Last Days in Tergnier

The end of my time in Tergnier has come! Thursday was my last day of classes at Condren, Friday was my last day in town, and Saturday I caught a bus from Paris to Amsterdam.

It really blows my mind how fast 7 months have flown by. It is also crazy to think that I am 1 year out of college, and to think of all that I've done in that year: moved to Kansas City & worked there for 3 months; went home to California; then moved to France, and grown fond of my little apartment, this little town in gray Picardie, and of course all the people I've met here.

This past week has been a rather gloomy one, full of goodbyes and rain. On Sunday I had my last basketball game with Équipe B, who took the #13 jersey I've been wearing and had my name put on it along with the name of the club-- ASG Gauchy! They also pushed me into the shower with all my clothes on directly after the game, apparently a tradition of some sort. I also said goodbye to the yoga class I've been attending on Monday nights, Equipe A who I've been practicing with twice per week, Bara & Jakub, several assistants who live nearby, and of course all the students and teachers I've worked with over the last few months.

The most moving moment of the week came on Thursday, when I said goodbye to the students and teachers at Condren. In the morning during my last regular class, the director of the school, Lucille, and I made chocolate chip cookies with the older kids, and I spent my usual 30 minutes with maternelle, practicing colors, animals, and numbers. Lucille told me to come back in the afternoon to taste the cookies and to say goodbye-- I thought it was going to be something small and short. When I arrived Lucille had me doing something on the computer in a classroom, but after a few minutes someone came to get me and told me everyone was waiting for me in the maternelle classroom. I walked over, and all the kids in the whole school were there (theres about 70 of them), and had decorated the classroom with American flags and were clapping and cheering! All the teachers were there too, and everyone sang a few songs-- "Head, Shoulder, Knees and Toes", "Michelle", and this one- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPn52kRQx3k -- along with Lucille's husband, who had brought along his guitar. They had had a shirt made for me that said the name of the school and had all the kids' signatures on it, as well as a map of France on one sleeve and one of the US on the other. A lot of kids gave me notes and drawings, and of course we tried the cookies! I couldn't help but cry a bit, it was so nice to know that everyone felt that having me at the school had been a help, and of course it was sad to say goodbye-- the teachers and students at that school in particular have been so kind to me since the very beginning.

My very last day in Tergnier was a nice one, with very typical April weather-- all day it alternated between rain and sunshine. I took one last run along the canal, where everything was much greener than the last time I had gone. In the evening I ate dinner with some friends in Chauny, and as I walked out of the house there was a giant bright rainbow just above the school across the street from our apartment! It was a nice last image of our little place.

The last few days have been busy ones-- on Saturday I was on a bus for almost 11 hours, and arrived in Amsterdam in the early evening. Thanks to the internet and the wonders of social networking, I was able to stay with a friend of a friend for the night, and yesterday I walked around the city for hours, and saw the van Gogh museum and some prostitutes along the way (weird!!) Yesterday afternoon I caught a ride into Germany and at around 10 pm arrived in Diepholz, where Tabea picked me up and drove me to her parents' house (the very first place I stopped in Germany was McDonald's. lol) Her parents are very kind and so far in the way of German specialties I've tasted beet syrup, special breakfast rolls, and real Black Forest ham. This morning Tabea and I took the train to Osnabruck, where she is a student at the university.

I'll be in Germany for the next 2 weeks, mostly in Osnabruck but also in Hamburg for one weekend and Berlin for a few days at the end, then it's back to Saint Quentin, France, for one week, then on to Prague, Geneva, and Tuscany! I can't post photos because I'm using a university computer, but I'll try to do that soon. For now I will leave you with this article about the first round of the French presidential election, which happened yesterday (if you're interested):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/23/francois-hollande-french-election?intcmp=239
and also this German proverb that Tabea taught me:
Was der Bauer nicht kennt, dass isst er nicht! (=What the farmer doesn't know, he doesn't eat.)

Goodbye Tabea :'( (+Rugby and a visit from Vicky)

Things are winding down here in Tergnier. Tabea left last weekend, because the German assistants' contracts only last 6 months, and it was sad to see her go. The apartment doesn't feel the same without her! Thankfully I will see her in a couple weeks in Germany, so we didn't have to say goodbye just yet. In the time before she left we enjoyed two weeks of freakishly beautiful weather, went to a nature reserve/funny little menagerie (à la Little Farm in Tilden) in Saint Quentin, cooked and shared some nice meals, invited friends over for a little aurevoir potluck, and said goodbye to our crazy washing machine. Our neighbors lent La Machine Infernale to us before Christmas, because they had upgraded to a new one-- when we got it, one load of wash took 4 hours. Over the course of the next few months, that cycle time got longer and longer, and by about 2 weeks ago, one load of wash took 13 hours! Finally Tabea did a load and the little machine couldn't take it anymore... it filled to the brim with smelly water, which we had to bail out before disconnecting the machine. We had a little funeral on deconnection day.

Aurevoir potluck-
Animals at the park in Saint Quentin!


My basketball team eating together before a game a couple weeks ago-
Au revoir, machine infernale.
The day Tabea left, the same neighbors who lent La Machine Infernale invited me to go watch a rugby game in Paris with them and their son Edouard, who I work with at Blériot-- he's 5. The match was in the Stade de France, a huge 80,000 spectator stadium built for the World Cup (I think?) when it was in Paris a few years back. My neighbor Philippe explained that the team owner hires a lot of performers for a big show before/after the matches to bring in more fans-- and it certainly was a spectacle! Before the match there were cheerleaders, Irish dancers, an American rock cover band, a parade of bagpipe bands, a bright pink limo that took a drive around the field to drop of a randomly selected fan at field-side seats where he watched the game surrounded by cheerleaders, and a gymnastics routine by Paris' firefighters, a group of extremely attractive, military-trained men (one more reason the French might be right in thinking they're better than us). THEN, the ball used in the game was delivered by 4 men who leapt from a plane flying over the stadium and PARACHUTED onto the field! After the game, there were fireworks (!) (The game itself was much less interesting, but still cool-- Paris v. Toulouse, Toulouse won.)

Gymnastic firefighters!



I was only in the apartment for a few days, because on Wednesday a good friend from Grinnell, Vicky Mercer, arrived for a 12 day visit! Vicky just finished up a year and a half working in Thailand as an English teacher, and is stopping in France on her way back to the US. I'm very happy to have some good catching up time with her, because I haven't seen her in so long-- so far we've done a walking tour of Tergnier, spent one night in Amiens, and the day yesterday visiting a cute little seaside town called St. Valery-sur-mer in the Baie de Somme. We visited the hortillonages (island gardens accessible only by boat!) in Amiens, which is something I've been wanting to do since before I came to France, and in St. Valery we walked along the seaside and ate sea food. In an hour or so we're going to go eat lunch with a teacher from Condren who invited us to her house, and then go with her to see the castle at Pierrefonds in the afternoon.

It's strange that I only have two weeks of work left, it will be quite sad to say goodbye to all the kids and teachers I've been working with. Recently I've been working on animals with the preschoolers at Condren, and I talked about presidential elections with the older kids. At Blériot we did an activity about April Fool's Day last week, which was fun-- I asked the kids to think up a prank they would like to pull on someone. One girl said she'd like to freeze a mosquito in an ice cube and put it in someone's drink, another boy thought of switching salt and sugar at home. My favorite was a boy who said he wanted to open a store, but only for people named Michelle-- he had a good laugh, though no one else did, but I thought it was awesome.

That's all for now, happy Easter to all! And I will post pictures from my time with Vicky soon. Big hugs!