So, what happens when Tya, the Girl Who Imprudently Misplaced Her Ipod Headphones takes a long roadtrip seated beside Sev, Possibly the World's Fussiest Teenaged Boy?

Maybe this:

Tya: Sev. Dude. Lend me Your iPod headphones. I'm desperate here.
Sev: No.
Tya (pleading): Dude! Please! Help me out!
Sev (implacable): No. Way.

This initial exchange is followed by further exchanges along these same lines, involving heavy use of the words, "dude", "please" and "no".
The sanity of Tya is also called into question several times.
Finally, after several minutes of this:

Sev (resigned): Alright.
He sighs heavily and pulls a small bottle of hand sanitizer out of his pocket.

Tya looks at it blankly for a moment, then grabs it and puts a bit on her hands. She is distinctly heard to mutter under her breath the phrase "You are SUCH a freak."

Tya then puts out her hand to take the headphones, which are not forthcoming.

Sev: Your ears.
Tya (disbelieving): What?!
Sev (patiently, as though talking to a particularly stupid dog): Put sanitizer in your ears.
Tya: You are beyond a freak. I don't know what you are.

She squeezes a bit more of the blue gel onto her fingers and rubs some inside of each ear.

Sev inspects to make sure the interior where the headphones will touch her ears is completely covered.
He finds she has missed a spot and makes her apply more.

Tya (through clenched teeth): Are you happy now?

Sev (doubtfully handing over the earphones): I guess. This really isn't hygienic, you know.

Tya (grabbing the earphones): Über. Freak.

The above is something that could have possibly happened while we were driving to my MIL's place in the northeast of France last week, if my eldest daughter was very disorganised and my son a borderline OCD case....

We just spent the last two weekends at the Andilly Grandes Medievales, with the Full Package Family Four-Day Deluxe Pass of Awesomeness.
Because that's how we roll.

(Please be sure to take note the sewing that has been keeping me busy: a new green skirt for Valentine, a complete red, black and white costume for Alexa and flower crowns for the twins.

Also, on two days, I dressed up a bit myself! )

One merchant that I talked to at this huge French ren faire asked me if I found things at this faire that I'd never seen in other places. I had to admit that I hadn't been to a faire in the USA since about 1990 and had no clue what's on offer these days. But I hastened to assure him that this one was really lovely and well-done and all the things on offer very charming. The diplomatic answer and, fortunately, also true.

Besides the usual jousting and falconry and the rest, we also lucked onto something extra-great: a fencing club from a town near where we live had a camp there! Sev was able to talk to the arms master and see about taking medieval sword-fighting. Sev did "normal"(Olympic-style) fencing back in Ouaga, but we hadn't found anything here in France nearby.

The guy was really nice and said Sev could start in September and see if it suited him.

So, that was a lucky circumstance!

We all had a great time and I especially enjoyed hearing the compliments roll in over my "magnifique" children.

Now i have to get back to work. the kids and I have been cleaning and re-arranging all day.

Our good pals from Portland (and Ouaga) are arriving tomorrow night!

Fun shall ensue....

Friday night was the end of the year party at the local primary school. We were treated to a show put on by the kids. It was based on Inuit folktales. That's what the twins told me, anyway.

I personally think that any Inuit person seeing it would have been very confused. I know I sure was. It looked to me like an amateur avant-garde dance performance set to assorted opera, jazz and French folk songs.
For a small-town school program, it was definitely odd. But I eventually decided that it was so wierd that it was kind of good, actually. KWIM?

In the days leading up to the show, Mallory kept mispronouncing "Inuit" and instead saying the French word "inoui".
"Today we're practising for our Inoui show!" she'd say happily.
And what does inoui mean?
Inoui: (adj) - unprecendented, unheard of; extraordinary, incredible

We eventually all started calling it The Inoui Inuit Show ...and that turned out to be pretty accurate.

But today's photos are not from the IIS. They were taken on Saturday, when I took my crew (+one pal) to a nearby town for some shopping, sight-seeing, and general fun. It was the day of the French "Fête de la Musique", so there was lots going on. Streets were blocked off and there were two stages for music and dance set up.
It was a bit lively, but not at all crowded. Just perfect, really. I even found a nice bookshop (and bought another book for my lovely shelves!)

