Jeudi 26.04.07 Lets make a move
Whahoo! We’re moving to Trois-Ilets today. It all has to wait though as school has to be dealt with first. However, before all that I have to send birthday wishes across the pond as it’s my Mum’s birthday.
All happy thoughts go out the window once I reach school; a teacher was threatened by a student with a knife. The poor woman is understandably traumatised and she spends the whole morning in a huddle of hugs or a puddle of tears. There’s a sombre mood presiding today but I try to keep things as upbeat as possible. I’m wrapping up food this week and I get the children to test their minds with some memory recall games as I stick up images of food and drink and remove them a minute later to see who has retained what. Next I get everyone to pretend they’re in my restaurant as I ask them what they would like to eat and drink. I also teach them useful phrases such as:
Here you go.
Enjoy your meal.
Do you have any ketchup?
Would you like a straw?
Be careful. It’s very hot.
How much is it?
How many?
For the final part of the class I divvy out little scenarios among the groups. They have to act out the scenes and the others have to guess where they are. I encourage them to use as much English dialogue as possible but of course they lapse into charades as they act out mealtimes in the school canteen, at Granny’s house, at a takeaway and a shopping spree at the market.
With the younger kids we play speedy games with fruit and vegetables where I make them match up the tickets with the magnetic bits and bobs. Then I hide vegetable images around the classroom and make them point and say:
There it is!
And then when they hand the image to me or find it close to them they say:
Here it is!
We then get out our copy books and do a similar exercise with the vegetables as we did with the fruit:
I like carrots but I prefer cabbage.
I don’t like mushrooms.
I wind-up the class with a few rounds of Simon says and The Goodbye Song before hopping on the bus into town where I’m to meet Lionel for the big move. The traffic is cat. There’s a money exchange going on downtown and it’s bumper-to-bumper all the way. I finally end up walking most of the way into town; I meet Jean-Marc and Marie-Louise’s cleaner on my travels. Nicola rings asking if I’ve been collected yet and as I haven’t she joins me at my lookout point opposite the Mayflower as we bat off pervy guys together while we wait for Lionel.
There’s no time to head back to Cluny and as it happens it takes most of our time to get from Fort-de-France to Trois-Ilets. We’ve to meet our new landlady after lunch so we have crêpes and chips at Point du Bout before heading to our new residence to sign our life away.
Natalie is very business-like though the cursed phone is always on the hop and it takes almost two hours of paperwork, signatures, money transactions and cutlery counting and crevasse checking before we’re ready to take the keys and call it our home. It’s then back to Cluny to pack up the car and return back to Anse Mitan.
Marie-Louise had made lunch for us but unfortunately we don’t have much time to linger. Lionel gets a mock tour of the house; the champagne flute collection, the fluffy pampered cat, the spotless kitchen, the trolley… These people are off their trolley. Jean-Paul and his cousin, Sylva, are calling over to transport the other boxes and bags on their way back from Saint-Pierre. I never get to see them as Lionel and I take to the road before they arrive. We do however see Marie-Louise. She detains us a while longer by talking about the world renowned tea-brewing process. I try to tell her as politely as possible that we’d better hit the road before the traffic mounts.
Whahoo! We’re moving to Trois-Ilets today. It all has to wait though as school has to be dealt with first. However, before all that I have to send birthday wishes across the pond as it’s my Mum’s birthday.
All happy thoughts go out the window once I reach school; a teacher was threatened by a student with a knife. The poor woman is understandably traumatised and she spends the whole morning in a huddle of hugs or a puddle of tears. There’s a sombre mood presiding today but I try to keep things as upbeat as possible. I’m wrapping up food this week and I get the children to test their minds with some memory recall games as I stick up images of food and drink and remove them a minute later to see who has retained what. Next I get everyone to pretend they’re in my restaurant as I ask them what they would like to eat and drink. I also teach them useful phrases such as:
Here you go.
Enjoy your meal.
Do you have any ketchup?
Would you like a straw?
Be careful. It’s very hot.
How much is it?
How many?
For the final part of the class I divvy out little scenarios among the groups. They have to act out the scenes and the others have to guess where they are. I encourage them to use as much English dialogue as possible but of course they lapse into charades as they act out mealtimes in the school canteen, at Granny’s house, at a takeaway and a shopping spree at the market.
With the younger kids we play speedy games with fruit and vegetables where I make them match up the tickets with the magnetic bits and bobs. Then I hide vegetable images around the classroom and make them point and say:
There it is!
And then when they hand the image to me or find it close to them they say:
Here it is!
We then get out our copy books and do a similar exercise with the vegetables as we did with the fruit:
I like carrots but I prefer cabbage.
I don’t like mushrooms.
I wind-up the class with a few rounds of Simon says and The Goodbye Song before hopping on the bus into town where I’m to meet Lionel for the big move. The traffic is cat. There’s a money exchange going on downtown and it’s bumper-to-bumper all the way. I finally end up walking most of the way into town; I meet Jean-Marc and Marie-Louise’s cleaner on my travels. Nicola rings asking if I’ve been collected yet and as I haven’t she joins me at my lookout point opposite the Mayflower as we bat off pervy guys together while we wait for Lionel.
There’s no time to head back to Cluny and as it happens it takes most of our time to get from Fort-de-France to Trois-Ilets. We’ve to meet our new landlady after lunch so we have crêpes and chips at Point du Bout before heading to our new residence to sign our life away.
Natalie is very business-like though the cursed phone is always on the hop and it takes almost two hours of paperwork, signatures, money transactions and cutlery counting and crevasse checking before we’re ready to take the keys and call it our home. It’s then back to Cluny to pack up the car and return back to Anse Mitan.
Marie-Louise had made lunch for us but unfortunately we don’t have much time to linger. Lionel gets a mock tour of the house; the champagne flute collection, the fluffy pampered cat, the spotless kitchen, the trolley… These people are off their trolley. Jean-Paul and his cousin, Sylva, are calling over to transport the other boxes and bags on their way back from Saint-Pierre. I never get to see them as Lionel and I take to the road before they arrive. We do however see Marie-Louise. She detains us a while longer by talking about the world renowned tea-brewing process. I try to tell her as politely as possible that we’d better hit the road before the traffic mounts.
Bienvenu chez-nous! I’m so proud of our new gaff. I don’t unpack anything – it’s time to celebrate. Alex and Cecile are at the beach at Anse Mitan so we join them before heading to La Pause for drinks and Corsaire for food. Thumbs up all round!
I arrive home to find that Nic has settled in already. She’s not in though. We haven’t yet encountered our noisy neighbours but Nicola is the first to cause a racket. I suppose I’m to blame. I locked the door before I went to bed and I must have accidentally took the snib off the door because even with her keys Nic can’t get in. Oopsie!
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