sharp retort" school of martial arts.

And any stray temptation to resort to administering a good old American knuckle sandwich would certainly have been crushed by the possibility of getting six months in prison. That's the new penalty under French law for assaulting a teacher.
I know about this because our houseguest this weekend is a recently retired collége (junior high) teacher and he keeps up with the latest news. Apparently, France has crazy nutjob parents (or 'parents fous de noix de travail' which makes absolutely NO sense in French, btw), just like the USA and a few French teachers have been punched out in the playground. No wonder people are so freaked out about "Americanisation"...

A rather brilliant blog-friend of mine recently wrote this:

If, as my Japanese Japanese-language instructor was fond of saying, "In English, the purpose of communication is to exchange information. In Japanese, the purpose of communication is to not hurt anyone's feelings." Then, in French, the purpose of communication is argumentation.

I don't know Japanese and I've never been to Japan, so I can't speak to the truth on that matter. But as someone who is up close and personal with the French language and French culture, all I can say is: It's SO true!

Of course, French isn't all about the argument.
Oh no.
It's also about hiding information.

English is (certain scientific papers and purposely abstruse novels aside) all about clarity, brevity and giving 'just the facts, ma'm'. It can be a playful language, but in general, it doesn't jerk you around.

French, in contrast, is excellent for talking endless circles around a point and never getting there. And I'm convinced that this is so because French people don't want you to know anything.
Seriously.
Kind of.

Over the years, with the full agreement of my very French husband, I have come to the conclusion that French culture is, at some deep level, an insiders' culture. The basic information that you need in order to get around, work and live is not easily available. Even if you peruse all the booklets, read all the road signs and just ask right out, point blank, you ( the sad outsider not lucky enough to be born and raised in France) will find it very, very hard to find out the basic things you must know to get by.

Whereas US culture often seems like it's aimed at a population that has no common sense (hence we find the plastic coffee cups that read Caution: Hot beverages are hot! and the packages of peanuts that say Warning: May contain nuts), French culture and the resulting societal infrastructure assume that if you don't already have certain information, you probably don't really need, deserve or have any right to it, anyway.
So, why should they make it easy for you?

Just driving on French roads is a trial for someone used to the well-marked highways in the USA. JP and I made lots of roadtrips in the States, back in the day before GPS and GoogleMaps, so I can attest to the fact that you can actually use roadsigns to find your way around the US.
In France, not so much. The indicators tend to be sporadic and disappear at crucial junctions. This is particularly true on the 'departement' roads, where one minute you're driving to Tours and the next you're at a roundabout that indicates four different towns, none of them Tours.
If you don't already know where you're going, you're never going to get there.
And, sadly, this is true in most other areas of French life.

This year, our daughters started at collège (see previous posts for details). The school sent reams of paper, chock- full of information. We were informed of the many classes there were, shown the floor plan of the school and told that the principal was hoping the children would have a good rentrée. We were NOT however, given any info about things like how to use the cafeteria or take the bus.

When JP went to the "information" evening at the school, they spent 2 hours reading outloud all the information off the papers they'd previously sent to the parents. Any word about buses or lunches or any other pressing matter not covered by the papers?

Nope.
The "information night", it turns out, was more of a social event than an actual tool for giving out useful facts. French people are nothing if not very social. They like that sort of thing. They'd much rather sit around chatting with each other in a classroom than sit all alone at home reading a silly old bit of paper.
And the details of school life? They know it all already. Nearly all of the parents went to the school when they were kids. It's obvious how the cafeteria works and the sports association and the bus service. Perfectly obvious. If you were born here.
If you weren't, your only dependable source for info will be other parents.
The trick is, of course, getting them to talk to you. It's a problem because French people deeply dislike talking to people they don't already know. In fact, most of them don't even like talking to people who aren't in their own family.

While the average US citizen can handle being addressed by a stranger in the street and, in fact, is usually pleased to be able to show how much they know about the neighborhood, local restaurants, buses, etc, the average French person is taken aback and, though he might possibly answer your question, no elaborations will be offered. You'll get the strict minimum.

Example:
Confused American: "Excuse me. Is this the stop for the bus to Annemasse?"
French person also standing at the bus stop: "Yes." *moves to stand as far away as possible*

In contrast:
Confused French person: "Excuse me. Is this the stop for the bus to Omaha?"
American person also waiting: "Why yes, it is. But you have to be careful. You want the number 32, not the number 23. That one also stops here, but it will take you to Red Cloud. I'm going to Omaha, though, so you just get on when I do, Ok? And you have correct change for the fare, right? You have to have correct change. Good. So, where are you from? Would you like a piece of gum?"

