A Walk with the Wood Elf

Dada Maua’s Diary

2008-08-05T08:17:00.007-04:00

Crossroads
Lubumbashi 7-22

I leave the eerie beauty of early morning at the Johannesburg Airport to fly several hours north. From the air, straight-line roads and curving rivers cut this land, dividing bare rocks from dry plains from green acres. The shores reach like fingers into the lakes sparkling in the morning sun. When we pass over settled land, the metal roofs reflect light like the diamonds deep within the earth on which they sit. The city stretches beneath us as we turn into our final landing pattern, colors of muted green and brown. The trees still have cover even though here it is the depth of winter, dropping to 2o C. this morning in Johannesburg.

On the tarmac, I hold up my name badge and scan the cards held out by the men lining the walk to the building. I walk the line twice, sure that there will be someone there for me, and finally, one of the men without a name card asks me if I am Sylvia. He hands my passport to one uniformed official while a woman examines my immunization record. Then my documents disappear with my handler into a back room and I read on the sofa in a waiting room with other passengers. He comes back once to ask my profession, and I read on. A chapter later, Puma arrives and introduces himself. I gather my things, and he says, oh no, not yet, wait a bit more.

This game sets a tone for the country. En route to our plane at Johannesburg, the businessmen are laughing about someone being refused the flight because he didn’t have a visa for Congo. “Visa? You don’t need a visa – you can buy one when you get there! And the price is set by the nationality of your passport.” I will know that Congo is truly independent, taking her place in the ranks of nations, when I can get off a plane, stand in line at the passport control, watch the official enter my number into the computer to see if I’m on a watch list, and stamp me through. While the outside world continues to mock the Congolese playing this game, the country remains in its infancy. I long to see the day when the country takes itself seriously as a people instead of the current modus operatus of every man for himself.

We load into a battered Jeep and Puma points out landmarks in the city as we pass. We slow to a crawl going past a drop gate manned by uniformed guards and he explains that this is the presidential palace when Mr. Kabila is in town, so the armed guards along the way watch to be sure passersby are not using cell phones, not playing the radio, and not driving more than 20 mph, even when the president is not there. They are a serious looking bunch, as are most military. No one defies the guidelines. A lot like Washington D.C.

We turn off the main road and I meet the devil and he is a city street, my first of too many kilometers suffering the lack of maintenance of the roads. Think a back mountain road, paved once, but long since cracked, broken, deeply carved, caked in dirt rising in clouds. Puma has come this way to show me the school he attended, 15 years ago a thriving property with several buildings, a schoolyard, ordered and functioning. He lived nearby growing up and shakes his head as he remembers what once was, grieving the disintegration with a fierce determination to push back, one man against a mountain in a relentless slide into the valley of death.

We stop suddenly, the noise coming from the back end of the Jeep grinding us to a halt. Puma and the driver decide after looking it over that we need a mechanic stop, so we creep around the block to a parking area filled with minivan taxi buses seeking customers and mechanics working out of the back of trucks.

The first lucky young men to arrive with tools begin to jack up the car and take off the wheel. They find a ring of metal hanging by a wire, rattling against the tire. One rushes off for metal cutters but before he can return, Puma has bent the metal back and forth to break it. Problem solved, 3 boys paid 500 francs each (about a dollar), and we resume our travel.

The car park of minivans looks just like the parking lot at Mandela Square in Jo’burg and just like the streets of Yerevan, Armenia. It is apparently a characteristic of an emerging society that in the absence of mass transit infrastructure, individuals begin their own transport businesses. Hundreds of them. Of course, my hometown needs better mass transport, too. We have that in common So instead of one coherent public transport network of several dozen buses, there are countless vans vying for clients, clogging the roads.

The roads. As we leave the broken pavement of the city streets, we dive into the minefield of the dirt roads of Congo. Dirt packed harder than paving, washboard for starters and holes the size of Kansas. Our driver works the wheel like a Nascar hero. No, like a motocross biker. OK, maybe like a slalom skier working the poles, spinning tight around one to dive into the next, finding a straight line between obstacles. Now add in the unavoidable jouncing-ceiling-bumping-jolting-kidney-bursting-back-breaking-breath- snatching ride that complicates his even clinging to the wheel. Oh. There are other vehicles on the road, cars (how do they survive more than an hour of this?), more Jeeps, 4-wheel drives, and bicycles. And pedestrians, children, women with burdens on their heads, men pushing wheelbarrows, all vying for the same piece of good road. With no sense of order, each simply taking what he wants, cutting in, cutting off, scooting past by an inch, leaping in front of oncoming traffic. Anarchy.

Then we come to an intersection of two such roads. The driver lurches into the path of oncoming traffic, swerves around pedestrians, cuts off a car trying to turn. This takes the terror of the Armenian bus running red lights at will into the realm of zen serenity.

And here I have found in the maelstrom of the crossroads a metaphor for the culture of the Congo. Each man for himself. Community coherence? Not on your life. Here is Faustin Ntala’s lesson on this culture:

I vented my frustration at the lack of apparent interest in community action to improve the roads. I said in recognizable Dave Hyde fashion, “If I lived along this road, I’d have my 10 kids out every day filling buckets with stones and filling in the biggest holes. I’d be organizing my neighbors for a Sunday afternoon gathering that started with roadwork and ended with a barbecue. I’d work up to collecting a dollar per family until I could buy a truckload of gravel to spread on the road.”

Faustin just smiled. “And the day after you would awake to find the gravel gathered up and sold to someone in the next village building a house.” Heavens. How can a culture of ‘strip everything in sight for today with a blind eye to tomorrow’ ever transform itself into a community conscious of the common good?

I feel a strong desire to simply go home to enjoy the culture of community with a vision of the common weal and infrastructure in place to accomplish tasks for the common good. The task here is overwhelming. Yet there is hope for a future, because it has evolved from a past.

And what a past. The Belgians constructed an infrastructure that they abandoned in 1960 with no transition of administrative leadership. Those who eventually took control did so without the requisite experience to run the train system, maintain the roads, and serve the people. Without going into the depths of the horrors perpetrated by Leopold’s bloody 23 year reign at the turn of the century which murdered literally half the population, it must be said that serving the people was never remotely considered as a goal. Using up the people to serve the greedy desires of the leader became the model for Congolese leadership.

It is a vast and murky chasm that separates the Congo from the promised land of independence, with the crossing a road as deeply pocked as that which breaks my bones.

Along this road I see small buildings that seem to serve as homes or as businesses, small brick structures labeled Pharmacy, Hardware, or Grocery. These are built close to the road with virtually no space to do business. I find it hard to imagine in rain and storms whatever residents do to reach a store. This road must become a sea of mud, these businesses inundated.

Then there are the high brick walls with barred gates, with only the tops of breezy palm trees visible above: this is where the money goes. The walls at first appear defensive; then I realize that they also serve the purpose of maintaining the ignorance of the public, preventing the people whose backbreaking labor created the profits from seeing, from knowing.

In a transparent system, the people will demand justice, but if the people can be kept blind to the reality around them, they will keep trudging along the rutted road, eyes down, looking for today’s meal. And ignorant of their own power, an overwhelming force if they would just join together as a community in action.

We arrive at Myrt School compound, a group of buildings with trees, cactus, palms, and bushes in abundance in the school yard. Everything is the color of the red dirt, clouds of dust rising from the road, the grounds, stripped of any ground cover and dry in this season. We drive through the gate across the road, held open by a young man in workers’ blue overalls, into a yard with grass, palms, trees, and bushes. I deposit my bag in the house, an admirably sound two-story structure with living room, bedrooms, bathroom, and office. There is much to do to finish the house, floor covering, finished walls, plumbing complete, but it is comfortable and secure. As Puma reminds us, he built this compound from scratch, sleeping outside. First task: he dug a well. Second he built an outdoor toilet with adjoining shower room. Then he built the house. The neighbors first came to him for water instead of the walk to the nearby stream, but eventually they too dug wells. And now they all have an outhouse instead of the great outdoors. Human beings learn by example, by seeing what can be and following. As educators, that is our mission: to model the process, the strategies, the curiosity and determination, the perseverance that will serve our students’ interests.

Across the road I find the Myrt School complex of buildings, built bit by bit over the years by Able and Willing, Incorporated, of Washington D.C. under the direction of Mbuyu Wa Mbuyu, called Puma. He is a native of this town, a poor man’s son who struggled through school, succeeding in achieving a technical degree as an electrician. He has devoted his energy to this school project and already I see already his utter commitment to the development of this country. The library already has a start of textbooks and literature, but the bare shelves invite the influx of boxes of books, a task near to my heart.

We arrive during the lunch break and I meet teachers as they gather in groups to eat in different classrooms. Those that I join are delighted to help me practice “Jambo” and “Jambo sana ,” and I begin to note the words for colors as I help pass out the lunch plates and cups. We are three short, which becomes critical as those left out feel the slight. The meal is based around bugari, a white corn meal paste that is rolled into softball size serving from which individuals will roll small quantities in their right hand into balls that they then flatten to scoop up the vegetable condiment. The casual break time allows me to converse, to interact in order to let me know me and to meet them. I learn few names because I never see them written, but I remember Béatrice and Geneviève. I begin to learn faces and smiles.

These 60 teachers gather in the classroom, sitting on benches 2 each at table desks. The door and window are open to allow the cool air to move and the sunlight to come in. There is no electric lighting needed. Faustin stands by a front table and a slate chalkboard to address the group. I find a small table and chair in the front corner.

The focus of the seminar is math and science pedagogy. The teachers will have a mixture of presentations in the large group, small group discussions and projects, and individual work. Faustin explains his expectations for the portfolio that will be submitted Saturday, a page responding to the question, “Why do you choose to continue to teach?”, a page of model lesson plan appropriate to their level based on the discussions of the week, and a page of evaluation, reflecting on what they learned during the week and how they will apply it. He addresses the teachers, fielding questions, insisting on top quality work, and I hear echoes of Dr. Koop instructing the seminarians in Geneva and Liege on the portfolio that we are expected to submit, a lesson planned and taught and a faculty presentation. Teaching and teacher formation is more the same than different globally.

We close for the day about 4pm and head back to the house, then head for town to visit Faustin’s sister Annie. I’m still running on excitement and nervous energy. The city streets are smoothly paved in many places, the main avenues and thoroughfares, but we bump off these streets onto broken pavement to get to her house. The children open the street gate and the gate to their drive. Richard, the oldest, named after his dad, greets me politely, answering my Swahili with a grin and a handshake. He is about eleven. His sister Catherine, another Catie, is a beauty already at 9, with a quick smile and quiet strength. The middle brother, Phineas, holds back, but shakes my hand. Mariella comes to me on the sofa and snuggles up, letting me pet her hair and hold my hand, soberly listening to my reassuring chatter. I have to work to get a grin out of her, but she is quick to sit on my lap. It is little Pascal, the baby at maybe 2 years old, who cowers at the strange and terrifying sight of this white woman invading his home. He hides his face on his brother or sister’s shoulder and claims his mother’s lap when she sits with me, turning away resolutely in spite of familial reassurances.

Faustin’s sister is lovely and amiable, her children bright and friendly and well-mannered. Their father works as a field geologist, often out in the bush for a week or more seeking and analyzing potential mining sites.

We visit for a bit before pleading fatigue and head for home. I get kisses and smiles from all but Pascal. I accept the challenge.

Marcel, the neighbor and long time friend of Puma who works for him here, has prepared a dinner of chicken and bugari and vegetables at the outdoor kitchen, a clever fireplace with a metal cooking surface and an interior oven and smoking rake. Delicious meal. And Simba, the local blond beer, very smooth and almost sweet, not bitter at all. The Tembo dark version is even better. The alcohol content doesn’t seem to be very high.

I am stunned that it is dark at 6pm, not yet accustomed to the winter light cycle, and also not yet used to the Muskegon habits of carrying a flashlight out to the bathhouse, out to brush teeth under a tree, lighting a candle to dress for bed. Also not used to the concrete floor, cold to bare feet. But when I fall into bed, it is luxurious, clean, warm, soft. The adrenaline of the day, my excitement and relief at managing to get through the airport, the overwhelming sights on all sides, the amazement at actually being here, fade into a good night’s sleep.

Dada Maua
Lubumbashi 7-23

I awoke without alarm at 7 and decided I might as well dress before hitting the outhouse trail. I make a mental note to remember to put in contacts next time before applying the mosquito repellent – which is pretty redundant this time of year, at least here, as there is no standing water and no sign of bugs. I get into the skirt and top and work on the headscarf. Yikes. I end up with something that is way too pirate and resolve to get help from the ladies.

I have awoken with a snuffly head and and sinus pressure, so I take some aspirin and hope I haven’t eaten something camouflaged. I take a Claritin, praying that the dust and different plant life doesn’t become a daily issue.

Much to my surprise, breakfast did appear, rice pudding for Ntala, boiled eggs, and a herbal infusion of cut grass that smells a bit like citronella.

When I have weaned myself from the comfort of the great log and coals of the fire
and managed the outdoor tooth brushing and outhouse, we cross the thick dust of the road to the school grounds, where teachers are already waiting. They light up at the sight of my Congolese garb and delight in my greeting in Swahili. One of the men steps up to me when I have asked someone’s name and given my own in the language to say, “No, that is not your name today. You need an African name.” I tell them that Sylvia means From the Woods and he grins. “Now your name is Dada Maua. Maua means flower.” They all nod and smile and laugh when I repeat it in the sentence.

I tell them that I wanted to come prepared to dress in their style, so I had gone to the Matonge district of Brussels to find a Congolese dress shop where I bought this outfit. It is important to me to be willing to adapt to the culture here, to eat and dress and even talk as local life dictates. It seems to me that they appreciate that effort, and Faustin and Puma both refer to the gesture at one point in conversation, so they too seem to appreciate my willing immersion in the culture.

The lesson in math pedagogy involves identifying the means by which a teacher can verify that a student understands the underlying meaning of the digits manipulated in computation, the concepts of number and decimal place, of tens and hundreds. The discussion permits the teachers to explain the different ways to have their class deconstruct a number to show their comprehension. In the course of the presentation and discussion, the topic often veers into larger questions of classroom management with little or no teaching material and other administrative issues.

Faustin moves on to a science lesson, complete with demonstration. He takes a balloon filled with water and asks teacher to hypothesize the consequences of holding it over a lighted candle. “It will burn!” “It will explode!” “No, the water will keep it from burning!” There is a pandemonium of discussion, which pleases Faustin no end. He explains that this is exactly the reaction he elicits in the classroom. Following the summary of all hypotheses, he lights the candle and holds it under the balloon. Nothing happens, to the shock of most participants. They immediately begin to ask if there were something special about the balloon, and he responds by suggesting that further study would require altering the color of the balloon, the type of liquid, the length of time in the flame. This demonstration illustrated the principle of basing science instruction not on lecture but on observation, hyposthesis, conclusion.

I struggle all day with the mounting realization that the sinus pressure is escalating into full-blown headache and with the ensuing tension as I grope for ways to deal with it. No ice packs, no hot showers, not towel over the teakettle for steam.

Together with the ebbing of the original adrenaline rush, the process of acclimatization, the awkwardness of the deep knee bends required by the toilet ( or lack of), and the sense that there is no way to change the culture, the roads, the economy, the despair, the complacent acceptance, the dust, I sink into a profound desire to go home. It occurs to me that I am in much the same process as an exchange student, who follows a predictable pattern of adaptation: euphoria at the exotic new place replaced by discomfort with the unfamiliar and the new daily routines, followed by despair at the overwhelming changes required, and finally accommodation into the new culture.

After the seminar closed for the day, we drove into town to call on Euphrasy Ntala’s sister, Getty. We asked her about finding a store to buy clothes for me, and she called her friendly neighborhood tailor on the spot. He came immediately, took my measurements, and negotiated a price to sew a classroom set of boys and girls school clothes for Faustin’s students and 3 garments for me with fabric that I would select. He also agreed to take in the top of the dress that I was wearing.

When we get home at the end of the day, I ask for hot water for a bath and explain the sinus problem. Marcel gets me a big bucket of hot water and a scoop cup then goes to find some Vicks ointment. I ask to use the house bathroom with its floor drain and door directly to my bedroom – much easier to imagine than the confines of the shower stall across the yard in the woods.

To my utter relief, I find that the hot shower is a hot shower, regardless of the mechanism, and my head relaxes. The Vicks under my nose helps too, and I go to bed feeling that there is hope.

Wigs, and What Women Want
Lumbumbashi 7-24-08 Thursday

I awoke with a certainty that the sinus headache was going to get me. Another hot shower and cool morning air drained my head, but the concomitant digestive malaise was unnerving. I managed, in the end, and skipped any thought of breakfast. I managed to sit with Faustin while he ate canned fish and eggs, and in the end, I felt better.

The cloud of imminent incapacity diffused, I donned my skirt with a black shirt and white blouse and was loudly greeted with a chorus of teachers saying, “It’s Sylvia, not Dada Maua!” I explained that my top was going off to the tailor and that I had not yet done my clothes shopping. Note to self: I wish I had a wardrobe ready to go before the workshop instead of getting the clothes when all are gone. Couldn’t be helped this time, though I could have bought one more outfit in Brussels.

After Faustin reviewed key points of the science methodology work from Wednesday, he gave the floor to Puma, who made a stirring presentation on the example teachers set for their students on the subject of their self-image and identity as Congolese. He used the example of the wig to illustrate his meaning.

His son, Percy, presented a researched history of the wig, beginning with the use by the Europeans as a means of identifying those being sanctioned for moral infringements such as theft or adultery. Later the English judges adopted the wearing of the elaborate white wig with robes to differentiate themselves from the common man, as a mantle of authority.

In France, it was Louis XIII who wore a wig to conceal his baldness. Not wanting his brother to suffer from this stigma, Louis XIV donned a wig himself to show his solidarity, thus setting the fashion trend for the aristocracy. He noted that the wearing of wigs by African women was a means by which they could more closely resemble white women, concluding that they showed thereby a lack of confidence in their natural beauty.

Puma spoke on the importance of knowing oneself, choosing one’s long term goals, and acting with confidence in one’s own identity along the way. “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” He asked me to speak on the subject, so I talked about my custom of trying to fit in wherever I go, to be mistaken for French when in France. It was important enough to me that I made a trip to Brussels to find the Congolese district and buy clothes in the Congolese women’s style. It is not a case of fitting in here so much as a means of showing respect and admiration for the local culture, much like learning immediately the words in Swahili for greeting and thank you.

The afternoon work in groups allowed me the opportunity to move from room to room photographing each group with their group name (each a national park in Congo) and then taking individual shots for possible use with quotes on the Waza or Able and Willing websites, or as author bio shots if we can publish their books.

During this workshop time, the task was to write a booklet text at the reading level of their own classroom to accompany the photos of the avocado that Puma had taken, from nut, to tree, to fruit. I hope we can develop a model for publishing teacher created materials, either here or in the USA, for use with Congolese classrooms and as language texts in context, for American French classes.

After the end of the session, we went to town to Faustin’s favorite café for a drink and a burger with Puma. He listened to the clicking of my camera as I shot out the window at the stores and walled homes along the way, finally pointing out the problematic use of such photos with any kind of political implication. Able and Willing has been operating freely for 15 years here through changing governments largely because all the work and publicity has focused exclusively on the school and its functions. If there are photos outside the school grounds, they are of the Scouts out in the community doing service. He reminds me that in the role of Waza secretary working I partnership with Able and Willing, I must consider the consequences of exceeding those limits in published writing. I realize that a public blog will not be the best place for the details of a journal.

I enjoyed the burger, commenting that it was far better than McDonald’s, starting with the great bread. I tasted Puma’s goat meat that he chose over the burger. He quickly tired of the noisy bustle of the intersection and the flow of men into the bar to have a drink on the way home. He longed for the quiet of his own fireside with the night sounds of the bush and lamented the money spent on beer and burgers that could be better allocated elsewhere.

By now, I have the routine tasks of dressing for bed, washing, brushing, outbuilding facilities, and candlelight comfortably established. It would have been more productive to have arrived, like Faustin, a week ahead of the seminar in order to be fully prepared. That will go in my list of suggestions for next time.

The Blessing of Old Friends, Found
Lumbumbashi Friday 7-25-08

This morning we rise at our ease since the teachers have a workday at home to finish their books and to work on their portfolio. I am working on the computer when Faustin says it’s time to leave. He is in a hurry so I gather my things and head off.

We go first up the road toward town, just before the dirt ends and the paving begins, to the TESOL school where Faustin taught for 9 years. He introduces himself and me to the administrators who happen to be there and shows me around. After looking at the library and some classrooms, an older gentleman approaches.

“Can it really be you?” is the easily divined translation of the Lingala that he utters, grinning at Faustin, who embraces him with astonishment. It is an old friend from his days here, one of the custodians that had been so kind. He excuses himself to rush off, coming back with his colleague who also embraces the obviously moved young prodigal son. The chatter exudes emotion, pride in his success, delight in his return, admiration for the loyalty that has kept these friends at work here for so long.

We leave after a long and satisfying visit, more sweet as it was unexpected, to keep an appointment with the Minister of Education, hoping to confirm his attendance at the closing ceremony tomorrow. We enter the building under the watchful eyes of guards, to whom Faustin directs a request to go upstairs to see the secretary of the ministry.

The secretary listens to his polite request to see the Minister, but he is unfortunately not available. Instead we are ushered into the congenial presence of the Directeur de Cabinet, a gentleman who in his soft-spoken way is both authoritative and kind.

He and Faustin discuss the seminar, the goals of Waza, and the process of securing a letter of approval from the provincial government to send with the application for federal recognition to Kinshasa. The Director asks Faustin to explore the acquisition of material and equipment for the ministry offices and for the schools, and suggests that we contact his daughter who has a publishing business. He asks about sending used textbooks and I tell him about our French books going to Nigeria. I make every effort to act the secretary deferring to my director.

We have had this discussion already after I heard some young men commenting on my offering Puma the front seat with Faustin, and moving to the back. They thought I was refusing the front with the driver and insisting on the back. In my mind, the front was the preferred place, which meant that I was showing deference, but here (and in the limo culture at home), I had taken the seat of superior. From now on, we agreed, I would not only take the front seat with the driver but I would hold the door for my boss.

We picked up Getty and headed for the city shops. I am undone by the overwhelming quantity of wildly flowered fabrics, both in the window and in row upon row of shelves and tables. It is hard to get past the vivid pinks and purples and oranges and neon greens and yellows that I would as soon avoid to find something floral but calmer, more wood elf. The patiently waiting friends and clerks make me feel as if I should hurry, though they are not rushing me, as the clerks pull out one bolt after another. I long for a quiet walk through the patterns, spread out enough to see the whole, all the while realizing it would have been smart to move money from the suitcase storage to my purse and worrying that I won’t have enough cash.

Faustin covers the last $30 that I need, and I leave with 3 fabrics and a ready-made skirt and blouse with headscarf in a lavender and brown flowered print that Emily and Jennifer will appreciate. Getty takes the fabric to give to the tailor and I head for home with every intention to wear my lovely dress to our dinner tonight.

We are invited to the home of Thierry and Yolanda, longtime friends of Faustin and a consulting member of the Waza board of directors. He lives in a quiet residential neighborhood with a really badly rutted street, but behind the walls, his drive is smooth and his garden lovely. The trees are flourishing with a cistern and a clever water pumping system.

Their home is warm and welcoming, with a lovely living and dining area and roomy kitchen, children’s bedrooms and master bed and bathroom, all making me feel right at home. I just miss falling on my face, tripping on the step up to the kitchen with my unaccustomed long skirts. I lurch and recover, suffering terminal embarrassment.

This is the second dress I bought in Brussels, thinking it would be dressy and formal for Saturday’s closing ceremony, but when I tried it on for the men, they said it was less Congolese and more Senegalese, so I saved the flowered skirt and top for tomorrow and was happy to have a nice outfit for this dinner party.

Thierry and Yoyo ask me if I would rather eat in the dining room or on the veranda, which flusters me, still suffering from the headlong fall across the kitchen. I waffle and finally say if they have no preference, I would enjoy the outdoor setting. (Of course, by the end of dinner they are shivering in the evening air and I’m feeling entirely ill-equipped socially.)

Thierry gets me clean water for the traditional hand-washing routine before dinner, then says grace after we take our places.
The boys, an older brother and twins Michael and Paul, set the table while the girls carry in the feast. There is fish and chicken, rice and bugari, langa langa, the green vegetable condiment, and sausages, French fries and sweet potato fries. The youngest, Gabriel, stands close to my side, big eyed, and converses. He learns to say please and thank you in English and shows his skill to Faustin. We talk about our skin color and I explain my comparison of people and plants, that we grow differently depending on the sun and rain and temperature. He enjoys looking at my photo viewer, and I show photos to his mother.

Thierry clears our plates, scrapes, and stacks them for his boys, who carry them back to the kitchen. Little Gabriel helps by carrying a glass or a dish. I am impressed by the family ethic of all pitching in to lend a hand. These are kind and unassuming people whose presence on the board will be of great help. I am pleased to have this evening with a middle-class family whose lifestyle is a model for the aspiring workforce thronging the streets of Lubumbashi.

It seems to me that one issue here is the impact on the economy of the influx of refugees from the war in the east. When there is an over-supply of workers, wages fall. Perhaps there will come a time where peace in the east allows the federal government to rebuild some of the villages and cities devastated by the conflict in order to attract the return of the residents who have fled. The cities of this fragile economy cannot support the rural population crowding into the area searching for jobs and security.

Ceremony, Congo Style
Lumbumbashi 7-26-08 Saturday

Last night I worried that we were leaving too much for the morning. I was right. We were up and going early, but printing the 63 photos for the teachers took an hour. Faustin was still writing and typing his speech, while I signed the 63 certificates. Instead of spending the hour visiting with our teachers, I was shut in the office, a lamentable waste. I should have done the office work in the evening. I did get out into the crowd by 9am, and since the representative of the Education Ministry was not there yet, I chatted with the teachers.

