Children are the same everywhere - they capture and melt your heart

 We've just had the most wonderful evening our village near Angouleme. My mouth hurts from smiling and my stomach hurts from laughing. 


Tonight our village had a celebration that brought together people from our town and a few surrounding areas. This was a big event for the village, seeing that gatherings like this only happen once a year.  We had driven by the tent in the parking lot where this celebration was to take place & wondered what exactly a French celebration of this sort looked like. 


After celebrating with Sue and Keving (some of Roger and Sandy's hilarious friends), we stopped at home for a while to get liven ourselves up to going. I was actually feeling really sluggish before going, and my attitude was juxtaposed by Rach's absolute hyper-activity and giddiness. But Roger, Sandy, Stephan (their adopted son) and his girlfriend Anna, Rach and I walked up the hill to the party. Upon arrival, we felt like everyone was looking at us. The mayor of the village had gotten wind that two Americans were here, so we received an informal yet personal invitation from him...so it seemed that everyone else knew we were out-of-towners. 


We met a few people, were offered some rum punch (which I had never had before, and after two sips decided to never have again), and sat down at a table. Rach and I got to talk with Anna and get to know her a bit; she was so kind in teaching us whatever phrase or word we wanted to know in French. [side note, kids here start learning another language at 8, and yet another at 10...I think we should follow that! But it needs to be so much more real that paper and pencil and pseudo conversations in the classroom...this could turn in to a bunny trail, so I'll stop here.]  


As we began to people watch, one of my first thoughts was "There's actuallly children here!"  It sounds silly, but we've really only seen like 2 or 3 school-aged kids since being here in the country. I've asked several people where they're all hiding, and the answer has been that they're either on vacation or their playing inside the houses...hardly ever outside. This made me so sad! It didn't feel complete without kids.  But tonight, I got a glimpse of a child's life here. 


Guess what they were playing? Hide-and-go-seek, or cache-cache. The little boys and girls were smiling, laughing, running, and playing just like anywhere else. I loved the normalcy of it. I guess when you're in a situation that's somewhat uncomfortable as you can hardly speak with anyone, it just brought a sense of normalcy to the event for me. 


So after our first course - "munchies" and punch - we had our second course - baguette with chicken pate (there may have been rabbit meat in there!) - and then the dancing began.  As obvious Americans, we didn't want to embarrass ourselves or Sandy and Roger, so we hesitated going on the dance floor. Then Sandy took the courageous leap and dragged us up there; so glad that she did! We enjoyed dancing to the polka and 80s music.  (hahah...at one point, there were like 3 ladies fighting over who got to dance with Roger)  


We sat down again for a while, trying to decide how to politely get rid of all the extra bread we had accumulated (by the end of it, there were 3 baguette sandwiches for everyone and we couldn't possibly eat all that bread).  I marched out in to the street to get a picture of the moon, and when I returned, Rachel had bravely joined the little girls on the dance floor. Apparently she thought this was be something she'd regret not doing in 60 years:)  Then Sandy pointed out there were two other little girls (maybe 4 yrs old, holding their dollies) that were just standing up there. So I walked up and did the best I could to look friendly and ask them to dance. One girl ran away, but the other grabbed my hand...instantly, the other girl returned, held out her doll for me to hold, and then grabbed her friends hand. We joined Rach's circle and danced to a square dance song!! 


At first, they didn't really understand the concept of moving inwards and joining hands in the center, or kicking the feet out. So we stepped them through these parts and they caught on really quickly! One girl in particular couldn't stop smiling every time we'd join hands in the middle. They were so. darn. cute! I can't even express how it filled me soul. 


I guess I remember one time when we were dancing at an Oktoberfest (in Vail, maybe?) when I was really young, and an older man picked me up and started dancing with me...it made my day! What a great memory for me, and I hope it was for these girls as well. 


It was SO sad when we couldn't really talk with them, though...one girl said something that we didn't understand when she came on the dance floor, so all we could say was "Désolé. Je suis l'américain. Je ne parle pas français."  


After the dance finished, we sat back down. But that was just the beginning of it!  Two girls started peeking around corners and running away as we looked their way or waved. It was so cute. After getting the right wording on how to ask their name, we caught up with them and found out one was Cassandra; the other one was harder to understand, but it was something like Marchite. We walked away again, but they caught our eye and wanted to dance so more. So we did!


With the help of a translator, we were able to get some pictures with them, too. Then a little brother came over and hopped on my lap to partake in the happenings, too.  It was so precious. They made us feel like a part of the community, and for that I was grateful:) 


Sigh, wonderful night. France is stealing pieces of our hearts. I can't believe we have to leave Sandy and Roger on Sunday :(