23 juillet
Today was a super lax day. Marzia and I met at the manier to have our
weekly planning session with Veronique. We
set up appointments for the week and then went to a bakery to get lunch where I
had a tomato and mozzarella and pesto panini.
That afternoon, I called several people to check in on them and see how
they were doing. I talked to Madame
Daumas for a while who just loves to talk and talk and talk and talk and
talk. Then I talked to Madame Hernandez
who is always listening to classical music and reading good books to keep
herself company out in her isolated maison de retraite. She’s the one that has had alcohol problems
and so they have put her somewhere with no stores around. We talked about music and books that we both
liked. Veronique gave me instructions
for the next few weeks since she is leaving on vacation tomorrow. It’s crazy that I’m almost done here! I’ve got one more week with Marzia, then a
week and a half with a Polish girl, then a half a week in London for the
Olympics, then just one week after that and I’ll head to Paris and then fly
back home! Craaaazy!
After work, I went to Rue St Ferreol and wandered around
some shops. I walked through a kitchen
appliance store that had some unique stuff that I wanted to get for Alison but
it was all like at least 20 euros. I
also walked through some toy stores looking for stuff for the kids but there
wasn’t really anything uniquely French that the kids would like. I’ll have just to stick to my plan of getting
them lots of chocolate, which I’m sure will suit them just fine!
I went to Virgin, the big media store and bought some
French music. Several of the people I
visit have recommended this group called Les Pretres to me. It means the preachers and is a group of 3
catholic priests from Gap, France that sing together and give all of the money
made to charity. They have written
gospel lyrics to famous melodies (ex. Swan Lake theme) as well as a neat mix of
African, classical, and contemporary in all of their other songs. The CD is called Gloria, but I doubt it is on
iTunes so I will share it with yall when I get back. I especially think Robert will like it! I also bought a CD of the French group called
Coeur de Pirate. Also, I found a 3 CD
set for 7 euros of “Café songs of Paris” that has lots of old classic French
songs which was a treasure find. Quality
purchases! I may or may not have also
bought another pair of shoes on my walk home…but they were cheap and cute!
24 juillet
Today Marzia and I went to visit Madame Bardini..but she
wasn’t there. So we headed to visit
Monsieur Jullien who we talked to for about 15 minutes and the whole time he
was falling asleep in front of us then waking back up. So we let him go rest since he said he was
really tired and because it’s quite difficult to carry a conversation with
someone that is going in and out of consciousness. So it was a bit of a fail morning. Marzia and I went and got lunch and then took
advantage of our unproductive morning by taking a 1 hour siesta at my
apartment. Then we went to visit Madame
Baraboti. It was her birthday today and
so we brought her a celebrity gossip magazine that she had mentioned wanting to
read on an earlier visit. She told us
about her son that called her for her birthday and her daughter that was too
busy to call. We dialed the number for
Mme to call her sister in Italy who is sick with cancer right now. The phone call dampened Mme’s spirits so we
tried to cheer her up and get her mind off things. Next we helped her pack her suitcases for her
vacation that she is leaving on tomorrow.
She sat in her chair and told us what she needed and where to find
it. I remember when I felt really
awkward around old people and with knowing about their daily habits and
personal lives but that is all gone now.
I realized afterwards that maybe it should have bothered me to be going through
her underwear drawers and packing her sleeping diapers. But they’re humans too and we’ll all be like
that sometime. We are no better than
them!
Then I headed over to the hotel where Jared leaves to
meet up with them to then meet up with some JAs (YSAs) for an excursion to the
Calanques. There were 7 of us that went
together. We took the bus to the end of
the line which took us out of Marseille or at least to the very edge of the
city. It took us about an hour to hike
down to the Sormiou calanque where we were.
A calanque is basically just an inlet of water that forms a natural
bay/harbor/dock area in between huge cliffs/mountains. The view was spectacular and the water was
crystal blue with varying shades of blue as you looked into the calanque. I had been told that water was super cold but
nothing prepared me for the icy shock that I felt as I plunged into the
water. Oh man it still gives me the
shivers to think about it. I came up for
air and just kind of screamed at how cold it was! We swam over to a big rock area thing and my
toes felt numb as I clumsily climbed up onto the rock. After I had gotten up on the rock, I learned
the word for sea urchin as someone warned us about them being everywhere! We basked in the warm sun and got some blood
recirculating in our bodies. Then Jared
and I decided to jump off this kind of really high area of the rock into the
water. We counted 1-2-3 to jump in
together….and then Jared chickened out and I jumped in alone! He followed me soon thereafter but I made sure
to make him feel really bad for leaving me.
