Sunset in Chasse from my kitchen windowSlowly but surely, I'm finding my way back into the loop (aka what's going on in the world) now that I have a television. Although I can't understand everything as perfectly as I would in my native English, I'm working on getting the gist for now.
At the moment, the gist has been strikes. Maybe I'm not used to the frequentness of strikes and demonstrations in France, but they seem to be everywhere right now. There was a strike at SNCF, France's train system, then another at Air France (giving starting and ending dates: how thoughtful), and to my genuine surprise, an upcoming strike at my school next Thursday.
I was making small talk with one of my colleagues at the copier, saying that it barely feels as though I've been working, what with all of the holidays we've been having. And she responded by summing up all our glorious days off, "first Toussaint, this week we had Armistice Day and next week, the strike." At first, I thought I hadn't understood, but when the colleague noticed my confusion and said, "ah you didn't know," with a giggle, I thought she was joking. This was getting to be too much. I haven't worked a full week (full week being 2 days of 12 teaching hours) since the middle of October. (Not that I'm complaining).
I also thought I heard her say that just a few people wanted to participate in the strike, but the whole school was going to go anyway. However, she advised me to sleep in, because the school would be closed. When I apparently made too big of a deal about it, she waved my shock away by saying that strikes are normal in France, in fact common.
The schoolyard (sans enfants) as seen from my kitchen window
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