We see in this sample conversation (which I completely and totally made up, but which manages to convey the underlying structure of many, many exchanges I have seen or been in) that the French person is not sharing what he knows. In fact, the French person in the first exchange knows that the day is a public holiday and no buses are running at all. He is not waiting for a bus, but is actually waiting for his cousin to pick him up. But he wasn't asked for details and sure as heck isn't going to volunteer any to a complete stranger! Quelle horreur!

On the other hand, in the second scenario, the English-speaker offers lots of other relevant information ( as well as a confectionary treat!). She assumes that if you asked about the bus, that means you probably want to get on it and go somewhere. And she is pleased that she can help you with this is some small way.

With the French, everything is assumed, and nothing. They'll assume that you have plenty of friends and family and have no need of any friendship from them. They'll assume that you have all the information that you need for your life to function smoothly. Doing otherwise would be, for them, tantamount to assuming that you are an idiot- which isn't very nice, right?
So, they don't mean it in a bad way, really...
On the other hand they wouldn't dare assume that just because you ask about a bus, you might want to actually ride on it. Or just because your kids are enrolled in a school, they might need to eat lunch there. That would be so presumptuous!

Actually, I'd have to say that they mostly just plain don't like outsiders. And helping outsiders become insiders is not the French idea idea of fun.

Being a foreigner in France requires becoming a skilled player of Twenty Questions. You ask and ask and ask some more. You persist until you are pretty sure you have the subject narrowed down to its smallest elements. And even then, there's probably stuff nobody's going to tell you.

And don't think you're going to use the internet to help out. There's lots of vital stuff in France that has no web-presence. For example, my kids' schools (both big schools-one private and one public) don't even have websites.

There's too much stuff they just don't want you to know.

It was Sir Francis Bacon who wrote that "knowledge is power". (He was British, but don't think that the French don't believe this with every fiber of their being.) It's power and not something to be freely given to just anybody, especially if that anybody is not exactly from around here.

Growing up, I read the entire series of Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books approximately eleventy billion times. I'm talking major love, here.
Drawn from her real-life adventures, Wilder's mostly gentle descriptions of her 19th century farm life made me dream of being a pioneer girl (minus the diptheria and crop failures, of course).


Her books did not, however, make me dream of going to or being a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse. Her mother taught in one before getting married and Wilder herself went to a few different schools as her family moved around the country. At age 15 she earned a teaching certificate and taught for a few years. So Wilder knew the topic quite well...and what she had to say was not good. (I won't go into detail. Read the books, if you haven't yet.)

But when we put our twin daughters into the local school here in our little corner of France, I went in with an open mind. Optimistic, even. One room, one teacher, three grades and 17 students...it wouldn't be so bad. It might even be good? It's not the 19the century any more. It's not even the 20th century, right?

I ended up spending a lot of time helping at the school. About once a week, I ran the tiny village library so that the students could check out books there. I was always available to accompany the class on outings ( ski week, folk dancing, cross-country racing, etc..) And finally, I ended up teaching English there twice a week for about five months.

This gave me a chance to see how a small school in a tiny French village actually works. And this is an interesting question. The village school is a point of pride to many small communities in this country. Few villages, no matter how minuscule, seem to want to have their children put in vans and driven off to a bigger school, no matter how nearby and well-equipped that school may be. They all want their own school- and that means the old one-room schoolhouse format is still a going concern in France. That's not to say they do it very well, but these schools are still very common. And there is a huge uproar when local councils try to close them down due to lowered enrollments and/or lack of funds. (Here's a recent piece from Le Monde where a teacher reports about the horrible state of a village school in France. I'm not the only one saying this stuff.)

There was sure an uproar around here last spring when the council announced that the La Corbiere school would need to be closed down. That's the school near our house- the one that housed a single class of first and second graders (CP + CE1). The one that I helped out at was the main school in the mayor's office- a single room for the 17 third, fourth and fifth graders (CE2, CM1 + CM2). The threat of the closure of the Corbiere school had the locals all up in arms. There were meetings and protests and all kinds of fuss.

Me? I just stayed out of it. I had no desire to start an argument and become a pariah in this small village of just over 500 people. I have enough trouble fitting in, thanks very much. Despite all my friendly ways and volunteer work at the school, I figured that my village cred could all be undone in an instant if I voiced my true opinion of the beloved one-room village school.
But I'm feeling a tiny bit brave today (and somewhat annoyed- you'll see why a bit further down) so I'm going to share my concerns with you, my faithful blog-friends.

