the bells

so, of all the odd things to be taking place today...

i’m walking home from work, where i’ve just been astounded again (more at the end...), when the bells of the church start to ring. this, i take as a normal occurrence because it happens every hour -- at least. and, seeing as how it’s very near noon, i assume it is for the hour.

so, as i said, i’m walking. it seems to me that the bell has been having at it for a very long time... something quite more than 12 rings. and, sure enough, as i sit and count 12 more rings i’m assured that my suspicion is correct.

for at least 5 more minutes the bell continues to ring. this is the first time i’ve known any bell to do that on a friday at noon, so i hop in to the nearest tabac and ask the nice man at the counter if there’s something going on. he’s newer to the region, and says he’s not sure... but proceeds to ask the next customer that comes in... who also has no idea.

nor does the man i stop on the street.

odd.

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as for the astonishment at school, there are two reasons i was in such a state:

1.
1. for the past 3, if not 4, lessons with the younger of my classes at that school we have been learning the alphabet. (whether or not 7 year old french kids need to know the english alphabet is an entirely different matter... i just was out of ideas one day, and thought they might like to sing...) the first lesson or two was singing the song. then, because i had absolutely no idea what to do one day... i went down the roll, picking kids’ names at random and writing them on the board. they had to read the letters out to me. (they really, really liked this activity... i need more ingenious ideas like that to keep them all occupied...) today, again with no idea really what i was doing, i reviewed one more time the alphabet song, correcting their mispronunciations; i reviewed colors and food; and then i went through the food vocabulary, spelling the words out loud while they searched their lists for the words. they had to raise their hand when they found it. then we spelled a few more food items of their choosing together on the board. this, too, went over entirely way too well with the little people.


2.
2. as i’m getting done with class, i head over the computer room to check for a couple of emails that i’ve been waiting for (with no luck...). in the hallway, the kids are lining up and getting their coats and what have you on so they can go home to lunch. there are a couple of classes at the school i don’t teach, either because the kids are too young to start english or because their teacher is adept with the language and teaches them herself. the particular horde of children i ran into in the hall fit in the latter category. they know i’m the english assistant, and that my name is mark (i often speak to their teacher between classes or before lunch... always in english), but they don’t really know me. the last few times, i’ve said hello to them and asked them how they are doing. the largely shy away and seem all sorts of timid-like. this time, i said hello to a couple of them... asked how they were... and then asked their names. i worked with them a bit to help them understand my accent and get what i was saying. the bright little buggers figured it out... and next thing i know i’m surrounded by 20 little frenchies saying, “my name is...,” making sure that i hear each one of their respective names. they were fascinated by me, it seems (also, a bit surprised to learn that i know french). the teacher was later telling me that they want to have me come in with them some time for a lesson (which i would not be opposed to). never would i have thought that simply speaking my native tongue would cause such a reaction among a group of people... even midgitiles.

king for a day

sunday, we were invited over to the beaulieus. i have a bit of a link with the family beaulieu, just like i have a sort of connection with the branch president. the older of the two sons at home (i’m not sure if they have any other children besides the boys...) was in my mission. we were only serving in the mission together for a month and a half, and he was on the other side of the mission, so i never met him. but, i heard the name of elder gregory beaulieu several times through the course of my mission.

so... like i was saying... we were invited chez beaulieu for lunch. it was quite lovely. like a lot. one word sums it up: raclette.

for those who are not familiar with the marvelousness of raclette, a brief explanation follows, complete with pictures!

raclette means scraper... or something to that extent. it’s also a kind of cheese. the name of the cheese comes from the dish, which comes from the small wooden scraper that you use during the course of the meal.



to truly have eaten raclette one MUST have a raclette machine. (there’s a microwave version out now... but i’m not sure you can do that. it’s like saying mashed potatoes and instant potatoes are the same thing. lies!)

one places one’s cheese in the small tray, which is placed under the grilling surface. there’s a heating element under this last, which serves to both melt your cheese, and grill your cold-cuts and vegetables. sometimes there’s a place to cook crepes too.

the cooking surface is usually non-stick metal, but there are stone ones... and i've seen glass.



while the cheese is melting, you take one or more boiled potatoes (the potatoes here are a yellow potato... very moist and dense, with a slight buttery flavor...) and commence to cut or mash it on your plate. you can also add cold-cuts and vegetables, grilled or not.



