Saturday, july 15, 2006

Neighbors in France

Last night when we returned home, our neighbor opened her door. She explicitly introduced herself to me, because the woman of the house - wich I already discovered - has a very high status. Must I be pleased with this recognition or must I fear that an arduous task is waiting for me.

Our neighbour nextdoor is an energetic little women of at least seventy years. That is nothing special down here. The Elderly women seem to run everything here, they take care of the children, herd cows to the pasture, got little shops or pubs and - it seems to me - they do not suffer under this.

We also discovered that nothing is as important as surprising your neighbor with fruit or vegetables from your own garden. He who has a kitchen garden (or vegetable garden) has a standing, then all of those poor sods that have to get their fruit and vegetables from the supermarket. So we went at our future house to scavenge for all kinds of edibles, and yes, the prune trees bare thousands of little yellow fruits. Probably mostly suited for making jam, but that doesn't matter. This has really brought us in a higher posture because we were immediately invited to come in.

Prunes from our own garden... that’s impressive

The house was in shades. Against the heat. It was humidly warm, sweat poured from our heads. The women from next door called her grandson of fourteen, who came at once. He gave me two kisses in the air and shook Rudi's hand. Al right, this is how you do that in France, women exchange air kisses with whomever they want and men shake hands.

A little later her grand daughter of twelve arrived and repeated the same procedure. Halldor and Deirdre got hugged by grandma, even Deirdre was surprised by so much physical contact. I think the cuddling is very disarming, but it also makes me feel uncomfortable. Something to get used to.

Halldor and Deirdre at the computer. That's whats it's like inside when the shutters are closed

The neighbor told loads about Espalion, the market on Friday where we had to go to because they sell vegetables and fruit directly from the land. She told she prepared her own prune-marmalade and sold it to the market vendors. Her Son and Daughter worked all day and the grandchildren were trusted into her care after school. From when they were little.

The water of the Lot turned red, caused by the downpour.

The children went to a public school (école publique). She told us everything there was for free: education, remain lunchtime and eat lunch, books, everything. Halldor and Deirdre have been signed up for private schools, those were the only ones we could find through the internet. What difference does it make we thought. Ouch , after the informative talk with our neighbor it seems we might have done something stupid. In the Netherlands all kinds of schools are subsidized: Free school, Public school, Catholic, Protestant, Islamatic, you name it. But not in France. A public school has to be free of religion or any other doctrine. Who wants to teach their children in a religious environment has to cough up the costs, and these can increase up to 2000 euro per child per annum.

Yo, wait, that's not what we came here for. We were already happy not having to pay road tax anymore, and now we are going to have to bust our chops to pay our children's school. No, no, no, in that case our children will go to the public school.

posted by Ruud at 2:35 PM

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