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...

Finding time to get to an internet café and sit around blogging is turning our to be even harder than I thought. On top of everything else, Mallory got quite sick yesterday with a huge fever I was sure it was malaria, as she spiked a fever of 103°F. This was accompanied by some weird babbling. She told me that she had a hole in her brain and that she had lost all her happiness, among other things. It was definitely some feverish delusion, as she is better today and her happiness is pretty intact. I figure that her brain is ok, too. And the malaria test came back negative. Just one of those viruses, I guess.
But all of that certainly ate up my time yesterday. So, I have been trying to catch up today. One task is to find a picture online of my laptop. The police are inquiring into our case, but would like a picture, so I'm here to look online for something I can print out.


When I went to the police station on Monday, I was ushered, after only a 20 minute wait, into the office of Officer Dolly.
"I am Inspector Dolly."
I just stood there processing. It's not a last name I've ever heard here. I figured that I must have misunderstood.
"Sammy Dolly", he added and handed me his card. I didn't have the presence of mind to ask him what ethnic group the was from. All I could think of was the great fun I was going to have telling everyone I knew that the officer on our case was called "Inspector Sammy Dolly".


Besides having a fun name Inspector Sammy Dolly is an energetic, thorough guy. First of all, he took a long statement from me. Then called up the person that had sent me away on Saturday and chewed him out. Finally, he came over to the house, looked around, interviewed neighbors and did all kinds of police-type activities.
He thinks that he might be able to track down some of our things. Maybe.
In the meantime, I am trying my own hand at sleuthing. I've been going to various second-hand electronics stands asking for nice used Minolta camera and a Fujitsu Siemens Laptop.
No luck so far, but one guy did say to check back tomorrow.


Thanks for the messages of support. I really need them, as they help ward off burn-out.
We are moving out of our house tomorrow. Then Sunday will be spent delivering the furniture that has been sold. Then I'll have to finish up the packing, as Container Day is Thursday.
If I don't post again for about a week, don't be surprised.