We began the program at 10am, sitting on chairs at a table on the school office porch before the teachers sitting in rows of chairs in the yard. Our moderator opened the ceremony, passing the microphone first to Puma then to Faustin. There was a skit acted out by 3 students about the value of studying science and math, and a lovely vocal performance.

The minister handed out a dozen symbolic certificates, leaving the rest to be distributed after the ceremony. He left before we closed, but the Minister of Finance did arrive as expected at 11am to address the teachers, hand out more certificates, and close the proceedings. The provincial school inspector, a veteran of 57 years, addressed a thoughtful commentary to an appreciative audience. I had asked Puma on the spur of the moment if I could say thank you before the closing; just my luck that the minister arrived and was there to hear my impromptu speech (the only one not carefully crafted in advance and read!). I talked about the beauty of the final song requiring no translation, as the heart understands the language of the heart. It seemed a safe theme, apolitical, so I said that Africa with its wealth of human and primary resources was the heart of the world, that the DR Congo was the heart of Africa, that teachers were the heart of Congo, and that the teacher’s heart was children, the blood that will animate the future of the country. I fervently wished I had known I would have a chance to speak in order to write something out, but I think it was obvious I was speaking extemporaneously.

Once the closing complete and the Minister gone with Faustin and Puma for refreshments, I supervised the distribution of the rest of the Brevet certificates with the group pictures. Disaster. I had made 2 sets of one group and left out a group. I set down the 2 unclaimed photos with the duplicates (never to be seen again) and rushed off to redo the group. I also had to shoot the 3 teachers who were not present during the group shots and print those. In hindsight, we realized the groups wished that the directors were in the photo with them. Next time.

I called random numbers to let them choose from the odds and ends of gift items I had brought. Should have found 50 of the same thing. Another next time. Un avoidable envy over what was deemed ‘good stuff’ and crap. Sigh. Best intentions, poor planning.

I sat and spoke with several individuals seeking our assistance, to publish stories, to go to college, to learn English, and visited with the ladies. At last Faustin finished the individual evaluation interviews – maybe 5pm. – and we headed home for a meal. Exhausted.

Faustin explained that his brother-in-law was coming to get us for dinner, so it was postponed. We stopped at a European hotel for a drink, then went to the Hollybum for dinner. Really. I think they say it ‘boom’ as in the French for party. A very French restaurant: fresh avocado and vinaigrette, fish, rice, tonic water.

After dinner we stopped to see Annie and the kids, then in a burst of enthusiasm, picked up Getty and went to a dance club. The early hour was great but as the college kids poured in, we were too crowded to even dance. It was another unique opportunity to be the odd one out, not only as a white, but a white Grandma. The staring is unnerving though understandable. I just want to throw my head back and shout, ‘I’m just a woman! Get over the skin!’ Not in this lifetime.

Babes in the Bush
Lumbumbashi Sunday 7-27

We slept well and long, breakfasted, and headed for the bush. Faustin wanted to buy a parcel of land near the new Myrt School in the village about 3 miles up the road away from the city. We drove in Richard’s truck, stopping to admire the long view of the terrain in winter.

The Myrt School building location has a roofed skeleton to which the Scouts will begin bringing brick next week. The village children follow Puma and Faustin, then gather their courage and come see me where I have made a seat of brick pile to be less intimidating, down at their level.

I exhaust my Swahili, which doesn’t work any better than French, and resort to pointing to elicit their names and repeat them. They are mute and big-eyed in wonder. Then I show them the camera and let them take photos of each other, looking at the back screen each time to see. It is the only toy I have, and it serves the purpose. They giggle and jostle to each have a turn.

I ask them to take me for a walk around the village and hold 2 little hands. Touch does not feel color, only warmth. We follow a path back to a street lined with small homes, and the Mamas come out to greet us, grinning. I ask them to help me fix my headscarf, and one of them ties it for me. They ask for money, and I tell them that my boss has the money, that I am only the secretary. They find this hard to believe. White means wealth. How do you move a culture even inches in their assumptions? Like moving the termite hill across the yard. Whites assume black Africans in loin cloths live in thatched huts and hunt wild game with spears. It’s a great barrier, a wall that neither side can not see over.

Walls have become a theme here, the stubborn self-defense that refuses to share the beauty of one’s garden with the passersby, the barrier to the envy of the neighbors.

I see now the other walls, less tangible but equally opaque. There are walls that shut away the financial transactions of the Company, taking in the profits which only trickle down to the worker or his community, but flow like molten copper rivers into the pockets of the master, whether local or foreign.

There are walls in the minds of the successful that keep him from suffering the sight of the poor misery around him. He makes a pittance of a charitable donation to ease his mind and does not see into their lives.

Robert Frost wrote sarcastically “walls make good neighbors.” How apt to this country! Now step back. Does any of this sound like home to you? Corporate greed that climbs on the backs of the working poor, taking power to legislate in favor of corporate interests, losing any moral compass in the vastness of the machine? Sounds like home to me. Ask the farmer fueling his tractors, the grocer trucking in his product, the factory worker driving 15 gallons a week to work – and ask Big Oil about the burgeoning profits, from whence they come and where do they go? Home.

Greed loves walls, both to keep others from seeing and to avoid seeing the truth. Truth loves transparence, wrought iron fences that provide protection without limiting vision. Truth longs to see the green beyond the dusty road. May she find blooms, at home and here in Congo.

My interaction with the village Mamas lasts too short a moment. An angry Papa storms into the group and launches into a tirade. I fear it is due to my visit and ask the older boys who have gathered if they argue because of me. The boys assure me that it is something else, but I see how those who do not understand the language suspect that others are talking about them. It is a natural fear – we are at the core still self-centered and have to work to realize that the lives of others do not revolve around us.

The atmosphere tainted by the loud argument, I lead the children back to the village yard where Faustin and Richard sit with the young chief and the elder retired chief to negotiate the sale of land. I sit with them briefly, then ask permission to go get my book. The negotiations do not concern me, and there is little communication possible with the children. I admit I am traumatized by the argument and the request for money, and want to escape into the safe haven of the book. I take a chair into the shade of the house, away from the doorway, and sit down to read. I smile at those who pass but stay buried in my book.

Eventually the negotiations conclude, and we head back to town. Faustin and I have dinner at his sister Nathalie’s house, with her husband Vincent and little Jane, Joyce, and baby Vincent. His sister Irene is also there with little Percy. Cousin Christian gently handles the babies, serving the little girls, consoling and cuddling. He is a model young man in the family, quietly helping out his aunts, his uncle, with babies and dvd player, with table setting and serving.

The Mamas have worked hard to prepare a great feast in a small kitchen, served in a small living room of their small home. They have three rooms: the kitchen, living room, bedroom, all small. There is electricity from the generator, since the city current is irregular at best. Amazing how the country exports electricity to neighboring countries without having an infrastructure of current at home.

Vincent explains how he has bid on a house but lost to higher bidders. With the continuing influx of refugees from the war in the east and from farmers and villagers from the surrounding countryside coming to the city seeking work, housing is in great shortage and thus at high price. Work, on the other hand, earns exceptionally low wages, since there are so many clamoring to get jobs. What one man will do to earn $10 another will step in to do for $5. So in the end, the employer pays $1 for $10 work and many go without. Even those who work go without in this system, which is in effect lacking any system.

And while the Papas seek work to provide for their families, the Mamas carry their share of the burden. Bless them for their determination to do well for their young. May they live to retire in secure comfort to watch their children and grandchildren thrive.

The Coal Iron
Lubumbashi Monday 7-28

Marcel loaded up the iron with hot coals of charcoal and I did the ironing, using the slate tabletop and a towel. It was an improvement over the old flat iron, since the heat stayed constant. It came with a metal rest that I set on the ground beside me to protect the iron surface while I shifted the fabric.

I crossed the road, a main thoroughfare for the villagers into the market and the city, thronged much of the day with pedestrians carrying often staggering loads, cyclists also with sometimes mountainous baggage, cars, jeeps, all-wheel drive vehicles, trucks loaded with workers or materials, and children on errands.

Across the road is the Myrt School in whose office I worked most of the day, recording the observations and evaluations of the seminar staff. Since Faustin stayed in town last night, he came to find me later in the day.

We had dinner again at Nathalie’s with Vincent’s dad joining us. Little Joyce and Jane gathered their gumption and offered a parting gift for their uncle, a shirt from the family of which he is now nominally head, as the eldest.

On the way to town, we stopped at his aunt’s house to visit, since she had come a long distance to visit her family and he had not seen her for many years.

We stopped at Annie & Richard’s and I showed Annie and the kids my family photos, here and there on the laptop. Another note to add to my list for future seminars: a slideshow of home, family, school, community to introduce myself, whether in large group, small group, or pause time.

It occurred to me that it would be a good time to download Faustin’s full memory cards, but I did not have the power cord for laptop and the battery was depleted, so I managed to download the first of 3 cards, with 814 photos, and part of a 2nd that only had 209. The battery died partway through the process, so I will finish tomorrow. It was only a last minute whim to grab the computer to show photos, but in future I will carry computer in bag with all the equipment just in case.

Richard drove me back to Myrt School with the corpse of Faustin riding in the back of the truck, chivalrously keeping us company. It was a late night, but the benefits of engaging so closely in family life here are huge. I have been permitted into the intimacy of the family, giving me an insider point of view that would be hard to achieve from my role of teacher alone.

The Price of Being White
Lumbumbashi 7-29 Tuesday

Dead battery and dead generator spelled a morning working without a computer. We will have a generator battery jump when Faustin comes with the car.

In town I went shopping with Faustin only to discover that in the artisanal market, white buyer=triple price. No amount of Faustin negotiating and my playing secretary advising his purchase would budge the merchant from $50. Even at my generous best, I would not have paid that for the little elephants, a pair of earrings and an egg, even though the malachite green was smooth and attractive.

My attention wandered as he vainly carried on the price war, and I heard a marching song coming from the street: it was a troop of Boy Scouts. The Scouts play an active part of life here. Puma has Girl and Boy Scouts who work for the school in the summer to earn uniforms and school fees for the coming year.

They are delightful young people, quick to learn my name and to speak with me. I have enjoyed stepping into their ping-pong games several times as well as simply visiting. Corrine and Solange and Rigel have given me extra time, visiting, playing ping-pong, and taking me to the Myrt School family interviews.

We leave the market empty-handed and I vow to send a local friend back with my list and my money. Next stop, Getty at work, and head for the tailor’s to arrange my sewing and Faustin’s school uniforms. Another round of disappointing negotiations as the second tailor wants $10 apiece for the uniforms. We leave my fabric with the first tailor with the understanding that I will pick them up Thursday afternoon.

I arrive at Myrt School with my batteries as dead as the laptop, no gifts, still waiting for good clothes. After supper, it takes little for me to fall into bed, hoping for a tomorrow with more successes than this day.

The Money Changers’ Mirror
Lumbumbashi Wed 7-30

Faustin arrives to say his farewells on the way to the airport, showing me the large empty suitcase he will leave me to bring the rest of the school uniforms and my overflow. He signs last minute pay vouchers and gives his final instructions. I breathe a sigh and silently thank the amazing Harold of Cheap Tickets.com who booked my flights here. Faustin flies from Lumbumbashi to neighboring Zimbabwe, then to Johannesburg. After an overnight stay, he will fly to Washington, D.C. and then to Nevada where Liz and Tom Ryder will pick him up for a short 2 day visit. He arrives in Indianapolis Sunday evening at midnight. It makes my Lumbumbashi-Jo’burg-London-Paris trip look like a breeze.

In the absence of the generator batteries, still off being revived and without a car to jump from, I set aside the computer work and pick up the book beside Puma’s desk, Paix au Congo about and by Abbé Stefano Kaoze. I a delighted to note proverbs and their translations into French but disappointed to find they are in Taabwas, not Swahili or even the local Lingala. They are nonetheless an exciting organizer for Waza presentations. I will note them here, along with the germinal facts of the life of this first African priest.

Stéfano Kaoze was born at Libonga in the High-Marunga region south west of Lake Tanganika in 1885, the year of the infamous Berlin Conference at which the European leaders sliced up the African pie, giving the Kongo Free State to Leopold II to ‘protect’ its citizens from the Arab slavers.

He approached his uncle, the chief Mwemezi to say, “I want to discover the secret of the White’s papers.” The boy attended a missionary school, showing notable aptitude, especially in language acquisition. He turned over in his mind the frequent encouragement of the priest to the students to consider vocations for themselves.

In 1910 he wrote a seminal article at the request of his bishop, call Psychology of the Bantous, cited as a first Congolese literary publication in French. Its purpose was to make the culture of the Congolese accessible to the European.

Kaoze was ordained in 1917, the first African priest. In this year, the Germans offered to surrender in Europe in exchange for Congo, but were refused.

The letters and reflections of Stefano Kaoze during his studies built an admirable body of writing, to which he added a collection of his native language proverbs with translations into French and explanations of their application to daily life.

It seems to me that his life built a graceful bridge between the cultures, putting into value the traditional cultural beliefs of his people even as he dovetailed them with the Christian system. He embodies the comment by Antoine Tshitungo Kongolo in the preface, “Poet, your silence is a crime.”

By living in the embrace of 2 cultures, Abbé Kaoze blazed a path for those who followed. He wrote with forthright conviction. This comment, for example, lifts up the status of his people: “The Whites because they have all have made of our country their own, but no cord, no chain, no prison can touch our internal being.” He strove to establish a dialog between not only the African and European cultures but also among the diverse African ethic groups.

Along the way, he invented words in French to fill cultural gaps, for example, cheiftaness. He worked to transform the pejorative language of the missionaries and others, using “the innocent and well-mannered savage” and “the just pagan.” He explored the means of being fully Christian and fully African, talking about an African-style Christianity.

In several notes on culture, I learned that the traditionally priest is the Kitambwa Kya Leeza. Leeza is God. The Mipasi are the defunct ancesters to whom we look for guidance, and the Ngulu are the spirits of the place, protectors.

I could take this proverb as a personal slogan:

Kabezya taka kupa pawikele: buuk a wende. Mupasi takakupa pawikele: buuka wende.

Neither God nor your ancestors will give to you there where you sit, so get up and get going.

I have learned to believe this one, too:

Wazyungulukiile, wafikile.

He who goes by a tortuous route will arrive.

I think fondly of my AATF colleagues, especially Catie, when I read this one:

Sampila lubilo Iwa Basangu.

On all sides it is the path of the Whites.

Abbé Kaoze explains that this is a saying that lays the responsibility for what falls ill to the hand of the Whites.

I take these personally:

Kanwa kakata kali kuisongezya.

A big mouth shuts the door to well-being.

Kabezya kapeela waema.

God gives to he who has suffered.

I note this one for Puma and Ntala:

We waya, wituka basyala; ni we wasyala, wituka baya.

You who depart, do not insult those who stay behind; and you who stay behind, do not insult those who go.

This is a message for us all:

Ulabile, kalonda kali kamupwa mukonzo.

It is forgotten, but the little sore is busy eating off your leg.

And a mantra for school children everywhere:

Mwanike kuseka usifwanine, waseka Leeza.

The child who mocks misery mocks God.

And finally, a profoundly important cry from the heart of Africa to the foreign “investors” who come for copper, uranium, diamonds, and especially, coltan, the key element in flat screen television and cell phone fabrication, mined in horrific conditions by Congolese children in abject suffering:

Mwinoobe akukwate bwino, nu we mukwate bwino.

Someone who has sustained you well, you also must sustain him.

Stephano Kaoze divided the history of his land into 4 eras:

• The Calm Era under Chief Tumbwe of the house of Kasanga, a just king, during which, Kaoze adds, Congo breathed a large peace.
• The Civil War Era at the death of Tumbwe his empire was divided amongst his kin ( sounds like Charlemagne).
• The Arab Era (the Bangwama) during which time the ‘pagan savage’ was distrusted, treated as a dog, ‘kafiri,’ without religion. The Arabs enslaved and exported thousands. They left the language that was a creole of their own, Swahili.
• The era of the Whites during which the black man decided he wanted to be white, but since he couldn’t be, he would find the same power by oppressing his own countrymen in his best imitation of white.

Kaoze exhorts his fellow Africans to be White in what is external while remaining Black in their souls.

I conceive a parenthetical thought as I read about the life of this first African Roman Catholic priest: that as much as the local language Mass adds to the understanding of the people, the value of the Latin Mass was that wherever one traveled, one was always at home in the Mass. As a foreigner far from my native language, that is appealing in its comfort.

A final reflection today, far flung from that one, is the attitude of the Congolese toward their own country, and by extension, to themselves.

O Congolese, you accept Congolese francs in dirty, worn, torn, rotting bills that crumble in your hands, yet you require that the White man’s money be clean, crisp, whole, not even nicked at the edges. Is this how you value yourselves, and us? Do you find all that is White perfect? All that is Congo filth? Not I.

There is refinement here in the carefully pressed trousers and washed and polished feet of your people. There are barefoot children in rags with runny noses, hungry, sleeping in rat infested dung in the ghettos of my country. Look, O Congo, in a mirror wiped free of this infernal dust, and see yourselves, clean, fresh, pure, and equal!

Lost in Translation
Lumbumbashi Th 7-31

Another day of valleys, dust, weather front headache, and greens running through me. The trip to town was fruitless; I summoned all my reserve to go to the internet café with Narcy, where I found that my lengthy report to Able and Willing has been unreadable, tried resending it as well as several dozen photos which appeared not to transmit, then met Jetty at her workplace, only to discover that the tailor had not finished a single ensemble. Such checklists left unchecked are fodder for more headache.

When I landed back at Myrt School, I had no more, so lay down for a brief respite. I fell quickly asleep, only to be awakened by one of the boys, saying I was wanted. I dressed in a hurry and found the 9 Mamas who worked in the kitchen sitting at our table. I was groggy and clueless and they don’t understand French. The boy said, they have not been paid. They want to be paid. Partly it was my assumption that all the seminar expenses were paid before Ntala left and partly my experience with the residents coming to me for a handout that fueled my reply: of course they were paid. Are they here for their photos? I can’t print them yet until the generator works. They rolled their eyes in disgust and repeated that they had not been paid. We went to find Puma and the administrators who all materialized as an answer to prayer, and suddenly I remembered the discussion of their pay. They normally work for the school to pay their children’s school fees, and Ntala thought that this was a part of that quid pro quo. Puma and Freddie thought they should be paid a supplement since their kitchen service was in addition to the regular chores.

I agreed immediately, but did not have CFA, only dollars. Puma asked them to come back Tuesday. What an embarrassment. Not only do they have to wait over a week for their pay, but I insulted them, I’m sure, by my ignorant reply. This is another reason that all participants in the direction of the seminar need to be present during the planning. I waltzed in after the week was underway and missed all the preparation.

I crawled back into bed and fell deeply asleep, awakening only to eat supper, take a shower, and flee to dreams, where checklists are all checked off and days of disappointment transform into satisfying success.

A Gift of Grandpas
Lumbumbashi Fr 8-1

I awake this holiday morning feeling refreshed by the sleep and ready to have a go at a new day. I am forced to put on my pants and green oriental top, as the tailor has yet to deliver my clothes.

To my surprise, an elderly man joins us at the end of scrambled eggs and coffee, and Puma tenderly dishes him up a meal. I make him coffee with lots of milk and sugar, and he tells us how he has just come home from the hospital. He came by hoping for some biscuits. Puma asks me to take his picture; there are few here who see this many years. The life expectancy is 41.

I tell him as best I can that his presence at our table on this Memorial Day is a gift, to remind us whose grandfathers are gone of their value, to bring three dimensions to our memories the departed.

The laundry done (two pails, one sudsy, one to rinse, right under the clothes line, with no pins), I take my work to the school, reminding Marcel to send the tailor to me if he actually shows.

At the store across the road by the entrance to the school, Puma has another Grandpa to photograph. He explains to the gentleman, and I repeat my gratitude for the gift of Grandpas.

I work in the office until time to meet Solange, Corrine, and Rigel, my own Girl Scout guides and translators for family interviews & a game of ping pong.

Our first home visit is to Luc’s family, right near the school. His
Dad is there, a brick maker and construction material supplier. We work through the interview questions, then I offer to show them my family photos. His Dad hands me a photo album that begins with his own youth and shows me Luc as a baby and a small child, even has Puma 15 years younger on the porch. It is an exceptional welcome into the embrace of a family, a privilege to be so included in their trust.

His father has explained to reconcile the numbers that one of his sons died at age 30. I open the photo of Sarah on my desktop and share his grief. It is a bond that knows no cultural or racial barriers. We share my family slide show and part with the warmest sense of friendship, new and fresh and sweet, like loaves from the oven, an answer to that fervent prayer from all hearts for our dose of daily bread.

Suffer the Children
Lumbumbashi Sat 8-2

This morning we dress and leave early for the first anniversary of the founding of the St. Michel orphanage and school just down the road. I walk with Mr. Mukada while Puma rides his bike (twice, as the first go ended in a passing truck coating him with dust). We passed Mukada’s house and stopped to take a picture of him with his wife, which required her to change from work clothes into a pretty dress.

The greeting at the orphanage was warm, and I was ushered to a seat in the front row, but none of the other guests were seated, so I ask permission to shoot photos of the Scout band and the soccer practice. Released from celebrity status, I wandered among the kids, chatting and encouraging them to talk to me. It’s a hard sell. The tradition of the distinguished guest arriving an hour late is upheld, and after the band has played to the point of exhaustion, we begin the formal ceremony, an hour and a half late. Hard to justify having the students, little ones, guests, staff, all ready to begin at 9am and to ask them to wait. That 90 minutes translates to a message of diminished importance, of inferior priority to this event, in spite of the genuine apology offered by the late arrivals.

The moderator introduces the national anthem, and I am riveted by this small citizen who proudly flies his flag. Then the children’s choir sings, followed by four young speakers, charismatic, passionate, articulate, and roundly applauded for their message, forceful and direct, that children have a right to a family, to a home, to health, to safety, and to education.

The leader of the partner group, Salem, speaks about his NGO’s role in providing health care for the most vulnerable. I later meet a young doctor with Salem who explains that twice a week, Salem volunteers comb the city in the wee hours to pick up the street kids, taking the sick ones to their clinic and delivering the stronger ones to the orphanage. This young doctor is eager to talk about the urgent need of these children.

The founder of St. Michel’s is Papa Tuta, an elderly gentleman who explains with great dignity and quiet wisdom that he was so well cared for by the congregation of St. Michel that he chose that name for his project, a home and school for orphans and a temporary haven for those with disrupted family ties, street kids trying to get back home. His goal is to return those with families to their homes and find homes for the orphans.

He speaks forcefully, as did his pupils, and calls for the local officials and the community to step up their aid, to recognize the peril to a society that leaves its most precious resource to whither. He is roundly applauded, and I, for one, am making mental plans for ways that I can support his work. These children evoke in me a deep respect and admiration for their tenacity of life. The little girls who play at doing each other’s hair or who dance with jaunty grins to the irresistible beat of the blaring music find joy in the moment of a life that would crush the strongest adult.

This child waiting for the ceremony to begin, or perhaps simply waiting to be fed, sits so appropriately beneath the sign that pleads for justice for children.

I can’t imagine any more direct plea than this poster, which asks only for school paper and a ball for each child, not guns. The crime of child abduction in the militias is still happening in the east, with repercussions felt all the way down here.

The governor responds to the calls to action with grace and honesty, reminding the listening guests that his government has little to work with, but offers his wholehearted commendation and support. The local officials move to the brightly striped ribbon and in a solemn ritual, sprinkle the ground with water and cut the strand, officially opening St. Michael’s Orphanage and School.

I flinch at first at the sword wielded by the St. Michel on the uniform shirts in light of the need to remove arms from the lives of these children, but settle for a sense of the rightness of his patronage. The archangel can be left to stand protective guard over his children, who are released from fear by his presence, allowing them to arm themselves with learning, truth, moral values, and compassion for the weakest of Heaven’s creatures. May St. Michael watch over us all.

After a bountiful meal, Mukada and I walk back to Myrt School, where I work until time for the Girl Scouts to meet me for a school family interview. We check my slides show and play some ping pong first, then head to the home of Corrine, whose single mother has a proud set to her face as I in all my elegant dress and whiteness appear to question her. Her defensiveness is palpable, and I work carefully to win her trust. We manage with the questions through the translations of the girls, and I turn to the student questionnaire. Corrine answers with such conviction and passionate desire to succeed in school, with a plan to teach, move into administration, then seek a political role, with the goal of becoming Provincial Minister of Education. She gets my vote.

I sense a gradual lessening of the tension and hope that I have established some trust with this beautiful young mother, who breaks into a warm smile only at the moment that I ask her to be photographed with her daughter.

I am convinced that my investment in Waza, in our partnership with Able and Willing, and in this trip will bring some measure of good to this place. It is an honor to be so kindly welcomed even into the homes of the village, where I can be looked upon in complete veracity as a fearful presence, a stranger of the most menacing potential. I am grateful for the human warmth of this family, and think with longing of my own.

Circle of Friends
Lumbumbashi Sun 8-3

A Sunday morning, clear and cool, clean cumulus masses floating just out of reach, church bells in the distance. Without the ever present dust an idyllic scene. I read and await the arrival of the car; finally at 10, Puma calls a taxi to take us to town to meet his friends. I see quite a lot of smoothly paved street on this trip, an encouraging experience despite the crumble of the structures lining the way.

The Roffe Hotel’s familiar lobby opens into a quiet courtyard. Pierrette and her friends are seated at a shaded table just behind the table where Richard, Faustin, and I shared a pre-dinner drink. Pierrette clucks her tongue and tells me my headscarf is tied like an old lady (which I point out that I am), but she has me move the tie up to the top.

