Disreality

DAY 1: When I stepped into the train at about 8AM on a quiet Sunday morning, I had no idea what is waiting for me up ahead, so I was feeling a bit precautious about it. But the trip started really well - the picturesque train ride across frosty fields, filled with red light of the rising sun; foggy mountainslopes... Formidable! I arrived to Mâcon four hours before the get-together so I just aimlessly wondered around the town for a while, looking for a place where I could buy some beer. Instead of that I found an exhibition of Indian art... By the time I got back to the trainstation there were already some people waiting. Our young and sweet group leader Julie introduced me to others and we went to have some hot chocolate together. I was somewhat surprised because we were mixing French with English and nobody minded that at all (as I'm used to here). After 6PM we were finally taken to a small village that was to be our home for the week.

Now's the time when I should introduce the participants: Julie the groupleader (French of course), Julie ("the tractorist"), Eva, Caroline, Susanne (all three very nice and sweet girls) from Germany + Anna who was actually partly Russian (znachit svoja tak skazat - it was great to speak Russian again); 2x Joanna (both funny girls), Dominik (intelligent and talkative guy with his own world) from Poland; Sonia (extremely funny and honest), Montse ("the fatass", reminded me of a former classmate Gerda - always wanted to seem smart and be in the center of attention) from Spain; Vlad ("the cool guy" who talks a lot about nothing and doesn't get it when people laugh at him), Ela (very organisative, a future animatrice for sure) from Romania; Sonja (she really knows how to do everything, starting from cooking and finishing with helping cows give birth, doing everything with equal affection) - Austria; Maria - Slovakia; Tine (a funny and sparky girl/hestkuk who could really juggle) and Annbjorg (she looks like she has stepped out of one of Ilon Wickland's drawings) - Norway; Iveta (speaks practically no French), Ivars (deep guy), Elina (just too funny, i started laughing just by looking at her expressions and she has the great baltic sense of humor) - Latvia; Jan (probably the only one who actually got our "baltic" thing :) - Czech Republic.

The first impression of the people was great - we stayed up quite late, talking and getting to know each other. Everyone seemed very nice and sweet and friendly. I was very glad to be finally able to get away from Strasbourg and its pointlessness, to learn some new juggling tricks, to meet some cool people, to be able to actually communicate in French a little, to finally be a part of the whole EVS concept - the work, the fun, the people.. that had somehow passed by me until now.

DAY 2: Waking up was inspiring - I looked out of the window and saw brown vineyards on the mountain slopes, covered with grey fog and a lonely white pony on a hazy field in the dim glimmer of the dawn. From the early sleepy morning until noon we had to listen to a boring lecture about history of EU and different projects and so on. I didn't really listen and if I did - I didn't really understand. After lunch we all got on the bus and went to Mâcon where we visited a place called Cave de la Musique. It's some place where bands can send their music and maybe get to play there eventually and all the workers are volunteers.

After a brief tour there, we headed to a nearby old people's bar to have some beer. The rest of the evening was free and we bought 10 liters of wine to make it more fun. We stayed up very late again, learning and teaching diabolo-, juggling- and kiwido tricks; making plans of visiting each other; getting to know the others and so on. Swee-eet!

DAY 3: Started with another boring lecture about the French history and politics. It was followed by a small knowledge test, which our group failed miserably. Oh well! After that we did some art-action: scuplture, oil, drawing, the topic was French symbols. My group had to draw with charcoal (man, I hadn't done that in quite a while!) and it was fun. In the end I even got to help the other group a little with their oil painting. Lovely. After proudly presenting our masterpieces we all had an individual conversation with the animators about our projects and problems and so on. And during all this time we were also making our own little linguistic course, learning how to say different swearwords in as many languages as possible. (Hestkuk, aizveries jakli, pimpis, schwantz etc etc). Hestkuk (which is Norwegian by the way) became the main word of the week. I personally love the word 'cause you can use it for anything and at anytime. But it is best used as the beer toast ;)