Here's the deal: I lived for nine years in West Africa.

I visited many schools, I went to elementary schools to give presentations and I even taught sunday school for many of those years. Burkinabé schools typically have more than 80 students in one small, hot, dark classroom. Over 100 is not uncommon. But when an adult walks into the classroom, be it the teacher or a guest, you can hear a pin drop. A small pin covered in bubble wrap. Seriously. The kids are quiet and they listen when an adult speaks.
French kids in France?
Not so much.
And I suspect that French kids are no worse than the US ones, Canadians, or kids anywhere else in the developed world. In general, they don't have any kind of automatic respect for the authority of adults- even teachers. Most of them know that if there is any conflict or problem in the classroom, their parents will support them against the teacher. Also, they expect to be entertained all the time, even in a classroom environment. The days where the teacher could expect the students to sit for an hour and work on memorising the major exports of every nation in South America are long over.

A one-room school can work well if the children are polite, respectful, obedient and hard-working. (These kids do still exist, as I mentioned previously, mostly in Africa, as far as I can tell.)
If , however, the students are accustomed to interrupting others, doings as they please and can't concentrate for more than five minutes at a time, the formula is not a successful one. The classrooms are noisy, nobody can work effectively and the overwhelmed teacher ends up spending far to much time on discipline.

I was lucky to be teaching English- the students found it interesting and saw the point of learning it. And I was able to find and/or invent lots of games and creative ways of teaching. We'd sing and dance, I'd bring in props, we'd go outdoors, I'd bring in guests, etc.

But the regular teacher, struggling to teach all the usual subjects to all the different levels of student? Good luck making that constantly fun and fascinating. A lot of learning is just work, and that's all there is to it.

All this in mind, I didn't see the closing of the Corbiere school as a bad thing. On the contrary, I thought that putting the students in the bigger school in a larger town about 4km away would be a good thing. They'd be in dedicated, single-grade classrooms, have access to a gym, more computers, better equipment...and probably a less stressed teacher.

But this was NOT a thing to say to someone in our own little school-proud village. So I kept my mouth shut and ignored the fuss. My kids were leaving the village system anyway, getting ready to go to the junior high (collège) in town.

So, it was only this month that I found out that the Corbiere students were NOT sent to the well-equipped school over in Boege.
Oh no- that would make too much sense.
What happened was the children were all sent to the tiny village classroom where I taught last year- a space that had already seemed crowded with 17 students. This year it holds 26. They range from 1st grade to 4th grade (CP to CM1) and there's one miserable teacher trying to deal with them all. How that poor woman is helping the little ones to get on in a real school (as opposed to maternelle/kindergarten) and teaching them how to read at the same time as teaching all the older ones, I really don't know.

On Saturday afternoon, I saw one of my English students from last year. She's in CM1 this year. "How's school going?" I asked her.
"The teacher yells a lot", she answered. "More than last year."
I'm not saying that's a good way to deal with an unruly classroom, but I can only feel completely sorry for the unfortunate teacher and students forced into this situation...

Phase I of our summer holiday is nearly complete. I have exhausted every entertainment option with a two hours' drive of my home.

It's time to move on...

Phase II involves driving up to Lorraine, the home territory of JP. It's sort of the opposite of Provence, in terms of climate, beauty and touristicality. (Yes, I did make up that last word. Thank you.) But it does have the great advantage to being a stone's throw (if you're feeling like a bit of vandalism) away from Belgium, Luxembourg and also, if you have a good throwing arm, Germany. So, if you have a car, there's lots of possibilities for outings and adventures.

And we're always up for some of that!



After a week visiting with JP's family, we'll head over to Germany and see some of my family. I won't go into the whole story again (if you missed it the first time around, click the link), but we'll be staying with Mike and his family on a US military base there! Should be interesting and fun. Êxpect a full report when I get back...

That reminds me- being at my MIL's place is like going to a research station in Antarctica.
No- wait.
It's actually FAR MORE isolated than that. My MIL not only does not have a compuer chez elle, NOBODY she knows does. There's no place in the whole village where we can even check our emails. The only possibility for occasionally clutching at our cyber-lifeline is a rare trip to an internet café in a village about half an hour away. But it's very small (often completely full) and has odd opening hours.

