Farewell to France

Today is our last day in St. Papoul. Ted is breathing down my neck because he needs to disconnect the Internet and return this modem. Three months have gone by quickly. This PhotoStory was put together by Ted, with many of the photos he's taken over time here. You can see he especially likes the old buildings and the countryside. The two songs you'll hear are songs we heard in heavy rotation on the radio while we were here, so they will always remind us of this special place. The songs are Mon Petit Village (Ulysses Ridan)and Chupee by Cocoon (Arms Akimbo friends take note, this is the song I was singing to you when you were here!)

I don't have time to write some big, all-encompassing summary of our time in France. My only regret is I didn't sudy the language more in order to communicate better with the people I've met. On the plus side, I have a renewed appreciation for what I do, helping kids communicate better. Without a shared language, people cannot truly connect. I know helping kids acquire a basic vocabulary of nouns and verbs can go a long, long way to getting them connected to the people in their worlds. Au revoir, France! Karibisha Africa!

Update from DJ and What's Next

Just before we left Ottawa, my friend Darlene gave me her fleece jacket to take on this trip - heretofore known as DJ (Darlene's Jacket). I promised to send updates once in awhile but I've been a bit negligent with that. Truth is, until this past month of October, DJ basically just hung around (on a hook that is) waiting for the weather to chill.

I remember we actually went swimming on Sept. 30th at Narbonne-plage. Unbelievably, my mom reported snow in Saskatoon not long after! In early October, the weather here started to turn and DJ has been at my side (actually on my back) ever since. DJ would like everyone to know how exciting her life has been this part month . . . galavanting all over Carcassonne with Arms Akimbo, checking out the paleolithic cave paintings at Grotte de Niaux, browsing the early-morning market in nearby Revel, or even just strolling around St. Papoul. The mornings here are especially chilly right now and DJ is the first thing I grab to throw on over my PJ's before I stumble downstairs to put some coffee on. One of my favourite activities that I will miss is walking along the Canal du Midi all the way from St. Martin Lalande to Castelnaudary (takes about 60-70 minutes). Right now the fall colours are spectacular. I could not do that these days without DJ!

Who needs a coat like this when I have DJ? Please note, I have had my hair cut since this photo!

But alas, DJ may have to hang around unused again for awhile, now that we are preparing to head to Africa. Here's what is coming next for us:

-depart St. Papoul and drive to Paris this Sunday
-fly to Nairobi, Kenya via Zurich (just one night in Zurich)
-arrive in Nairobi on Tues., Nov. 3rd

One of my dreams is coming true! I will get to participate on a cleft palate mission in Kijabe, Kenya for 3 weeks in November. It's a long story how this came to be. Here's the condensed version. I had credentialled as a volunteer with Operation Smile and applied to several of their missions. However, I never "got the call" (at least not yet anyway - there is still Vietnam and Cambodia ahead). I decided to contact Smile Train, an organization with a similar mission of repairing cleft lip/ palate in developing countries. One key difference with Smile Train is you more or less set up your own mission and they provide support. They give you a stipend for certain expenses and put you in touch with their medical partners around the world.

One of the names on the list jumped out at me - Dr. Dan Poenaru in Kijabe. He is from Kingston and he and his family had visited our church back in Ottawa a couple of years ago. Just before we left Ottawa, I had coffee with a wonderful woman named Zeta from my church. She had encouraged me to contact Dr. Dan when we got to Africa and to be sure to visit Kijabe if we could. Dr. Dan has been a pediatric surgeon at the AIC Hospital and the adjoining Bethany Relief and Rehab wing in Kijabe for about 6 or 7 years, I think. And there was his name, at the top of the list given to me by Smile Train. Coincidence?? After contacting him, things just really fell into place. We will be in Kijabe until Nov. 28th. They are hiring a local Kenyan women who has shown some potential to be a "speech assistant". In addition to assisting with a visiting cleft palate team of ENTs and plastic surgeons from Canada and the US for the first two weeks, she will be shadowing me and I will spend the third week intensively training her to carry on basic speech therapy after I leave.