DAY 4: This time we started off by making plans for our international meals that we were supposed to prepare on the last evening. I teamed up with Elina, Ivars and Iveta and we decided to make rosolje and baked apples (ahjuõunad). Another boring lecture followed, I don't know what was the topic this time... After that most of the guys went for a walk, but since I had seen the villages of Bourgougne before and know what they're like, I stayed in with Sonia and Elina just to lie around and listen to music. Then we had another lecture and some theatre action - our group (Elina, Tine, Ivars and Sonja) had to make two little scenes about the sending organization's rights and responsibilities. We made a marvelous scene, making fun of the s.o. malfunctions, but nobody got the joke (I don't know why - the pharting part was pretty obvious :S)... I guess it's the "baltic" humor that not many people get, but at least we had lots of fun!

After dinner we went to Mâcon again to play bowling, which I enjoyed even though I really sucked at it. I did get a strike once, but I was playing for Ivars at that moment. Bad luck. On our way back we discussed with Elina all the interesting intrigues that were going on between a number of girls involving the few guys of our group. It so happened that for example Vlad had somehow become quite popular and we were wondering who will he end up with. The conditions for some action were promising because there were two boxes of beer waiting for us.

And so we drank and talked, the company became smaller and smaller because one by one people went to sleep, but we still drank and talked. In the end there were just Jan, Ivars, Vlad (Iveta joined us again soon because she was going after Vlad) and me. I had a really fascinating conversation about everything in the world, mixed with making fun of Vlad and laughing at Ivars' jokes (he's seriously funny!). I got to bed after 6AM, but the night still seemed to have been too short...

DAY 5: Of course I didn't even bother to get up on time just to listen to another boring lecture! After lunch we drove to Cluny (I had waited to see it for so long and it's still as great as I remembered). There we had a little tour, looking at hestkuks and 3D projections of the old famous church. It felt a bit sad tho because I was so close to Taizé and I wasn't able to go there... Sigh. But on the other hand - Elina found 20 euros on the ground and although we were sure it belonged to someone from our group, we didn't say anything and bought some beer for it instead :)

After Cluny we headed to degustate some local wine. The whole place smelled like a bad hangover and the wine wasn't all that good either. We amused ourselves by pretending to know a lot about the smell, the texture and the taste (in a word - making fun of Vlad again).

After finishing our lovely probably-three-days-old dinner (the food was scary there and we had lots of laughs on account of it, so I couldn't really tell if my stomach was aching from the food or the cramps. For instance at one meal I found hair in my plate 3 times!), we played a little picture describing game, where they expected us to make it into a whole different thing on the cause of our cultural differences. It didn't really work.

The moon was full and very bright that night, which made walking in the dark and sneaking into a local church to enjoy some great masterpieces absolutely magical... Or should I say - enchanting... It's just really nice of the local people that they don't lock their church for the night! :)

DAY 6: Again some lectures, which - I don't even have to mention - weren't too interesting. After lunch they took us to Mâcon where we listened to some more not-so-interesting lectures. We also met a local volunteer who talked about her project. That was kind of funny for me and right after I told Elina about what exactly I do in Strasbourg, she found it very funny as well. Najah, actually it's sad, but since life is a flower, as we all know, it makes it easier to take things with humor. Especially while being far away from the reality...

When they finally gave us spare time on the city, we went to the shop and bought some beer. Still not really paying for it. By that time we had found out that it was Dominik's 20 euros so we generously offered some beer to him as well. Then it was dinner time and we all went to a "fancy" restaurant to eat. The food was funny again, but we were already used to it. Pas grave.

After getting stuffed, it was finally time to go to the Cave of Music to see a reggae concert. We had bought some beer with Vlad and Ivars (that is - technically Dominic bought us the beer), but it came out that we weren't able to smuggle it inside, nor did we have time to drink it. All we could do was put the bottles (I think there was about 13 of them) into the bushes and hope that the French teenagers won't drink all of it by the time we get back..

