17 july-19 july

Sooooo the bad news is that I haven't been very good at journaling this week...so I am quite behind.  BUT the good news is I was better at taking pictures!!

17 juillet

This morning we visited Madame Elena who is just increasingly deaf every time we visit her.  But she is always happy to see us and loves talking to us when she understands what we say.  We also visited Madame Graziani where we talked about Thanksgiving in America and Christmas traditions in France among other things.

We also did a visit at the CGD and visited M. Berney who like always, talked to us about WWII.  He got out an old suitcase and showed us pictures of him in the French army and his ID cards from that time.  He asked me a lot about what I thought of the political situation and the upcoming elections in the states.  I’ve been away from the states for so long that I have to search in my brain and switch around my mind to that part of my life and what it’s like there.   

Oh la la, what do you do when a French boy is in love with you?  Maxime has fallen for me and I do not reciprocate.  He has a girlfriend but notified us that he is not in love with her and isn’t going to be with her for very much longer.  He told Marzia though, who told me, that he wasn’t going to talk to me about how liked me because it was too complicated since we wouldn’t see each other ever again after this week.  Talk about complicated!  Unfortunately, he’s a super good looking, super nice guy.  But no worries, nothing will happen as it is extremely impractical and I do not speak good enough French to have a relationship with a French boy!  But at least he will probably keep coming to church stuff with me when I invite him! Ha. J  This week Maxime has asked me if Mormons are allowed to wear perfume, go swimming, and dye their hair.

After work, I walked around downtown a bit and bought some more postcards to send to people.  Then Stephanie and I did laundry, so exciting!  Our accomplishment for the evening was that we memorized La Marseillaise which is the French national hymn/anthem.  It was written during the 1789 French revolution and is quite a violent song that makes use of an excellent verb: egorger, which means to slit someone’s throat.  Unfortunately the sheet music that I purchased of the song is in quite a high range…and so with our windows open, and both of us loudly singing these really high notes…I’m glad that no neighbors got mad at us. 

18 juillet

This morning started with a visit to Madame Bardini who we had not visited before.  She gave us glasses of water…I took one sip and felt sick to my stomach as it tasted like it smelled…like the sewer.   Plus the cup was dirty.  Luckily she didn’t notice that I didn’t drink anymore.  Oh man all Madame Bardini talked about was amour! (love)  She had each of us discuss our current relationship status, why it was that way, how we had come to that point, if we were satisified with it or not, and what our relationship status outlook for the future was.  When it came my turn, she was shocked as most people here surprisingly are that I am single.  She made sure that I did like boys and asked why I wasn’t dating anyone.  I told her that I hadn’t found someone I liked enough yet and that it was hard for me to put complete confidence and trust in someone for a relationship.  She agreed with me and told me I should find a boy in France.  Maxime jokingly asked me if I would ever date him…I laughed it off and rolled my eyes pretending it was a joke…even though it might not have been in his head.  Madame Bardini told us her whole love life story.  She married a 35 year old when she was 19 and they were together his whole life, but she is now widowed. 

We ate lunch at this Italian restaurant that we had seen in a centre commercial last week.  Marzia was in heaven with the little breadsticks they gave us and all of the Italian words in the menu.  She ordered a Pizza margherita and I ordered a Pizza with jambon and champignons on it.  Afterwards, Marzia and I made good use of our lunch checks and ordered Profiteroles which I looooove.  It’s a like a ginormous cream puff with ice cream in the middle.  There were three of them with hot fudge and whipped topping on top and on the side.  Dellliiiish.  I recounted La Marseillaise to Maxime and was proud of myself that I knew it better than him. 

We went to visit Mme Chassefiare but when we called her to know which building of the complex she was in, she said that because we were a bit late, she did not want to see us.  Sometimes old people are grumpy.  We went to CGD to visit two ladies.  The CGD is the least depressing of the nursing homes I have been to.  I think the cutest thing about nursing homes in my opinion is when there old people couples that sit and talk together.  Apparently it is a common thing for people in these homes to have a girlfriend or boyfriend in the same complex or in a different complex.  Every once in a while, there are marriages that come out of these relationships. 