Her friends are a local veterinary medicine official and his wife, who works in public health and nutrition. They are kind and congenial. The beauty of this courtyard centers around the magnificent cactus that towers above the 2nd story and its neighbor, the palm. They are venerable and gracious trees, offering precious shade and slowly rotating silhouettes on the flagstone court.

I make a point of visiting the WC, my 2nd sighting (and sitting) in 2 weeks, before we leave to meet Puma’s friend. He plans to take me to the artisan market near there, but I spot the same sort of vendors on the street corner, so we cross to take a look. It is with great satisfaction that I manage to buy the few gifts that I want for a fair price.

Taxi prices waxing exorbitant, Puma walks me a few blocks to the mini-van stop that heads in our direction. Clutching the wrap-around pagne skirt against the brisk breeze, I thread my way through the crowds. Several people stop to greet him along the way and direct us to the right corner. Bus stops are kept a tightly protected secret here: if you don’t know, you won’t find out. No signs, no indication on the vans.

I slide into the first bench behind what used to be bucket front seats next to a nicely dressed and polite gentleman. The back seats fill, the assistant jumps on and wedges in, and we are off.

What used to be a van is reduced to a used tin can, scarred, rusted, bent, its formerly aquamarine interior now largely dust. My feet grow quickly hot sitting above the drive train. Every turn of the crankshaft, I hear the contact of each piston with the roar of the engine a crescendo at each shift of gears. The Congo is like this vehicle, impossible to say how it is still in action, stripped bare of any but the most vital bits, crumbling and squawking and crying for a bath, a tune-up, a lube, and a paint job. And no one seems to have the owner’s manual.

We dive off the smoothly paved streets onto the familiar rutted remains of a back way, headed into the industrial, or formerly industrial, side of town. That used to be a machine shop, this used to be a parts company. Such a backward slide from the functional into this chasm of chaos.

After several stops to drop passengers – one of which almost spells the end of the life of the sliding door – we reach the terminus. This plaza is unfamiliar, an intersection of fairly main road with dirt road headed into the residential area we seek.

The road is lined with small business and littered, no, paved, with trash. Coke and Fanta cans flattened by passing cars, bikes, feet, bits of plastic bag, shoes, ball caps, bottle caps. I am walking in a landfill. There are no wastebaskets, no trashcans – why have them when no one will come to collect them? I do see my first actual landfill in a hole the size of a basement, still trying to burn at the bottom while chickens and their chicks peck eagerly through the upper layer.

I have seen litter along our road, but nothing approaching the level of utter, unavoidable trash underfoot. And staggering as it is to me, no one seems to notice. I remember the trash casually littering the Belgian university housing and the city streets and curse their ever stepping foot in this land. The earth here is sunk deep beneath a crust, gritty skin of trash and dust, oozing infection.

Yet as we walk I see the intense, vibrant fuchsia of blooms bursting through the dust that fails to mute its energy. Then the profusion of lavender flowering on a towering tree glows as if with the exertion of having shaken off its dirty veil. There are sad, muted yellow flowers that sigh and curl up on themselves, ashamed at the filth that they can not escape.

We are accosted by 2 bright-eyed youngsters, Joy and Orient, sent by their parents to meet us. They chatter eagerly, pointing ahead to where the house is. These are old friends of Puma’s, Clement and Annie. In the yard we meet Marjorie and Pascaline, and in the living room, little Mike. He is the baby, about 3. His father explains that his hearing and thus his speech is impaired. He wants to see a doctor about it. He is away supervising the mining concessions where he works 50 miles away for a month at a time.

Annie serves us bukari and fish and lingua-lingua, and I get little Mike to warm up some. It’s not til we are ready to go that he gives me a grin and a kiss.

The other success of the afternoon is a phone call to Hoods who have stellar advice for de-dusting the memory card contacts. It’s such a pleasure to hear her voice.

Annie and Clement walk us farther along their road to their niece’s house, where we are warmly welcomed before hailing another taxi along the main road. Clement comes along to visit another set of friends who live out near us.

Here we are fed yet another meal, chicken and potatoes, Muscador rosé, bottled water. They are a friendly and happy gathering.

When we adjourn to the terrace bar, I manage to sit beside Virginie with her sweet 10 month old boy. He is quick to come to me and provides me with an evening of entertainment, clapping hands, blowing raspberries, learning ‘mama.’ When he fusses, his mother tosses him back to me and we walk around, swaying to the loud Congolese music, batting at tree branches, laying back to watch the stars come out around the clouds.

It is late when the party breaks up. Happily we are offered a ride home. Tomorrow will be packed with laundry to do, 2 interviews, and a trip to town to see Getty and get Faustin’s things. I have secured a 2nd blanket for the night as I finally caved to the necessity of recognizing that it is getting legitimately cold. Another stereotype bites the dust – and we do have dust.

Debts to be Paid
Lumbumbashi Mon 8-4

I awake with renewed hope for the mystic cure to the Nikon’s illiteracy and puff, pick, and gently prod with a fluff end of Q-tip. No dice. There will be no card reading today. Go to your nearest Nikon authorized dealer, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Sigh. Monopoly mantra aside, do not shoot photos again today. I manage to download those that I took with Puma’s camera and will settle for that.

I dress quickly, as the morning interview time has moved up to allow the Mama to get to market early, but I do get the computer over to the school and the generator lit to charge it, and a first batch of laundry done and hung before the girls come.

We visit the home of Stephane this morning, and again the girls must translate for the parents, even for this quiet 16 year old. His parents are lovely, warm and kind in their welcome. We laugh at the trial of getting a photo with the inexperienced Scouts as photographers, but I get to hold the 2 year old.

I return hoping to find breakfast, but settle for hot water and mayonnaise on bread. The computer is back charging, and I read for a bit before going back to the school office. The administrative meeting is still in full swing, but I interrupt to get the charger out and go to work in the lab. Before they lock up for a trip to town, I hurry to print the family photos and claim my computer. The camera batter charged fully makes no difference, as I expected, in the continued resistance to card reading.

The afternoon batch of laundry done, my girls reappear and we head for the home of the village chief, who has 3 children in Myrt School. Our visit is lively and passionate, covering the value of education and the Myrt School’s influence, then ranging widely afield into the politics of mining profits, foreign investment and influence ( and exported profits), and my obligation to do something with what I have learned here. The chief and his wife lay that responsibility at my feet like a gauntlet thrown.

I find myself rising from those valley days of despair, when I longed only for a croissant and inside plumbing, to a vow of profound importance, that I will write and speak to the widest possible audience (O Paulette, I hear the echoes), shedding light on the dark problems facing this country and the misery of her people, brought about to my shame by the greedy abuse of those with power and ignorant negligence of those who consume.

I share my family photos with this family of leadership, and ask their pardon for my passionate sermonizing, hoping I have not offended with my direct observations. The rain that fell, remarkably, in a gentle patter on the tin roof while we spoke, has ended. We take a lovely photo that my girls simply cannot hold still; my bliss in their repeated efforts is that I get to hold the sweetest, softest, smiling-est chub of infant while they fret over the photo. She pats my cheeks, I kiss hers, then hand her back to the Mama, who sends me off with a grin and a compliment for my lovely garb.

My Scouts and I have another lesson while walking; we play if you had one wish that would change one thing in Congo, what would you wish? Corrine will change the mentality that wants money before learning, that wants handouts instead of work. Solange wants education for all the adult generations so that they will be sure to educate her generation. Rigel worries that there is nothing left for her, but we decide that infrastructure would undergrid the society. I want running (clean) water, electricity at fingertips, garbage pick-up, mass transit, and paved roads lined with sidewalks, watered grass, and bike lanes. And pedestrian cross walks!

As we walk home, I point out a gaping rent in the clouds with sunlight behind it. That’s the way to paradise, I tell them, and you are the light within, leading your country with the bright wisdom. Then the clouds move and we agree that it is now a giant key hole, and they are the key that will unlock paradise for their people.

I leave these lovely young women at the gate with my business cards and a promise to pose for a photo together tomorrow. Marcel is back, there is rice with tomato sauce and chicken for dinner, and clean clothes dry for morning. It is with satisfaction that I head into my last day here, with quiet hope that the bits on the checklist will be ticked off, that I will find strength to carry away from this place enough to do justice to the crying need for illumination, for vision, for truth in a society that aches to live free.

Bananas, the Cuckoo, and The White Witch
Lumbumbashi Tues 8-5

It came to me yesterday in conversation with the village chief, which often happens when one listens to the wisdom of one’s elders. I recounted my initial surprise, then dawning comprehension of the reaction of small children, no, really, of most people here, to seeing me in their midst.

The children edge away behind the nearest skirt or pants’ leg, wide-eyed, finger in mouth. The adults try hard not to stare, but turn their heads when they think I’m not looking. Teenage boys stare boldly and grin at my greeting, while girls more timidly glance at me, then beam sweet smiles of astonished relief at my Swahili salutation.

Today I have suddenly observed this routine from outside myself, and I have seen The White Witch. Apologies to Lewis and profoundly to Tilda Swinson, but it is La Sorcière Blanche in all her menace, her cold, cruel power, that these people see in me. How satisfying to melt that initial fear into a warm embrace! If ever a stereotype needed the miraculous to melt its icy hold on the minds of a people, it is the myth that all Whites are cold, cruel, rapacious, arrogant, ignorant thieves. For these qualities have also been ably adopted by skins ebony as well as pale, olive, and burnished brown.

Trust must be earned by chapter and verse, not granted by the grain of the cover. The cautious reader must learn to look past the smooth leather to the heart of the text, or risk being colonized again by his brother.

I contemplate these 3 weeks and suddenly wonder if I have spoken to another White since I arrived. I run through the days, the groups, the homes, stores, hotels, and cannot find another White Person. No wonder I garner such attention!

Above me in this outdoor dining room, the African Cuckoo begins to call. His voice is 3 dimensional, booming, rich, impossible to imagine coming from this bird. His little pals, the magpies, chirp and flit at my coming, flashing their pristine plumage. Black and white, piano keys for their song, a message for God’s children to see the harmony, the beauty of our brotherhood.

I heard a crash in the garden yesterday, and looked up startled to see the head and shoulders of a youngster over the fence looking back. The broad leaves of the banana tree wave as if bidding farewell to their young, and I realize that their burden of fruit has been lifted. This is the day that Marcel is working elsewhere, Puma has been seen to leave, and I am alone. The neighbors have plucked the fruit from over the fence, and I dare not confront their hunger to ask for them back.

If a village man were to plant a fine garden, coddle his fruit trees, built his sturdy home, would he be left a rich harvest here? Or would his envious neighbors pluck his avocadoes, snatch his tomatoes, strip the house of gutter and shutter and rocking chair on the porch? How does one arrive at a moment when all the neighbors plant and build, each his own nest, to transform a mentality of tear down for today, and damn tomorrow into a mutually trustworthy community building a better future for all?

For it was today’s desperate need that fueled the savage stripping down of what was a relatively smoothly functioning economy when the administrative managers all fled their posts. May the work that we do with today’s youth facilitate the rebirth of the builder’s mentality in a new generation, opening their minds to the possibilities, the choices that they see as they consider how others around the world confront the same social, political, economic, and academic issues.

Farewell, dusty friend, fatigued with the long journey past. May you find a hot bath, cool water, and nourishment for body and soul as you seek shelter for another night on the long road ahead.

Liege to Brussels to London to Jo'burg

2008-07-21T11:42:00.003-04:00

Done. Oh yeah, the intrepid traveler has taken the challenge and managed. The video I watched on Johannesburg said "If you are going to J'burg, you are not a tourist, you're a traveler." I quite agree.

My hotel is just 3km from the airport, a quick $8 taxi. But the city - well, we'll get to that - Mandela Square in Sandton was a 30 minute $40 drive. Reception at the hotel and the taxi driver both assured me there were no buses. There are buses everywhere, with mysterious names and numbers, and no whites on any of them. There is also the fleet of mini-vans, like Yerevan, running 15 passenger bus service.

I passed some very basic housing districts but the city, at least the small area I walked through, is modern, bustling, and very integrated. The upscale mall as well. It's only the buses that seem to be segegrated. And I did see a young white businessman and a middle aged woman who appeared to be waiting for a bus.

But there isn't really a city center with walking tour sort of appeal. My driver, Alfred, gave me the choices of the Apartheid Museum and the Mandela Square. I asked if I could have lunch at Mandela Square then walk or take a bus to the museum. It's 20km, he said. Yikes. Welcome to L.A. gone to extremes. I want to do a quick tourist top ten of the city and it turns out the city is really a county, or more. It's 35 km to one of the places he suggested.

I'm only here for less than a day, so I'll be content with my quick look. The people have been supremely helpful and friendly. I'm sure I look my most pathetic lost to elicit such kindness.

I ate a late lunch at the Lekgotla Dining Room at Nelson Mandela Square - a buffet of bean lentil soup, steamed bread and dip, chicken, shrimp, beef, lamb, curry and rice, sweet potatoes, vegetable blend (unidentified and scrumptious), fruit and Mango Brulée for dessert. And caffe. With a traditional African decor. A winning choice over the Thai House and Ristorante Italiano!

Tomorrow I begin 3 weeks in the DR Congo with uncertain internet access, so stay tuned. At latest will update August 9 when I get home.

Maastricht: neighbors to the north

2008-07-14T03:01:00.004-04:00

What a commentary on neighborliness! The Flamand half of Belgium is not included in the tourist and business brochures as a part of Belgium, but labeled with France and Germany as if it were its own country, so the warmth of the Wallons for their Dutch neighbors in this charming town is surprisingly more than for their own countrymen.

We paid a short afternoon visit to this Dutch town, quaint and clean and tourist friendly, a stark contrast to the industrial working city that is Liège. This medallion on the church square marks the liberation of Maastricht on 14-15 September 1944, presented by the 30th Infantry Division Association, linking us in visible form to this place.

The church of Saint Servais has roots to the 4th century when the region was evangelized by Servais. A church was built on this site after his death in 384. Those very low numbers really work in my mind, enlarging and distorting my vision of time. It is disorienting to be in a place that has existed for so long before my coming.

The altar figure of Mary is crowded with the faithful, standing and kneeling in this small entrance chapel.

Saint Servais immediately brought a smile to my face and the image of Drew and Rachel, students who will be delighted to know they have a saint watching over them.

After a cup of tea, a taste of chocolate, and a scoop of sorbet in a sweet tea room, we crossed the working river Meuse, admiring the row of buildings along the quai, in time to see the 6:07 train to Liège rolling away. We changed money and shopped in the bookstore while waiting for the 7:07, which was of course 10 minutes late.

Our morning classes had focused on the geography of Belgium, its rural and urban landscapes and their impact on the history and culture of the country. It was Mme Gonda who cracked the joke that the resolution of the Flamand-Wallon question would come about by climate change drowning Flanders and moving the coast back to Wallonie. Flanders is flourishing with only 6% unemployment while Wallonie has 18%, yet it is Wallonie with the slate, wood of the Ardennes forest, clay, and water resources that historically made it the more prosperous region.

Madame Wéry presented the crazy organization of the Belgian education system, which makes our administrative problems pale in comparison. The bright side is the choice each student has for the secondary school focus: general course work leading to university study (medicine, law, secondary teaching), technical course work leading to the technical schools (nursing, elementary teaching, social work, engineering, architecture, fine arts), or professional course work leading directly into the workforce (mechanic, dental assistant).

The special education schools for mild to severe mental disabilities have such outstanding results that French parents often move to enroll their children in the system. But the regular student has even more choices. There are three types of schools at all levels: the official schools, which are run by the French Community, the free schools that are run by the Catholic church, and the community schools under local administration.

The education system reflects the deep divides in this small land broken by a language barrier that seems insurmountable. There are Flamand immersion schools in Wallonie and French immersion schools in Flanders, but if a bilingual Flamand and Wallon sit down for a business dinner, they speak English, as neither wants to defer to the language of the other. There is a historical resentment by the Flamands of the French speaking aristocracy that originally ran the country, hoping that the local languages of Wallon in the south and Flamand in the north would die out. The policy worked in the south where Wallon is studied but no longer spoken, but Flanders kept their language, and their resentment.

This divisiveness brings back images of the Swiss, who also have this historical divide, but who have translated their differences into unity and brokered their skills at multilingual negotiation into a salable commodity.

The news is crackling with the resignation yesterday of the Belgian Prime Minister after the parliament failed to resolve the questions under debate involving the relationship between the Flamand (Flemish speaking) and the Wallon (French speaking) Community/Region. (Wallonie comes from the Wallon language which has Celtic roots). Belgium was without a government for the better part of a year due to this conflict. There is a strong sentiment that the country should split, with Flanders independent and Wallonie attached to France. No one seems to have asked the French what they think about this plan. All in all it's a sordid dispute with historical resentments simmering and no model for a Europe seeking to collaborate while maintaining national cultural identities. The Belgians like to say that Brussels in the Capital of Europe and Liege calls itself the Heart of Europe, but frankly, there is a major cardiac arrest imminent.

Heart of Europe: Belgium, a Nation of Contrasts

2008-07-11T17:58:00.006-04:00

Jean-Marc Defays welcomed us to the University of Liège summer program and introduced us to this small and relatively young country, founded in 1830 at the end of the Napoleonic era as a sort of buffer zone, with a hired German aristocrat as King, to satisfy the English that the French were not on their doorstep. The country has 3 Communities and Regions, the northern Flanders, southern Wallonie, and Brussels, and a small German-speaking minority. This land has historically been controlled by (are you ready?) Holland, France, Austria, Spain, Burgundy, and in the earliest times, by the Germanic invaders, the Romans, and the Celts. You’d still be ambivalent about your national identity, too, with that heritage!

Dr. Wéry flies in like a Mistral wind and never slows down, animated and fluent and expert in the linguistics of the francophone Belgian Community. She teaches us some oddities of French “Belgicisms,” like “guindailles,” which are student parties or “bourgmestre” for mayor, and takes us on a tour of the pronunciation nuances of Belgian French.

Our morning classes, which take place from 9-11 and 11:30-1:30, give us a running start on the week. We meet at 3pm again for our afternoon excursion, an overview of the architecture of the Liègeois churches.

We crossed the Meuse River, flanked by buildings dating to the 16th century and plied by barges hauling wares to the commercial seaports.

Our hike also took us past this inviting stair up to the ruins of the citadel. Some of the group were inspired to come back and run the stairs: I made a mental note of the bookstore of antique books with a WWII newspaper in the window.

The church dedicated to St. Bartholomew has an unusual painted exterior and hosts this early 12th century baptismal font as well as this ancient sculpted remnant of the medieval origins. It is somehow a comfort to see this figure of the communion, a ritual that ties me to the ancient past in a long tradition of hope.

In several places the floor covering dissolves into a window into the foundations of the church, archeological glimpses into the ancestry of this place.

This saint with a book is my idea of devotion.

Saint Paul’s Cathedral soars heavenward with a graceful disdain for its age, though the fascade stone is blackened with modern pollution. The devout come to meditate beside the Christ crucified sculpted to grace a tomb or to pray at the foot of Our Lady Of Banneux, a site near Liège. The Sacred Heart that invites the faithful to contemplate the host in this altar has a singularly arresting expression. Those who come to this altar bring flowers and light candles, touching the foot of the Lord as they bow in prayer.

There is a plaque near the crucified Christ in repose that honors Bishop Kerkhofs for his work for the persecuted during the War 1940-1945, a reminder that Belgium has been Europe’s battleground in spite of its neutrality.

The St. Jacques Church dating to the 15th century has a Jacob’s Ladder sculpted above the main door and a flamboyant gothic interior, including a painted vaulted ceiling, a spectacular organ, and this Madonna from the 16th century.

The relics of Saint James the major and the minor are preserved in this extravagant reliquary dating from the 19th century.

Until the French Revolution, the city of Liège boasted over 200 churches and monasteries. Those that remain are a treasure of art, of architectural wonder, but a high maintenance burden to a city plagued with 18% unemployment. Most American cities have little experience with the budget dilemma of renovation and protection of antiquities. Imagine managing the budget of the city of Venice!

TGV: totally groovy vacation

2008-07-09T17:58:00.007-04:00

Our travel day Sunday took a toll, but successfully moved us from Geneva to Liège, leaving the university residence hall at 5:50 am by bus to the train station where we boarded the TGV for Paris. Our arrival at Paris Gare de Lyon on the southeast corner of the city left us the choice of a shared taxi at 6 euros each or a metro hike for 2 euros. Being old and wise, I shared a cab with 2 others and a delightful young French driver who taught us slang all the way across town, then used my time to have lunch on the terrace of the Café de la Gare, surveyed by this high flying lady and the triumphant flag of Europe, whose union is now under French leadership for her turn in the rotating administration. The repose helped steel us for another train and then bus ride with baggage, lugged from the bus stop to the residence hall.

As we have noted more than once, Dorothy, this is not Kansas any more. Where the Swiss were impeccably timely, organized, and spotless, the dorms here are reminiscent of, well, Ball State. On a Monday after Homecoming. Lisa and I share a bath between our rooms, and I will simply say that our first act was to take down the shower curtain and wash our hands. It’s been through the industrial washer and has changed complexions.

The biggest disappointment is the lack of dorm wi-fi access, due to the time it’s taken to get a login/password. The administration doesn’t understand just how belligerent 20 teachers denied internet access can get. If you’re reading this, however, we’ve resolved the problem (or I’m trucking my laptop to McDonald’s in the city for free wi-fi!) It took until Wednesday, but I have wi-fi, but only in the public foyer, not in my room, which means all my Skyping is in the 6 story echochamber of a concrete stairwell. Fortunately the speed is incredible and I uploaded all the back galleries of photos. It takes longer to upload the blog photos, so apologies for the delay time.

The Cité Universitaire is south of Liège (put the college kids as far from town as possible seems to be the logic, and welll-founded, I might add) but a direct 20 minute bus ride in and out. The town straddles the Meuse with a second arm of the river winding through the town center just to confuse things. Of course given its age the town has sprawling winding twisiting narrow name-changing streets. It will take some free time wandering to learn my way around.

We found a wonderful Italian restaurant nearby and had a terrific Sunday supper together. Marco Polo definitely has really Italian cooks and servers. A family affair, with Tiramisu Maison of the roman villa size portion. I watched Lillian and Lisa each down one and escaped with a nibble. Wow.

We will breakfast at the little cafè by the bus stop and catch the 8:15 bus for our 9am class. I am eager to meet this new community and learn more about this place, so caught between the surrounding European states.

Cows, Castles, and Countryside

2008-07-09T17:57:00.006-04:00

After a splendid train ride along Lake Leman past picturesque villages perched on hills in patch work vineyards, we visited the demonstration Gruyères cheese factory, where the morning and evening milking is mixed and condensed into the famous cheese. Great rounds of cheese come from the thousands of gallons of milk, tested to establish over 200 flavors - clover, thyme, grass – produced by the local herds that wander the hillsides, bells clunking.

This quaint village is hosting the annual Book Fair which is of course a sorely tempting proposition. I got away with drooling over the complete history of Armenian art and a book of stories from Brittany. There was no book buying. I was dismayed that what looked like a chapel was a book exhibition, but the chateau was magnificent and well presented with a delightful multimedia spectacle. I will remember this as a childhood fantasy come true, round bedrooms in the tower, blooming gardens, mountain vistas out every window seat, and portraits of children everywhere.

The time period offered multiple painting, windows, and this display of armor, which made me think of Alan, my chained mail maker, and then of Kristy, and Eric, and Charity and Micah. How are my children, those that I cherish over time and great distance? My heart is comforted simply by thinking of them.

This one of the mama with her three girls (and the dog, Sue!) drew me in as well as the next one of the curly girl with the book. Sarah has been with me almost daily this week, and was certainly here as we left: a young musician with passionate commitment to his music wielded a rich voiced violin in the square as we passed. His gift brought her so close, backed up by the nearby alpine horn harmony that began as he finished. I thought of the other places that she has seemed to be present and to linger: Grenada in the Al-Hambra, Cornwall in the Heligan Gardens, the Sacré-Coeur of Paris. I miss my girl.

Of all the Biblical stories to recount in art here, what better choice than the raising from the dead of the Roman's daughter? This is a bittersweet joy in the wonder of this place that brings my children so close to me.

Tomorrow we leave Geneva for Liège by way of Paris, a long day of travel. I’m glad to have returned to Geneva in time for the evening Mass before dinner. Time to pack and say farewell to this intriguing place.

Fireworks, Finance, and Literary Women, Revisited

2008-07-09T17:54:00.005-04:00

We celebrated our holiday of national independence with a young professor who simply oozed delight in his subject: the history of finance. Boris Lachat’s 2 hour presentation on the history and characteristics of the Swiss banking system, again a subject normally likely to induce siesta, brought a greater awareness of this unique country and a deeper understanding of the culture and the people.

In a long line of bizarre coincidences, today’s was pretty high: during the break in this presentation I called JPMorgan Suisse seeking a notary for the Power of Attorney document required by my lender: JPMorgan Chase Bank. I ended up in conversation with their attorney, Fabienne Richard, who assured me I would not find an American notary in Geneva on the 4th of July (Consulate was closed). She recommended I try Monday in Belgium. I have my doubts, but will it my Scouting best effort. Anyway, I returned to the lecture having had my chat with a private Swiss bank. I take my schoolwork seriously.

After class Boris called his mom to get the name and number of the best notary office here – talk about having connections – but their office closed at noon, so I will indeed have to look for a Belgian American notary. Right.

After lunch we took a walking tour of the city from a different point of view, that of notable Genevoise women, led by German born historian Sabine Lorenz. We began at the Convent of Clarisse and Ste Colette de Corbie and the good sisters confrontation with the reformers, which led to their departure.

Our second stop was in front of this auberge, a restaurant and hotel run by Aimée LaCroix and her husband Pierre. A portrait has survived since the 1830s of this working woman, who though originally listed as a cook in the city rolls later had no job title attached to her name.