We also stopped into a cute candy shop, where the kids each chose a treat. As I paid, the saleswoman said "Can I ask you a question?"
I restrained myself from responding with a logical "You just did," and told her she could, of course.
"Are the children ALL yours?"
"Only four of them." I answered. I almost added "Why? You want to buy one?" but French people often don't get American humor.

And we went on to discover the rest of the town...

La-Roche-sur-Foron is an amazing old place. It has existed for thousands of years as a settlement and many of the builings date from the 10th to 17th centuries.

Here's one of the many old entrances to the center of town: Saint Martin's Gate. It's from the 13th century.

Here's a typical house, built right into a huge rock outcrop.

Here's what's left of the 11th century castle that used to be at the center of town. Now only a tower and a couple of outer walls remain. But the tower is in good shape (though it lost the topmost story hundreds of years ago.)
We bought tickets and climbed to the very top.

Here's another typical view- the town is built on a rocky hill and surrounded at the bottom by a river. There are lots of terraces leading down to it.

We had a great time and despite the darkening sky, we never got rained on. It was just breezy and cool - perfect weather for walking up and down lots of steep , narrow streets!

For the second post in a row, I have photos and not much text. I've somehow suddenly become a woman of few words and many pictures.

I spent today helping out at a regional folk dancing festival that was held for the older primary school students.
I didn't dance or sing...I was the photographer for our group

The picture above is my favorite. The flying feet and swinging hair really give a feeling for how the day went - fast and fun. And doesn't the little girl on the left look completely joyous?

The children practised for months to get ready for this. They learned 10 different dances from Brittany( Bretagne) , as well as several songs.
The twins loved it all and practised hard. They were SO ready to perform! It was all very cute and lots of fun.
(The band was great, too. It was made up of four elementary school teachers that perform in the region on the weekends. They were really good!)

When I'd take all four of my offspring out and about in Burkina Faso, quite often people would ask "Are they all yours? And are those two twins?"

When I'd answer in the affirmative, I'd generally hear something like "That's great! I didn't know white people had normal families!"


There would be laughter and I'd agree that, in general, white couples have just one or two kids and twins aren't as common.
In fact, I had a lot of fun conversations start that way, back in Africa.



Here in France, my family also draws attention, but for being larger than the norm. People look, and they sometimes ask "Are they all yours?", but they don't ever say "Wow! How normal!"
Even the French government considers three children to be a "large family" and anything over that is officially a "very large family".


This is all build-up to the fact that I went out yesterday 'disguised' as the mother of a very, very large family. And let me tell you, if you imagine that four kids get some attention around here, you should see how people act when they think you have six.

I had rushed off at noon (after a long morning of painting) to pick up the my older kids at their school. They'd ended up asking pals along, so I suddenly had a total of six kids in the car. Rather than try to magically whip up a lunch at home for them, I took them to a mall to eat at Macdonalds. We only do this a few times a year (we big families keep to a budget, you know!), so it was a special treat for everyone. Especially for Val's friend, who had no clue what to order. He stood in front of the menu completely hypnotised. It was only his second visit EVER to a fast food place because his parents detest MickeyD's with a particularly sneering and intense French kind of hatred .
As I fetched (with lots of help, of course) the three trays full of meals, the cashier asked The Question: "Ils sont tous a vous?"
I said "Oui" just to watch her eyes bug out further.


Afterwards, I had some errands, so we wandered the mall: me, eleven year old twins and four more kids, ages 12, 13, 14 and 15. (You can see them all in the photo. Yes, I am such a geek that I made them pose for a picture in the mall parking garage. It's for the blog!)
They were all good, but a bit...loud and giggly.
People looked, of course. And what looks they were- mostly a blend of "Get them OUT of here" and "Gee. Ever heard of BIRTH CONTROL, lady?"