Then we had the bright idea to swim around the entire huge rock
thing. Man it was a lot bigger than it
looked when we were in the water. It was
slightly exhausting but was fun nonetheless especially with the incredible
view. I had worn glasses that day and so
was slightly blind in regards to far away objects and so had to have Jared
explain to me what the black blob in the distance was that ended up being a
flag on a buoy. I also found out that
Jared is deathly afraid of sharks and so I’m glad there are apparently none of
those in the Mediterranean…or so I’ve been told, and I’ve chosen to believe
it. We were quite exhausted and frozen
after swimming around the rock and so we got up on the rock to rest a bit
before swimming back to shore. But oh
man, our feet were frozen and our muscles were tired. Jared’s legs just started trembling and
wouldn’t stop because they were so exhausted and cold. We warmed a bit, but Jared just kept
trembling. We decided to get it over
with and plunged back into the cold water and made it to shore where my towel
felt like the warmest thing I had ever touched.
We saw some cute little crabs on the rocks! But luckily, no sea urchins. The hike back out was a bit painful since we
were climbing uphill this time. My legs
felt like they wanted to fall off…but we made it back all safe and sound and
caught the bus back into town.
25 juillet
I hope you are noticing my deteriorating English…I went
back and read some of my journaling from the beginning of the month and
marveled at my flawless sentence structure and large vocabulary. All my sentences are now formed in the order
of a French sentence and it takes effort to rewire them to correct English
sentence structure.
So Marzia, as an adopted Spaniard is quite lazy as it is
the culture over there. You think French
people are lazy…just talk to a Spaniard about their daily schedule. And it is kind of really rubbing off on
me. Marzia groans when there are stairs
rather than an escalator coming up out of the metro…and so do I now. Anytime we have to walk up a hill to an
apartment building, we have to take a rest in front of the apartment building
for 5-10 minutes to rest and for Marzia to smoke a cigarette before we go
in. During our lunch break…a little
siesta nap is quite necessary even if it is in the shade of a tree in a
park. And so today was a manifestation
of my increasing laziness in accordance with Marzia. We didn’t set our first appointment until
11:30…and we got there at noon. These
elderly people are usually just sitting in front of their tv all day so it
doesn’t matter much if we are late or early.
We stayed at this lady’s house from 12-1 and then went and bought some
food and lounged in a park for an hour.
Then we went to this gentleman’s house and talked to him for an
hour. Afterwards, we went to Mme Elena’s
apartment and she wasn’t there and so we got on the bus and were done with work
at 3:30! But we get to make our own
schedule every day so I guess we just like to concentrate all the visits
together.
Our first visit was with Madame Graziani. She was in better spirits today than we
usually find her. She even joked around
and teased us a bit which was happy. I
had brought more batteries for her handheld fan but she had lost the little cap
that goes on the end of the fan to hold the batteries so we searched for that
and weren’t able to find it…but she said she would keep looking for it. She watches tv a lot and so I found the
London Olympic opening ceremonies in her tv guide book and let her know what
channel it would be on and what time it would start. They start at 20:50 this Friday night
here! I have since been trying to figure
out where I could watch it…no success yet, but I’ll figure it out.
Our next visit was to Monsieur Giacopino who we had never
visited before. He is like 80% blind but
is healthy besides that. He is 90 years
old and has never been married, never had children. He apologized for how dirty his apartment was
because he couldn’t really see it well enough to clean it and he had house help
come and clean twice a week. He just
talked and talked and talked which is I guess what he needed. He showed us pictures of a little chateau
that he went and stayed at when he went on vacation with les petits
frères. He also talked about his
relationship a couple of years ago with an elderly person that was looked after
by the petits frères organization in Toulon or Toulouse…I don’t remember which
one. It was quite a dramatic story
filled with jealousy of her ex-husband and her not believing that he had never
been married before. I’m sure there were
happy moments of their relationship…but we mostly heard about the not pleasant
break up.
Sitting at the bus stop, Marzia and I were lamenting over
how we missed having Maxime with us. We
just have so many memories working with him and so it’s weird not having him
there! We called him and left an
annoying we miss you message on his phone.
He texted us back later that night and said « Marzia tes retard me
manque (un peu) Melissa cest ton nez (et tes valeurs aussi). J’espere que tout va bien et que vous apportez
toujours autant de bonheur aux gens. Bisou ! » Which roughly translated is: “Marzia,
I miss your tardiness (just a little bit).
Melissa I miss your nose (and your values too). I hope that all is going well and that you’re
bringing as much as always to people.”
Oh Maxime, always being so awkwardly frank!