Amélie Munier-Romilly sought the right to study art, but was constrained by her mother’s limits during her studies in Paris. It was only later that the artist was able to transgress the barriers to her gender accessing models for corporal studies. Women generally were restricted to portrait painting if allowed to work at all. Amélie married a young pastor who agreed to her workshop outside the home ,which allowed her to continue painting while raising her four children. All three of her sons died, so it is particularly poignant to see the love poured into the portrait of her grandson.

Mme Albertine Necker de Saussure, wife of Madame de Stael’s cousin Jacques, named after his uncle, the famous treasurer of France, worked as a writer after a complex education in an erudite family with a father devoted to her travels and intellectual development. It seems she was fairly hot-tempered and outspoken, writing insightful observations even as a teenager. Yes, I see the parallel with another young lady dear to me. Albertine raised four children, observing their learning traits and writing detailed notes which later beca.me her Study of the Life of Women. I have not been able to verify the connection, but it seems quite likely that the death of her beloved teenage daughter which so moved her out of writing and into mourning might well have been the same 15 year old Augusta whose bust so moved me at Coppet. Albertine was the translator of Schlegel’s book into French, so they would have worked closely and met often at Coppet when de Saussure often participated in the Madame de Stael salons. I took these photos of the de Saussure home thinking of Augusta and reaching into the deep well of maternal grief.

Marie Goegg-Pouchoulin, born into a clock-making family whose politics were very progressive, only had 5 years of formal education, but was self-taught and grew into a respected voice for progressive politics. She helped start the League of International Peach and Freedom and in 1872 petitioned for and succeeded in establishing the right of young women to attend the university.

In Switzerland women did not win the right to vote until1959 in Vo, 1960 in Geneva, and 1971 in Federal elections. It was a feminist strike forcing a federal mandate that gave women in the last canton the right to vote in 1991. Imagine! Still women take home almost 20% less salary for the same job done by a man despite the constitutional equality under the law.

After dinner we hosted an unusual speaker, an American doctor and lawyer who specializes in pharmaceutical finance, in Switzerland where he lives with his Slovakian wife. He tackled the after dinner speaking assignment in French, addressing the Swiss in Europe question as well as the nature of the Swiss people and their relationships with outsiders. He works for Johns Hopkins and Columbia as well as consulting or sitting on the board for a number of companies. He talked about inventiveness and the need to keep Swiss entrepreneurs at home, since many of them found more risk-taking possibilities outside the cautious local business environment. It was an interesting visit, a different point of view to our week.

United: Nations, Faiths, and Futures

2008-07-04T16:10:00.006-04:00

After a morning presentation on the place of Switzerland within yet outside of Europe, we met the venerable Genevois fount of knowledge, Monsieur Patané, at the Red Cross Red Crescent Museum. The United Nations plaza vaunts its place with pride and pomp, yet the mesmerizing focus of the mall is the Chair.

It is literally so big as to be invisible. I read its message, photographed it, and long after actually saw the Chair. This is a word play of the gravest sort that can not escape the bilingual visitor. The Chair stands on three legs, the fourth shattered, splintered, amputated. It stands as a mute testimony to the victims of landmines globally, the innocent collateral damage left by the warriors gone off to bloody battlefields elsewhere, leaving behind a Hansel and Gretel trail of mutilating munitions.

In French “chair” means flesh. The Chair bears witness mutely, following us with its imposing presence long after leaving its shadow.

Our winding way through the gardens of the Ariana Ceramic Museum is overhung with magnificent magnolias. Simply awesome, fragrant, enormous, a pathway lined with blooms, humming with bees, sweet with fragrance.

And then the museum of the Red Cross Red Crescent looms on the hill above us. The new wing of the museum has a quiet marker, trod on to the point of effacement, where Mrs. Reagan and Mrs. Gorbachev presided at the laying of the first stone. Overhead the red cross and crescent offer a protective shelter; the need for two symbols brings tension to the task.

Standing as if waiting their turn to enter are The Petrified. Plaque hidden behind them, these faceless victims of global injustice mutely discomfit the tourist. They appear again outside the cafeteria, waiting their turn quietly at the information desk. Unnerving in every way, they speak for those with no voice. It is a powerful witness.

The museum itself, on the contrary, cries out with the passionate power of human compassion and righteousness in the face of inhumanity. Epidemics of typhus, plague, cholera. Wars of succession, rebellion, aggression. Genocide. Documented with photographs, film, documents, instruments, files, and met with the staunch courage of human pity. Nurses under fire, doctors in the trenches, drivers on the battlefield, carrying the wounded, administering medication, bandaging, and touching. Holding a hand, caressing a brow, offering the support of a shoulder.

It seems to me that the visitor here has a choice, a point of view that in effect governs one’s view of one’s role in humanity: to see the suffering, the gaunt agony, the anguish of the grieving, the overwhelming flood of disaster, disease, and destruction, and to turn away scarred, grieving, shedding tears of horror, but turning away Or to reach out to the suffering, to see the hurt and want to heal it, to roll up sleeves and wade in, looking for the task appointed you.

The museum opens with a display of human value for saving life across cultures and time periods in writing and in action. Models of this choice gaze at the visitors: Florence Nightingale, Clara Barton, Nicolai Pirogov, Henri Dunant. This place reinforces for me once again, as have so many of the sites of this summer’s travels, the reasons I have to join in the effort to bring Congolese schools into the global conversation with my students. We each have windows open before us, paths to take or ignore, chances to make a difference in the world we live and leave. My short visit here has clarified for me the task set before me, small as it may be in comparison with the heroism enshrined here.

My afternoon free sent me to the movies – no way I’m going to pay $17.50, so that’s out! – to the bookstore where I limited my take to 3 skinny storybooks and 2 fat children’s collections for school and for this project (but at Swiss prices – yikes) and then to the Cathedral where I hoped to visit the Roman archeological site. Closed 20 minutes before I got there, so it goes on my list of next time sites. Looking in the cathedral for the elusive WC, I found instead this chapel, simply stunning in the richness of the decor, a flood of color, light, warmth, an embrace of medieval faith. Restorative.

As was dinner on my own, courtesy of the Swiss government, in a simply wonderful restaurant in the old city, Les Armures, actually the choice of President and Mrs. Clinton during their visit here. A fine meal, lovely service, diverse diners, and a good book.

Literary Women in Exile

2008-07-03T14:57:00.007-04:00

Wednesday’s topics focused on language: a morning lecture on the French spoken in Switzerland, and on the regional varieties which characterize any language. After lunch at the University cafeteria, we traveled to a small village along Lake Geneva, site of the Chateau of Coppet, the manor house of Jacques Necker, the banker who tried to save the French treasury from the bankruptcy that eventually caused its downfall.

The current owners, direct descendants who winter in Paris, greeted us on our arrival. Necker’s daughter, born in Paris to this Protestant Swiss financier, became the renowned Madame de Stael, literary icon of the 18th century. Madame de Stael fled the wrath of Napoleon, who would rather have seen her run all the way to America, but had to settle for her exile to Coppet. From virtually next door to Napoleon’s France, she continued to hostess famed literary salons and to write of her exile and of her travels, in the form of published novels, essays, and as letters.

I lost the thread of Germaine Necker Stael’s literary accomplishments and political stature when the tour guide pointed out in passing a portrait of an 18th century stepfather named Schegal and the bust of Augusta, made at his request when his wife’s daughter died at age 15. Her curls were caught up in a scarf headband, her soft features looking wide-eyed held mine from her corner of the room. I wondered if she, like the famous occupant of the chateau, loved to read and to write. Much of Doris Jakubec’s scholarly talk about Swiss literature went by me as I dwelt on sweet memories of literary women.

Coppet

Once upon a princess
There lived another curly girl
Sweet visage framed
Ringlets escaping a scarf.

Escape frozen in stone
at Schlegel’s behest:
another German stepdad
who grieved Augusta.

She, gone at 15, left me grateful,
in Mme de Stael’s sitting room,
for the gift of 2 more years
before my own August grief.

Coppet

Il y était autre fois une princesse
une autre douce fille bouclée
dont le visage encadré de frisettes
échappées d’une écharpe.

Fuite capté en pierre
Sollicité de ce Schlegel
un autre beau-père allemand
auquel manqua cette Augusta.

Elle, morte à 15 ans, me laissa,
de son coin du salon de Madame de Stael,
reconnaissante de mes 2 ans de plus
avant mon propre deuil d’aout.

July 3, 2008
Coppet, Lake Geneva
Switzerland

We returned to Geneva in the most lovely fashion, by steam boat across the lake. Europe’s largest lake lulled us, the heat of the sun simply torrid. It was a dreamy ride under the sparkling eyes of the Rothchild mansion high on the lakeshore, back to the city whose water jet marks the entry to the Rhone.

We stopped at the baroque tomb of a wealthy Genevois, who in return for this prominent monument donated the land on which the United Nations now occupies. He is guarded by a veritable Aslan, again. Narnia is everywhere!

Switzerland, Lessons in Statehood

2008-07-02T15:22:00.010-04:00

On the way to class, we poked our noses into the auditorium and discovered this splendid stained glass illuminating an amphitheater whose podium proved too tempting for Peter.

Monday’s first presenter gave us the Swiss History for Dummies from the point of view of a geographer turned journalist. Joëlle Kuntz distilled the puzzle - how this disparate group of independent entities organized into what from the outside appears to be a nation – by telling us the story of a bridge.

The Gothard Pass, an Alpine peak, blocked the direct route from Italy to the Holy Roman Empire whose capital was at Aix-la-Chapelle, causing a 10 day detour around the mountain impasse. When in 1213 a little bridge was built (the Devil’s Bridge), the villagers realized what a gold mine they possessed. And possession was the key: three cantons made a pact in 1291 to defend their bridge over the Schooleren Gorge, allowing merchants to gather at fairs along the route. The association lasted 3 centuries, time enough to create attitude of independent states in federation for a mutually beneficial economic priority. And you wondered why the World Commerce Organization chose Geneva as its base in 1995.

The 26 Swiss cantons have repeatedly refused a central authority in their popular votes, turning down the idea of a national university in the 19th century, choosing to elect a parliament, which then elects a 7 member council to govern. No president. There was a time when the aristocracy in Europe foundered under the Terror in France, and in 2 weeks there were 40 republics in Switzerland. Napoleon’s invasion of Switzerland ironically did what no one had managed until then: it united the Swiss cantons, consolidated behind their fervent wish to be released from his yoke.

In 1848 the Swiss succeeded in a popular revolution, where France, Italy, Sweden, and Germany failed, creating both a federation of cantons, and a refuge for all of the disillusioned and defeated intellectuals of Europe. They still struggle with the issues of 26 education systems in a mobile society, with EU membership ( all EU laws are also Swiss laws), with the military service requirement, with rising immigration, and with the question of neutrality and what purpose it serves.

Bernard Schneuwly spoke at greater length about the various education system differences in a afternoon lecture, and Claudio Sfreddo addressed the question of the economic value of language. I will admit that the topic of economics in late afternoon in a warm, dim classroom sent me scuttling for more coffee, but really, it was a fascinating topic presented in an accessible manner. Remarkable.

After lunch, Lisa and I wandered down the shady side of the street, and landed right in front of the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church. We stole in, enjoyed a quiet moment of contemplation, and studied the symbols of the evangelists, wondering which was the lion, the bull, the deer, and why the angel with the book was mixed in with them. Then on the way out, Lisa discovered this chapel with a stunning portrait of John baptizing Jesus and a modern Madonna with a compelling face. The classic painting of the communion in a distinctly different style drew us both.

This stone commemorates the unintentional battle that erupted when raw army recruits faced down the extreme left and right political parties in a protest in 1932. Someone gave the order to fire and a number were killed. Think Concord or Kent State.

What did I learn in Econ class? Swiss studies show that salaries of bilingual workers go up 12-29% and trilingual employees earn double the increase – so 24-58% more than a monolingual person in the same job. The multilingual have greater choice of jobs and greater upward mobility. Countries as well as individuals reap economic benefits from a multilingual work force.

Probably the most stellar of the outstanding presentations was offered by Jacques Grinevald, a Renaissance man whose topic was International Organizations in Geneva, which in the course of the morning came repeatedly back to the issue of global warming and his work with various scientists and authors. Geneva hosts international societies in the field of politics, commerce, science, telecommunications, humanitarian and social issues, including the Red Cross and Crescent, environment, labor, transportation, sports, and religion.

I found it particularly interesting that the Organization for Conservation of Nature moved from Brussels to Geneva when the brutality of Leopold’s reign of terror in Congo became publicly known.

Dr. Grinevald left me with this memorable concept: we don’t live on earth, we live in it, and a lovely image: the oceans and the skies are fluid sides of the envelope in which we live. He also said that Switzerland doesn’t have an army, it is an army.

His book length bibliography of books recommended on the global warming issue will be printed in English in the next few years: I will recommend it as a vital reference. He clarified some puzzling aspects of that complex issue, among them the tendency to connect weather to warming. Planetary warming can be happening even when the spring is chillier than usual. Planetary warming is an average temperature, not a local weather pattern.

He also replied to the question of deep oscillations in the earth’s climate over the millions of years of planetary conditions that we can demonstrate from ice core sample studies. The profound changes in climate from the ice ages to the torrid heat of the dinosaurs never had a CO2 saturation above 180ppm. It remained stable during all that climate change. In the century since the industrial revolution, CO2 saturation has risen to 390ppm. It is the staggering acceleration of that change that must be addressed. The troubling muddling of the science by commercial interests has to go down as one of the most alarming forces of our era.

In what amounted to a terrific end to this lively session, we followed our intrepid guide, Massimo Patané walked us through the city, past the oldest marronier, the tree whose first leaf officially declares spring, and the world's longest park bench. On the way to the Cathedral (now temple) I had to stop to gawk at this Narnian spot. Saint Peter's Cathedral has ancient roots, Roman roots beneath it, but since the arrival of man whose plain, hard chair is enshrined here, the cathedral has become a temple of the reformation. All evidence of that divorce simply saddens me. We left the city behind for a jaunt out into the country to a wine tasting. Global warming discussions will drive you to drink. The young woman whose wines have won international acclaim runs the vineyard with her father. It is a small establishment in comparison to the French family vineyard that I toured last month, but it is a satisfying feeling to see the idyllic pastoral setting to a family whose roots go back 5 generations on the land.

Welcome to Geneva!

2008-06-30T14:39:00.005-04:00

Like a missionary evangelizing, I passed the train ride from Lyon to Geneva preaching the global conversation to a young man from Cameroon whose sister and brothers-in-law are teachers. He was fascinated by the concept of classroom connections between school children and took the Waza Alliance and Able and Willing website addresses, promising to read about our work that evening. He offered to buy me coffee and helped me find my bus, reminding me to stop at the ATM for Swiss francs.

Which was a start, the 100 franc bill that it fed me, but I suspected that the bus would require coins, and with shock, realized that I had no idea how much a Swiss franc was worth. A kind woman told me that 100 francs was about 70 euros, so francs are about the same as dollars. I went into a shop to get change, and chickened out, buying a paperback to get my change and asking how much the bus cost. I thought the 5 franc coin was good enough for a 3 franc bus. Silly me.

Next issue was finding the #3 bus that my email said was right in front of the station. It was, but going in the wrong direction (good thing I asked). Eventually I found the #3 several blocks away and, pleased with myself, hopped on, slipping the 5 francs to the driver with a smile. Which he greeted with an expression of disgust –“another dumb tourist” – and told me I had to buy my ticket from the machine at the curb. As he shut the door behind me and drove off. I stood behind the turnstile, paralyzed, and he snarled, “Well, DO something!” I timidly pushed through the bar, which I thought was fixed in place until I had a ticket, and waited for the next stop, throwing my suitcase on the rack. He threw back at me, “And you need the exact change!” So I implored the nearest passenger to change my 5 franc coin, which he kindly did. At the next stop I pointed to the machine and said, I just buy it there? And he said, push the red button in the yellow column. I just stood there stunned. I do what? He said, LISTEN TO ME. Push the red button in the yellow column.

I thought London’s tube was a mess. This system doesn’t even have a map that helps! As I jumped to the curb I said, You have my suitcase, Don’t leave me! The kind passengers did their best short of patting me on the head, saying, it’s a disgrace, don’t feel bad, it’s incomprehensible. I said, ruefully, I’ve been in Switzerland for 2 minutes and haven’t done anything right yet! Which of course is status quo, so I’m over it.

The dorm is so IUesque, I feel right at home! Unfortunately, my large window faces west, which though it is great for sunsets, is pretty much the sauna treatment, even with the shutter down all afternoon. It does cool off at night, so I’ve slept well (when not getting phone calls from home at midnight!) It has been quite hot, 28-30 degrees C, which I think is 90s plus very humid.

The university classrooms are stifling and the natives are used to it, so we wilted in dismay as our chipper instructors in suit and tie chattered on, never breaking a sweat. I’m changing 3 times a day, soaked. The guys on the bus are in snappy suits, polished shoes, looking comfy. I’m dripping and wondering how we can be standing toe to toe and yet be on different weather maps. And I think Switzerland: Alpine chill. Hot cocoa. Nope. Let’s break stereotypes here: think, sweaty city.

Sunday afternoon we had a walking tour of Geneva with a veritable bottomless well of encyclopedic knowledge. He walked us for 4 hours, to the Calvin Academy, with the 3 vault keystones in the three languages of the school needed for Scriptural reading: Greek, Latin, Hebrew.

We saw the tower commemorating the spy caught smuggling the key to the city out in a dead goose – and later saw the Siberian geese that have migrated here due to climate change. The little island dedicated to Jean – Jacques Rousseau, born here, and the 18th hotel where Dickens was staying during the war of 1848 when a cannon ball came through the wall, seriously compromising his good impression of the city.

The Rolex company among others made me think of Brad and Steph and Michael – there was an antique store of tools of the watchmaking trade they would have enjoyed.

The roots of the city pre-reformation divided it into Italian, French, and German sectors due to the business interests of the city commerce. Street names changed with the reformation, from The Street of Pretty Girls, for example. Not Calviinist. The romanesque and gothic cathedrals became protestant temples, the statues of saints cast into the Rhone. Such religious conflict always saddens me.

The European Soccer championships this weekend have the city in an uproar and the Lake Leman waterfront celebrates the local furor. There are fans of the teams from Spain and from Germany everywhere sporting their teams’ colors. The Sunday night final game needed no tv access to keep current – the horns and shouts in the street announced the winning goal. I know Eusebio and Chebi are thrilled, and Christian disappointed.

Our Monday courses at the University involved 90 minute presentations on an overview of Swiss history from the point of view of a journalist/geographer, the Swiss systems (26) of education, and the economics of 2nd language acquisition. All were exceptionally well presented though our fatigue and heat-induced suffering had to be pretty evident in spite of the coffee and cold water splashed liberally on the face & neck at every break!

This modern monument illustrates the meridional line that passes through Geneva.

Our meals are uniformly wonderful. I bought my first and last Swiss chocolate this afternoon, desperate to stay awake – oh my. Oh my. Oh my.

I will buy gift boxes of chocolate to bring home for staff and students as promised, at the last minute, and savor the fond memory of that one indulgent treat. Wow. I will leave you with that taste on your tongue, creamy and rich, ridiculously rich. Wow.

R & R, Sylvia Style

2008-06-29T12:44:00.005-04:00

My stay in Lyon with English teacher Yvette and her husband Oliver (accountant, tech wiz, chef) and her son Jeremy (economist, MBA, soccer star) had as its purpose the rest and recovery requisite to the end of a 15 day student tour. After a delightful and exhausting day at school Tuesday, I did accomplish the rest, but the R & R became rest and risk. It was utterly against the grain for me to have to submit my final best offer for Helen’s house this week without knowing what the other bidder would choose. I had to gamble, which I loathe. I finally managed by putting myself into the Euchre frame of mind and reminding myself to trump high if you really want to win the hand. It was more a relief than a victory when I got the word that my offer was accepted. Now on to inspection and subsequent renegotiation of price, closing, and preparatory work, hopefully just before closing on my house (still waiting for that first domino to fall.)

Yvette and I lounged as only spent teachers in the final days of school can, thoroughly enjoying each other and a cup of tea. Yvette came down with the obligatory end of term illness, so we were content to take it easy at home. Their hospitality was exemplary.

One of the highlights of my visit was the Wednesday afternoon premier of Prince Caspian in French. Yvette dropped me at the theater and went home to siesta while I wandered in Narnia, deliriously happy to visit there with a theater of small children. I left with regret, last as usual, and half in the clouds look around for Yvette. Instead I saw Aslan. Riveted, stunned, speechless, I stood before the miniature statue. I touched his face to see if it was real. It was simply a direct replica, an astounding likeness. Still bewildered, I climbed into Yvette’s car and gasped, “Look! There! Do you see that lion? Am I imagining it?” She laughed and reminded me that I was in Lyon. I belatedly made the connection. Duh. Still the hair stands up on my neck when I think of the chances of being in Lyon for the premier. Needless to say there was Sarah presence and Sarah laughter – I see her in Susan and in Lucy both. How she would have loved it! Do you suppose that Narnia is the land the scissors walk to?

Collège Lachenal: Pen Friends

2008-06-26T06:36:00.007-04:00

Talk about déja vu. Here we are, the last day of school, encore! As guest speaker for the day Tuesday, I fielded questions and led discussions in 5 classes of 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th grade English students. For the most part, I asked them to decide the topics that I addressed and they wanted to know about American students’ school day, food, sports, weather – and had I seen many stars?

This question of celebrity spotting simply stunned me. It came up in every class as no other question did. That brought us to the question of national stereotypes, and we made lists. Americans are seen as rich and tall, they eat hamburgers and ketchup, McDonalds and Coke, they drive big cars and live in big houses and often hang out with big stars. I did my best to show Indiana in relation to Hollywood and New York and asked how often they encountered French celebrities. Of course, they scoffed and said, “Are you kidding? We live in Lyon!” I said, “Hey, I live in Indianapolis!”

When I listed typical stereotypes of the French - elegant, sexy women, men who are suave, polished, interested in women and wine, and quick to surrender when courage is required in a crisis - they came quickly back with, “Hey, who came over and won your revolution for you?” A fact that escapes many Americans, who also forget that it took our country almost 3 years from Pearl Harbor to D-Day with all industry tuned to preparing for war to get ready to take on the modern military force that had overrun all of Europe, a Europe that had no time to prepare to meet it, who was urged by its Allies to not prepare for war as a means of avoiding it. We forget that France had time to see the consequences of resisting that force with cavalry and saber in the photos of a leveled Poland, whose capital had been the “Paris of the East.” We are grateful in hindsight that France surrendered to save Paris from bombing, vowing to defeat the occupier another day, for we found great pleasure in the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower.

These students more than anything remind me of my students, and I would love to find a way to create an affordable exchange of student groups. The lesson I did my best to teach is that we have much more in common than we have differences, that Americans find France exotic and attractive in much the same way that the French find America a paradise of wonders. It’s not a bad thing in a couple in love to admire and long to be like your partner: America and France have a life-long friendship, fraught with moments of high valor and petty squabbles. Vive l’Alliance!

Last Romp on the Royal Riviera

2008-06-26T06:30:00.008-04:00

We resolutely rose early to use the cool of the day and avoid the bus loads of tourists on the winding coastal route from Nice to Monaco. The blues and greens, sapphire and emerald of the Mediterranean dazzled us, seen from the towering rocky claws of the Alps that reach toward this jewel of sun-drenched paradise. There were multiple plans for increased personal income floated about with the purpose of return trips to this inviting coast.

The postage stamp of a country that is Monaco packed in maximum wealth in villas, cars, and yachts. We wandered by the Marine studies aquarium with its mini-submersible and statue honoring sea life obliging us to sing a chorus of “Yellow Submarine” with the sublime realization that the octopus really does have a garden by the sea.

The garden walk dedicated to Princess Grace led us along the sea, beside the cathedral closed to tourists during the Sunday Mass, and up through the town to the Palace of the Grimaldis. This family traces its history back to the 13th century when an ancestor returned from exile disguised as a monk to reclaim his heritage. The clever decision to open a casino and to offer tax shelter for the wealthy has made Monte Carlo a world famous name, augmented by the famed Grand Prix.

We drove up winding roads to the hilltop village of Eze where we lunched and wandered, ending up at the top of the outcrop of rock on which the church is perched. The shopping along the way featured the lovely Provencal fabrics, lavender sachets, and of course, Lamborghinis and Ferraris. Porshes, too, perhaps. There was drooling. There were guards to ward off droolers.

An afternoon lesson on aromatherapy, essential oils, and health by the honey-voiced British therapist who lives and works in Monte Carlo (with unbelievably rich clients) had a soporific effect that we fought off with difficulty. The activity roused us as we combined our choice of 8 oils in almond oil to make 2 bottles of therapeutic balm. We had a chance to guess the 3 scents in a fragrance contest and had 3 winners who knew cloves (Carly, Hannah, and who?).

After a brief but enlightening tour of the Fragonard factory by Magdalena, we shopped for perfumes, soaps, colognes, and bath salts. I found my favorite perfume, Ile d’amour, but not the cream sachets that I like for gifts. It was a sweet end to our last day of touring, and made even Nicer by a last Mediterranean swim before dinner.

(Photo at left: Science Gleaning Knowledge of Life from the Sea)

We said our farewells to Amanda, our guide, since she planned to accompany Texas and Alaska in the morning, and Patricia gave her the scarf that she knit on the bus while we traveled. As one of her “knit-wit” sponsors and a knit-wit grandma, I was immensely proud of that generous gesture.

What an amazing group of well-mannered students respectful of each other and their teachers, with simply splendid parents who did their best to mother children not their own: never easy. It was a joy and a privilege for me to travel with this group, the other teachers, the parents, the students, a time that I hope has opened wide the vision of these youth to a planet awaiting their arrival as leading world citizens.