The security guards seemed particularly interested, not in a nice way. And at one point, when the the four older ones got a couple of aisles ahead of me and the twins, I rushed us along to catch up with them.
"What's wrong, mom?" Mal asked.
"I don't want the older kids to get in trouble," I said
"What for?"
"Shopping while teenaged", I sighed
Mal looked at me, kind of puzzled, and I nearly said It's similar to 'driving while black', but I figured she didn't need any more confusion in her life.
"People often think teenagers steal stuff and I don't want any ... misunderstandings." I explained as we turned a corner and found the older kids inspecting the toys and laughing like...a bunch of crazy teenagers.
A security guard came round from the other end just then. He was quite obviously keeping them under surveillance, just in case one of them tried to stuff a Playmobil Pony Ranch down his pants and walk off with it. I gave the guy my best worst glare (which my kids call "The Eyes of Doom") and herded the kids towards the school supplies. We didn't see what we needed, so I asked the woman stocking the aisle for help.
While she didn't have the drawing paper we needed, she did have a question for me : "Are they all yours?"


After the cashier asked me that same question, I'd had about enough and was ready to go home.

"Are they all yours?" seems to be inevitable and international. It's often kindly meant, but can be wearing. There are even websites where parents of large families have collected the many possible (and often funny) answers to this question. So, I guess I'm not the only one to get a tad burned-out on the Q and A.

It was fun, though.

We had electricity yesterday all day long, which was very appreciated What I did not have was even a minute to spend on the computer, blogging or keeping up on emails...
It was my own fault, really. In an attempt to avoid brain-exploding cognitive dissonance, I ended up with a very, very busy day.
You see, I think of myself as a nice person, so it kind of locks me into doing lots of nice things.
If I don't do nice things, that means I'm not nice.
And If I'm not nice, I'm probably bad.
And bad leads to evil.
Oh no!
So, I had to say 'yes' when asked late Friday night if we (Valentine got dragged into this as well. She's also really nice. ) would babysit a friend's four children Saturday morning. Then half an hour later, she called to ask if the four children of one of her friends could come as well.
The parents would all be at a wedding in a nearby neighborhood. They said it would take an hour...which I knew was just completely mad wishful thinking. There's no WAY a Burkinabé wedding could be over in one hour, ever. Just isn't possible. And I just couldn't see consigning 8 young children to sitting outside in the heat on metal chairs with nothing to do for hours. That would be definitely evil.

So, the eight children were brought by on Saturday morning. Plus I have four of my own. Plus my twins had had a sleepover, so their friend L was still at the house. And then their friend A (of Earth Shrine fame) called, sounding sad and bored. So I said she could come over, as well. Heck- when there's 13 kids in the house, one more is not going to make or break you.

The littlest one was K., who Mallory was excited to see ("She's so sweeeeet" Mal says) K is a characater straight out of a Dr. Seuss book- The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
No, she's not large, geen and hairy, harboring a grudge against a major Christian holiday.
She's "Cindy-Lou Who, who was no more than two".
Valentine had special charge of her, as she wasn't feeling well and the big crowd of kids was a bit overwhelming. So, Val carried her around, played with her, jollied her out of a crying jag and in general was a great babysitter the whole time.

The rest of the group was much older and a lot less demanding. The boys (Two 11 year olds, a 12 year old and an admiring 7 year old) stayed in the livingroom, occupied with board games and then a movie.
As for the girls, there were two 5 year olds, a seven year old, and five 10 year olds. My main task was to watch them in the pool. (We have a very small, shallow pool that can just about hold nine pre-adolescent girls.)

The only real challenge was feeding them lunch. It hadn't been planned on, but as noon rolled by, I figured that food would have to be found. I fed them pasta in plastic bowls and I assure you that it looked like a scene from a low-budget orphanage. Valentine even came up to me with her empty bowl in hand and said "Please, sir, I want some more."
It's lovely to have a teenager that quotes me Dickens rather than, say,Larry the Cable Guy. (He's from Nebraska, srsly)

Actually, I lied (Not about Larry- he really is from my home state) But the fact is that it was not any real hardship at all to have 14 kids at the house for a few hours. They were all really well-behaved and lovely to be around. In fact, they were almost supernaturally good and polite.

So, I kept my reputation as a non-evil person, with very little actual cost to myself. Way to go!

And Valentine was, quite rightly, given some cash by the appreciative parents for her efforts.

Other than that, there were errands to run, homework to help with, and all the usual weekend stuff. Plus, I started my kids on a program of viewing the old "StarTrek" films. Last week, I realised that the phrase "Beam me up, Scotty" meant nothing to them. Horror! So, I hurriedly found a copy of the Wrath of Khan at the video club. They didn't have the first ST film, but that's ok because I seem to remember that it wasn't very good. On the other hand, Wrath rocks and the kids loved it.
Next weekend will definitely find us watching The Search for Spock.
Live long and prosper!