After Kijabe, it will be safari time (Rift Valley Lakes plus Masai Mara) and then off to Tanzania. Our plans for Tanzania are not completely firm yet although we know we will spend 2 weeks in Longido helping Corey Wright from Sauti Moja. The plan is to build and paint bunk-beds for their Child-Mother project. Ted will be our lead man with that project! We hope to visit the famous Ngorongoro Crater and Zanzibar as well.

I've been doing a bit of research on the Swahili language. (Here's an aside - ever wonder what the difference between Kiswahili and Swahili is? Now I know. Kiswahili is the language for most of East Africa while Swahili refers to the culture as a whole including the language. So to say someone speaks Kiswahili or Swahili is really the same thing). Another thing I learned is that Kijabe means "place of the wind" in Kiswahili, not surprising given that it sits along the Rift Valley escarpment at an elevation of over 7000 feet. I mention this because maybe - just maybe - DJ will see some action in Kijabe after all . . .

Wild boar, wine, apples, castles and Arms Akimbo

Arms Akimbo (a.k.a. the Book Club) has left the building and I am sad. What a great week we had! Not only did they enrich the economy of Carcassonne through their unflagging shopping and fine dining (okay, so I was not-so-reluctantly dragged along), but they managed to squeeze more into one week than most tourists would in a month. I guess your first clue of that would be the title of this post . . .

First things first, some history. Our Book Club meets monthly in a small pub in our neighbourhood. Most of met 12 years ago when we attended "Mommy & Me" classes with our first-born children at the local community centre. We had come across the term arms akimbo more than once in novels we had read so one evening we digressed into a conversation about the meaning of this term. Was it crazy arms, waving and all bent out of shape? Or was it a stance with one's hands planted firmly on one's hips? And what did it signify? Annoyance? Impatience? Determination? Somehow the name stuck. Besides living in the same neighbourhood with kids the same age, we also share a love for all words weird and wonderful.

And, apparently, we also share a love for good food and drink. A couple of things I learned about my book club friends this week. (1) They can hold their vin rouge, no question (2) They are committed carnivores - all the way from head to trotter and the tripe inside, and (3) their remarkable facility in the French language puts the Elborns to absolute shame. Ah well. I like to explain this by saying I grew up in Saskatchewan where the second language is Ukrainian not French - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

My five book club friends arrived last Wed., Oct. 14th and stayed one week. Three arrived after one week in Paris and two came via Marseilles. They rented an apartment in Carcassonne, right in the heart of the town overlooking the city square and a short drive from our base in St. Papoul. As luck would have it, the annual Fete du Vin (wine festival, celebrating the grape harvest) was just commencing. Other highlights included exploring La Cite, the monumental castle in Carcassonne; the Fete du Pommes (apple festival) in Mirepoix; a short visit to another medieval town (Foix); a visit to Montolieu (village du livres - if you've heard of Hay-on-Wye in Wales, this is the French equivalent); checking out local outdoor markets; and plenty of restaurant sampling.

Sometimes we broke into smaller groups to pursue separate activities. One day, Ted and the boys along with Sherry and Frances drove to Chateau Peyrepertuse to climb and explore this historic Cathar castle. Another group rented bikes and cycled through a tunnel of plane trees along the scenic Canal du Midi.



Three of us had birthdays that very week. My birthday last Monday was truly memorable. With our vintner friend Gerard, and his family, all of us dined at a restaurant called 6eme Sens (Sixth Sense). Two birthday cakes followed - a mango mousse and a chocolate mousse.

But the most memorable feast had to be the wild boar meal (sanglier) right here in St. Papoul. Recently, Ted was given the gift of a hunk of wild boar meat, hunted and shot in the woods near Gerard's vineyard. We carefully wrapped it up and tucked it into the freezer awaiting the arrival of Arms Akimbo. Sylvie, the proprietor of Le Recantou (St. Papoul's local restaurant), marinated it in red wine and onions for two days and then slow-cooked it with potatoes, carrots and other vegetables. Along with her trademark delicious salad and chunks of bread, we imagined we were dining like the Cathar peasants we'd been reading about.

So what I say about this past week? I'll close with a phrase my French-speaking book club friends taught me a few days ago. J'ai bien manger! Beh oui.

Half of Arms Akimbo arrives in Carcassonne via train from Paris

A toast to everyone's safe arrival

Sante, the Fete du Vin has begun!