Getting home was a bit of a process because the subway
line I was on got closed down for a while so I had to make a detour and take
the tram home instead. The tram went by
the Reformes metro stop and there were a bunch of ambulances, police cars, and
such. I asked the missionaries about it
when they happened to get on the tram a bit later and they said that someone
probably jumped into a metro track or fell in…apparently that happens every few
months since there are no glass doors in front of the tracks.
A funny thing about the Subway here is they only have one
cheese option…and in America there are several.
You’d think it’d be the opposite.
26 juillet
Today started out with a lunch for all of the summer
international volunteers. We first sat
in a circle and talked about issues or problems we had run into throughout our
visits and discussed possible solutions.
It was interesting to hear some of the other people’s stories. One volunteer companionship had gone to this
guys house where there were cockroaches allllll over the apartment and all over
the walls and furniture…the one girl could not handle it and got up and
left…scary. Jared said that he visited a
woman that hadn’t been out of her apartment for 4 years and so he took her out
in her wheelchair and they walked around her neighborhood and she was so
excited to see what had changed in those 4 years. Marzia and I brought up our issues of people
not wanting to see us when we get there or forgetting about the appointments
we’ve made and not being home.
Marzia and Alba, two volunteers our age from Spain cooked
lunch for all of us! I had never even
thought about what kind of food they made in Spain so it was fun to be exposed
to that. They had made a bruscetta
(obviously called something else) with tomatoes and ham. We also had fried eggplant slices which were
sooo good! I have never eaten so much
eggplant/squash/zucchini before this summer and I love it. Then they made this salsa-ish vegetable salad
thing they called pesto (but wasn’t Italian pesto) that had tomatoes, eggplant,
zucchini, garlic, and other vegetables.
Then we had tortillas which are NOT like tortillas in America. It was like a big quiche looking thing made
of fried potatoes and eggs…it was a big circle thing at the end and they just
cut it into pizza slices…super fascinating.
I will definitely be asking Marzia tomorrow exactly what they put in
everything.
Marzia and I didn’t have any visits to do during the
afternoon so I went and worked with Jared who was going to a thing called a
gouté which is just a gathering where there are treats and games and
coffee. The “activity” for the gouté was
making chocolate chip cookies since that is an “American” thing. We didn’t have any measuring cups and Jared
had a recipe in English so it was in cups and tablespoons rather than the
metric system. Thus the measuring of
ingredients consisted of lots of guesstimation.
After finishing the cookie dough, we tasted it and it was really
gross…it tasted like flour and was super dry. So we put in more water to try and thin it
out. That kind of helped, but not
really. Then I had the thought to make
sure Jared had put in the salt. And alas
no! We put the salt in and it was much
better, but still not the best batch of cookies ever made…but that’s what you
get with so much guesstimation I guess. We
cooked the cookies in this little oven and figured out that it should probably
be at 200 degrees Celcius…but we weren’t positive. After figuring out that you have to re-turn
on the oven after every time you open the door, the cookies finally cooked and
worked out fine but weren’t the best display of true chocolate chip
cookies. We had the cookies and these
other cakes as well as drinks and just all sat and chatted. This building we were in is owned by the
Petits Freres and provides apartments for people that have previously been
homeless and living on the street at a cheaper rent price. Later in the afternoon, Jared played Scrabble
with this lady that asks to play scrabble with him every week! It is challenging for him in French and there
are always words played that he doesn’t know.
I played a piano that was in the room.
It was a super bad sounding piano but oh well.
Tonight was FHE! The
other mission companionship taught about charity, service, and forgiving. Sister Rutman made Belgian waffles
tonight! She used a recipe that Jared
had gotten from his mission in Belgium.
She also used these large sugar crystals that are an essential
ingredient for true Belgian waffles and that can only be bought in
Belgium. They can just be eaten plain
they are so good. We played some group
games afterward. The first one was called Assassin and consisted of one person
standing in the middle of the circle trying to guess who IT was and IT was winking
at people to kill them. When you got
killed, you just laid down on the floor.
The person in the middle would try to guess who IT was before they got
around to killing everyone. The second
game we played is called “how’s yours?”
I’ve played this one at BYU but there was an added element of
complicatedness when playing it in French.
In the game, there is someone in the middle and they go around asking
everyone “what’s yours like” or how’s yours” and each person describes how
“theirs” is (a predetermined object) and the person in the middle is trying to
guess what the object is. But in French,
simply saying the phrase “It is” gives a clue to what the object is as you
would use different words depending on if the word is masculine, feminine,
singular, or plural. So we decided to
generically use the masculine form to describe things and use the masculine
form of adjectives just to keep things as vague as possible. It was funny sometimes though using a
masculine form an adjective to describe something that was a feminine object
just because it sounded so wrong. In
French, every noun is either masculine or feminine and doesn’t have anything to
do with its function, but is seemingly random.
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