when the cheese is bubbling and melted, you proceed to pour it over you potatoes. if the cheese sticks to the tray... you scrape. hence, raclette. then... before you do anything else, you put more cheese in your tray and place it back under the grill. there’s nothing worse in this world than having to wait 2 whole minutes for your cheese to melt, while your meat and potatoes get cold... and your belly is yelling “FEED ME, YOU IMBECILE!” bad form. cheese first, then eat. trust me... it’s for the best of everyone.

we then had some salad (what french meal is complete without it?) and bread... and then dessert (what french meal is complete without it?), which was a sort of creamy pastry thing. it had a puff pastry type crust, with a pastry cream inside (like in a bavarian cream?), and a whipped topping on top, vanilla or praline flavors. good.

and that’s how we spent our king’s day. though we didn’t figure that out until monday... because i couldn’t remember when it was exactly, and so i had to ask folks. (at least in france, it’s the first sunday of january... other sources tell me other things... but i’m in france... so i’m better than you, and that’s that.) so we had to eat our king cake on monday night. (which isn’t so big a deal, because i don’t think we’d’ve been able to down another thing that night...)

king cake, or galette des rois, is eaten on king’s day, or la fête des rois. it’s another puff pastry (i’m not sure i’m describing that properly... very much the same dough that a croissant is made with... buttery and flaky) filled with frangipani, a sort of almond paste. on the inside, there’s a fève, or bean, (which is actually a little porcelain figurine...) hidden in the pie (it’s more of a pie that a cake...). you cut the confection, and tradition says that the youngest person, usually while hiding under the table, dictates at random who will receive which piece. whoever finds the bean (chew carefully...) wins the crown that comes with the cake, is named king/queen for the day. the tradition celebrates the epiphany, or the moment when the magi kings (the gentiles) had the christ-child revealed to them. it’s a catholic thing. it’s also a louisiana thing. but, i think that it’s done during mardi gras in that part of the world.

winter wonderland

ok... so there’ve been all sorts of holidays going on around here these last days.

first off... i believe it was on the 13th there was the branch christmas get together. a little pageant, and a few things to snack on (mostly different cakes, pies and cookiesque items).

on the 24th, we had a nice little evening here at home. whitney filled you in on that already, in about as much detail as there was to give. except that the power went out in the afternoon... for about 3 hours. the main level of the building had power, but not anywhere else. so we all gathered around the staircase to talk about the power being out, and to speculate about why it had happened... and why the devil the main floor still had power. then there was turning off all the breakers, and then systematically turning each one back on until the offending apartment was found. (i believe they were out for the evening, and they just decided to leave the breaker off for that place until they could get an electrician to come in and regulate the problem... and as i recall, they weren’t very happy to have their power cut, and were threatening to go to the police over it. our poor concierge... what was he to do? leave the one apartment out, or turn their breaker on and have no juice for the other 29 places in the building?)

christmas day, we were invited to the bigay’s house. they had the whole family there: their four sons (mickaël, sabastien (with his girlfriend, élodie), pierre and yann), réné and florence, ming wan (random chinese friend of the family)... and us. vaitiare, a tahitian girl in the branch, was invited too, but unable to come. we had a right regular french christmas: oysters, smoked salmon, foie gras... and then for the main course we had duck with a mushroom and creame sauce. dessert was a homemade bûche de noël. uh... you could probably consider a pumpkin roll as being a variation on the bûche de noël: sponge cake with stuff in the middle. it was a raspberry flavored one. we also had american apple pie (provided by the americans...) this came in normal and non-spiced (the french have this thing with spices and not using a lot of them... except garlic. ok that’s not entirely true... but still). we also were invited back for dinner... which was much simpler: salad, zucchini soup and some left over things from meals precedent. we brought a bottle of champomy to share with everyone (it’s like martinelli’s). all in all, a really nice time.

for new year’s eve... we stayed up watching the first two highschool musicals (for lack of other things to watch), and made some apple rhubarb tarts to go with another bottle of champomy. we also had more fun with the power going off... but only in our apartment and the one next door. we’re on the same breaker with the neighbor. for some reason, it decided (for about 10 minutes) to shut itself off every 45 seconds or so. it was doing that a little bit yesterday too... but only like 5 times.

and that’s been our winter holiday season so far. more to come in a few days. :)

the wonderful view from the top of the staircase chez Bigay...

my wifers!

all the dishes left over from the dinner... for 12 people...

the table during dessert time

patrick and whitney chilling in the living room