All this to say that I will probably not post much for the next week. Once I get to Germany, I'll be back in "civilization", though, and will no doubt post a bit from the computer of Cousin Mike.



What have we been doing since we got back from the South of France?

Too much to tell, almost. We've been swimming a lot and getting out to local events. One of note was an outdoor sound and light show, written and produced by folks at the village of Reignier. It was rather bizarre and deserves it's own post, one of these days.

Yesterday, I took the kids to an amusement/water park that's just over and hour's drive from here.

After I took the above picture of the park mascot (a walibi, btw. NOT a kangaroo), Mallory went into quite a long "What's up with THAT?" diatribe about adults foisiting partially-clothed animals upon innocent children. Using Winnie the Pooh and the Walibi park mascot as examples, she pointed out (at length) that having animals (even pretend ones) wear shirts just POINTS out the fact that they don't have any pants. Ick!

If they were completely without clothing, you wouldn't think "Gee, naked animal!". It wouldn't even cross your mind, as animals usually don't wear any clothes-right? But once you start putting polo shirts on them, you are getting into murky territory, as far as Mal is concerned. Either dress them head to toe or leave them starkers, according to her. Otherwise...mega-ick! She got quite excercised about it. "Do they think kids LIKE animals with shirts and no pants? Why would they think that?" Oh dear....

Luckily the water park was nice...and very distracting. She forget her troubles in the clear blue waves. It was very, very crowded, but we didn't care. We were too HOT by then.

Here's Sev posing and looking all sultry for you :

It was pretty nice. Lots to do, such as:

Finally- another picture of Sev, who really will do ANYTHING for a laugh.
After lunch on Monday, he came out to mow the lawn in the above get-up. It was our major LOL of the day.

That's it, I guess. I'll post again when I can.
See you all then!

Our trip to southern France last weekend was far less dramatic than the one we made a few years back. This time around, the only slight hiccup was that someone stole my wallet when we stopped for a break at Montelimar.
They have nougats there.
Also thieves, apparently.

But I'm not dwelling. It's bad to dwell, right? And at least "all" they got was half a checkbook (quickly cancelled by phone), 100 euros and several fidelity cards from various French supermarkets. Could have been worse, right? I'm SO glad I don't keep my credit cards in with all the other junk. They were safely still with me after the Horrible Incident, so our trip continued on without another hitch.

After hanging out at the cabanes charmantes that I showed you in my last post, we drove a few miles further south and took the kids for a swim in the Med.

Afterwards, we went for a stroll around Montpellier. It was Sunday, though, and that was bad news on the shopping front. Every shop in the whole city was CLOSED. It was the height of the tourist season and there was not a postcard or t-shirt to be had.

So, no tourist goodies for my friends and family back in the USA- sorry...
But it was pretty:

After lunch in an outdoor creperie, where we were "serenaded" by an accordeonist and his accomplice who apparently know only three songs and have no qualms about playing them over and over and over again until someone pays them to STOP, we visited the botanic garden in the center of town. It was commissioned by Henri IV and is the oldest one in France.

It was a great trip, despite the wallet-loss aspect. I hope to go back down there and spend more time one day. But we had to be back by Monday night, as JP had lots of work to get done. We're planning to leave again on the 31st to travel up north (in France and into Germany!), so he needed to get things in order before then.

Me? I'm teaching English, taking the kids to the pool, seeing friends, and generally having a good time.

I love summer.

Last weekend, JP, Sev, the twins and I took off for a short camping trip in the South of France. We were visiting friends there and a frequent topic of conversation was our last trip there seven years ago. On that occasion, our hostess had been obliged to come pick me up at the police station. As it was both the first and last time she had ever been obliged to do that for one of her guests, it was pretty memorable for her. And I have to say that every detail has remained in my mind, as well….

The police officers at the station were all very kind, but not sure what to do for me. I obviously needed to phone someone that could help me track down the location of JP’s anthropologist pal’s summer place that I knew had to be somewhere very nearby. But I couldn’t come up with the full name of a single person who could help me.
I sat in an orange plastic chair and mentally went through the list of other anthropologists I knew of. There was Phillipe...Something in Belgium? And wasn’t there a Jean-Phillipe Something? It was all going nowhere at a snail’s pace.

Valentine was patient and sensible, as always. She politely accepted an Orangina from one of the officers and looked around the place as she drank it, possibly wondering if we were both going to end up living long-term in the Castries Municipal Police Station.