The Azure Coast: Nice

2008-06-26T06:10:00.002-04:00

Saturday morning we drove into Nice, our last day with Manuel at the wheel, stopping first at the amazing Russian Orthodox Cathedral built for Nicolas, the son of the Czar, who died here. Southern France was a common destination for Russian émigrés fleeing turmoil at home, so this splendid monument to a beloved son by a grieving mother serves a devout community as well as attracting tourists.
We were awed by the baroque decor and the icons that filled the small space.

After leaving our bags at the hotel, we wandered down the pedestrian shopping street until we found a café for lunch. We used the heat of the day for shopping and Round 2 of hair salon magic. This time Sarah and Kira and Scott went under the knife, all emerging to general admiration and approbation.

Finally, we stood on the famed Azure Coast. The long awaited swim held all the satisfaction of a cool dip on a hot day, with the unexpected difficulty of negotiating the rocky beach. You’ll have to look for beach photos elsewhere as the Nikon did not risk leaving the hotel room. Suffice it to say that it was a splendid swim: free beach with a lifeguard, remarkably salty water great for buoyancy, and a torrid sun. We applied +50 liberally.

After dinner, we took a walk to check out the summer solstice music festival. We enjoyed ice cream, watching break dancing, some reggae, drumming, and a free rock concert.

Our walk home along the Promenade des Anglais was balmy and sweet. Our last day together will be a special one, with Nice providing a lovely metaphor by hosting the French Ironman competition here tomorrow. Our 2 weeks has certainly had elements of endurance, of diverse challenges, and of deep satisfaction.

A Stroke of the Pen, the Sword, and the Swimmer

2008-06-20T16:50:00.003-04:00

Just up the street and around the corner from our Hotel du Forum stands the imposing arena of Arles, built around 1BC to seat over 20,000 spectators on three levels. We wandered the seating area, climbed the tower, sat on the worn stone put in place 2,000 years ago by what were likely the strong hands of young conscripts, far from home and missing their families. It was hard not to feel an affinity with those kindred spirits whose labor has left this still functional structure. What have we done today that will endure?

We did meet our friend Lisette Dautry and her granddaughter Charlotte this morning. Madame Dautry came to all the Clay French classes in the fall when she was in Carmel helping out while her son's family moved. Her granddaughter is a student at Clay who has visited our classroom as well. Charlotte hopes to visit Carmel someday, so if you are looking for a French 15 year old for a month vacation, we can fix you up! Madame and Charlotte accompanied us to the arena and then to Nîmes, leaving us after lunch. It was such a pleasure to be able to reconnect, for the students to feel they were meeting a friend here, and for me.

We walked from the arena to our Ecole d'Escrime et de Calligraphie, where we began with the pen and ended with the sword. Thierry was our calligraphy teacher, a professional who uses the same inks, plumes, and paper as the medieval Latin calligraphers did. He gave us a short history of the Chinese, Arabic, and Latin calligraphy styles, then turned us loose on an alphabet and our own names. The hour of effort earned a diploma with his art writing in each name.

Our second hour taught us a different history, that of the sword, which in its earliest form was a heavy offensive weapon used by knights. The foil, rapier, and épée were lighter and became defensive weapons as well. Our instructor Quentin has the sword used by Leonardo da Caprio in the Man with the Iron Mask movie, an épée of the Mousketaires.

Short intro concluded, we swashed into our face masks and buckled into our swords and underwent the transformation into movie stars. We learned the choreographed fight move to attack the head, the right then left arm, the head, and with no real logic other than showmanship, the feet (which involved defensive jumping.) After all the pairs had leanred these basic moves, Quentin told us that we had 10 minutes to plan out our audition for him to judge the best boy and girl on their swordplay and the creative story that they invented to give it context.

We had some awesome stories: "You stole my boyfriend! (or hairbrush) Prepare to die!" "You Cathares, convert or die!" "You stole my girlfriend! Prepare to die!" "I hate you!" "I hate you more!" but the most drama involved the love triangle whose jilted bad boy (Scott) took a direct hit from his former woman with a sword before recovering enough to stagger over and thrust home the killing blow. Becca's dramatic shriek of grief as she fell to her knees over the two dead bodies won the day (but boy, did they have a great director!)

I must say that I did enjoy the 30 minute jaunt to Nîmes since I got to ride shotgun with Madame in her Peugot convertible. Wow. WOW. Top down, wind and sun, it was a delight. The bus ride to Nîmes was short and the river Gard awaited. We walked around the arena we had been intended to tour but which was closed to set up for the Coldplay concert tomorrow. Our visit to the Maison Carrée was enhanced by a 3 D movie of the centuries of heroic highlights from this place. We met the bus, gasped at the 30 degrees C. and headed for water.

There is little that is more delightful than watching youngsters in the water on a hot day, swimming, splashing, cavorting, laughing. It was a shame to get them out after a 40 minute swim. Our path to the 2000 year old aqueduct under which we swam ran past an olive tree documented to have lived since 908. There is no 1 in front of that number. Antiquity lives. Vive l'antiquité!

The hotel billiard table has wracked up a steady diet of students playing, those waiting their turn working on ice cream cones or bowls from the plaza shop just across the way. How convenient! We will regret leaving this lovely abode.

Montségur en route for Arles

2008-06-19T16:55:00.006-04:00

From a distance, the "pog" rising from the valley constituted an impossible rocky outcropping whose ruins perched a mile above sea level. Manuel gasped and pointed, and we all rolled our eyes and said, sure, nice joke. He was not joking. I said simply unrepeatable things as I stood in the parking lot looking up. There had to be an elevator. The path must wind around to the back and go gently up. There was no way to scale that height without pinions, ropes, or a helicopter. Wrong, wrong, wrong. We did climb it, no equipment, no aid. Why, you ask? So did we!

Montségur was the final bastion of a beleaguered cult, the Cathares, who after the last crusade had brought their brand of gnosticism back to southern France, where the landholders allowed them to live in peace in spite of their heresy. They believed that all that was worldly was evil, all pleasure, all joy, all comfort, and that in denying themselves all in this life, they would earn happiness in the next. They tended to be well-educated and gentle, abhoring violence, so they made decent neighbors. That tolerance cost many southern Christian his life.

In a classic land grab, the northern knights petitioned for permission from the Pope to crusade against the heretics, keeping their land as a just reward for their efforts. The Pope agreed, and led by the infamous Simon de Montfort, they slaughtered, starved, and burned the sect into oblivion. The clever northerners made sure to also kill the landowners who allowed the Cathares to live under their protection, so that they could snag more land. The famous quote pretty much sums it up: a captain galloped up to Montfort as the attack on a city began and asked, "How shall the men tell the Christians from the heretics?" Montfort's reply? "Kill them all and let God decide."

That's pretty much what was going on in my head as I put one foot ahead of the other for the 30-40 minutes of vertical ascent. It was actually the altitude's effect on breathing that took the greatest toll. The summit is 1059 meters above sea level, so over a mile. Yikes. Welcome to Denver.

The ruins at the top were frankly a letdown. I expected a boutique, gift shop, toilets, maybe some brochures explaining the history... Oh no. It was a ruin. Nothing more. So we put the pride and the accomplishment in the bank and documented our achievement. I am pleased to say that although I expect to have nightmares about losing children off mountains, we came back all intact, though one of the Alaska boys took off his secret passport pouch at the top because he was sweaty - and left it there. He did a run to the top and back in a Guinness worthy 20 minutes, returning with the passport safe and sucking wind. Harriet and I took a moment while awaiting the descent of Niles to take a portrait together for our mutual hairdresser, Fabienne, who emailed last night having seen the blog documenting Harriet's cut and requesting a photo of mine. Alors, Fabienne, nous voici, la fille et la femme forte qui a achevé la montée de Montségur!

We had a long bus ride across the south of France, avoiding a 12 mile "escargot" of protesters blocking the autoroute around Montpellier by taking the coastal highway. We were delighted to have the opportunity to pass the impressive walled medieval city of Carcassonne, where Kevin Costner flew over the main gate in Robin Hood, and to bisect the Camargue region, a marshy delta home to the
landmark white horses and pink flamingos, wine from vines grown in sand and French cowboys.

We passed the port town of Aigues Mortes from which St. Louis departed for his last crusade (and in which I was stranded in 98 for a day of shopping while the coach's broken window was repaired after the street crazies threw a rock through it after the French soccer team won the World Cup semi-final!) I have a splendid skirt and blouse and a fav Hard Oc tee-shirt from that day.

We also passed Les Trois Maries, where the 3 Mary's landed fleeing persecution in the Holy Land, now an annual pilgrimage for the gypsies of Europe. We found Arles to be a southern city with a character far removed even from Toulouse. This is all burned orange and gold and white in the torrid sun, baking at 30 degrees Centigrade.

After a lovely duck dinner in an old room with matador decor, the kids hit the pool with glee, enjoying an evening in the water, for which they received the high praise of the owner for their good behavior, "très correcte," music to my ears, especially after the scolding for the noisy crew watching the France-Italy soccer game. (But, really, the French were getting killed, what good fan was quiet, for heaven's sake?) The sun down, we enjoyed a balmy poolside evening. I printed a contract from email, faxed an offer on the house I want to buy, rewrote the blog twice since blogger went down for routine maintenance and I missed the Pacific time change - good night all. Tomorrow will prove whether the pen indeed mightier than the sword.

Notre Dame de Lourdes et l'Ange de la Ville Rose

2008-06-18T16:22:00.005-04:00

Bernadette age 14
Driving south from Toulouse for our day trip to Lourdes, we gradually climbed into the foothills of the Pyrénées whose snow -capped peaks rose majestically above the green valleys. This area was backwoods at its best, far from highways or communication systems, late to get the newest trends in the other world of Paris or even Toulouse, until a 14 year old country girl saw a lady in the grotto above her, a lady who appeared 18 times to Bernadette but not to others with her. The testimony of the child and the children with her eventually led to a skeptical world believing that she had indeed truthfully narrated the apparitions that spoke to her. One of the convincing details was her report that the lady identified herself as the immaculate conception, a term coined by the Vatican and discussed at that time among the church fathers, but not in popular circulation, certainly not known to a poor country girl.

One of the telling events in this chronicle was the request of the lady that Bernadette drink the water from the spring at the foot of the rock, where Bernadette found mud but no spring. She dug with her hands and drank from the bit of water, but the crowd gathered was disappointed in their expectation of a miraculous sign. The next morning, however, a gushing stream rushed from the spot, water that was cool and clear and bracing. Since that day many recount healing and comfort from that spring, so water from Lourdes is a much sought for curative therapy.

We saw in the crowds the ill, the injured, the disabled, the grieving, the weary, and we heard more languages at once than even in Paris. The site of the apparitions and the spring are now in the shadow of a towering cathedral, and a second larger cathedral, the largest underground church in the world, undergirds the plaza guarded by a pair of angels.

If you are interested in the story of Bernadette, there are several good websites with her story, and the old movie of her life, The Song of Bernadette, is still worth watching. Bernadette was told that she would not find happiness in this life, and indeed, a weak child suffering from asthma, she died at 35 in the convent of a long and painful bout of tuberculosis of the knee (can that be right??).

We had a lovely few hours of down time before dinner, which I used to pop into the hair salon that so skillfully worked on Harriet yesterday. The owner, Fabienne, cut my hair and framed it up in a very attractive style that sent me off on the stroll back across the city with a new lightness to my step. (photo tomorrow!) I told her that she was angelic, and she just smiled and pointed mutely to a tiny angel hanging above her work station.

Our encounters with kindred spirits often seem coincidental and random, but there is a touch of the miraculous to this day, to this journey, that has blessed us all.

Notre Dame de Rocomadour et la Ville Rose

2008-06-17T14:22:00.009-04:00

The history of Rocamadour begins in the 3rd century when St. Amadour was martyred by the Romans. His body was unearthed a thousand years later and found intact, causing this church built high on the rocky outcropping of the hilly Périgord region to become a pilgrimage site on the route to St. Jacques de Compastella.

The church is dedicated to Mary, but Our Lady of Rocamadour is one of the rare black Madonnas. She sits in a quiet side chapel with the child Jesus on her knee, from whence she is believed to save sailors, for whom she is Patron. Susan celebrated her 50th today under her protection, and was feted twice, morning and evening in honor of the occasion.

There is a plaque in her chapel which I surreptiously photographed, showing the dates that the bell of Rocamadour has rung, miraculously, without aid at the time of a maritime rescue. Another plaque given by the friends of Rocamadour in Quebec honors the salvation of Jacques Cartier and his crew afflicted with scury in New France, healed when they prayed for the intervention of the Lady of Rocamadour.

The church perches at a dizzying height above the precipice (see the photo gallery at www.sylviawoodelf.smugmug.com for extensive evidence!), providing the penitent the choice of climbing the hundreds of steps or as many chose, reaching the top on their knees by way of the stations of the cross along the woodland path snaking its way up the cliff.

The city of Toulouse, about 4th largest in France, is called The Rose City because of the red soil used to build its brick structures. It is a rough town with narrow streets and the scenic walk along the Garonne River and the Canal du Midi. Our lovely hotel is very centrally located, and as you see, has DSL wi-fi.

We toured the city on foot, accomplishing the visit of the St. Severin Church and the Church of the Jacobins as well as making a post office stop and visiting the hair salon. Harriet was transformed before our eyes from sweet girl to elegant young woman. I shed tears on your behalf, Amy. The hairdresser had nothing but praise for her beauty.

Dordogne, Sistine Chapel of Prehistory

2008-06-16T17:33:00.005-04:00

We wound our way south this morning under the storm cloud of strikes, demonstrations protesting the cost of fuel by the truckers, taxis, and ambulances. They planned their "blockages" for after 9am so that the candidates for the baccalaureat who began testing today would not have any trouble getting to the test on time. The slowdown, sometimes called "les escargots," involves lines of truck cabs, taxis, and ambulances driving at 20 mph on the highway to disrupt traffic flow. The signs on their bumpers read, "the transport industry: on the road to disappearance." Our driver sympathized with their dilemma, since if they pass on the rising cost of fuel to customers, they lose business, but he was beside himself with worry that we would not be able to make time on the highway to reach Lascaux for our 4pm appointment. In the end, we did come up behind the protesters, but they did a u-turn only a few miles later, so we saw them coming back the other way and had a clear shot of road through the lovely countryside of the Périgord region.

Manuel chose roads that gave us a scenic view of this southwestern area, pointing out the different architecture of homes, the color changing with the color of the stone quarried locally, the style reflecting local tastes. We marveled at the frequent chateaux and churches, and the occasional abbey, dotting the rolling hills and nestled in the verdant valleys.

We lunched at a shopping center since he was within a half hour of his mandatory stop time and did not want to risk having to stop with no rest area on the highway. The "Flunch" was a great little cafeteria, very wide variety of salads, fruits, grill, and desserts on a sort of buffet. Others chose the take-away sandwichs at Carrefour, a Wal-Mart like supermarket whose name means "Crossroads." Appropriate for Hoosiers!

The Lascaux caves were simply stunning to me. The concept of man as an artist, a dreamer, a spiritual thinking being - 17,000 years ago! - defies expression. Imagine if you had been the 15 year old with his hunting dog and buddies who in rescuing the dog that had chased his prey down the hole left by a violent storm uprooting an ancient tree slid 15 feet down into the perfectly preserved cave of prehistoric painting. That 15 year old became the guardian of the grotto until his death in 1989. His teacher became a prehistoric specialist, another became a teacher. Several of them are still living.

The cave is closed to all but the most upper echelon researchers due to the damage done by the thousands of tourists exhaling carbon dioxide in the first years following the discovery in 1940. A perfect replica created square inch at a time and painted using the same techniques allows guided tours to walk through the dark grotto and view the artwork as close to its original lighting as possible.

The brilliant realism of the horses, the deer, the bulls, the bison, and the mysterious symbolism of the geometric signs connected us to our ancestors in a visceral way. How easy to dismiss those from a less technological time as ignorant savages! Even to a point as near as our own pioneer times, that look back with arrogant disdain is an easy pitfall. These painting were not created by savages, by wild, uncivilized creatures. They witness to the complexity of human life, from its conception.

A short drive through the rural hills brought us here to Payrac, where some of us took a walk before supper, others after. The town is closed - hard for big city kids to understand that concept! - but it is lovely nonetheless. What a privilege to watch these children - and their mothers! - discovering the beauty of another corner of this earth, with whose inhabitants, though distant in time or space, we find a common bond.

Le Jardin de France

2008-06-15T18:15:00.012-04:00

Today we left our city center hotel in a drizzle to dauble in royal living. Our first stop was the chateau of Chenonceau, the ladies castle, that sits astride the Cher river. The 16th century builder desroyed the castle-keep and the fortified mill on this land, keeping only the donjon, the Marques tower, which he renovated in Renaissance style. The entrance is built on the piers of the former mill, and moats more decorative than functional trace the original medieval pattern.

The chapel has new (1954) stained glass to replace the originals that were destroyed by bombing in 1944. There are still visible several graffitti carved by the Scottish guards of Mary Stuart, one from 1543, another 1546. The chapel was saved from destruction during the Revolution by the wily owner, Madame Dupin, who piled it high with stored wood, discouraging the revolutionaries looking to forever destroy the power of the church.

Almost as lovely as the wood furniture, the woven tapestries, and the stone carving of this castle are the flower arrangements, sized to fit the monumental architecture. The fireplaces taller than our heads remind us of the terrible cold that must have only been tempered slightly by the tapestries and the fire.

Henri II gave Chenonceau to Diane de Poitiers, his mistress, but after his untimely death, his widow Catherine de Medicis sent Diane packing to Chaumont-sur-Loire and kept Chenonceau for herself, from whence she ruled France as regent. On the bridge of Diane, Catherine built a gallery, used as a magnificent ballroom, except during World War I when it served as a hospital, and World War II when it became a route from occupied to free France, divided by the Cher.

The kitchens are in the lowest level, in the piers sitting on the riverbed. The pantry, the butchery, the larder, the bread oven, the copper pans and hanging herbs make the role of scullery maid pretty attractive.

Five queens ruled from this chateau, Catherine de Medicis, her daughters Queen Margot (wife of Henry IV) and Elisabeth of France (wife of Philip II of Spain), and her daughters-in-law Mary Stuart (wife of François II), Elisabeth of Austria (Charles IX), Louise of Lorraine (Henry III).
Women looking for role models in the halls of power can find them at every turn; it is perhaps the reporting of the historical events that leaves them out rather than the actual events themselves.

From the tree lined avenue and the thousands of yews in a replica maze, we wend our way back to the coach for the jaunt up the river to the city of Amboise. We stop at the home of Leonardo da Vinci, who came in 1516 at the request of Francois I for the last years of his life. The home was built in 1471 on 200 year old foundations. This had been a royal residence, home to a number of royals, including the author and lady of letters, Marguirite de Navarre.

A poster of Chenonceau in winter put a poem in me. I wish I knew how to make a link so you could choose to go it; I don't know how, so I'll just stick it in.

Chenonceau sous la neige

Mes rêves d'amour ont pris de vie
Le long du Cher fluant
Pour moi le chemin des bois
le verger, sauge, et le thym,
la salle des herbes sechantes
jamais la voie des fleurs sculptés

Mon coeur il est au jardinier
qui m'aime et aime ses roses
nous tenant tendrement
cueillies au choucher du soleil.

for Christy 15 June 2008

Chenonceau in Snow

My dreams of love sprang into life
along the flowing Cher
For me, the woodland path,
the orchard, thyme, and sage,
the workroom, drying herbs
instead of paths through sculpted blooms.

My heart's in the care of gardener
who loves me and his roses
gathering us with tender hands
plucked blooming in the setting sun.

Our minds have moved gradually into a different sort of setting, but the reality of touring the home and garden of Leonardo da Vinci still boggles the mind. His genius took so many diverse directions, from study of anatomy to conception of the helicopter, from war machines to the most tender art. His writing is posted in quotes around the house, highlighting yet another of his gifts.

We descend the quarter mile to the chateau at Amboise, which Da Vinci avoided by means of a tunnel, and stop in the square for a leisurely lunch followed by a stroll through the castle and grounds. I learned to my surprise that Tours and Touraine get their name from the Turones tribe of Celtes, living here in 503 when Clovis, King of the Franks, met Alaric, King of the Wisigoths here. This was the castle of Charles VIII and his wife Anne of Brittany, who joined her independent Duchy to France (turning down a proposal from the Holy Roman Emperor Maximillian). Anne was obliged to marry the cousin of Charles, Louis XII, becoming the only woman to be married to two kings of France. It was only on her death and the rule of her son that Brittany agreed to union with France. Her husband's death at 28 of injuries sustained by whacking his head on the door frame on his way to a tennis match made me look at the low doorways with new respect. On the roof, I discovered this Fiddler....

We left Amboise to visit the Plou et Fils winery, where the son of a family who has owned this business for 500 years guided us through the caves and taught us the fine points of wine tasting. We examined legs and smelled, swished, sipped, and spit in a time honored ritual that is taken so seriously in this culture.

Our final adventure of the day put us in the drivers' seat in a delightful reversal. We donned chef's hats and chopped veggies, sautéd, stirred, strained, and skewered under the supervision of the professors and one student from the cooking school. Our delicious three course meal featured shrimp vegetable soup, Guinea game hen and vegetables, and a pineapple French toast flambé. We will look at each meal with new eyes!

The Salt Sea and the Spiritual

2008-06-14T18:01:00.008-04:00

We rose this morning to a blue sky scudding with sculpted clouds over a restless sea, tide rising just beyond the walled ramparts behind our hotel, the France and Chateaubriand. Manuel took a coastal road that wound through villages and fields, keeping the vision of the Mount ahead, first tiny in the distance, then rising mile after mile to a towering height above us.

This wonder of architecture and legend held more for us today than can be recounted, from the divine to the elven. The trek took a few years off the life of us elders, who were pushing astronomical with pulse rate and sucking air, clinging to walls, and generally whining about never taking another step, which we proceeded to take.

The Mount began as a small chapel built by the Bishop of Avranches, Aubert, on Mont Tombe, a rocky outcropping off the salt meadows of the Normandy-Brittany coast where the river divides those ancient provinces. There is a rapid tide, second highest in the world, that makes this a dangerous place, known for its deadly quicksand. Subsequent building followed over the centuries, and with the increasing number of pilgrims came a village to support their visit.

The main walkway up the Mount climbs steeply up an incline then up stairs uncounted. The breathtaking views and marvel of stone structure tower above. At the top, the reward is powerful. Here the cloister marries the flowing stone arches and sculptures with the blooming garden's fragrance and the wind whistling in off the sea. We made our way through the hall of esquestrian knights and the various monastic vaulted chapels.

We were literally dwarfed by this monumental structure. Here some of the students stand inside the hearth, whose chimney rises to the heavens up a long shaft. We stood at the crenelated ramparts and speculated on the distance to the sea sand below, admiring the herds of salt meadow sheep that grazed there at low tide, sheep known for their special flavor due to the salt of the grass fed by tide waters.

It was in the refractory that these schemers put their heads together to choose a song that would test the legendary acoustics of this dining hall in which silent brothers listened to a Scripture reader who had no need to raise his voice. They agreed finally on Amazing Grace. Their true voices gained strength as they heard how lovely was the sound filled the room. When they finished, there was a burst of applause from appreciative listeners. A woman timidly approached the quartet and bowed solemnly as she thanked them.

Stunned, the children nodded and smiled. Imagine their surprise when she came back a moment later to ask them to sing the same song again! They did, with beautiful rich harmony, and she thanked them again, then asked what state they were from. I told her Indiana and politely asked where in Japan she lived. When she answered Hiroshima, I could not keep my face from showing my shock. Her eyes and mine exchanged an understanding that needed no words and I simply embraced her as the French do, air kisses to each cheek. She nodded and looked at each child before turning to go. I stopped the students halfway across the room and asked them to come back to take this photo. She had one taken with her camera, too, and touched each of us as we left. Stunned is not enough to express the utter bewildered joy and grief we felt. What are the chances that the tourist who requested Amazing Grace would be from Hiroshima? That we would have chosen that song? The children continued to sing their way down through the Mount, giving me and those nearby a rendition of a choir song about waking from a dream in simply divine harmony in the tiny Magdalene Chapel, a moment I will not soon forget. We had the Mass at Notre Dame, sung in French, the good sisters singing at Montmartre in the Sacré-Coeur, the Koreans chanting the rosary in St. Pierre's chapel on the way up the Mount, and our own angel choir in the cathedral known as La Merveille. May we always be greeted and greet with such a song!

On our way down the Mount, we comparison shopped each boutique selling medieval arms, settling on two daggers of lovely engraved blades in leather sheaths. We oohed and aahhed at the Legolas double blades and the Aragorn and Arwen swords. I felt quite satisfied to have escaped with only short daggers as there was a real move to arm ourselves to the teeth. Lucky for these young knights, I have an inexplicable soft spot for such trinkets, probably a genetic remnant of my elvishness.

We stopped for lunch at Fougères, a small Breton town whose market was just closing up Saturday noon. We arrived in time to get hot galettes, frites, and a crêpe for a picnic on the steps of the war memorial. On closer examination we discovered that the usual town marker had a back side that was unusual: a child writing, "Here my elders who fought for me," a poignant reminder of the echoes of history in our own time.

On the facing wall of the square we read this marker, honoring the birthplace of the Marquis Armand Tuffin, companion of Lafayette and friend of George Washington, reminding us of the bond forged even before America had won its freedom between our citizens and the French.

We met after lunch at a park beside the bus, where the children played and adults sat to chat, enjoying the sun, the garden, the stone buildings and sweet moment of repose. The girls looked at what we saw as lawn and saw gym. I caught Hannah here in the utter abandon of the light of heart, a pretty fair symbol of our attitude today!

Our bus driver, Manuel enjoyed this break from the road, negotiating unspeakably narrow lanes never intended for more than two horses in our lumbering coach. He is recovering from his dismay at the ignoble 4-1 loss by the French national team last night against the Dutch.

