Lundi 26.03.07 Gibberish Flemish Belgiums
Our plan to call the tax crowd in Belgium is in full swing this morning. Nic and I are up and out of the house at 5,40. We meet a grey-faced Fred at the phone cabin a few minutes later and we huddle into the Perspex exhibitionist cube, cross our legs and fingers and dial… Bring-bring. Bring-bring. Bring-bring. A lady answers the phone. Whether its early morning brain-freeze, tense thoughts of never eating another fresh Belgium waffle or just the unfamiliar accent I blurt out an ultra-casual ça va? before launching into my query. About five minutes later I pause to make sure I’m been listened too. I block out the defensive sounding gibberish from the other end and continue to outline our case. It’s not until the world private pricks my ears that I really listen. I listen but I don’t understand. Fred is on standby. His initial frowns soon disappear as he acts as an interpreter. We rang a private number. Some poor coote in Belgium has been listening to me rant on about une taxe régionale à charge des chefs de ménage et des personnes isolées. We try the other numbers but they’re still on message mode. Email has to be our only option.
I get a lift with Fred into town. He mustn’t be immune to the Belgium Bummer syndrome as he’s gone a bit more grey since the phone call; all that boring, bureaucratic dullness must have seeped from the phone and is now clouding his mind as well as his complexion. He drives the car like a bull while making minimal conversation. I take it he’s not a morning man. As we approach town I tell him about the time Olivier went down the one-way street and got pulled over by the police. Fred must be on the path to self-destruction as he takes the same wrong turn while I’m relating the story. Eventually we get to town and I’m unceremoniously dumped in town by the newest grump on the block. At least I’m at my bus-stop.
I’m propped against the railing reading McCarthy when a more colourful but equally sombre face cruises up alongside me. I find myself face to window with Lionel. It’s hard for a Tahitian to look ashen but I actually think he has a bit more colour in his cheeks since he gave up cigarettes two days ago! As part of his permanence duty he has to act as a scivvy for the big brutes as well as fulfilling his regular work requirements. He’s been up at dawn and will be done when the nightly news is over and he has gathered all the army related articles and news clips.
Madame Caruge is in a bit of a fluster today as Madame de l’Inspectrice is still on her rounds. My class is still on however and we get down to food and drink. I start off asking the kids how they are. They use the said question, use a variety of the responses and we end the class by singing the adapted Hello Song. Since Madame Caruge thinks it’s ingenious I’ll display it again:
Hello, hello, hello… How are you? Hello, hello, hello… How are you? I am fine. I am great. And you? And you? And you? And you? And you?
Since the last two weeks have been so higgledy-piggledy with inspections, excursions, sprains and soakages some of my work overlaps with the previous exercises. As appropriate I re-use the banana devouring monkey and the you little monkey phrase as I do the cheesy snap-happy mice before launching into the spectrum of food and drink and likes and dislikes. I have a multitude of flashcards and food images which I use to brain-storm with the students. Orange. Apple. Banana. Bread. Milk. Juice. Coca-Cola. Lemonade. Water. Tea. Chips. Crisps. Hamburger. Pizza. Spaghetti. Pasta. Eggs. Ice-cream. Chocolate. Sweets. Fish. Chicken…. With the tickets distributed I get each child to tell me whether they like or dislike the foodstuff on their ticket:
Emmanuel, do you like lemonade?
Yes. I like lemonade.
Laura, do you like eggs?
No. I don’t like eggs.
It’s a simple exercise but it’s slow enough to get them all to repeat phrases, watch the blackboard and correct one another. It has been a month since we did any writing so it’s out with the copybooks today. Yet again I explain the usefulness of the phrase I’m. I’m John. I’m 10. I’m from Martinique. I’m Martiniquen. I’m great. I’m happy. I’m not very well. I’m sad. I’m hungry. I’m thirsty.
For the written exercise I explain, and get them to copy the following:
I’m hungry.
I like _________.
I don’t like __________.
*
*
*
I’m thirsty.
I like ___________.
I don’t like ___________.
*
*
*
I purposely leave a gap so that they can pick and choose what they do and don’t like to eat and drink from the assortment of food and drink on the board. After each phrase is complete we do a class survey – rising of hands, to see who choose what. The asterixes are for phrases which will follow in the next class but firstly I have to illustrate a point: countable and uncountable quantities.
A banana. An apple.
A tomato.
Some tomatoes.
Some bread. Some sugar. Some water.
To illustrate the question of quantity I pick up three pens and count them:
1,2,3.
1 pen. 2 pens. 3 pens.
I then pick up my water bottle, dip my finger in three times and with a confused look repeat 1 water. 2 waters. 3 waters. Some of the children get it immediately. I explain that this rule applies to bread, sugar, meat…
I have just enough time before the end of class and the How are you song to hand out a sheet with pictures of different food and drink and the corresponding phrases: a tomato. some tomatoes. an egg. some eggs. some bread. some water. For the moment we colour code the phrases a/an/some before launching into song.
I don’t go into quantities with my younger classes but instead we pare down the word store and then concentrate on fruit: Banana. Orange. Apple. Melon. Pineapple. Pear. Grapes. I even throw in Tomato! The kids divide a page into four squares, write I like… and draw and write the fruit they like in the boxes. Madame Acina’s class are dotes while Madame Thaly’s class, although tamer than usual, are obviously training to be journalists as they as me a multitude of questions. One boy asks me for my number – they start young here. Another asks if I caught a Leprechaun. And another asks where my friend with the strange hair is. Who? Ah, yes… Alex the Pineapple Head. I tell them he’s on holidays.
I don’t have a private lesson with Line today so I head to the computer room to at least type up my letter to the tax authorities in Bruxelles. I can’t get the door to open and I go in search of Eduardo who is looking for a kiss off me for his help. I tell him we call that blackmail. He’s a blackmailer. But in fact he’s a black male. Ha-ha!
I’ve plenty of time to kill in town before Nic and I meet up to go over our respective emergency tax emails and so I head to the reading rooms beside the library where I get my dose of Newsweek and Cosmopolitan. Britney’s baldness and the tough job taken on by the newest head of the UN are two articles which require serious reading while the chic chick formula demands a flick. The meeting in CyberDélisse is a quick affair. We fire off our emails and go our separate ways as Nic goes back to school and I saunter home past posters advertising Cyril’s comeback at Stade Dillon and tonight’s fashion show in the fruit market.
Back at home I get lots of calls. A missed call from David who wants to know if our canyonning trip is still on – nope, I’m still a cripple; a strange call from a boy called Jordan who is NOT in Chateauboeuf and who doesn’t tell me why he called; Fred leaves a message to say that he has more champagne and will be round later; and Arlette calls me, or beckons me rather. I hobble upstairs to receive our clean linen supply for the next month. She tells me that she’s off tomorrow. To the doctor? No, France. I thought we’d have another few days of Hawk Eye but no she’s going to fly over with her son Roger. Later that evening Nicola and I make our way upstairs with the pot of shamrock which has started to sprout. Arlette is still in money mode and she reveals that if I want to stay on by myself I can and into the bargain I will only have to pay my rent. I suspect she heard me on the phone to Annie yesterday evening but I play along and tell her I’ll have to think about it. Furthermore she insists on giving us a tour of William’s old flat. We say our farewells and scurry downstairs to rant about our last, and lasting, impressions of this créole cat with hawk eyes…
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