I have a friend here that has no children, but she claims that she loves to hear about mine “Your kids are a riot!” she says. “There’s always some crazy thing going on over at your house!” And I am proud to say that it’s true.
They are a pretty creative, funny bunch. And their tendencies have only been enhanced by living in Africa and not being very exposed to modern media. We do have a TV, but it’s only for dvds and videos. And their viewing is limited to the weekends and then just for a couple of hours. As a result, my children don’t depend much on outside entertainment. But on the other hand, it can leave certain gaps in their knowledge. Severin, for example, has seen “Spy Kids”, but hasn’t seen James Bond, or anything of that type. So, he ran into trouble recently while playing some elaborate game with his two good American pals.

The boys ran across the living room, Severin shouting “ The enemy has been…..fertilized!”
His friends just looked at him, nonplussed.

Valentine helpfully whispered from the corner where she was reading, “Neutralized, Severin. It's Neutralized”.

I felt kind of bad. Maybe I should let him watch Rambo, or something….

Happy New Year! It was a quiet celebration around here. Lots of people stayed home on the 31st, as the security situation is still not the best. The police are still not back in full force. In fact they are using the Gendarmes to direct traffic in the city.
On January 1st, we did go out in the afternoon, paying a visit to some old friends. M. is a big wheel in the Assemblé Generale (the Burkinabé equivalent of the Senate). His terrace was teeming with various local politicians downing impressive quantities of whiskey and very nice French champagne. Much nicer champagne than WE had at Christmas, I assure you. So, I took advantage and our hostess, D., regaled me with the story of how they experienced the pre-holiday CRS/Army clash. D and a friend had driven toward the center of town to join their husbands at a wine tasting, but then turned back when they saw soldiers “armed to the teeth” stopping cars and harassing drivers. Back at home, she phoned M., who told her to come anyway. “It’s nothing”, he assured her. She set out again and did get stopped this time. When the soldiers inspected her ID papers, I guess they saw she was someone not to mess with, but were not happy about it. They threw her papers at her and told her to move on. As soon as she and her friend reached the meeting place, they all left again for home. They got back with no major problems, but during the night the fighting was close to the home of the French couple. They got a round fired through the wall of their living room.
I found it interesting that M., as someone high-up in government circles, got no info or warning about what was going on. At least the US Embassy eventually got around to issuing a warning to citizens.

What I saw yesterday:
The guardian at the front gate of the ORSTOM (where JP works), wearing a crocheted scarf wrapped around his head like a turban. Multicolored. It looked like a Home Ec project gone very, very bad.
Our guardian, Salfo, bundled up in a long down jacket, with a ski hat pulled down nearly over his eyes.
Our other guardian, old Moussa, wearing something over his hands. “Are those mittens?!” I whispered to JP. No, they were socks. A pair of men's brown dress socks.
Next: A baby bundled onto his mom’s back in a bright red and purple cloth . The child was dressed in a pink winter coverall like I used to put on my kids during the snowy winters in the French Alps.
Everybody here is talking about the freezing weather! Yes, it’s Winter in Ouagadougou. The temperatures are below 90° F every day and plunge down to 60° at night. I guess you become accustomed to heat eventually, but even after seven and a half years here, I don’t find 84° “cold”. I am actually finding it very nice and wish it was like this all year long! I could do without the pervasive dust, though. The skies are a permanent yellow-grey haze. Out of curiosity, I googled to see what the world had to say about Ouaga’s weather. The BBC reports that visibility in Ouaga is “excellent”. I guess it is if you think visibility of about one city block is good.

Valentine has one more week to finish her art project for school: a patchwork quilt in the shape of a country. It’s about halfway done. I don’t know how people that don’t have a sewing machine at home are managing. I guess they have to take it to a tailor and have it sewn. Which sort of detracts from the learning aspect. I can’t imagine they mean for the kids to make them all by hand. That would take so long that they wouldn’t have time to do their other homework. Uh oh. I just overheard Valentine showing her quilt to Severin and his pal Daniel. “Umm….. It’s a chicken?” Danel ventured. It’s supposed to be the United States. I better go see if I can help her to get it looking less animal and more continental..