The gig wasn't too great simply because it was very reggae... So after a while of just standing there we decided to go and see if the beer was still there. Surprisingly enough - it really was! So we (Elina, Jan, Annbjorg and me) drank almost all of it, including most of Vlad's. We didn't tell him, but he didn't seem to care anyway so...

DAY 7: It finally hit me - the reality strike. I realized that I must leave the place and the people very soon to maybe never see them again, so I was feeling, what you could say, a bit sad. I ignored the last boring lecture, then we all ignored our last theatre assignment. After lunch we filled out a questionnaire, claiming that everything was perfectly great (including the food).

And finally it was cooking time. Unfortunately we discovered with the Latvians that there were no carrots (all used by the Spanish); no potatoes (which were taken by the Germans and which we stole back); the fish was wrong - instead of salted herring they got us smoked. Plus we had only one apple for our desert. Eventually we managed to make something out of nothing and I must admit - it wasn't the worst meal there :) After dinner we handed out our little presents 'cause each of us had drawn a random name and had to give something symbolic to the person. By a weird chance I got Vlad, so I gave him a bottle of his own beer that was left from last night.. (I know I'm mean, but what can I do!)

Our animatrice Julie had bought us four boxes of beer, which were opened almost immediately and therefor empty by 8PM. It's a good thing that we "put away" some of it for later. The bad thing was that Julie saw us do it... Anyway, to make a long fuss short: When we went to Vlad's and Ivars' room to drink the beer, everyone came up claiming "their share" and in the end Montse just took all our beer and yelled at us in her manly voice for a while, which was quite amusing. In the end everyone probably thought we had stolen all the beer and drank most of it, when all we did was just take our share. Luckily we still had the beer from last night, so we finished that one (hoping that we had managed to be the last ones with some drinks).

The last night was...well... I could say - unreal. I must admit that I still find it a bit hard to believe because the whole week was just so much more than I had ever expected! Everything that happened is quite difficult to put into words and describe. Not even very nesecarry I believe. But I can say that is was full of silence and laugther, irony, intellectual conversations and the full moon, loads of artwork and of course - probably the most important ingredient - dEUS...

DAY 8: Too sad to mention. Sitting on the train and watching the kilometers pass by, thinking of the growing distance between me and all the great people that I had met. And even worse - thinking about my stupid pointless work again... Sad. But still happy and very thankful for all that was and maybe will be. And now I'm back to reality... That's my depressionism.

dEUS "Disappointed In The Sun"

Hi from Mâcon!

We are here (21 EVS volunteers) for a little something and an internet pause...
I'll make it short cause I have no time: so far so good. Bad meals mixed with some lectures and on the other hand cool and fun people who have brought to me the real spirit of volunteering. It's great - I can actually communicate in French and if I can not no more, nobody makes faces if I change to English. In fact - there are some guys here that speak worse than me!!! I love this thing, it's inspiring. Where did I go wrong in Strasbourg I wonder...
Anyway I believe I will profit a lot from this session, meet new cool people and return a bit happier than before. And what really rules: we will go to a concert together AND visit Cluny. YAY!!! :D

Je suis trés contente!

My Own Private Nothingness

I just heard the following story:
Marvin was on the 5th floor (where all the volunteer girls live) with Madame Perrin (our so-called landlady, who takes care of our lodgment and catering and watches over us like an eagle and is shortly-put a tight bitch that everyone hates) to hand out the lunch money for this weekend. They knocked on everyone's doors, but no-one answered, so Marvin went downstairs. Suddenly he heard a key turning up on the 5th and found that a bit curious. He quietly snuck back upstairs and peeped over the corner and then he saw - Mme Perrin coming out of Keiko's room...
He also said that sometimes he leaves his room unlocked when leaving and a bit later, when he comes back, it's locked. Strange, huh?!