Tonight he wedged the coach into the tiny Place de General de Gaulle in Chinon to deposit us at the Hotel de France, with an A+ from the driving teacher.

With the several hours until dinner, we climbed up from our hotel in the city center toward the Chateau de Chinon, site of Joan of Arc's first meeting with Charles VII, then the uncrowned Dauphin of a divided France. This place where she convinced the skeptical court and from which she led the French army to victory at Orleans is steeped in a living history. In the tower we saw these artifacts of her time, a chain mail coat and a short dagger, found in archeological digs here. We marveled at the stone, again, and climbed the tower that still houses the bell, cast in 1399, that rings the half hours. To hear the pealing song of this instrument and know that she too had her day measured by its tones made us a part of her story. It was a fleeting visit but well worth the half hour as our introduction to Loire Valley castles, which will take full flight tomorrow.

2008-06-13T18:50:00.006-04:00

When You’re 64

The Beatles asked the plaintive question, “Will you still need me, when you’re sixty-four?” and today’s visit to the Normandy beaches, American cemetery, and Pointe du Hoc answered with a resounding, “Yes, we do.” Sixty-four years and a week since the D-Day June 6, 1944, Clay French students left the glamour of Paris behind to drive north, to the home of Camembert, cider, and the Plages de Debarquement, as the French call the Normandy beaches.

To an American, all that needs to be said is in those two words, Normandy beaches. Even the young hold a solemn and deeply felt honor for the generation that lay down their daily lives as students, doctors, businessmen, teachers to take up arms in a world threatened with the loss of human rights, justice, and individual liberty, a world teaming with the rising tide of brutality and abuse of power. It was a time of the worst and the best in mankind.

We walked the paths of the American cemetery overlooking what was named Omaha Beach, studying the names on the crosses, admiring the immaculate care given to the lawn and gardens, stopping to read the eloquent praise and national sorrow for these who gave their lives. At the hour the chimes rang out then began to peal out America the Beautiful followed by a familiar hymn. Elderly men knelt before graves, children held a parent’s hand, and we looked out over the field of graves, a veritable city of souls lost forever at an age when each thought life would be long and loving.

In a cold drizzle, we moved on to the coastal access to the beach to gather sand for husbands, fathers, grandfathers who want a tangible evidence of this place held sacred to our people. The twisting metal spikes rising out of the beach are barbs bringing death, arms reaching out for aid, men rising together in a common cause. The burnished silver catches the sun and a breeze whips out the flags of the Allied nations. We are both here frolicking on a sandy beach and there grieving the suffering of so many who never lived again after setting foot on our playground.

Manuel, our coach driver, took us slowly up the coast until he found the small stone marker in a wooden fenced enclosure that marks the first burial ground of the Omaha Beach dead. That prime beachfront land remains untouched, a testimony to the profound respect here for the sacrifice of so many Americans whose lives paid the price for peace.

The Pointe du Hoc memorial bears witness to that sentiment. This sprawling terrain atop the straight cliffs above Omaha Beach carries every scar of the bombing and battle that lasted three days after the first of the 225 Rangers scaled its steep precipice. Broken concrete walls laced with iron bars, deep craters, and the ghosts of those who sought protection within and those who finally crippled them lay strewn about this green grassy knoll. One cannot be in this place and not be also in that time. The sky cloaked in planes wingtip to wingtip, the sea blanketed with ships, the beach clogged with the remains of the drowned, the dismembered, the survivors crawling toward the artillery, we see and hear the horror of that day.

In the same way that it feels so jarringly out of place to hear the trilling of the lark and see the graceful fluent flight of the swallows over this place, it seems incongruous to hear the laughter of the children running down the craters or crawling through the gun ports. Yet it is perhaps more than anything else that laughter and that song that commemorate the sacrifice of those lost here. It was to give life to the swallows and the children that they were willing to die.

We made a lunch stop at the town of Bayeux, site of the cathedral home to the famous tapestry showing the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The tapestry was a marvel, but the Liberty Tree holds its own as a breathtaking moment: this tree was planted in 1797 to honor the newfound freedom of the revolution and withstood in the shadow of the cathedral the Allied bombing that leveled much of the city. The cathedral itself seems like all its Gothique sisters to stand on tiptoe toward the heavens, a graceful
impossibility in stone.

We left Normandy wanting not to leave, wishing for another day to visit the information center, watch the films, hear the men’s memoirs, study their faces, go up the coast to Arromanches, inland to the German cemetery. This is a land that we pass through, making lists of those places to which we vow to return.

The walled old city of Saint Mâlo is almost immediately added to that list. The beauty of the stone and the sea, the wind and the winding streets, the shops of lace and Breton treats, ceramic and sweets, the gracious old hotel that dates to the 17th century, all charm us. The sunset soaking into the sea beyond the rocky ruins off the coast keeps us up on the walls despite the cold. Some of the Alaskans take a dip at the beach, the rest dip in a toe or admire the sea from a safe distance. All use every waking moment to take in the singular beauty of this old pirate city, home to Jacques Cartier, wishing that we need not leave her so early tomorrow.

City of Light, City of Love

2008-06-12T18:53:00.007-04:00

La Vie en Rose R us today, with a day packed with the wonders of Paris. We headed for Versailles in our Royal Coach, much as the Louis must have, making an early start to the famed palace of the last kings of France. There we encountered our pal, the French strike, with national monument workers (in snazy black uniforms and packing heat) refusing to open the chateau. The cashier in the gift shop ( open for business) thought the strike was over the decision not to replace the retiring workers, so as to cut costs, but increasing the work load. That calls for a strike, baby, oh yeah.

So we toured the gardens and fountains then played at reenactment of the troubles leading up to the revolution, much of which echoed down from the absolute reign of the Sun King, who sadly knew that he was ruining his country (après moi, le déluge) but continued his destructive ways for a 72 year reign. We Parisian poor and peasants and bourgeoisie badgered the nobility and clergy, insisting we had a right to feed our children and earn a fair wage, while they maintained their aloof and baffled insistance that we were born to be miserable and expendable as they were born to be well-heeled. It was God's will, so put up and shut up. We threatened to simply take what we needed and they reminded us that they had men at arms to stop us. We resolved our role play by deciding we should indeed "seize the chateau" and get our tour in spite of the disgruntled employees. In large enough numbers and led by the pushy oriental groups, we could take 'em. Fortunately (for them) we were allowed in at 10:30, so we got our hour of jaw dropping Baroque marvels.

We returned triumphant to the other palace of the kings of France, the Louvre, whose name may come from one of Charlemagne's castles or from a Saxon tower, or from the word meaning "red" for the soil or from the word meaning "oak" for the trees. The most likely is the root of "loup" meaning wolf, a symbol of the ferocious power of that 13th century king.

After a scrumptious lunch in the food court (where I had divine roast beef and green salade and kids had a variety of pizza, fruit, etc) we followed Amanda to the four major art works of this classical museum: the medieval fortifications (seen here to ironic perfection with not mini evil or greatly evil, but just medieval boys :-) and the famed Vénus de Milo, the splendid marble woman who along the way lost her arms coming down to us from the ancient Greeks.

The equally stunning marble figure of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, who lost her head in her daunting struggle to survive, simply seems to be poised to fly away. The wind blowing her gown seem to stir the still air as the crowds gawk in hushed awe.

Finally we took our turn inching to the front of the crowd to pay our respects to La Joconde, the Mona Lisa of Leonardo da Vinci. She is so small yet draws the crowds to her with a powerful magnetic force, shushing the murmurs into a quiet rhythm of cameras clicking.

It was 3 o'clock when we reached this point and tastes dictated that we split into smaller groups. Some stayed in the Louvre for the rest of their free time with the kind Carol of Alaska, others headed for the Nympheas of Monet or the bateau mouche on the Seine. Deb and I took Patricia and Katie and an Arkansas girl to the Père Lachaise cemetery pilgrimage, a long ride on the metro east of the city and a longer climb uphill on cobblestones in this outdoor art gallery.

My "borrowed" daughter Cornelia rode a Paris Velo (free bike for the first 1/2 hour) to meet us and joined us for the afternoon. Cornelia lived with me in the 1994-95 school year as a student from Germany, but she has lived and worked in Paris since finishing college. We paid our respects at the grave of gifted poet and troubled musician Jim Morrison, where Patricia left her guitar pick and gathered stones, lamenting the loss of such a gifted young man to the needless death that claimed him.

Following Cornelia's lead, we then placed flowers on the grave of my dear freind, Max Sarcey, who so loved my girls and so graciously permitted me to enter into the circle of friends around him and his wonderful wife, Paulette, who has born witness to my students over the years of the need for them to each do his part to tightly contain the lid on evil which so easily slips open and drips out, as it did with Hitler's horror in her youth. She was not able to meet us this time, but sent her best wishes to the students for a safe and enjoyable and educational trip.

We continued to climb, finally finding the grave of tormented writer Oscar Wilde, and the final resting place of the Môme de Paris, Edith Piaf. We stopped to read and reflect on the monuments to the dead of the death camps , placing a stone and prayer on each. We breathed a sigh of relief as we descended the cobbled drive to the lovely monument to Abelard and Heloise, the fabled intellectuals and lovers of 12th century France. She was the 19 year old pupil, a brilliant student of languages and philosophy which courses he taught at the university, though his writing many times put him at odds with the church, which burned his tracts on logic and reason. Their love affair produced a son, which so infuriated her uncle, a church leader who did not know that Abelard had secretly married her, that he hired thugs to assault the philosopher and well, prevent that ever happening again. Heloise went into a convent and he was exiled to Brittany and both entered the church, thus setting the scene for their passionate and brilliant exchange of letters which have survived. Their remains were moved to be buried together on the order of Josephine Bonaparte who was so moved by their story that she sought to reunite them in death.

We ended our stroll through this lovely tree shaded outdoor cathedral with a stop at the tomb of Frederick Chopin. As odd as it may strike you, we thoroughly enjoyed this cemetery tour, though our friend Maria and our Katie ended up barefoot for escape from painful shoes. We decided to send Deb with kids to dinner while I hustled back to the hotel to fetch my "Africa bag" to leave with Cornelia in Paris She will meet in Brussels to make the switch in July, then I will fly back through Paris in August. We had a lovely dinner again, and enjoyed meeting the President and Vice-President of NETC who had come to touch base with the groups on tour.

After dinner most of us stretched our day for one last Paris adventure, the Sacré Coeur de Montmartre and the Place du Tertre. The funicular was closed - a familiar feeling! - but there was a bus to substitute, thank heavens. Chris from Arkansas accompanied the way to energetic kids up the steps while we old folks enjoyed the winding streets of the Montmartre district. Once at the foot of this imposing Basilica, we looked out over the city panarama, then quietly made our way through the aisles of the church during a sung Mass. The harmony of the choir of nuns and the solemn responses of the congregation slowed us all down, as did the firm admonition to avoid any photography. This is a special place, imbued with the national desire for penance after the disastrous Franco-Prussian War in 1870, initiated by the French who when soundly defeated, vowed to establish this edifice in which there would always be prayer for world peace. We lit candles, sat to reflect and to pray, and moved quietly through the solemn atmosphere that caught us all in its spell.

The Place du Tertre casts a spell of its own, with the bright night life, cafés, artists, and shops. In the end, we had portraits, souvenirs, and great cup of coffee on a chilly June night simply thick with memories made to be kept. Our late night trip through the subway bolstered our confidence and took us home, having made a proper farewell to The City of Light.

Art Nouveau à la Clay Kids

2008-06-11T13:40:00.007-04:00

Our invasion of France began day 2 more rested, showered, and scrumptiously breakfasted, with only the occasional concern about kids on coffee. I suggested that the espresso machine with breakfast be viewed rather than enjoyed, then hoped that good judgment would be in style for the day.

We had a terrific guided coach tour in the morning that presented a fine overview of the city's highlights, with a stop at the Trocadero for the famous view of the Eiffel tower and a walk down toward it for photos and a stretch. The public restrooms locked as we approached in what was to become a familiar scenario for the day. Anne-Claire gave us considerable history and our coach driver a real lesson in Paris street wisdom. The increased bike and moped traffic with the ever, well, taxing taxi drivers provide a challenge of some magnitude. He did some sweet circles to get us the best view of the opera, the Pantheon, the Champs-Elysees. We walked through the gardens of the Cluny Museum and past the Sorbonne University on our way on foot to Notre Dame.

Our tour ended at Notre Dame cathedral, which we toured in hushed awe. A mass was beginning as we passed through the nef and the chapels. The
sunlight through the amazing rose windows bathed the congregation in soft blues and reds. The cleaning of the exterior is done and simply lovely, the stone wiped free of the modern smudge of pollution that had grayed the old lady's soft stone face. She rises as a testament to the potential of humanity to create the impossible when moved to reach for heaven.

The group opted for take-away hot-dogs from a street vendor and circled the cathedral in the free time we had, stopping to photograph each angle of the exterior architecture more lovely than the last, then met our guide for the subway ride to art class. We passed a chanting crowd of protesters handing out leaflets to publicize the plight of the thousands of undocumented workers here, echoing the same thorny problem at home. These were Africans who chanted in French, "We live here, we work here, we wish to stay here, Mr. Sarkozy!" We thought at first they might be the striking metro workers we'd heard of, especially when the metro there was closed, but the next station was open.

We arrived at the school for art class where we passed a delightful 2 hours with a British artist who's lived in Paris for over 20 years. We listened as he explained some basic principles of color and light and technique then in a silence born of concentrated purpose, bent over our canvases and palettes. Some simply lovely canvases impressed the group when our efforts were mounted in a mini show an hour later.

With 2 hours remaining until dinner time, it was a group concensus that it was time to go shopping. The Galeries Lafayette were an easy subway ride away, followed by dinner in the south corner of the city and a long-awaited trip up the Eiffel Tower. What a lovely, cool, pleasant day! It is threatening to rain tomorrow when we go Versailles and the Louvre, so that we will have seen three different faces on this storied city.

Clay Kids Conquer Paris!

2008-06-10T15:10:00.003-04:00

After the usual airport routine, Euchre and rummy and Golf and kimps on the O'Hare waiting room floor with only a 40 minute delay due to weather, the Clay Middle School group flew off to Paris. The flight was smooth, the food nourishing, the movie uninviting, and the sleep poor and short. Our pilot got my message and announced to the eternal embarrassment of said Patricia that the Clay School group was welcome to Paris, especially Patricia who was celebrating her 15th birthday. Perfect. We retrieved baggage and found our guide, Amanda, with effortless facility, unlike our Alaska group pals whose luggage decided to remain at Heathrow.

Unfortunately, the hotel rooms were not yet ready at 11am, so we left our bags and headed for a neighborhood ATM and boulanger for lunch. Those encumbered with cash and cheques later found a Bureau de Change (.60 for cheques, .63 for cash) while the group checked out the Paris Hard Rock Café.

I resisted the Hard Rock magic, but Miss Annagail will be stylin' in her Hard Rock onesy. I had to show her off to the delightful young man clerking, who was appropriately impressed both with the baby and with the little keychain photo viewer. TechnoMammy scores big.

After our lunch of baguette sandwich (Scott tried a croque-monsieur, Travis from Texas a panini) and a beverage, we walked down to the Opéra Garnier, a masterpiece of architecture and art. The theater itself, especially the Chagall ceiling, and the galerie de crystal duly impressed us with its lasting beauty. The sounds of the Phantom's song echoed in my head as I reflected on the quiet darkness of the lake beneath us.

We walked south by way of the Place Vendôme, whose central obelesque was built from the cannon of the enemy captured in the victory at Austerlitz, with Napolean's statue on top.

We crossed the Tuilleries Gardens, stopping for water on this very hot high 80s day, then found to my disappointment that the Orangerie was closed Tuesdays. No visit to the healing cool of the basement exhibition hall housing the Nympeas of Monet.

We descended into the Metro, bought a carnet of tickets, and headed for Chatelet, where we crossed onto the île de la cité, past the Conciergerie where Marie Antoinette and her family were imprisoned (and later their nemesis, Robespierre, before he, too, lost his head.) We stopped at the Sainte Chapelle but it was closed for some special occasion.

At the Fontaine St. Michel we collapsed at a café that I particularly like, Le Lutèce, except the four musketeers who wanted postcards, who required me to traipse another couple of blocks before partaking of that quintessential Parisian pastime of people watching from café tables.

After a shower and some oddities of new hotel tricks (put the key in the wall switch to get power), we had a lovely dinner of salad, pork roast, green beans, rice, and crême brulée at the Granvillais restaurant. The gracious servers prepared a firesparkler surprise, presented with Parisian panache in dimmed lights, for Patricia's birthday.

What better way to celebrate such an occasion than a day in Paris?

Man Cannot Live by Bread Alone

2008-05-30T08:58:00.005-04:00

Last summer ( see blog posts from July 07) I studied with international French teachers at the University of Rennes, teachers from Brazil, Italy, and Nigeria among them. Stella Omonigho listened quietly as we talked over the trials of teaching, as teachers around a coffee break often do. She shook her head then, and told us about teaching thousands of college students French and English with a college library whose shelves were bare. They have no textbooks. It was about a count of three until I spewed coffee and gasped, "It's an adoption year!" To her uncomprehending face I explained that in a six year cycle, we adopt new textbooks. That means that the whole school system will ditch over 1000 textbooks!

And so the Ship the Books! project was born. Yesterday middle schoolers and their families collected, counted, packed, weighed, measured, and labeled over 50 boxes of books. Today the shipping company truck will start them on their long journey to the University of Benin City in Nigeria. We still haven't raised enough money to cover the skyrocketing trucking and shipping costs (that include an armed escort from the port of Lagos to Benin City), but the Carmel community will come through when we get the word out. Here is a look at the power of children:

Wi-Fi Cost Excessive in Hotels: I couldn't have said it better

2008-03-25T17:20:00.002-04:00

Join my middle school French students in agreeing that both this French 3 star hotel with its $21 per day fee and the Dearborn, Michigan Hyatt Regency, with its 50 cents a minute for Wi-Fi on top of $125 a day for the room is EXCESSIVE. Especially when the local bar down the street has free unlimited access. Check it out:

Wi-Fi et petits déj' dans les hôtels
LE MONDE 22.03.08 12h44 • Mis à jour le 22.03.08 14h56

A l'hôtel, les prix des connexions Internet et des petits déjeuners demeurent souvent excessifs, déplorent les clients. Les hôteliers, tant indépendants que membres d'une chaîne, considèrent qu'ils s'adaptent progressivement à la demande.
En voyage professionnel à Biarritz, Macha pensait utiliser son ordinateur portable pour se connecter à Internet et consulter son courrier électronique. En s'adressant à la réception de son hôtel, un classique trois-étoiles, elle a constaté avec surprise que la connexion Wi-Fi (sans fil) lui serait facturée 14 euros les vingt-quatre heures. "On m'a vendu une carte qu'il fallait gratter pour lire une suite de chiffres à saisir sur l'ordinateur", raconte-t-elle. Les prix des connexions sont parfois beaucoup plus élevés. Ils varient surtout énormément en fonction des hôtels, enclins à profiter d'une clientèle captive.

Pour Mark Watkins, président du cabinet de conseil Coach Omnium, spécialisé dans l'hôtellerie, le prix des connexions fait partie des récriminations des clients, comme le fut, avant l'avènement des mobiles, le coût des appels téléphoniques passés de la chambre. "Aujourd'hui, il est difficile d'admettre de payer l'accès au Wi-Fi alors que l'on peut se connecter gratuitement dans bon nombre de lieux publics", observe-t-il.
Certains clients, souvent en déplacement, ont définitivement réglé le problème en s'équipant d'un terminal Internet mobile ou en se connectant à partir de leur téléphone. Les hôteliers semblent prendre lentement conscience des changements de comportement. "14 euros par jour pour une connexion Wi-Fi dans un contexte de concurrence entre établissements, c'est à éviter", reconnaît le vice-président de l'Union des métiers de l'industrie hôtelière (UMIH), Roland Héguy.
Certains hôtels s'adaptent. Les 200 établissements de la chaîne B & B Hôtels proposent ainsi, avec le prix de la chambre, un accès Wi-Fi illimité. A partir du 1er janvier 2009, Best Western généralisera, dans ses 280 hôtels français, l'Internet gratuit. Une mesure déjà en vigueur dans ses établissements américains. "L'abonnement ne coûte à l'hôtelier que 30 euros par mois, il n'est pas acceptable qu'il soit revendu très cher au client", explique Stéphane Gauthier, directeur général de Best Western France.
La marque All Seasons, propriété du groupe Accor, a pour sa part développé pour sa vingtaine d'hôtels un concept "tout compris" incluant, pour 70 euros la chambre double, le Wi-Fi, huit chaînes de télévision et la consultation d'un panel de journaux. Dans les établissements Suite Hôtels, l'accès Wi-Fi est payant en chambre mais gratuit à la réception. Cette politique de gratuité ne concerne pas encore les autres marques du groupe hôtelier.
Les griefs des clients concernent aussi le coût du petit-déjeuner, qui atteint souvent 10 % du prix de la chambre. "Contrairement à Internet, cette prestation dépend directement de l'hôtelier, qui en fixe lui-même le prix. Or, depuis quinze ans, l'offre ne s'est pas améliorée, même dans les chaînes", estime M. Watkins.
En Allemagne ou au Royaume-Uni, le premier repas de la journée, toujours copieux, est généralement inclus dans la location de la chambre. M. Héguy met en avant les contraintes de la profession. "L'organisation du petit-déjeuner est aussi compliquée que celle du repas de midi. Le service s'étend de 7 heures à 10 heures, mobilise de nombreux salariés et des moyens matériels importants, à commencer par le linge", observe-t-il. "L'explication est comptable, avance de son côté le responsable de l'UMIH. Le taux de TVA de l'hôtellerie est fixé à 19,6 % et celui de la restauration à 5,5 %. Les propriétaires préfèrent différencier les comptes."
Les entreprises hôtelières assurent pour leur part que le service a récemment évolué. "Pour 7 euros à 15 euros", le client accède à un buffet "exhaustif et de qualité", promet M. Gauthier, chez Best Western. "Il peut aussi disposer d'un "plateau de courtoisie", composé d'une bouilloire électrique et de sachets de thé et de café", ajoute-t-il.
Reste au client, confronté à un petit-déjeuner cher et fade, la possibilité de "snober" son hôtel et de préférer le café-croissant pris à la terrasse d'un bar de la ville.
Olivier Razemon
Article paru dans l'édition du 23.03.08.Abonnez-vous au Monde à -60%

Bell-ringer Reading

2008-03-25T17:14:00.002-04:00

In case any of you bloggers are in need of erudite clarity on the strategy of authentic document reading to open the language study classroom, I'm posting my paper on the topic that was recently published in the Central States Conference Journal. Bring a shovel.

Abstract

Bell-ringer reading offers a reading activity in the target language to open the class period. Students engage in individual silent reading of an authentic text followed by brief partnered collaborative and class discussion. Bellringer reading permits teacher modeling and student practice of various reading strategies, brings current culture into the classroom, provides contextualized study of language structure, and engages student interest.

Bellringer reading

Which student learns more successfully, the one who skips into the classroom with a sparkle saying confidently, “I can do this!” or the one who drags in with a sigh and the eye-roll that expresses all the despair of anticipated failure? It seems to me as a veteran teacher that the foundation of learning rests on an attitude of confidence in anticipated success, a sense of competence. Without the possibility of success, there is little motivation to persevere (Stiggins, 1999). How can we start the day in such a way as to maximize the positive?
I begin each class with an activity that I call bellringer reading to offer the students a boost to their sense of accomplishment, a connection to current events that interest them, and an authentic context in which to examine language. I use a document camera to project an online French newspaper article on the classroom screen, but a teacher could instead use overhead transparencies, photocopies, or authentic documents to provide this reading activity. I am finding that although my original purpose was to provide meaningful instruction in French, bellringer reading is an investment in the overall success of my students as readers and learners. The larger benefits reflect the improvements that are delivered by increased confidence and the use of metacognitive strategies in diverse learning situations.
I propose to describe this classroom practice that seems to offer many benefits to my middle school French students, benefits in their language learning, in their attitude, and in their reading strategies. Following a review of current literature that supports this classroom activity, I will describe bellringer reading in the classroom and consider the perceived benefits.
Research Backdrop
My decision to engage in daily bellringer reading is based on what Francis Mangubhai (2006) calls “personal practical theories” (page 1), but significant research supports my observations. Pressley’s (2000) summary of what makes a good reader points the way to significant topics of interest: “Good readers are aware of why they are reading a text, gain an overview of the text before reading, make predictions about the upcoming text, read selectively based on their overview, associate ideas in text to what they already know, note whether their predictions and expectations about text content are being met, revise their prior knowledge when compelling new ideas conflicting with prior knowledge are encountered, figure out the meanings of unfamiliar vocabulary based on context clues…, interpret the text, evaluate its quality, review important points as they conclude reading, and think about how ideas encountered in the text might be used in the future” (Active Comprehension Strategies, para.1). Perencevich (2004) states that “outstanding reading teachers provided academically rich and connected activities, taught reading strategies, and offered a variety of challenging texts” (page 5). All of these reading tasks can be accomplished in bellringer reading, with the larger benefit of increased student self-confidence and metacognitive strategies useful in problem-solving tasks other than reading. I will review the literature in the areas of motivation and engagement, use of bellringers, the importance of reading in the target language, contextualized learning, difficulty level of texts, modeling metacognition, impact of self-confidence, and addressing culture standards.

