Why my job is fantastic/awful

It's been a good month since my last post, so plenty to talk about.

I'll start with school. We recently had a 2 week holiday, and just before that, I finally conquered the 'th' issue with my CP1 class in elementaire (age 6/7). They can now saw mother, brother, father WITHOUT pronouncing 'th' with a Z. I can't explain the pride! Pathetic yet true.


My school is sooooo great, the teachers organise so many projects/outings/events for the little ones. At that age in England they would be playing around in nursery but they learn sooo much in a proper school environment at that age here, without being pushed too hard, and keeping the comfort and feeling of security of a small institution atmosphere. On the last day of term we celebrated carnivale, as it fell during the holidays. It was such a fun day. ALL the children in maternelle, and several classes from elementaire dressed up in 60's Funk outfits they had been making earlier in the week, and all sorts of props; afro wigs, big sunglasses, peace symbol medallions. You name it, it was there.

In the afternoon we all gathered, and the younger classes went on a parade through the streets of the local community all dressed up, with music etc. The elder ones stayed in the playground, and with the help of one of my colleague's friends, we were able to set up huge speakers blaring out Funk music, and had a bit of a dance party with all the kids and the parents. We then met the younger children in the park behind our school, where we had more huge speakers and music. The children formed into their rehearsed positions....and created a soul train. Two rows of children opposite each other with a metre or two between the two rows facing each other. The two children at the top danced their way down the space between the rows to the end, then rejoin the lines at the end, and the next pair go etc etc. Of course I had to take part with one of the teachers to show the kids some really impressive Beyonce dance moves. There was such a great atmosphere, and massive credit to the teachers who organised it. After this we went back to the playground, and ate about ten thousand crêpes and other traditional desserts that the parents had bought in for the event and carried on busting moves.

Food from the families at school

Soul Train, we know how to party

I'm going to rewind a tad further now...we had some snow, like in the UK, which lingered for a good while, and although I was hoping for a snow day...this never happened. Naive as I was, I thought that the snow would be fun with the kids. Allow me to set the scene. Morning break, first day of snow, and the first time many of the kids had seen snow. They were having a massive snow fight. At this point I stepped into the battleground that was the playground. My colleague Patrice shouted 'get the english'. What ensued can only be described as bullying. A hundred and fifty children ran at me, visciously armed with solid balls of snow. Naturally, I ran. The playground isn't big though, there was no escaping them. As I mounted the small hill in the playground, I was being hit from every angle. I went to run down the hill, and yes, I fell. It was icy on the ground, I had slipped. There was a moment of confusion, not knowing whether I should solider on and continue the war, or whether I should surrender. I chose the latter, thinking if i acted hurt, they would pity me, maybe help me up. Boy was I wrong. My glasses just turned into lenses of snow, I couldn't see a thing as they carried on pelting me as I lay there wounded, just a fraction of the person I was when I stepped onto that playground mere moments before.

Despite that, I did manage to have fun with the children in the snow. The school gave each class a lesson off so we could go and have snowmen competitions in the snow, I managed to shuffle my timetable so I spent the day doing this...

I've decided to really push myself with the french, so aswell as being a massive geek and going to uni two evenings a week, I went to buy my first piece of french literature, hoping to get myself into it with a nice light hearted read. I left with this.... My political side got the better of me. I still haven't read past the first paragraph.



Just to make everyone happy, I'll add in that I'm writing this whilst sitting in the sun on my balcony, passing the time away before a road trip to Spain this afternoon....

Thanks for reading

À la prochaine

Jess
xxx