She has the keys for everyone's rooms here and apparently is also using them quite actively. That means that she has access to all my personal things, all my little "secrets" that I'd rather keep to myself (how often I clean or what pictures are hanging on my walls etc). She has free access to the only place that I can call my little private personal space here. And what if she's not just a tart old brawd, but also a kinky bitch who entertains herself by going through people's underwear and stuff!
And there's nothing we could do about it 'cause she's the boss here. I find this very disturbing!!!

The Concert

Was absolutely stunning!
The place (La Laiterie) was surprisingly small/ I expected something like Saku suurhall and all I got was a small Zelluloos - a bit ghetto-like, but the cooler.
The show started with a young French rockband Asyl. All I can say about the band is that they were Muse/Placebo-wannabes and two of four guys are probably gay. The drummer was on the top tho - knew how to play his stuff and had this cool punkrocker look (bony but muscular), yum. :) What was really annoying was that they did a 30 minute pause after each band and that was the boring part of the whole thing.
After a while of waiting they were finally on stage in all their glory - the great and legendary - The Stranglers. I had no idea what to expect from them because I hadn't ever actually listened to their music before. They were really catchy even though I recognized only a few songs. The Stranglers as a band is older than I am, so that makes Paul Roberts (the singer)... well, let's just say "over forty" (cause "old" is such an ugly word) and he looks so GOOD! His chest, sixpack, tattoos, clothes, his stage presence...mmmmm! At the end they were called back twice and did four extra songs, which is great, it shows that they don't have the whole "superstar"-act. I know, I know, you're all dying to know... Yes, they did play "Golden Brown" and to me it was the best song of the set :)
But the concert wasn't over yet - there was still on band to play and to my surprise, most people were really anticipating for it. It was an absolutely unknown name to me and I had no idea what they were all about. When Daniel Darc finally came on stage I was a bit shocked by the looks of the singer: short, balding and had the air as if he was very much "on" something... The second thing I noticed was the drummer - extra nice, I would even say - my personal favourite out of all the men who were on the stage that evening! I didn't know what to think of the music after the first song for I was still a bit confused by what was going on on the stage, but I got over it pretty soon. Daniel Darc is the best thing I have seen/heard for a long time!!! I seriously fell in love with their music! Especially touching was their last song when the singer just took a sequent from the bible and read it (as much as I understood it was the "As I walk through the valley of the shadow..."-part) while the band was playing hypnotical rhythms... It just got to my bones, it was sooo good! The people were crazy about them, yelling "encore" so they had to come back twice, but it still wasn't even nearly enough!
As a conclusion: yeah, The Stranglers were good, BUT - I wanna see Daniel Darc again!!!!!! I hope I will have the chance. In the meanwhile - I'm raiding music stores...

Le Salon

In other words - our kitchen and livingroom, containing dining tables, two fridges, a microwave, a sink, a stove, a sofa and a TV. This place really reminds me of squat-life in Köpi. Here's why:

First of all the floor and everything else in this room is obscenely dirty. We have a sign above the sink, saying "please wash your dishes and put them into the cupboard". Not that anyone really reads it. To be honest - I don't even risk to dry the dishes right after washing 'cause the towels are dirty and stinky. So are the washing sponges. There's probably some forms of life inside them, I'm sure...

They close the water very often in this place because of repair works and afterwards you have to let it flow for about five minutes so it would stop being brownish in colour (for visual proof see the glass next to the boiler). If I want to wash the dishes with warm water I probably have to wait for it to flow even longer. The water is very coarse here and I clean the kettle all the time from the huge lumps of scale in the bottom of it. Our stove is electrical, which means not too good, plus it's all rusty and you can't see the numbers on the switches any more (I had to just guess before I got it right). We don't have any mugs or normal size glasses (everything is max 2 dl) and there are some small pieces and shards missing from most of the plates. Recently we ran out of sugar. One of the lamps doesn't work, so we are forced to cook in the darkness.
The walls in the salon are covered with yellowish wallpaper, which has become quite black in some places. We asked if we could repaint it, but were not allowed so we just covered the walls with huge drawing paper and painted on that. Now we have orange-yellow amateur art hanging on the walls. Well, it's better than before (see the background of the pic).