Sabine overseeing the action in Place Carnot, city square of Carcassonne

View of La Cite from the pedestrian bridge in Carcassonne

Exploring La Cite, historic castle village in Carcassonne

Kerry and Jenny exploring the book village of Montolieu

Kerry on the hunt for unusual cookbooks in the antiquarian bookshops of Montolieu

Yet another wonderful lunch out - my first time eating rabbit

Gathered for the wild boar meal (Sylvie, our chef, is sitting beside me at the head of the table)

Okay, so this is a bit of a silly shot - standing arms akimbo under the wild boar's head at
Le Reconteau in St. Papoul

Close-up of sanglier (wild boar) stew . . . delicious!

Archway entrance to medieval square in Mirepoix

Banner of apples spelling "Mirepoix"

Every type of apple was for sale at the annual Fete du Pommes

Yum, chocolate-covered apples!


The theme of this year's Fete du Pommes was "music" so apple sculptures in the shape of different musical instruments were displayed throughout the village square in Mirepoix

Love this photo - maybe we'll pass on buying this particular candy apple

Apples as a tuba

Apples as bongo drums

Tasty apple treats for sale at every stall

Local musicians play amongst the apples in Mirepoix

My birthday dinner in the underground cavern-like restaurant

Looking down on the lower buildings at Peyrepertuse - remarkably well-preserved - they date back to 1070 AD

Sherry and Frances enjoyed the spectacular views - the climb was facile for them!

Ascending the scary steps of Saint Louis to access the upper San Jordi keep

Many small windows and arrow slits in the ruins of Peyrepertuse

Frances and Mitchell snapping photos

Mitch, Ted & Jackson checking out the views

Toulouse and the English-Speaking Church

I've had several e-mails from friends who ask us about church. Specifically, do we go? Have we found anything in English, etc. So here is an answer to that.

When our friends Todd and Becky were here, we had only been here in France a couple of weeks ourselves. I mentioned to Becky that we had only found French-speaking (obviously) churches, which were not very meaningful to the kids. Becky found a reference to an English-speaking church in a brochure and that led us to the church we've been going to in Toulouse. They call themselves simply the English Church of Midi-Pyrénées & Aude. It seems to be mainly Anglican in flavour but hey, it's Christian and they speak English! The people who attend are very nice; many of them work for Airbus in Toulouse and they are the ones who encouraged us to do the Airbus tour which was completely worthwhile.

We are also very fortunate to be able to tune into our home church, The Met (short for Metropolitan Bible Church of Ottawa) via the Internet. Every week, we boot up this laptop and click on sermons to be able to follow along with Pastor Rick, currently doing a study on wisdom from the Book of Proverbs. Great stuff!

I know Mitchell and Jackson miss their church. Jackson has said many times, "Blessed Sacrament is a church for grown-ups (perhaps when he goes with his class from school they are told to sit still, be quiet, etc., I'm not sure) but the Met is a church for kids". After touring so many great, historic cathedrals here in France, such as the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, all Mitchell has to say about them is "why is it so dark in here? why is it so cold? don't they have any lights? I like the Met better".

Before we left, I loaded something called The Bible Experience onto our laptop so we have that also. This is an audio version of the Bible, fully dramatized by well-known stars such as Samuel L. Jackson and Denzel Washington. So every morning, we start the day by listening to a couple of chapters while the kids have an OJ and we have our coffee. It's nice because we don't have to rush off anywhere and we can see what they have (or have not) understood from it.

So that's our spiritual update folks! On another note, I am very excited because tomorrow some good friends of mine are coming from Ottawa. They have rented a place about 20 minutes from here and I will meet them at the train station tomorrow afternoon (three are coming from Paris and two are en route from Marseilles). We are all in a Book Club together - Arms Akimbo! Why do we call ourselves that, you ask? Next post . . . right now it's time for some dormir.