Finally, the Orangina Officer came back and brought me over to a computer. We both sat down in front of it. He was all ready to look up a name and number for me on his nifty on-line phone directory. But I had nothing to give him, unless I had a sudden, amazing inspiration.
And it just so happens that I did.
«Jean-Marc Olivier de Bardan*!» I practically shouted.
«Where does he live?» he asked as he started to type.
«Um...Bardan?» I replied. I could have added «Duh!», but resisted. A last name with a «de» stuck in the middle of it doesn’t automatically mean you’ve got a French nobleman on your hands, but chances are good. And the French in general tend not to move around much. So, it’s pretty likely that when someone’s name states that he is «of» a certain village, it means that the family has been there running things for the last thousand years or so and have no intention of moving any time soon.

Of course, being a famous anthropologist specialized in West Africa, maybe JM would be in Niger or Mali, or some such exotic locale. But there was small chance of that- though I only knew of the man through JP, I'd heard that he was not in the best of health. My only real worries were that either he’d be a.) too ill to come to the phone , b.)suspicious that it was some kind of bizarre prank and refuse to talk to me, or (the worst case scenario): c.) not in possession of the information I desperately needed.

I stewed over all this as the O.O. quickly found the number and handed me the phone.
To say that the man was surprised to hear from me is an understatement. But he was very, very kind and, amazingly, had all the phone numbers I needed- a cell number for JC and a direct number for «Les Cabanes» ! (I later found out that the hamlet of Bardan is just 20kms from the place I was trying to find.)

I immediately made another call and got F on the line- she’s a very bright and sensible woman with the soothing demeanor of the child psychologist that she is. She told me that yes, my DH was there with our other children. They’d arrived ages ago, but he was completely unconcerned - sure that I’d be turning up any time. She’d thought that his attitude seemed a little…casual, but had decided that if he wasn’t worried, no one else should be.

I couldn’t decide whether to be mad at him, or to be touched by his confidence in my amazing (to him, anyway) ability to manage in adverse circumstances.

F. immediately took things in hand and within 20 minutes she'd arrived to guide us to her place. We stood for a bit out in the parking lot, listening to her marvel over the idea that I had thought to go to the police for help. According to her (and all the other French folk back at Les Cabanes) it's really something that would never occur to a French person. And maybe they're right not to think of it... just because the police helped a lost FrancoAmerican oddball does not guarantee that they'd have been equally patient with a "real" French person in similar straits. Hard to say, really. But they were awfully nice to me, even coming outside with us to make sure we were in good hands and to wave goodbye. A nice bunch, really.

«Les Cabanes» did turn out to be a hard place to get to, for the first-timer, anyway. You have to turn off the small highway, onto an even smaller one. From there, you turn off onto one of many dirt tracks leading off into the garrigue. As you drive along, the trail gets worse and worse. Thorny shrubs scratch the sides of your car and rocks threaten to eviscerate it from underneath. It feels a lot like the bush back in burkina.

Then suddenly, the thick underbrush is gone and you’re in a huge, lovely meadow with an old stone wall charmingly marking the right edge. This is the meadow where, seven years later, after a much easier voyage, we pitched out tents last weekend:

On the northwest edge of the meadow is a stand of trees with little Hobbit-houses peeking out from between them. These are the famous cabanes that a small group of friends built themselves out of a bit of wood and salvaged elements (doors, windows, etc), back in the late 70's/early 80's. :

This is the one belonging to our friends JC and F:
As you can see, it's all very weird and charming, with strangely shaped windows and oddly sloping roofs. Very un-Provençal, really.

The interiors tend towards the very cute and cozy, in a thrift shop kind of way. And I mean that in the best possible sense, as I am a huge thrift shop fan:

That's all I've got time for today.

Tomorrow, expect a bit more text and lots more pictures of our latest trip to Provence!

(* All names changed to protect the anthropological or the innocent or something like that...)

I became a French citizen in 1996. Luckily, I was able to keep my US citizenship because, although I try to fit in around here, all of my laboriously acquired «French-ness» is grafted onto a whole lot of «American-ness».
And so it was that, as I drove up and down the D610 highway vainly searching for «Les Cabanes» as night fell, that a lightning bolt of a thought flashed through my tired brain: Ask a policeman for help!　

I’d heard this phrase probably thousands of times from my mom when I was a child growing up in Nebraska. (No cracks along the lines of «How could anyone get lost in Nebraska?», please. I assure you that a Football Saturday or an afternoon at the State Fair involves population density above 8.9 per km2).