Our miserable corner-sofa is blue (or at least used to be), extremely old, full of concavitys and stains, it doesn't really hold together any more and I can't say it's too comfortable. We found a needle sticking out from it a few days ago. The television remote control works from eminently close distance only; the older than ancient VCR (that couldn't even read semi-speed recorded tapes) gave up on us in the middle of a movie and has not recovered. I think we lost it...

Of course there are also nice things about our livingroom: it's a place where we can all sit together sometimes and watch TV or cook. The fridges seem to still function and that's a good thing! I just hope we won't loose the second lamp because the evenings are getting very dark these days... :)

1000!

I must admit I'm rather impressed! People have clicked to open my little blog for a thousand times!!! It's not a small number, huh :)

And although judging by the comments, there are maximum five people who visit this place more or less regularly, it's still nice to know I have readers, very honoring really... Thanks for being interested in stuff I write guys!!!
In order to give me some more inspiration - drop me a line or two more often, let me know you are there and my counter isn't just overexaggerating things! Maybe there is something special you would like me to write about or whatever? All propositions are welcome ;)

Now in order to celebrate the impressive four-digit number I drink beer today: we visited the brasserie (brewery) of Heineken and after "degustating" as much as possible, got some more from the supermarket. It's a party tonight and tomorrow is a day-off. To share at least an itsy-bitsy part of my better-than-usual mood with you, I will now publically reveal my political standpoint... right HERE. Enjoy and keep those comments coming!!!

Smilers "Nali ja naps"

Lost In A Purple Desert...

и штож остается?
читать? мы читаем.
петь песни, дурачится?
и это есть все.
мы музыку слушаем,
в парке гуляем
покажется, мол штож им нужно еще?
што надо? единых по духу и мысли
не то мы свихнемся, я богу не лгу!
ведь если уж без придчины смеемся
штоб только заполнить в душе пустоту...

[a pertinent poem, written by my mom]

What I miss most here are the people with whom I could have an intellectual conversation and theorize about all kinds of philosophical issues, but unfortunately I haven't met anyone of that kind yet. I will bring a simple examlpe to demonstrate my discomfiture: out of the six other international volunteers here, only one (Diana, a Spanish girl) has read "The Lord Of The Rings" and she did it when she was eleven so she probably didn't catch the whole idea anyway. Maybe it is not an indicator of someone's intelligence, but at least it shows that I have a whole different world from these people and can't really relate to them. We have nothing in common. My desperate searches for friends outside Lucie Berger have failed miserably so far...
If any of my readers now want to tell me: "You are being so stupid and wining for no reason. Your life is as you live it, make it happen!" I could not agree with you less. In my opinion life just happens, we can make our choices but not make anything happen by ourselves. It's the luck or faith (as Gandalf put it) that takes us to places, to people. Of course it is possible to make an acquaintance with a desired person, but meeting someone like that at first would help a lot...

I can't help questioning my choices time after time, although there must be a reason for me to be here, I know it! But it can be quite sad (not to say depressing) to think about the next eight months here without any soulmates with whom I could discuss the floweresness of life or God's humor, nor work out any secret theories or revolutionary plans. I will have become a social idiot by the time I'll get out of here. What's the use of knowing French if I can not communicate any more?

First signs of degradation: a few days ago I was coming out of a shop when I suddenly heard someone speak Estonian. A man and a woman were discussing something right two meters away from me. I was so stunned to hear my dear mothertongue that I couldn't even think of anything to say to them (yeah, I know - "tere" would have been good for starters :). Besides, they noticed that I was staring at them and seemed to feel unnerved by that. The situation was so unbelievable to me that I just started laughing instead of telling the couple that I'm their fellowlander. They probably felt even weirder after that, so I just decided to walk away. It was funny. Maybe I should have talked to them? But I don't think it would have been too long of a conversation anyway...