Motivation

According to Guthrie (2000), “engaged reading is a merger of motivation and thoughtfulness. Engaged readers seek to understand; they enjoy learning and they believe in their reading abilities. Classroom contexts can promote engaged reading. Teachers create contexts for engagement when they provide prominent knowledge goals, real-world connections to reading, meaningful choices about what, when, and how to read, and interesting texts that are familiar, vivid, important, and relevant. Teachers can further engagement by teaching reading strategies. A coherent classroom fuses these qualities” (Overview section, para.1). What is the value of engaging readers? “In cross-age comparisons, 13-year-old students with higher reading engagement achieved at a higher level than did less engaged 17-year-old students. Engagement in reading can also compensate for low achievement attributed to low family income and educational background. In the same national data, engaged readers from low income/education families achieved at a higher level than did less engaged readers from high income/education backgrounds. Engaged readers can overcome obstacles to achievement and become agents of their own reading growth” (Guthrie, Schafer, & Huang, 2001). Guthrie (2000) discusses three aspects of motivation: performance, which focuses the reader on achieving praise, task mastery, which focuses more intrinsically on accepting a challenge and learning new skills, and self-efficacy, which focuses on the reader’s judgment of his own abilities (Motivation research section, para.1). Citing Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele(1998) and Eccles & Pintrich (1996), Guthrie (2000) notes that “practices that focus on social comparison betweenchildren, too much competition, and little attempt to spark children’s interests in different topics can lead to declinesin competence beliefs, mastery goals, and intrinsic motivation, and increases in extrinsic motivation and performance goals” (Motivation research, para.6). To work to prevent the decline in reading motivation of middle school students cited by Guthrie, we must encourage collaborative reading that addresses diverse interests and builds an attitude of anticipated daily success for each student. Guthrie also notes that there is a difference between motivation and attitude or interest. A highly motivated reader may not like reading certain topics or may not like to read at all (Motivation research section, para.8). “Students who were … dedicated to understanding content, using strategies effectively, and linking their new knowledge to previous experiences -- were likely to be more highly engaged than other students” (Guthrie, 2000,Learning and knowledge goals section, para.1). The value of teacher recognition for student success is a means to increase student motivation. “When praise is sincerely given and interpreted as recognition of achievement, it can increase students’ self-perceived competence and motivation” (Guthrie, 2000, Praise and rewards section, para.2). Guthrie concludes that “teachers who aspire to increase engaged reading in the classroom can do so by building a context for it. To create this context teachers can
• Identify a knowledge goal and announce it
• Provide a brief real-world experience related to the goal
• Teach cognitive strategies that empower students to succeed in reading these texts
• Assure social collaboration for learning
• Align evaluation of student work with the instructional context (e.g., grade students for progress toward the knowledge goal)” (Guthrie, 2000, conclusion).
Bean discusses the readers’ perceived connection to the topic and the chance to collaboratively discuss the topic as sources of motivation. “Adolescents are likely to be motivated to read when the nature of the material they read connects with their lives and when they have opportunities for discussion” (Bean, 2000, Attitudes section, para.2).
Use of bellringers
I have used a bellringer of some kind in all my classes because an anticipatory set engages the attention of students. The purpose is to involve all students and focus attention, “to initially focus learner attention on a problem in a way that captures their interest” (Magruder, 2007, Definition). “Some teachers have found that turning the lights down low and projecting the morning's bell ringer activity onto the chalkboard with an overhead projector helps focus students' attention on the day ahead. Such ‘bellringer’ activities get the day off to a purposeful start by focusing kids' energies and attention” (Starr, 2006, Calm down, para.1). An anticipatory set, or bellringer, is a recommended opening to a lesson, which aims to “provide a brief practice and/or develop a readiness for the instruction that will follow” (Combs, 2007, para.2).
Input, input, input
Mangubhai (2007) states that extensive input in the second language improves learning dramatically.
Some evidence for this comes from the early work of Elley and Mangubhai (1983)
where children (10-12 years old) learning English as a second language (in a foreign
language-like context) were provided with extensive input ("Book Flood") in
English through regular reading (20-30 minutes) in the classroom. These children
outperformed the control group who did not have this printed input but continued
with their structural program for the same duration. The superior language development
through extensive reading has been labelled "acquisition" by Krashen (1993b).
Further examples of acquisition through reading have been documented in Elley
(1991) and Krashen (Krashen, 1993a; 1993b) (page 1).

The Mangubhai study involves much longer reading time than my bellringer reading activity, but our daily reading of authentic language provides a regular practice of this important activity, establishing a habit. Mangubhai concludes that “to become fluent in a language, one must receive extensive L2 input. Research suggests that language learning occurs best when learners are engaged in communicative acts (Lightbown & Spada, 1999), or to put it in another way, when learners are engaged in encoding and decoding meanings in acts of communication (oral or printed)… In other words, teachers should have dinning through their head the word 'input', 'input', 'input’”(Mangubhai, 2006, Insight #5).
The National Council of Teachers of English SLATE fact sheet citing Elley (1991) and Krashen (1993) notes that “research suggests that extensive reading may promote the acquisition of grammatical structures better than explicitly studying or practicing such structures Indeed, for both first and second language learners, extensive reading significantly promotes grammatical fluency and a command of the syntactic resources of the language” (NCTE SLATE fact sheet, n.d., What works better section, para.5). Students find the bellringer reading more like leisure reading than assigned textbook content reading since there is no comprehension testing. There is ample evidence that reading outside the formal reading sphere boosts vocabulary acquisition (Iyengar & Bauerlein, 2007). They state that “while school reading programs peddle their rival curricula, cognitive scientists are busy proving that informal exposure to language—through heavy doses of leisure reading—can influence a child’s vocabulary growth far more than classroom training” (Iyengar & Bauerlein, 2007, para.10).

Contextualized learning

Mangubhai (2007) also reinforces my sense that a vocabulary word, a grammar point, or an idiom that we encounter in our brief reading allows me to teach or reinforce language structure when the students are open and interested in learning it for the purpose at hand, which is far more effective than when the grammar or linguistic structure is addressed in isolation. He discusses the learner trait of noticing, making reference to the work of Schmidt.
A quick lesson on the correct form at that particular instance when students need the form might lead to a greater amount of noticing between what their current knowledge is and where they need to be in order to communicate with grammatical accuracy. (Mangubhai, 2007, page 1)

The National Council Teachers of English position paper on grammar exercises states that “ample evidence from 50 years of research has shown the teaching of grammar in isolation does not lead to improvement in students' speaking and writing, and that in fact, it hinders development of students' oral and written language” (NCTE, 2007, Background section). The Nebraska Institute for the Study of Adult Literacy (1993) states that “contextualized learning is nothing new. It is based on the proposition that people learn more effectively when they are learning about something that they are interested in, that they already know something about, and that affords them the opportunity to use what they already know to figure out new things. It is similar to a fairly common approach in reading instruction which emphasizes the value of prior knowledge in enabling readers to make sense of what they read” (Nebraska Institute, 1993, para. 2).

Difficulty level of text

The choice of a real time online French newspaper as the daily reading text for middle schoolers with no previous target language learning may seem to be overly difficult and likely to thus discourage even the most able. Mangubhai (2007) addresses this concern by reminding us that comprehension far outstrips production. He supports the use of materials “that may, on the surface, appear quite difficult for the learners but which may still be understood, provided, that the activity or activities associated with such use do not expect learners to get detailed meanings of the text, but rather the gist of what has been heard or read” (page 1).
Pressley (2000) notes “that children do develop knowledge of vocabulary through incidental contact with new words they read is one of the many reasons to encourage students to read extensively. Whenever researchers have looked, they have found vocabulary increases as a function of children’s reading of text rich in new words” (Pressley, 2000, Vocabulary section, para. 3).

Modeling strategies of metacognition

Students read “to make sense of the world around them” (Harvey, Goudvis, & Graves, 2007, page xv). As teachers we need to show students how to read, rather than simply telling them, modeling reading strategies (Harvey et al, pages 46-52). Bellringer reading provides a dynamic forum for modeling reading strategies and the inner voice that interacts with the text during reading, strategies that are useful in diverse reading contexts beyond the target language classroom, metacognitive strategies that are, in fact, useful in wider learning contexts other than reading.
Zakin (2007)addresses the process of teacher modeling and the acquisition of strategies for student metacognition as well.
“Metacognitive instruction predicated on inner speech differs from typical good teaching practice in its systematic reliance on inner speech. The “ARE” approach maintains that the steps for thinking through a problem need to be made as explicit as possible for students to identify the problem, brainstorm and select best approaches, avoid errors typically made by the individual, and evaluate their process and progress. The approach is dependent on teacher modeling and incremental scaffolding of students’ work process. While the goal of this pedagogical approach is automatic inner speech-facilitated problem solving, it emphasizes process over product, and accordingly takes into account each step of the learning process and the student’s pace of learning. (p.4).

DeLaO (2001) cites the work of Chamot and O’Malley, explaining “that learners that are engaged in organizing new information into existing schemata create more channels for comprehension and recall versus students who simply memorize new information; these metacognitive strategies can be taught and through meaningful practice students can propel their learning; this new repertoire of learning strategies, once internalized, can be generalized and applied to new academic tasks; and students learn academic language easier via learning strategies (Chamot & O’Malley, 1994)” (para. 8). “The development of metacognition appears to be linked to proficiency in learning” (Collins, 1994, para.17). As the classroom application of bellringer reading will demonstrate, this short reading activity allows the classroom teacher to engage students in the development of metacognitive strategies to improve their target language reading skills and to apply metacognitive strategies to other learning tasks.
Guthrie (2000) notes that “strategy instruction involves the explicit teaching of behaviors that enable students to acquire relevant knowledge from text. Explicit instruction includes teacher modeling, scaffolding, and coaching, with direct explanation for why strategies are valuable and how and when to use them. In the domain of reading, students are given a sense of self-perceived competence when they are taught strategies for learning from text” (Strategy instruction section, para.1).
Pressley (2000) emphasizes the value of modeling when he advises that “Teachers should model and explain comprehension strategies, have their students practice using such strategies with teacher support, and let students know they are expected to continue using the strategies when reading on their own. Such teaching should occur across every school day, for as long as required to get all readers using the strategies independently -- which means including it in reading instruction for years” (Active comprehension strategies, para.4).
Impact of self-confidence on learning
As Stiggins (1999) reminds us, “Students succeed academically only if they want to succeed and feel capable of doing so. If they lack either desire or confidence, they will not be successful. Therefore, the essential question is a dual one: How do we help our students want to learn and feel capable of learning?”(p. 1). Wang (2007) offers support for this contention when she includes student attitude toward the subject as a category of influence on academic learning (category 4). The application of bellringer reading activities can provide a springboard to improving and supporting student self-confidence.
Citing Vroom (1964), Huitt (2001) explains that expectancy theory proposes the following equation: motivation equals the result of multiplying Perceived Probability of Success (Expectancy), Connection of Success and Reward (Instrumentality), and Value of Obtaining Goal (Valance, Value). Since Expectancy, Instrumentality, and Value are multiplied by each other, a low value in one results in low motivation, so all are vital for motivation. If students don't believe they have a possibility of success, if they don’t see a connection between their effort and success, if they don’t value the results of success, then they probably will not persevere in the activity “All three variables must be high in order for motivation and the resulting behavior to be high” (Cognitive section, para. 5). “Franken (1994) states that ‘there is a great deal of research which shows that the self-concept is, perhaps, the basis for all motivated behavior. It is the self-concept that gives rise to possible selves, and it is possible selves that create the motivation for behavior’ (p. 443)” (Huitt, 2004, para.3).
Oldfather (1993) studied the consequences of students’ lack of success. She reports: “Marcel, a fifth grade student who participated in an interpretive study of student motivation, described how he felt when he was not able to do an assignment:
Just my whole body feels like I want to throw up or something,
if I don't like something....I can't do it at all....I feel like sick,
and I feel so sick....My body feels completely wrong.

This paper offers the perspectives of Marcel and his classmates on their experiences when they did not feel motivated for academic tasks. Their views provide insights about the social, affective, and cognitive processes that may enable some children to become engaged in literacy activities, and prevent others from even beginning those activities” (page 1).
Guthrie (2000) notes that “fundamental to most theories of intrinsically motivated learning is self-perceived competence” (Strategy instruction section, para.1). Bellringer reading of authentic documents can be a means to address the need to provide opportunities for students to improve their self-perception as readers and as learners in general with the goal of increased engagement and motivation. This increased engagement and motivation in turn benefits reading success.

Addressing culture standards

The National Network of Early Language Learning journal Learning Languages (2006) addresses the importance of the World Language standards of teaching culture. “In June 2001, Asia Society's National Commission on Asia in the Schools released its report which concluded that ‘young Americans are dangerously uninformed about international matters’ (National Commission on Asia in the Schools, 2001, p. 6). Since then, Asia Society has been leading a major national initiative to stimulate teaching and learning about the history, geography, cultures, and languages of Asia and other world regions in America's schools. In this article we explore the crucial relationship between the early language classroom and the international knowledge and skills that are so vital in the 21st century” (Stewart and Singmaster, 2006, para.1).

Collaboration

Guthrie (2000) refers to collaboration as “the social discourse among students in a learning community that enables them to see perspectives and to construct knowledge socially from text. Many teachers use collaboration to activate and maintain students’ intrinsic motivation and mastery goal orientation” (Collaboration section, para.1). Citing Harmer (1998) and Nielson (1989), Baker (2007) concludes that students in collaborative discussion have increased talking time, benefit from exchanging strategies with others with different learning styles, and increase the development of individual thinking. (para. 2).

Bellringer reading in Practice

Bellringer reading

In my French classroom of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, each class begins with a minute or two of individual reading of a current news article. Students know that when they come in, they will see an online newspaper article projected onto the screen. A classroom without access to that technology could use an overhead transparency of a printed article, a printed copy of a news article that students pick up when they enter, or an authentic document other than the news. My students’ task is to identify the topic and at least three words they recognize either as cognates or from experience in French and to note questions that they ask while reading. I challenge them to read enough to be able to engage in a discussion of the topic, in English. During these few minutes they are immersing themselves in French while I take attendance.

Reading Response

After a minute or so of reading, I ask students to turn to a partner or a small group to share their observations and respond to the reading. In a class discussion that ranges from 1 to 5 minutes following the individual reading and sharing time, we address the questions that they raised, discuss the implications of the topic, or note interesting language structures. The discussion varies from one class to the next and will often raise different language questions in each class.

Paired Collaborative Sharing

After a short individual reading, students are instructed to discuss with a seat partner what they have read. I specifically instruct them to summarize, question, observe, predict, and infer. As I move among them I frequently hear conversations asking for the meaning of a key word, observations of language structures recently studied, and invariably the eager hands in the air squealing, “I know! I know!” This talk time gives me a chance to interact and to listen, to compliment and to reassure. This brief buzz time generally sees all students engaged in conversation.

Class Discussion

I call the class to attention after a short opportunity to share and ask for their questions and observations. One class might debate whether the topic of an article was Sports or the Rugby World Cup, so we take the opportunity to note the difference between a general topic and a detailed focus. Since the World Cup was being played in France that month, the sports fans enthusiastic about this discussion found a personal connection to French. By purposefully choosing a revolving variety of topics, different students have prior knowledge to share and interest in the article. We have discussed the changing school calendar in France, the proposed addition of extracurricular activities for latch-key kids, and the California forest fires, riots in the Parisian suburbs, fishermen and student strikes, and the World Cup of Handball, all in the context of the day’s front page article.

Cognate recognition

Another class might share key words that they identify as they summarize the article. There is regular exultation at the success that they have in deciphering this new language to arrive at meaning, with me as the head cheerleader. Students find cognates, vocabulary words from previous lessons, or words that they can decode from the context. I regularly see students of all ability levels turn to a classmate to crow, “Hey, I GET this!”

Questioning

I always ask what questions students have in response to the text. Although many times students want to know the meaning of a key word, students’ questions range from the content, as in, “How is rugby different from football?” to language questions, like “Why is there an extra ‘e’ on that word?” Questioning is a part of the inner dialogue that goes on in a reader as they address a text. We often talk about that conversation a part of the metacognitive strategy which examines the process of reading.

Grammar in context

Frequently students comment on seeing language elements they have been studying. For example, in a recent article, students pointed out several different forms of the word “this” and “these,” which came on the heels of our study of demonstrative adjectives. I see far more “aha” looks lighting up faces when we encounter these language structures in a reading than when we are practicing them in the workbook or in textbook exercises. My students already recognize the –ant ending on verbs as equivalent to an –ing in English, the –é verb ending as a past participle, and the –ment as an adverb equivalent to –ly from the frequent occurrence of those structures in their daily reading. The newspaper reading moment seems to find them more open to this sort of grammar explanation, so that when in later textbook chapters we come upon them, they are familiar structures.

Modeling metacognition

I occasionally model my thinking as I read as a teaching strategy that improves reading (Harvey and Goudvis , 2007, Chapter 6). For example, in an article from the “Economie” section of Le Monde online newspaper on October 2, I shared my distaste for Economics as a first reaction to having to read the article. I saw that it was long, which made it seem hard. By modeling my inner voice negotiation, I identified strategies for talking to ourselves while we read (DeLaO, 2001, para. 7). My compromise with the “I don’t want to read this” inner voice was to decide to just read the headline and look at the picture and its caption to get an overview. I saw “The 27 pays of the European Union” and I wondered aloud what pays means. I asked myself what Europe has 27 of and concluded it must mean countries. I read “courier” in the headline and connected “message carrier” to the picture of mail in the photo. The caption refers to the “liberalisation totale du courier” so I postulate that this article is about the 27 countries of Europe sharing mail service, and I connect that thought to my prior knowledge of the way they decided to share money with the euro. My negotiation voice suggested that I go on to read the first short paragraph because it’s only 2 lines, hoping to prove my interpretation. My “aha!” moment when I see “traffic postal” at the end of the line clinched my satisfaction at having correctly decoded the topic. Modeling my own inner voice in the struggle to make meaning from the French text validates the students’ anxiety and celebrates the sense of accomplishment that follows successful deciphering.
Pressley (2000) notes that teachers must ask students to consider why they understand what they are reading, to question the source of their comprehension, because young readers will not always realize that they are connecting their prior knowledge to their present comprehension. “Readers should be encouraged to relate what they know to information-rich texts they are reading, with a potent mechanism for doing this being elaborative interrogation” (World knowledge section, para. 3).

Student success

Inviting the students to turn to a partner to share their response to the reading gives them control and maximizes individual participation. It also allows me to move among them, listening. Within the first few minutes of every class, this provides me with an opportunity to exclaim, “My word, you are so good at reading French!” I point out on a regular basis that this is an authentic text, not a watered down student version with limited vocabulary, and congratulate them on their achievement. Every student can find key words and identify the topic, thus completing the task successfully.

Choosing the reading

My choice of a text depends on the news available on the online French newspapers. I try to vary the articles to touch diverse interests of the students, in sports, art, theater, film, science, technology, the environment, the weather, and current events. Sometimes I will see a topic that offers links to our current focus of instruction, like spelling big numbers or the names of European countries bordering France. During Red-Ribbon Week I found articles that would connect to the consequences of making choices; during the week announcing the Nobel Prizes, students walked in wondering what field today’s prize would be, or crowed triumphantly as they came into the room that they had heard it already on the news and already knew the topic.

Assessment

My students earn a point of credit per day for the bellringer reading. I call these “News Notes” and use them to monitor organizational skills. I check the News Notes every 3 weeks, so a part of the assessment is the ability to find the notes every day and add each day’s topic and at least 3 words. We discuss the optimal ways to accomplish this task. Students suggest writing in their planner, in a notebook, or in the back of their workbook. I ask them to keep the notes in one place that they can easily find, not on loose-leaf notebook paper. Most choose to write in the blank journal pages at the end of the workbook or on a page in the school planner. They number the entries to simplify my coming around to check them.

Make-up

I copy the website address of each article to paste on my homework webpage each day so that students who are absent or late to class can read the article later. This also allows students to show articles to their parents or read them again at home.
Benefits of Bellringer reading

Contextualized Learning

Second language acquisition in a 46-minute daily dose of interaction with other English speakers presents multiple barriers to students’ learning. I seek ways to use communication skills in a meaningful context. This reading activity remains one of the most grounded in the daily routine of language use, since reading the news is a familiar activity for most of my students. For a different population of learners, reading other authentic documents than the newspaper might provide a more familiar context.

Connecting to students’ personal interests.

Another benefit is the opportunity that diverse current events offer to connect to student’s individual interests. One day we read about men’s volleyball and the next about the exploding price of French train tickets. The new interactive subway station technology fascinates one child who yawns through the disappearance of the plastic bag from French stores, which is gripping to the child deeply concerned with the environment. One of my seventh graders asked today for a pass to the media center from study hall to find a cool picture of the World Cup of Rugby being played in France. He had decided to draw a picture of the French rugby team for his creative project. “I got interested in it when we read that article about it,” he volunteered, “and I’ve been watching the matches at home on our satellite channels. It’s a cool sport!”
It seems to me that students who are engaged in classroom activity and feel connections with their personal interests come into the classroom more eagerly, regardless of their ability. I choose news stories with this goal in mind: to appeal to as many different interests as possible, in the arts, music, theater, science, and society. One class discussion of the article announcing Pavarotti’s death, with an audio clip of a famous aria, keeps my young vocal music student sparkling. The Paris Plage article that shows beach volleyball on the square in front of city hall delights the sun lovers who are fascinated by the city government’s effort to bring the beach to those who can’t leave the city.
When I ask these students to practice writing sentences in their workbook or to write a conversation using vocabulary words, I sense a willingness to work through the process of linguistic acquisition, a willingness that was less common in my classroom before I began this bellringer reading. The self-confidence that comes with every day’s success at the beginning of class reaps a harvest in momentum into the rest of the days’ lesson.

Wider application of strategies

The payoff of this investment of class time shows up in unexpected places. Reviewing a cloze conversation with a word bank on a quiz, one of my seventh graders remarked that making sense of the conversation was a lot like reading the news articles: if you asked yourself questions, you could figure it out, even if it looked hard. I was delighted to know that our strategies were finding their way into the problem-solving repertoire of the students. We periodically talk about other kinds of decoding and comprehension tasks to which we can apply our reading strategies.

Daily culture elements

State and national standards require that we address many facets of culture in a classroom schedule already hard pressed for time to practice speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. My bulletin boards and walls offer glimpses into French culture, as does the textbook, but the bellringer reading takes us onto the front page of French culture every day.
Conclusion On the United States Department of Education website for parents, there is a section called Tools for Student Success which states that “other than helping your children to grow up healthy and happy, the most important thing that you can do for them is to help them develop their reading skills” (Helping your child become a reader, para.10. Bean (2000) concludes his article on reading in the content areas by saying that “the more recent studies of adolescents’ multiple literacies, and the significant role of popular culture in their identity development, suggests that we need to think about curriculum more broadly. We need to engage students in reading and reflecting on the multiple forms of print and other sign systems that constitute their world” (Conclusions section, para. 11). I have chosen a bellringer activity that gives my students a daily affirmation of success in reading in the target language, a reminder of or introduction to reading strategies, an exposure to world culture, and input from an authentic French language source.

References

Baker, John (2007). Student Collaboration in the ESL/EFL Classroom. Retrieved December 11, 2007, from English as 2nd Language Web site: http://esl.about.com/cs/teachingtechnique/a/bl_baker4.htm
Bean, Thomas W. (2000). An Update on Reading in the Content Areas: Social Constructionist Dimensions. Retrieved December 10, 2007, from Reading Online Web site: http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/bean/index.html
Collins, Norma Decker (1994). Metacognition and reading to learn. Retrieved December 10, 2007, from Eric Digests Web site: http://www.ericdigests.org/1995-2/reading.htm
Combs, H. Jurgen (2007, January 29). Lesson Plan Design. Retrieved December 12, 2007, from Edulink Web site: http://www.edulink.org/lessonplans/anticipa.htm
DeLao, Daniel (2001). Introducing Metacognition Into the Culturally and Linguistically. Retrieved December 12, 2007, from University of New Mexico Web site: http://si.unm.edu/Web%20Journals/articles2001/DDELAO~1.HTM
Guthrie, John T. (2000). Contexts for Engagement and Motivation in Reading. Retrieved December 10, 2007, from Reading Online Web site: http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/guthrie/index.html
Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A., & Graves, D. (Foreword by) (2007). Strategies That Work : Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement.Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.
Huitt, W. (2001). Motivation to learn: An overview. Educational Psychology Interactive, Retrieved October 26, 2007, from http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/motivation/motivate.html
Huitt, W. (2004). Self-concept and self-esteem. Educational Psychology Interactive, Retrieved October 26, 2007, from http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/regsys/self.html
Iyengar, Sunil & Bauerlein, Mark, (2007 April 25). [Weblog] It's not just the schools: Leisure time, reading, and the competition for young minds. On Education: School Reform. Retrieved December 10, 2007, from http://www.philipwaring.us/on_education/school_reform/index.html
Magruder, Kerry Teaching tips: Anticipatory set and closure. Retrieved October 29, 2007, from Oklahoma Baptist University Web site: http://www2.okbu.edu/academics/natsci/ed/398/set.htm
Mangubhai, F. (2007). What do we know about learning and teaching second languages: Implications for teaching. Asian EFL Journal, 8, Retrieved 10/23/2007, from http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/Sept_06_fm.php
NCTE position statement on grammar exercises to teach speaking and writing. Retrieved October 26, 2007, from National Council of Teachers of English Web site: http://www.ncte.org/about/over/positions/category/gram/ 107492.htm

(n.d.). SLATE Starter Sheet Fact Sheet Series. Retrieved December 12, 2007, from National Council of Teachers of English Web site: http://www.ncte.org/library/files/About_NCTE/Issues/teachgrammar.pdf

Perencevich, Kathleen C. (2004). Doctoral Dissertation: The Associations of Autonomy Support and Conceptual Press with Engaged Reading and Conceptual Learning from Text. Retrieved December 10, 2007, from University of Maryland Web site: appl003.lsu.edu/slas/ccell/facultyinfo.nsf/$Content/Handbook+for+Faculty/$file/Handbook+for+Faculty+6-07.pdf

Oldfather, Penny (1993). When Students Do Not Feel Motivated for Literacy Learning: How a Responsive Classroom Culture Helps. University of Georgia, Retrieved October 26, 2007, from http://curry.edschool. virginia.edu/go/clic/nrrc/rspon_r8.html

Pressley, Michael (2000). Comprehension Instruction: What Makes Sense Now, What Might Make Sense Soon. Retrieved December 10, 2007, from Reading Online Web site: http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/pressley/index.html

Schmidt, R. (1990). The role of consciousness in second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 11(2), 17-46.Schmidt, R. (1992). Psychological mechanisms underlying second language proficiency. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 14, 357-385.Schmidt, R. (1993). Awareness and second language acquisition. In W. Grabe (Ed.), Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, Vol 13 (pp. 206-226). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Starr, Linda (2006). Classroom Management. Retrieved October 29, 2007, from National Education Association Web site: http://www.nea.org/classmanagement/ifc061212.html
Stewart, V., & Singmaster, H. (2006). International Education and the Early language Classroom. Learning Languages, 11, Retrieved October 29, 2007, http://nnell.org/journal/spring_2006/International%20Ed.pdf.
Stiggins, Richard J. (1999, November, 1). Assessment, Student Confidence, and School Success. Phi Delta Kappan, 81, Retrieved October 26, 2007, from http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k9911sti.htm
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Wang, M.C., Haertel, G.D., & Walberg, H.J. Synthesis of Research: What helps students learn?. Educational Leadership, Retrieved October 26, 2007, from http://www.eric.ed.gov:80/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/ recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED461694&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=eric_accno&accno=ED461694.
Weaver, Constance (1995). NCTE SLATE Starter sheet fact sheet #3 on the teaching of grammar. Retrieved October 26, 2007, from National Council of Teachers of English Web site: http://www.ncte.org/about/issues/slate/sheets/ 108544.htm?source=gs
Weaver, Constance (1996). Teaching grammar in the context of writing. English Journal, 85, Retrieved October 26, 2007, from http://www.ncte.org/library/files/Publications/Journals/ej/1996/ej8507te.html?source=gs
Zakin, Andrea (2007). Metacognition and the use of inner speech in children's thinking: A tool teachers can use. Journal of Education and Human Development, 1, Retrieved October 26, 2007, from www.scientificjournals.org/ journals2007/articles/1179.pdf
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Test of Online Student Oral Assessment

2008-03-10T11:56:00.000-04:00

Teacher Talk

2008-02-22T14:22:00.007-05:00

What can we veterans do to mentor the young? My biggest successes are, of course, this Spanish teacher, the fabulous biology and chemistry teacher, and the (retired) Italian teacher, but I also am proud of my participation in the Indiana State University Teachers' Academy. I joined 4 of my colleagues in a week of collaboration with pre-service teachers last winter.