If you get lost, you’re supposed to look for a uniformed officer of the law and ask to be returned safely to the bosom of your loving family - that’s the rule back in Nebraska and I didn’t see why it couldn’t work in the South of France.

I did a u-turn and headed back towards Castries -the village with the very distracting 17th century aqueduct. I’d already driven through the place several times by this point and on the last trip through had noticed a low, oddly-shaped building marked «Police Municipal».

I pulled up to the closed gate blocking the entrance and Valentine looked over at me with eyes that said «This sure doesn‘t seem like Vacation Paradise to me».

«We’re going to go into the station and talk to the nice police officers. They’ll help us find Papa and the other kids! » I said brightly. Or they’ll think I’m completely mad and send me on my way to wander the side roads of Provence for the rest of my life, I silently added.

While I felt that US police were probably aware of their part of the informal agreement outlined previously, I wasn’t so sure about their French counterparts. Maybe no one had ever told them that they were supposed to be the saviors of lost and confused travelers…

It didn’t seem very promising at first, that's for sure. The whole place was enclosed by a high fence and the gate firmly closed. Not very welcoming. Through the intercom box, I had to use my best and politest French to convince them to let me in. I was careful not to slip into the familiar «tu» form and even made the «liaisons» - something lots of French people don’t do, even though they’re supposed to. In short, I did my best to demonstrate, in just a few short sentences, that I was the «nice» kind of foreigner- the kind who has painstakingly studied the (rather pain-in-the-rear) French language and not done too badly at it.

In the end, I think they opened the gate because they were bored and thought «This is really odd. Could be a fun story to tell around the espresso machine at break-time.»

So, they let in the crazy, but well-spoken, American woman and her 9 year old daughter.

To their credit, they were a nice bunch -a bit mystified as to what they could really do for me, but willing to give it a shot. Of course, not one of the nice officers had ever heard of «Les Cabanes» and they had no clue how to help me find it...

Taciturn-ish Tuesday

Never a dull moment.
Yesterday, I took the kids to Amphion Les Bains to swim in Lake Geneva. The beach where we like to go is just below the bank of fluffy clouds in the center of the photo.

It's a nice place:

Today is the 14th of July- the French national holiday.

It marks the date of the storming of the Bastille

We're having a little party here today in honor of the event- a decidedly non-revolutionary, non-violent barbecue for about 15 people.

Yikes! It's starting to RAIN now and I'm getting worried...
but I'll just have to hope for the best and wish a

Bon 14 Juillet à Tous!

I guess I could have saved these photos for a 'Taciturn Tuesday', but I felt like posting them today and nattering on endlessly about them. We had such a great time yesterday, I want to share it!

Saturday morning, the kids dressed up in their garb (it's always 'garb', never 'costumes' ) and we headed off for yet another pseudo-historical festival. This one wasn't really a Ren Faire. It was a bunch of French and Swiss SCA-types that decided to plant their tents near a beautiful lake and enjoy the weekend. It was open to the public, so we got gussied up and went to visit.

As you can see, we've had some changes in our garb. I went to the thrift shop last week with the girls and we made some amazing, dirt-cheap finds! We found a perfect skirt and a bodice for Mallory. She already had a great shirt that was a hand-me-down from a neighbor. All she needed was the darling cap that I'd sewn up for Valentine years ago. With those few elements we managed a great, simple medieval look.

The thrift shop is also were I found the shirt Valentine's friend is wearing and Valentine's fancy bodice. The latter was a really lucky find and she adores it.

The people at the camp were very friendly and the kids got lots of compliments on their clothes. Tourists asked them to pose for pictures.

Princess Alexa was especially in demand:

The location of the camp was lovely- right on the shores of Lake Annecy:

>

We had a picnic and then went off to yet another fun activity- a visit to the Menthon Saint Bernard Castle. It was on the opposite side of the lake from Saint Jorioz, but the drive was lovely and only took about half and hour.

The castle is still owned by the Counts of Menthon. The family lives in two of the towers. the third (the Lake Tower) is open to the public. It completely furnished and is amazing. Sadly, they don't allow photos inside. I would have loved to show you pics of the 13th century kitchen and the library full of 12,000 ancient books.

The guided tour was fun. It consisted of costumed actors playing the parts of the family and servants, each character explaining some aspect of castle life and the history of each room. (My kids had nicer 'garb' than the actors, though!)

This is the small interior courtyard:

Again, the kids featured in the photos of many tourists. It's true that they blended right in with the decor of the place. Most people asked politely, though some just snapped away without saying a word.