By the way, I finally had a chance to talk to the monks and I must admit - it was a disappointment. They can't speak English very well (ok, that's forgivable). But they had no idea of Estonia nor even Finland! The lamest part was when the monk started telling me which countries are expensive and which are not. Maybe I'm overreacting, but I seriously would have expected more from a Tibet monk than chatting about the food prices. Sheesh! I must mention that the Taizé brothers are much better interlocutors as far as I've experienced. But I'm sure that all the great and interesting monks stay in Tibet. Too bad

It's also a shame that my most productive conversations continually take place through the internet and not here, face to face. Of course I'm glad that at least I have that possibility, but it's never the same. I'm still considering the ultimately desperate add-idea... I just need "my kind of people" here, someone I can relate to, someone who would understand me and share my ideas. In the meanwhile I noticed that I'm developing a wider inner world to where I escape whenever I don't feel like taking part of these French conversations and relations. I'm wandering around in my world, but I can't find any comrade conspirators here. Where are you???

Bad Apples "Can't Find A Way"

Pissed Off As Hell Every Thursday

And the reason is our weekly French class, or rather - our teacher Marc Peter. He looks like a crazy professor: grey curly hair flowing around his scalp, big moustache in the middle of a reddish face, little glasses and no eyebrows. And crazy he drives me indeed I must say. From the first lesson we had with him he labeled me in his head to be a hopelessly stupid person. I assume the touchstone was the way I look, there's no other explanation. And of course because I don't talk a lot (that's the old French mentality - if they don't speak French, their definitely stupid!) He is also quite eager trying to make me see how stupid I am by asking me if I understood about every simple word (things like poire or satire etc) and then starting talking about something way too difficult for me (the future tense for example) as if it was the most natural knowledge imaginable.
He is a great fan of the Oriental countries, which means that he is very much into Xian-Yan and hearing stories from her, anything she says about her homeland is pure gold to him and every week he finds some Chinese topics to discuss. The last class was all about some famous Chinese mountains and famous Chinese photographer who took pictures of the mountains. Finally we also got to something completely different - the traditional Japanese (also very popular in China, of course) haiku. We were reading some of them and Mr Peter gladly explained Anna the basics and meanings of haiku (of course she didn't know! And he simply loves to show off with his superior knowledge). Since I am so dumb, he felt that he must try and MAKE me talk in order to teach me something, so he asked me to tell about one of the poems. It was something about peeling a pear and watching the juice on the knife. I was really pissed off because he was forcing me to talk and even worse - talk about something as pointless as that. So I said: "Why?" letting him know what I thought of his fascinating topic. Then he proposed I could at least tell about something else - my vacation. That was better, I started talking how I went to Germany and what was cool in Berlin... And then his great "look at me I'm smart and you're not"-ego burst out, he interrupted me and gave us a long monologue on probably everything he knows about Berlin. That did it for me: first he teases me by asking "did you understand?" (me and not Keiko who probably didn't), then he makes me do unreachably difficult grammar exercises (me and not the smart Germans who can), forces me to talk about stupid pointless shit and on the top of all interrupts me when I finally do try to talk.
So after all that crap I just sit and sulk in his class, look out of the window and don't even bother although I know I should. When he asks me to do something, my brain gets jammed and I'm not able to think any more so I say I can't although I could if I would concentrate. But I can't. Even if I try to take myself together and think, disregarding the fact that my brain is half-paralyzed because on one side I feel his unnerving pressure and on the other side the impatience of smarter Germans. Mostly they don't arrive to wait until I get it right. So - if he asks me to talk I usually say nothing and Marvin answers for me. He really knows how to work it with my nerves too - I feel like crying and screaming and running out of the room every time he forces me into something. I feel like kicking his "face" with my iron boots every time he asks if I understood something so obviously simple... It's like a horrifying school déjà vu and he is a mixture of all the teachers I ever disliked!
All my motivation to learn French has gone down the drain. I hate him and his class; the fact that I am unable to learn anything there nor skip it.