Mitchell's Photo Story

Okay, so congrats are in order for our first-born! Here is a recent journal entry from Mitchell which will explain it all:

My Mom got an e-mail awhile back about a photo contest for kids in Ottawa and she suggested I enter some of my photos from this trip. Yesterday I discovered that the “Big Brothers Big Sisters of Ottawa” Big Picture Photo Contest website had posted the results and the winners. I did not win, but I came close and the picture I took was chosen to be published into a 2010 calendar. The prizes were really great, like an HP laptop and a Nikon SLR camera but I can enter next year maybe. One thing that is really cool is that my photo ended up being for the month of May and that is my birthday month. The photo is one I took in Bordeaux of the Mirior d'Eau (Mirror of Water). The contest site said to have fun and be creative so I rotated the image and you are looking at it upside down. The top is actually the reflection. The real cars, not the ones in the reflection, appear upside down. Kind of an optical illusion. Here is the photo:

Barcelona . . . Barca, Barca, Baaarca!

We just returned to our base here in France following four days in sunny Barcelona, Spain. Barcelona is only a 3 hour drive away from St. Papoul so it made a great side trip before we leave Europe at the end of October. How to describe Barcelona? A wild, whimsical city with a seedy underbelly - I think that would capture it. Wild because of the huge numbers of people, cars and noise and the bizarre performance artists that line the famous pedestrian street, La Rambla. Whimsical because of the unusual architecture of Antoni Gaudi, and the even more unusual art and sculptures of native sons Miro, Salvador Dali, and Picasso. As for the seedy underbelly part, what can I say? It's a port city with a big drug problem and cities with drug problems have lots of petty crime, pickpockets, bag snatchers, etc. When we spoke to the kids beforehand about always being aware and alert for these reasons, Jackson (bless his heart) asked me if the robbers would be wearing black and stripes so he would know who to watch out for.

But we did like Barcelona despite some minor problems like driving around downtown Barcelona lost for an hour. All the while we were a stone's throw from the hostel we were staying at but who could tell? The streets are not signed well and with cars zipping around you like hornets, you don't dare slow down to try reading any signage anyway. Throw in some sad news from home and add a dash of food poisoning and you end up with a decidedly mixed holiday.

The sad news is my Mom's husband had a heart attack and ended up in hospital in Saskatoon. My Mom & George just moved into a retirement residence in early September, less than a month ago. We are all hoping and praying he recovers enough to return to their new home soon.

About the food poisoning . . . let this be a lesson to all you kiddies out there. While Mom & Dad were happily munching on tapas of all variety, Mitchell and Jackson opted for chicken nuggets and fries one day. Guess who got sick? Moral of the story: always eat what the locals eat! Oh, and did I mention that we were staying in an el-cheapo hostel with a shared bathroom situation? This is not good when two members of one's family are vomiting. Sometimes the bathroom may be occupied, you get the idea. Cue wastepaper basket. Moral of the story #2: always ensure your room has a private bath!

The big highlight was, of course, seeing an Barcelona Football Club match at the enormous Camp Nou Stadium (seats 120,000 people). As you likely know, in Europe "football" = "soccer" and "match" = "game". Never mind that the seats were in the nosebleed section, the kids were beyond excited! Barcelona beat Almeria 1-0. Barcelona FC fans are extremely passionate and that would be putting it mildly. They scream at the players, they scream at the refs, they throw paper airplanes on the field (no idea what that's about), and they sing the anthem with gusto. Very different from a Sens game where half the crowd mutters the Canadian national anthem and the other half stand silently munching popcorn. The video clip shows the opening song. This clip is interesting to me because it captures perfectly the dynamic we often see between Mitchell and Jackson. That is, Jackson is trying to take in the event and focus on what's happening while Mitchell has taken in some of what's happening but would prefer to joke around, goof off, and tries to drag Jackson into that mode. Which is why we are more or less homeschooling them separately. Oh, but that would be another post for another time. Sigh.

Coincidentally, we learned shortly after arriving in Barcelona, that the Grand Finale of the Red Bull Air Race was on town. I thought this was funny since we wondered way back in August 2008 if we might stumble across another Red Bull Flugtag event and we did! We did not specifically go the beach for the airshow (over a million people did and we knew it would be insane), but you could not miss the roar of the aircraft flying overhead regardless. What we did do was stroll La Rambla everyday, visit Parc Guell (Gaudi's themepark, so to speak), ride the hop on-hop-off bus tour, and tour the site of the 1992 Olympics. And last but not least, we also spent time in a trendy neighbourhood known as the el Born barrio . . . seriously!

If you still have time before you must tear yourself away from this blog to get back to work, please enjoy our latest PhotoStory slideshow. Adios!