communication problems

The language barrier I must admit is presenting something of a difficulty. I spend most of the time nodding along to what is being said to me and at the dinner table the family speak so fast I have no real chance of understanding. Therefore I just keep randomly smiling – they are definitely on to me though as I am pretty sure the answer to every question they ask is not yes. I just catch the odd word or so and can occasionally get the gist of the conversation but my faking understanding is definitely something to be desired. It is also extremely difficult to discipline a child in a language you do not speak very well which when it comes to the four year old is a particular challenge. The older children usually end up telling him off for me, which in essence completely undermines my authority in his eyes. He therefore takes great pleasure in knowing I have little control over him and seems to only be capable of being incredibly cute or incredibly evil. A new trick he learnt today was cycling in front of me in an effort to throw me off my bike. Another highlight of my week with him was after an argument where I tried to dress him (arguments consist of two words ‘oui’ and ‘non’) him running away from me. I searched the whole house for him and then realized the back door was open. Presuming he had run into the garden which leads into acres and acres of fields I feared for the worse. I ran (bare foot may I add for haste) round the garden getting more frantic by the moment, until finally returning back to the house where he suddenly jumped out from under a table shouting ‘a joke, a joke’. Believe me it was the least amusing moment of my life so far.

Moving away from that tragic episode, the language barrier is also a problem when I am told things are going to happen, pretend to understand, and therefore get a big shock when I am presented with a new scenario. Such as sitting in a car and suddenly ending up at the beach having no clue where I was told we were heading. Another day a random woman turned up at the house and I was motioned to go with her in her car. It soon transpired that I had apparently agreed (where the nodding my head along can go wrong) to go to a local town for the afternoon with the Mum’s sister. Thankfully she spoke a little English so that afternoon presented somewhat of a break but being ushered into a car with a random women was briefly upsetting. It turned into a nice afternoon as we had coffee in a nice hotel, which no less that Bono himself had stayed in the night before. Brushing shoulders with the rich and famous here in Provence.

Activity wise I am quite enjoying looking after three children who enjoy doing loads of stuff (slash I love doing loads of stuff so force them to do loads of stuff too – no Sims and watching TV when I’m their au pair). We have done quite a lot of arts and crafts stuff after a trip to craft making heaven. However I have forgotten how to do some of it which has resulted in a few papier mache disasters mainly resulting in papier mache becoming a crumpled heap on the ground. The language barrier also means that it is extremely hard to explain to the children that I know a better way of doing something and usually consist of an argument with both of us grabbing an item screaming ‘stop’. In the end I usually just explain how something should be done in English knowing at least I know I tried. I was allowed to successfully salvage one papier mache disaster and construct it into a pretty epic piñata which the four year old took great joy in hitting repeatedly, nearly missing me on numerous occasions of course. The children also took to painting another day – I have included pictures here as in my opinion they are essential to seeing the childrens’ unquestionable talent.

What the four year old drew

What the eleven year old drew

When papier mache goes wrong...

I took the children climbing another day. I therefore found myself having to not only teach three children to climb with robes but in a language I could barely speak. Without a doubt the most useful phrase I know is ‘comme ca’ meaning ‘like that’. I was extremely impressed with the fact I managed to get all three children up the wall and on top of that was able to teach the eleven year old to belay and learn some basic knots. The nine year did develop a very annoying habit of running around the climbing centre shouting ‘Olivia regarde’ (she does there everywhere to be honest and if she is this attention seeking now I worry for her future). I do count the visit a success though because I have managed to get the children hooked on climbing and luckily there are numerous centres in the region.

So my first week with four children has definitely been interesting, stressful, and amusing…