Marilyn Manson "Fight Song"

This Happens To Be One Of My Pickings

I've been drinking for a week now. Rainar and Karl were here, we bought a 5-liter wine in order to celebrate and they left me here with about a half of it. So I've been busy lately. Of course there's still a lot left cause it's a really cheap and bad wine ("peet") and to be able to pour it down my throat I must mix it with water or cola... But I don't mind, I actually think it's kind of amusing to be drinking that shit all the time...
Tomorrow is the end of my happy relaxing vacation and I am forced to go back to the neverending noise, the pointlessness of being, to the students and my co-workers and I really really really don't feel like doing that. Maybe it is also one of the reasons why I've been pouring in the wine. And I ain't gonna be bothered by the insignificant work-factor (we already have a new wine-shopping scheme with Marvin). Because me not care! Selfdestruction policy. Maybe it's my cry for help? ...Hmmm... NOT!!!

Oh, and could someone please hurry up and abduct Anna? Or at least change her brain for a Marsian one? Pretty please?? Maybe that would make her a bit more tolerable. She's been practicing a new song now and I just hope it won't make me hate Depech Mode (the song is "Enjoy The Silence") because I kind of liked their music so far... Today I was wearing my new transparent lip spike and as soon as she noticed it she asked: "Oh, you have a new piercing! When did you do it?" Well fuck me! I have been here for two months and she just saw it??? That one rings a bell: an ugly flash-back of a girl I used to hate back at school...

One more thing I wanted to write about is that there are some Tibet monks staying here, in this school until the end of November. I'm not sure why exactly are they in Strasbourg, but their presence adds a nice holiness to the place, you know - them hanging around with their red robes and all. I wouldn't mind having a word with them but me be shy as you all know. Anyway, what is a pick-up line for a monk? "So you guys like don't do it at all or like what?" (?)

I have been wondering around town these last few days, looking for a friend, but no luck. Why can't they just grow on trees or come "gratuit" with the wine or something? Why can't it be as easy as that? Or maybe I'm not doing it right? Perhaps I should put up an add: "A lonely girl looking for a friend in Strasbourg. Gender and age do not matter, as long as you are cool, funny and friendly. Being an artistic/bohemian beer-lover with a dog wouldn't hurt; preferably with some English
skills. If you are interested in NS or just looking for sex, don't call." That might work. I mean - I would answer to an ad like that, wouldn't you? Yeah, ok, I know I'm desperate.
I just want to get rid of the feeling that I'm in a wrong place with the wrong people, doing the wrong thing. After all - I do like this sweet little town. I wish there was someone to share it with. That's all.

dEUS "Hotellounge"

My Work

You want to know what EXACTLY is my work? Well, you asked for it! I'll try to describe it:

At 8 AM I go downstairs from the building where I live, cross the school yard (which is filled with noisy students of all ages) and step into the "K'fet" which is in the building across (I can see it from my window). K'fet is a room with tables and chairs, a music centre and a bar. It is for the lyceeée students (age 16-18) and Perm (Permanence) is for college students (11-15). There is a door between two rooms, which is almost always open, but younger students are not allowed to go to the other side. The bar stretches all the way between two rooms.