Sevilla July 20-22, 2007

2007-09-18T11:47:00.000-04:00

The University classes finished Friday at 4pm so that the summer students could gather for a reception where grades were distributed. Unfortunately, in order to get to Paris early enough for an international flight, I had to skip the reception and the last meeting of the Written Argumentation class. I did 3 hours of homework the night before to make up for my absence, a summary, an opening argument, and an imitation of a satirical essay. The class apparently did little of that, so my absence was productive.

The subway from the University to the Rennes train station was a matter of minutes, and the train to Paris is smooth and rapid. There is another train directly to the airport, where the security is meticulous. I was in Sevilla before dark, met by my French “sister” Christine, whose family hosted me in 1969. She went to Spain for her Master’s Degree in Spanish, married Eusebio, a Spanish lawyer, and stayed to become a French teacher. Her children, Eubsebio and Alexandra, are the age of mine. The network of our families is closely tied across 3 generations. Their Papa is dear to me, my parents stayed with them for a month the year of the 500 anniversary of Columbus voyage to America.

I spent a weekend of relaxing, shopping, and girl talk. After a Friday evening thinking that this would be a vacation from the working photographer seeking every highlight to use in class, I suddenly realized with Christine’s reminder that my son is now a Spanish teacher, so I snapped back into high gear. We walked through a former palace, now an elegant hotel. The mosaics are simply stunning. The Arab influence is very visible, blending with the Spanish art to create a breathtaking city. Many bridal choose the Alcázar palace with its treasures of art and gardens. My Sevilla photos are limited since we did little touring, but this photo of ladies resting in the shade on the Plaza of Spain is perhaps my favorite photo as art. Each region of Spain has a mosaic and a map in a magnificent public display created for the World’s Fair. Maintenance of this public art is becoming increasingly urgent and expensive. Christine and Chebi are family in many ways, including the addiction to owning books. The view from their balcony at night is splendid, but so is the view in every room of bookshelve beckoning the avid reader! Fortunately many are in Spanish, which reduces the temptation.

My return Sunday evening was a testimony to the efficiency of European public transportation. I was back at Agnes’ home Sunday evening as though I’d made a road trip to Chicago.

Signs of Life

2007-09-14T17:24:00.001-04:00

My memories of childhood vacations in the station wagon with my brother and sister are punctuated by stops along the highway to read the historical markers. We read them all. Before we could read them, Mom and Dad read them to us. I am now afflicted with the irresistible, visceral need to read every posted sign I pass. I laugh at myself, but it seems to me that a culture puts into words what it deems vital.

The names of city streets are a good example. Here is a street named for a Breton poet. In the Reuilly suburb of Paris we traversed this street named for a local firefighter who gave his life fighting a neighborhood fire.

Roads are labeled more prominently by the next town than by the road number; during the Occupation in the 1940s, residents in France (and England as well, in anticipation of an invasion) moved or removed the signs to confuse the enemy.

French towns welcome visitors and note their boundaries with a pair of signs, coming and going. Notice that the name of this village in Cantal, near Aurillac, is in Occitan, not French. The universal use of French dates to World War I, when the Alsacian, the Breton, the Provençal, and the southern boys who spoke Occitan gathered in one army. Those that went home spoke French, and after the war, government activities and education nationwide were conducted in French. This sign is written both in Breton and in French. The regional languages are rarely spoken in the home as a native language, but are still available to be learned in schools.

In the country, addresses are not numbered on roads but named. Cavalhac is the name of the farm of the Ginioux family near LaCapelle del Fraisse which is in the Cantal. The nearest city of Aurillac is nestled in the river valley, a charming place.

The coastal path that follows the Breton coast is marked with various stripes of color denoting a lengthy hiking path or an easy local trail. After Jean-Jacques explained the system to me, I began to see the little stripes on posts and trees, marking turns and intersections.

This is not really a street sign, but rather a parking sign that I found delightful in its guilt trip: if you take my parking place, take my handicap, too. That almost amounts to a curse, doesn’t it? Do you suppose it is more effective than the chair alone?

Building signs often have a story to tell. In Sevilla I was astounded to find the location of the original Carmen. Her tobacco factory still stands, with the name a part of the art that the casual visitor might pass without seeing. In Paris, the Orsay museum tells the story of its role post-war in the care of the survivors of the prisoner of war camps and the death camps of Eastern Europe. At the time, this building was the central train station in Paris; from April to August of 1945 when the gaunt and nearly dead victims of the camps arrived, they were simply too ill to go any farther, so the station was converted to a hospital. It became the largest repatriation center in the country. It is a solemn testimony to those who so suffered that this moment in the Orsay history be publicly remembered, even as the building takes on such a completely different role as the impressionist art museum.

This historical marker in the park on the far east side of Paris seems almost to miss the good old days when the neighborhood had a more illustrious life. A garden in the heart of the Left Bank honors Saint Catherine Labouré, the nun whose vision of the Virgin Mary led her to create the Miraculous Medal. Saint Catherine is enshrined in the adjoining chapel, which is daily thronged with pilgrims.

Store owners use this common sign to reassure clients that they are permitted to browse in the boutique, as the custom for small shops is that clients do not enter until they have selected their purchases from the window display and are ready to buy.

Governments have used signs to persuade the populace: this British poster from the 1940s uses the heroic and sacrificial leadership of Joan of Arc to inspire the women to save Britain. This sign in Hemmerde, Christian’s home, celebrates the communities’ long life.

In today’s Paris, the mayor’s office reminds citizens of their civic duty by commending them for their solidarity and urging them to aid their neighbors, an inspired means to urge a diverse populace to seek common ground. This notice in the Saint Denis cathedral on the far northeast side of Paris asks visitors and parishioners alike to give generously of what they have, to care for each other. The prominent displays of this hostage taken in Columbia and her status as an adopted Parisian also asks the populace to be globally aware, reminding us that we are all citizens of the world. What a commendable way to inspire international collaboration!

Along the Breton coast there is a windswept cliff with a small stone cabin, once a key coastal defense position. This poignant sign asks passersby to remember the role of this place in protecting the populace from the all too frequent threat from the sea. The name of this boat is Son of the Wind, a delightful irony as Jean-Jacques had just told me as me walked along the quay leaning into the wind of a time that he had been blown horizontal, hanging on to some rail for dear life.

On our trip to Finistère, Jean and Marie-Claire and I stopped to read this sign on the monument marking the site of the devastating shipwreck of the Amoco Cadiz in 1974. The ship spilled crude oil that became a black tide for Brittany, whose economy depends heavily on fishing and tourism, both of which were virtually eliminated for a costly period of time. The cost to sea life was greater, killing birds and sea animals in appalling numbers.

This memorial on the point above the little port beside the Val-André commemorates Breton sailors lost at sea. Briac is doing his best to explain what that means to a child of this land bounded by the seas.

In the cathedral dedicated to her memory, built high on the hill above her native village, Joan of Arc’s final words are written under the murals that depict her life. “I declare once again, my voices were from God, no, no, my voices were not mistaken... Jesus! Jesus!”

And at the entrance to the chapel dedicated to the soldiers who gave their lives for France are Joan’s words to her countrymen on behalf of those patriots: “Build chapels to pray for those who gave their lives for their country.”

Her home town of Domrémy has been renamed in her honor, using her nickname, La Pucelle. In the church where she first heard the voices of the saints, the statue of Ste Marguérite has been removed due to a near theft; its location is now marked with this plaque.

It is the signs that bestow honor on those who lay down their life for their country that speak most powerfully to me. They appear frequently in Brittany, Normandy, Paris, Lyon. This plaque in Lyon honors the memory of the 300 students who died in the resistance; another marks the place of the execution of 7 young men, young Jews. In Ploubelay, near Saint Mâlo, this sign marks the spot of another French soldier’s death, August 6, 1944, but the plaza is named for an American who died here August 7. In a carefully selected proximity to these signs is the notice of the town’s sister city, in Germany.

In Paris this bridge honors those who printed and distributed the clandestine press during the Occupation. In Cantal with Berndette, we stop in the village church of Lacappelle del Fraisse where I see the children’s uncles listed on the wall plaque. Everywhere there are war memorials, but here in St. Mâlo I find the list of civilian deaths longer than the regular army or the resistance. In Saint Pois as well there are civilian deaths listed as victims of the war, across the nave from the list of military dead. Both these coastal towns bore the heavy blows of the invasion.

Outside Saint Pois along a remote country road, we find the Brittany American Cemetery, one of many that dot the countryside, carefully groomed and maintained, mute

testimony to the honor in which they are held. Listening in this place, the accents I hear range from Texas to Boston to Georgia. These young Hoosiers heard and answered the call of their country. Their sacrifice is not forgotten and continues to uphold the sense of brotherhood that the French people express for Americans. There is no politics in that sentiment, only a recognition of having shared the brutal agony that bought our freedom.

Port Isaac, Cornwall August 4-9, 2007

2007-09-11T19:05:00.000-04:00

Cornwall is England’s Brittany. Cornwall is Brittany with cliffs. I discovered Port Isaac, this tiny fishing cove with its protective breakwater, in 1999 due to its proximity to the Arthurian site of Tintagel, which is just up the coast. This is a haven for artists and a summer haven for vacationing families from all over Britain. I stayed at the Old School Hotel, across the bay from my 1999 apartment. There are splendid walks to be had on the coastal path, which encircles the entire island, and inland across rolling farmland. I was deeply glad not to have a vehicle of any kind here, as the twisting narrow lanes defy modern traffic. The beach becomes a parking lot thanks to the low tide – but watch the clock to reclaim your car before it goes out to sea with the fleet. And be alert as you tool along the tight one lane road, as either you or the driver you meet will have to back up to a slightly wider spot to squeeze past. Imagine the bus.

I took the road to St. Endellion again, having returned with blessed luck the weekend of the music festival. The dress rehearsal Sunday afternoon offered up a feast of delight: the Elgar cello concerto with Tim Hugh, the Chopin nocturnes and Brahms piano quartet in C minor, and the Music Makers, conducted by Richard Hickox with Pamela Helen Stephen (mezzo soprano) and a 70 voice choir. Free for a 2 mile walk in summer heat going out and summer rain coming back. The tiny church acoustics simply enveloped me in the rapture of brilliant song.

One of the week’s highlights was the evening conversation with adolescent tourists on the steps of the shop by the hotel where I had found a wireless hotspot. We traded questions about life in middle school, Britain and America. They were simply delightful. The adult social blessing was an invitation from a very Irish gentleman at church to his birthday bash Wednesday evening. I boldly walked into the party and simply told the son that Stephan had invited me. The crowd turned out to be British vacationers who had been coming here with their children for 15 years, children who once met clam-digging on the beach and who now traded stories of University years. What a splendid network of friends, and how kind of them to include me!

My original plan had been to meet Ivy here, but since she was unable to travel, I chucked the plans for widespread touring and stayed close to the port. I did take the bus up to Tintagel but did not make the climb up the cliff. Mostly I worked on writing once more through the address book and composing blog entries, when I wasn’t out walking with the camera. The allure of the land kept me out and about, basking in the beauty of this special land.

Glastonbury August 4, 2007

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Midway through the summer I realized with astonishment that when I traveled from Paris to London to Cornwall, I would pass Glastonbury. I bought my train ticket from Paris a day early and made online reservations to spend the night at The George and Pilgrims, a historic inn that dates from the early 15th century. Its stone paneled front and mullion windows, great oak beams, and tightly spiraled staircase were enchanting. It has offered 13 rooms on 3 floors for over 500 years. Wow. I stayed in the Monk’s Cell and breakfasted in this elegant pub.

My brief visit was divided between walking the trail up to the Tor and wandering the Glastonbury Abbey grounds. It is here that my 1999 Lilly Grant, Quest for Camelot, was centered. The novel I began that summer continues to tease me, beguiling me to come out to play when I have work to do. This year’s reason is the writing for National Board Certification. My visit to Glastonbury rekindled the Arthurian flame.

The Tor is a 500 foot high conical hill, whose sides were cut in a rising labyrinth of terraces by Neolithic man 2,000 to 3,000 years B. C. In the era when Saint Patrick was in Somerset, the 400s, a gathering of monks lived on the Tor. It wasn’t until the 1100s that the Saint Michael of the Torre church was built. In 1275 an earthquake destroyed it; Henry VIII cast down the rebuilt structure in the banning of the abbeys in 1539. It was used as a local quarry for stone as were many of the ruins until Saint Michael’s tower was restored and preserved.

The Tor has been called the Gwyn Ap Nudd, the home of the Fairy King who lives in the honeycomb of hollows within the hill. It is a holy place to many people for different reasons. Some say that walking up the terraced way to the top in reflection brings clarity and deep shifts. Pilgrims coming down are often singing and uplifted. The stones scattered on the slopes of the Tor may mark ley lines or align with the stars. This is a spiritual place, no matter the state of the visitor’s spirit.

The Abbey site is that of the oldest above ground Christian church in the world. In the 1st century, local custom says that Joseph of Arimathea retired here in the place where he had traveled years before as a tin merchant. Local history believes that he brought the young Jesus with him during his formative years. Joseph and his companions built a small wattle place of worship, dedicated to his niece, Mary, the Mother of Jesus. The Lady Chapel had a stone church added to it by the Saxon King Ine of Wessex in the 7th century, and St. Dunstan, the 10th century Abbot, increased the Abbey buildings before he left to become Archbishop of Canterbury in 960. The Normans undertook great building projects after the conquest in 1066, but Glastonbury, the richest monastery in England, burned in 1184.

It is said that a venerable monk asked, dying, to be buried between two markers in the old graveyard shortly after the fire. Upon digging in that place to fulfill his request, the monk’s discovered the coffin of a tall big-boned man whose bones showed multiple healed injuries and a fatal skull wound. Their excavation revealed the grave of another, smaller man and a woman whose golden hair still caught the sun. The grave was marked with a cross that identified the remains as that of the Arcturus, the king. Whether or not, the monks fabricated this story in order to cash in on the resulting excitement, they moved these remains on April 19, 1278 in the presence of King Edward I and Queen Eleanor to a black marble tomb inside the Abbey cathedral. Glastonbury has drawn pilgrims since its Neolithic origins; the destruction of the Abbey in 1539 on the order of Henry VIII has done nothing to stem the tide. In 1536 there were 800 monasteries, nunneries, and friaries in England. By 1541 there were none. The destruction of the monasteries was a part of the King’s breaking the power of the church and claiming it for himself; it is hard for me to imagine the enormity of the destruction of those 5 years or to see any rational excuse for such destruction.

This charming town is accessible by public bus and by car. The nearby Cadbury Hill, once an Iron Age hillfort and what we call Camelot, is not on any bus routes, so I was not able to return there. I was just lucky to meet a woman in 1999 who dropped me there in the morning and picked me up later in the day on her way to and from a friend’s. This place remains one of the most rich in my summer of listening to the voices of the past.

Paris July 29-August 3, 2007

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This my first extended stay without a group of novices to guide offered me Paris on a platter, complex and layered beyond the marvels of the must-see first time view. I avoided the throngs queuing to gape at the gothic majesty of Notre Dame, though I couldn’t resist photographing the portal saints
and the stately silhouette, and never got around to the Arc of Triumph or the Eiffel Tower. I was too busy wandering in the Marais where I stayed for my first time in a youth hostel, a historic monument immaculately cared for with medieval stone arches in the dining hall!

The open structure and flamboyant colors of the Pompidou Center captivated me; my favorite photos are the reflections of the colors in the building across the street. When Georges Pompidou urged Paris to demonstrate her presence in the modern world with 7 modern projects, the response to the President’s plan for this modern art museum in the stately Beaubourg quarter was outright horror. Of course, that was their reaction to the I. M. Pei pyramid in the embrace of the Louvre, and to the Eiffel Tower in 1889! The contrast of styles is indeed bracing, but like carefully chosen spices in a French sauce, the results are exquisite.

Another contrast in today’s Paris is the City, sweltering in summer heat (in theory!) and the Beach, where city dwellers long to escape for all the seaside pleasures. Paris’ mayor has brought the beach to the city to benefit all the citizens unable to leave. Paris Plage brings tons of sand to the city, creating beach volleyball, soccer, and rugby courts in the plaza in front of city hall and an umbrella-strewn beach along the Seine. Young and old cavort or lounge on the beach in their swimwear. No one seems to notice or mind the absence of water. The Seine slipping by gives enough of an impression to complete the fantasy.

Another successful effort on behalf of the Parisian populace by the local government is the rental bike program. All over the city there are locked racks of sleek, sturdy bikes accessible to anyone with a prepaid cared for half hour jaunts across town for a Euro. Only inaugurated two weeks before my stay, the bike rentals appear to have taken off in huge numbers. Then there is the French answer to commuting efficiently, called the Smart Car. Food for thought.

Parisians are already active, walking far more daily than the average American. On a stroll along the Green Way, a landscaped path atop the old Roman aqueduct east of the central part of the city in an area utterly new to me, I caught this sweet moment of a gentleman taking his mother for a noon time stroll. I wonder if this is a daily routine or a special visit, and guess from the casual comfort of their comportment that it is a regular part of their lives. Beneath us there is a little part tucked away, enjoyed by young

sunbathers whose children sit in the shade of the Roman arches on stones cut by young centurions, playing a video game. Hand in hand, the present with the past.
It is difficult to verbalize the awe that sweeps over me when I come into the presence of the graves of the great figures of French history. When I reflect on the most memorable

moments, I go back to the graves of Marie and Pierre Curie, to Big Foot Bertha and Pepin the Short, Marie Antoinette and Louis, to the carved likeness of Charles Martel. How unspeakably surreal it seems to me to stand beside the remains of these people whose faces and lives rise from the pages of history books before me. Marie Curie, who ran from her lab to find her beloved husband in the street, his head crushed by a carriage wheel; she carried on their work,

raised their daughters, and became the first person to win 2 Nobel Prizes, buried in the Pantheon. The younger Marie who died with such calm courage as a sacrifice for the failed tradition of the monarchy. And Charles the Hammer, Lord Mayor of the Palace to the Do-Nothing kings, who led the French army to victory at Poitiers in 732, pushing the invading Arab armies back across the Pyrenees and forever changing the face of Europe. 732. That was one thousand two hundred and seventy-five years ago. I stand beside his tomb in the cathedral of Saint Denis, stunned at my proximity to what once seemed like a distant past but which now is clearly an unmistakable part of my present.

The list of voices from afar includes those at the Père Lachaise cemetery, Balzac and Delacroix, LaFontaine and Molière, Sarah Bernhardt and Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, Chopin, and Abelard and Heloise. I am stunned by the connection I feel with Pierre Abelard, whose book, Sic et Non, so touched me at the Scriptorial at Avranches. Here is the author, buried beside his beloved. I am reminded of this same awe when once before I stood by the grave of Leonardo da Vinci at Amboise, having visited his Last Supper in Milan. Back at Père Lachaise, this gentleman with his invention captivates me. What symbol would I chose to grace my likeness for all eternity?

The long row of grave markers to the victims of the death camps, each marking the burial of the ashes of those ghastly ovens, raises such a chorus of voices and images of families torn apart and devoured by brutality that the trees tremble. The beloved husband of our friend Paulette is here now, too, a survivor of the nightmare of those times that so scarred this land and her people. Paulette met us at the café near the Place de la Bastille, glad for the congenial visit, gravely willing to speak about the horror of her youth for the benefit of this generation. Her voice has been raised for those whose voices were stilled, for over 60 years, grimly recounting the truths of an unspeakable time to every possible audience. O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing! She is a blessing, a living voice that gives life to the past.

As I rest for a moment in the gardens of the Palais de Luxembourg, I find a warmth of hope and familial bond, a sense of having walked into a family picnic. This grandfather and child exemplify the simple acts of living together well.

When I leave the children at play, I make my way to the Cluny Museum, a medieval collection housed on and beside a roman ruin. I sit in a carefully controlled dark coolness and wonder at the survival of this collection of tapestries whose iconic images are recognized around the world. Their story and symbols are intriguing, but the simple act of stitching such an enormous work stupefies me. In the face of that investment of time, what faith to just begin!

Ending and transformation occupy my thoughts as I look down on the Impressionist collections of the Orsay Museum, housed in what was once the central train station of Paris. What wisdom to preserve by way of transformation this place that once served as a hospital to those who had barely survived internment as enemy prisoners, and returning to Paris, could not do more than be lifted from the trains? I am transported to an idyllic visit to my daughter Katie and our overnight stay in an old school remade as a hotel. We watched a movie in the gym turned theater. If places can make such remarkable conversion, how can we not hope for and invest in the possibility of human change, beginning with ourselves?

Two other places that I visited for the first time filled me with wonder at their inspirational beauty. The altar of the church of the Madeleine took me heavenward, and the Marc Chagall ceiling of the Garnier Opera pulled me into a riveted immobility. Such gifts, these artists leave us! How can we honor them for their enduring gift but by transforming our lives into reflections of the beauty of their art?

Paris honors men who leave all forms of art, including Thomas Jefferson, whose legacy is enjoyed by all of mankind. This building, the Institute of the Muslim World, testifies to the diversity of Paris and her efforts to come to term with the changing face of France. West along the same bank of the Seine is the Conciergerie, once a fortress, then a prison, now a national monument. It was here that Marie Antoinette and her family were imprisoned, here also, ironically, that Robespierre spent his last days.

In addition to visiting places that I had never seen, I also returned to those Parisian haunts that mean the most to me. I am grinning at the young Japanese student who took this photo for me, but when I walked into the circular exhibit rooms in the Orangerie Museum, I sank to the central seat and quietly soaked in the experience of Monet’s Nymphéas. I was a teenager the first time I sat there, alone in the cool dimness of this sacred place. I have no memory of how I came here alone then, but I have a vivid image of my reaction, utterly still, spellbound. Monet painted the series of long murals of his water lillies and the weeping willows trailing over the soft blues, greens, lavenders of the pond in Giverny as a gift to France, a bouquet, he said, at the end of the war. He asked that it not be displayed until after his death; these exhibit rooms were designed and built to house them.

The Paris that I grew to know this week is many things, grand and sweeping, but most important, it is a story unfolding one Parisian at a time. This shopkeeper was overseeing his domain with a gusto for each client, a word to the regular passersby. I realized suddenly that this was a merchant behavior that I associated with a small town, and that I was surprised to see it in a city.

I remembered the moment in the small tobac where I stopped to get a newspaper with the Tour de France headlines for my cousin Jim, the intimate scene that I saw there of a young man taking his leave of the elderly shopkeeper. She added as she said farewell, “but you’ll be back, surely?” He shook his head and replied so sadly, now that his studies were complete, that he didn’t know where he would go or if he would be there again. She seemed to grieve as if he had been her own child, leaving home forever. No matter the number of the population around us, we carve out an intimate place for ourselves. We as humans have a need to be known, to belong.

I saw in the news when I returned home that there was a new volunteer organization in Paris, a group called “Parisian for a day, Parisian to stay,” creatively translated. Local residents give free tours of their neighborhood, sharing all the personal aspects, the behind the scenes tales, that take a visitor beneath the superficial snapshots of Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe. I am grateful to Dr. Whidden for his assignment to do just that as a part of our coursework, and to Cornelia and Paulette, who put a personal face on this city. I have as a result befriended Paris, and learned to look differently at a city.