We first visited Bernadette Medina.  The first time I met Bernadette, I was a little bit scared because of her experience, but I was prepared for it this time, and I was totally at ease with her.  Marzia, on the other hand, was meeting her for the first time and was a bit scared and wouldn’t talk to her the whole time.  Bernadette has one tooth I think and is a very hunched over, wrinkled person.  Marzia told me that she thinks she looks exactly Gollom, which is extremely mean, but unfortunately slightly true.  Bernadette has lived in the CGD nursing home complex since the 1970s!  She carries around a lighter and asks everyone she sees for cigarettes, but I’m assuming she is not allowed to have them or has already used up her quota for the week.  She is not all there in her mind and it is very hard to understand her.  I took my piano books and we led her up to the music room and I played some Debussy songs for her.  I think she fell asleep during them but her head would always pop back up at the end and she would clap for the song and always be willing to hear another one.  I played La Marseillaise for her and she sang along for the first part of the song.  Maxime had told me that morning that if I played piano for him, he would probably fall in love with me…awkward.  I made sure to not look at him at all while I was playing piano.  We tried to walk her back to her room, but she led us to other places in search for someone with cigarettes.  She hardly we noticed we said goodbye. 

Next we visited Madame Gallet who is 100 years old! (centenaire)  She is very healthy for being 100 and is mentally still all there.  She talked to us about her kids and about things she has done with les Petits Freres.  She was very happy that we had come to visit her. 

Tonight Stephanie and I met up with Jared and we went to prendre une verre and had Orangina at a café and talked about work and school and such.  Then we took the ferry from Vieux Port to Pointe Rouge which was just as beautiful as the first time we had done it.  We had a gorgeous view with the sunset.  Then we went to the gelato place that Stephanie and I had found last week.  This time I got strawberry and nutella! 

19 juillet

Today I went with a year round benevole named Lucien (retired naval officer) and we went ensemble to do a first screening visit for a man that called with interest in participating with the petits frères.  This man was named Monsieur Jullien and he is very physically healthy but speaks very slowly and stumbles a bit when he talks because of a stroke he had.  But he forms beautiful sentences with impeccable grammar and sentence structure.  Come to find out, he is very well educated and received the highest degree possible in the natural sciences (biology, physical science, botany, etc.).  His wife lives in a health facility and he is very alone in his apartment.  He visits his wife once a week, but other than that, he goes days without speaking to one person.  He told us frankly that he has little morale and motivation and is very depressed.  We are going to help him and I will be visiting him once a week for the rest of the summer and he is going to the festival days at the manier for the meal and entertainment.  What a sweetheart, I’m so glad we can help him. 

This afternoon, Maxime and I took Monsieur Daoudi on a sortie (outing) to the seaside at Pointe Rouge.  We had some trouble in getting his wheelchair to fit in the car, but we figured out…I was just quite squished in the back seat with it.  Monsieur Daoudi is such a sweetheart.  He is physically handicapped but is still extremely smart and speaks great English as a result from studying at Cambridge and living in England for 20 years.  He was excited to hear that I was going to visit Cambridge in a few weeks and that I’d be in London for the Olympics.  Man you never realize how horrible sidewalks are until you are trying to maneuver a wheelchair.  We found a café and I ordered delicious ice cream while M. Daoudi ordered a Pina Colada..I politely declined his offer to share.  Marseille has been super weird with this really low fog everywhere that is quite creepy.  On the way home, M. Daoudi was sure that he knew the way to go, and so he would be giving Maxime different directions than what the GPS told us to do…one time Maxime listened to what M. Daoudi told him to do in order to be polite and just because he was so confident in himself…ya that led us on a 20 minute detour down the highway then back up it to return to where we had originally been.  M. Daoudi had us stop at a tabac on the way back so that he could submit his lottery guesses and buy more cigarettes.  He smokes heavy duty exotic cigarettes with a very high class smell.

Maxime is super good at building my confidence, because everything I say to him, he laughs at and any French mistake I make, he finds cute…which is a bit annoying, but whatever I’ll take it.  He came with me to FHE…and I’m not really sure how much of it had to do with him being interested in the church…probably about 1%.  I taught him how to fold his arms and bow his head for the prayer…and then head to unfold his arms after the prayer because he kept them folded, unsure if the prayer was over.  Elder Rutman taught the lesson about having goals and making changes in our lives.  Soeur Rutman made us delicious scones!  She had nutella, jam, cinnamon sugar, and other yummies to put on them.  I may or may not have eaten like 4.  I just love hanging out with Elder and Soeur Rutman…they make things feel like I’m at my house with my family.  Maxime enjoyed meeting and talking to some real French mormons.  We played some group games…one of which was this lighthouse/boat/staring game which was confusing at first, but turned out to be fun.  Maxime and I always have fun joking around and talking, I’ll miss him!  Later, while Stephanie was using the internet, Jared taught me how to play rummy and he schooled me but is known to cheat quite often.