So, I'm in. I put my stuff away, help others to lift the chairs from the tables and usually stay behind the bar for a while. "Read" the newspapers (that means pretend to read - see through the weather forecast and pictures), make myself some tea etc. The class starts and some students come in. Usually there are 15-30 students at the Perm, 40 on a bad day and 50 in my nightmares. Sometimes there are just a couple of them (we all wish it would always be that way). They come to the Perm because they don't have a class at the moment and they are not allowed to stay in the school yard, not mentioning leaving the place. Here they can do their homework, socialize and play different games. I have to stay around and keep an eye on them. If they want to take a game I make sure that they give their card and inscribe into a special notebook and that they put the game back properly afterwards. I have to make sure it's not too noisy and that noone leaves the Perm or does anything forbidden and when the class is over I must see to that they leave the place nice and tidy. At 10 AM, when the recess starts, two of the animators go out on the court and sell bread and croissants, the others sell chocolates and drinks inside. There are only certain hours when the students are allowed to buy something from the K'fet (for instance chocolate bars only at 10 AM and 4 PM).

So, every hour I stay in the K'fet/Perm (the older students don't need supervision because they don't have the strict rules) and watch the pupils talking, playing and so on. Mostly I ignore it if they make too much noise because I don't want to be the one screaming at them. But actually I am expected to socialize with the students and let them know I'm there "in order to gain respect from them" as Roland and other permanents put it. Blah. To make the time pass quicker I read my books or write, listen to music and learn my new French words. Or we play board games (like Uno; Jungle Speed; Rummy; Camelot etc) with the other animators or sometimes with the students. It helps to keep away the boredom for a while.

At noon there is a one-hour luncbreak. The students can either eat in the school diner, go out (home or wherever) or buy some junk food in the K'fet. The usual menu consists of sandwiches, hot dogs, pizzas, waffles and salad. At that time my job is to see that everyone cleans up after eating, some permanent animators help the "lunchlady" to prepare and sell the sandwiches. Sometimes I help someone to "do the gate", which means we stand at the door and check special exit cards (carte de sortie) of the students to make sure that only the ones who are authorized to get out will leave school.

At my one-hour break I usually crawl up to my room and try to relax from the neverending noise by listening to music or just sleeping.

If I work until 6 PM (Tuesdays and Thursdays) then I have to (or ask the students to) wipe the tables clean, lift the chairs again onto the tables, change the trash bins, turn off the music system. There are only a few people left by that time and it's quite quiet, but still nothing to do..

And that's how it goes day after day. Sometimes I accompany some boys when they want to play basketball or football to the sports court or some girls who are preparing their dance acts for PE class. That means I watch them play or dance. That's it. Just because they are not allowed to go anywhere on their own. Sometimes we also separate the students if there are too many at the Perm, by dividing them in two groups and taking the shoolwork-doing half upstairs to the 4th floor where they can work in peace (but also under a strict surveillance). And if someone is doing an atelier at a certain time of the week (for instance - Steffi is making little candle-lamps by painting glass jars) then they can ask if anyone is interested in that and then also go upstairs with them and do the atelier until the class ends. I don't feel I'm up for that at all because it seems so pointless and I couldn't interact with the students anyway nor answer their questions etc.

Every Sunday, one of the international volunteers must work in the K'fet for an hour, selling stuff to the poor students who have to drag themselves to school on weekend.

Wednesday is sort of a shorter day here, in order to make up going to school on Sundays. We only have to work at 10, selling sweets. But that doesn't mean it's a day off. Oh no! I still have to get up early because we have a team reunion from 8 to 10, where we just sit all together, the others drink lots of coffee and talk lots of pointless crap and everyone must say something about the passed week. It's basically all about discussing inexistent problems, like: "this boy is still behaving badly and has no respect [oh, they just love the "respect"-thing!] for the animators, what must we do?". That is also the time of asking questions and coming up with new ideas about the ateliers and so on. I did that a long time ago. Nothing changed... From 10 to 12 we either have a volunteers' reunion with our tutor Eric or we stay at the K'fet and do nothing, unless of course there's a credible reason why we can't stay. The only time of the week when I can actually sneak out of working.

Sounds like whole lot of fun, doesn't it!?! Maybe there's a volunteer among my dear readers who wants to come and take the thing over 'cause I'm starting to feel a bit sick and tired, fed up, unmotivated, unappreciated, degenerated, bored and all those other things I'm feeling...