Hey! So I'm just going to write this like a diary entry so i can remember what i was doing at this particular time when i look back. I don't know why i don't just get a private little notebook to scribble thoughts in. I thAtink it's because keeping a journal seems like such a heavy commitment, and because anything on the internet is concealed from my mother, who might be the only one that I want to hide things from.
Hanging out with Marta :-
At the weekend, i didn't leave my town, which is unusual for me. It rained all weekend, a constant grey downpour, leaking through my suade boots and turning them into mush inside and out. I met up with Marta on Saturday. We sat in a cafe near the port looking out at the water and drank tea in the window. She had a little coffee in a tiny cup. She told me about the difficulties of being an au pair. Feeling underappreciated, being ordered about, and enduring being tormented and even kicked by a very rude naugty little four year old child.
This little girl is causing her all sorts of problems, screaming at Marta to get out of her room in the mornings when she comes to wake her up, and even going so far as to lock her cheeky little self in the bathroom in a ploy to avoid being taken to school.
Marta told me that enticing the girl out with threats was futile, and the girl began to demand a chocolate ransom, else she would continue to hold herself hostage in the toilet. After everything else failed she gave in and gave her a small square of chocolate.
Telling the mother of the child about these difficulties, in the hope of getting support or promise to discipline the child a little, proved hopeless, and in fact the mother found the story quite charming and hilarious. (Perhaps it is to someone who can look at the situation from outside. It seems bizarre and almost Victorian to sit back and leave the upbringing of your child to some foreign governess-type lady)
The lady of the house declared that her child simply had an excess of character, which she thought a quite healthy and promising sign. In fact, she delighted in telling the chocolate anecdote to her friend who came to the house. This woman is studying to be a nurse, and the strange hours she has to work at the hospital mean that she needs someone to look after her daughter.
Marta told me that the situation of being an au pair within a family is difficult, because they want you to engage with them, chat with them, entertain them, and often come to you for idle chatter, yet how far is one to express one's true opinions? It seems almost rude to disagree with one's employer, and Marta said she felt emotionally stifled, with her employer always waxing on joyfully about topics of her choice, the au pair simply a sounding board and a person to smile and agree.
All the same, after this experience of teaching in French schools, i am still undecided about what my next move will be. Perhaps a period of au pair work? I think it would be difficult though, and finding myself stranded in deepest darkest Germany without a single friend for company might be very trying. Marta is lucky because there is another au pair living in her house.
That's right- two au pairs for one naughty wild four year old! The first girl was employed, but then swiftly dropped when it transpired that she couldn't, or wouldn't drive the old battered car which Marta now rolls around in. Despite not being payed, she still lives in the house "for the experience" rather than going home, and gets food and board provided for, although bizarrely, the amount of work she does almost equals that which Marta does. (this is the italian girl i wrote about eating crepes with.)
She's a strange italian creature, very quiet and mild mannered, doesn't like going out much, and has the face of a sweet shy bush baby. I think she's either my age or one year younger, but has a fiance in Italy that she often sepnds time Skyping with.
After our coffee-chat, Marta and I unravelled a map of the town, and made a plan of action. It was a special national fundraising day, a little like red nose day i suppose, so there were various activities going on around the town. We found some jolly black heavily-religious types offering gospel singing classes with beaming smiles: Marta was well up for doing it, but i was feeling ill and not in a mood for singing, the penetrating drizzle and mucus in my throat having dampened my joy. I felt a little bad for denying her this amusement, since she didn't want to sing without me.
There was a fire engine parked outside the town hall that was giving children rides in a big crane arm which stretched about it.
Intouchables:-
In the evening- after separating and eating at our respective houses- we re-grouped and wandered to the little local cinema. It was buzzing. There's this film which everyone is mad about in France called The Untouchables. Cinemas are full up with people clamering to see it. In the cinema in Vannes which we ended up driving to, they had to get out a special paper sign saying "untouchables sold out" after a certain number of people had bought tickets.
I'm not sure if i wrote about it when i went to see it, but the hype is something else. Something about the film must tap into the french psyche. I found it slightly patronising and moralising.
It's about a disabled rich old dude, who decides to employ a poor young black dude from an immigrant family, who lives with his extended family in the banlieues (of Paris?) to take care of him, bypassing many other candidates in the interview who have better experience and qualifications. He chooses this guy because he prefers his unprofessional informal attitude. And guess what?: despite a few rough starts and misunderstandings- washing his feet in shampoo and his hair in foot cream etc- they get along GREAT. They have a laugh. He even gets the common and uncultured guy to paint, and sells his works for a lot of money after telling a buyer they're from an up and coming artist. I just thought it was silly and self congratulatory and didn't really address any issues about the fractures in french society and the yawning gap between rich and poor.
In the end we drove through the night through a long straight unlit countryside road to Vannes, to an entertainment complex where the cinema was packed. With a lack of decent nightlife in this area, seems to me cinema is what people do to amuse themselves. We saw a perplexing film called les Lyonnais. About french gangsters. People shooting people and unpleasant blood-spurting murder scenes. Marta didn't like it at all, which i felt a bit bad about, but hey...
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