So there we were, 9 pm, in the middle of a Christmas fair, in a pedestrian area with all these kids (who were asking in increasingly whining tones about sweets, now that they could see the two big girls with their nutella churros) and this dog (who is not allowed on buses or trams, even in France) and an injured Sean. I have to say that I really didn't know what to do--call an ambulance? try to walk him home? try to get him to the tram so he could take the tram home, or to the emergency room? Every time he would stand up all the blood would drain from his face and he would look like he was going to faint again.
Well, I don't know why I was worried about what to do, because of course, he was going to decide. He dragged himself to the tram stop (refusing my help, after Mimi started howling like a stuck pig when I told her she would have to hold Magdalene's hand rather than mine) while I dragged five sugar-high children home through the darkened streets of Nantes. Sean spent a sleepless night in pain, and then I called a woman I know who's a doctor (really, I wasn't asking for help, I just wanted to know where to go) and her husband, who's a surgeon took Sean to the emergency room and navigated him through the system of he University Hospital (where he works). Sean was diagnosed with a sprain, and spent 3 days in bed recovering. Now he hobbles about with a brace on his foot. Unfortunately, he's figured out how to get his brace into his hiking boot, so he has been going back to work. And then, tonight is the Institute's Christmas party, complete with a christmas tree, presents for the children and a little exchange of presents among the fellows. Oh, I so wish we might have been forced to miss that. Funny too, that in an institute devoted to the study of cultural relations between North and South, there should be such an ostentatiously Christian party. But I guess this is France, where it is impossible to find even the slightest little Hanukah candle or dreidle or anything of the sort (we had to use birthday candles stuck in a plate, it was highly dangerous and fun), and where every school has a christmas tree, a christmas lunch and many highly christmassy activities for the children.
That was the main event of the last week. Otherwise, I've been going on school outings with the children (so far, I've accompanied Miriam's class (2 1/2-3 years old) to the movies, and Matthias's to the art museum. I'm going to the pool for a pre-sailing swimming test with Simeon's class in January). Boy, I guess I was mistaken early on when I kept going on and on about how well-behaved French children are. As it turns out, some are quite well-behaved, and some are horribly rude and unmanageable, just like american children. And then, I always think that I'm a crabby and bad teacher, but the lady that led the class around the museum was a lot worse than me. She was annoyed with the children before we even went into the rooms with paintings. Then, the first painting she shows them is a still life (funny, because in French it's called a 'nature morte' and her whole speech was about how everything was dead in it, it hadn't struck me until now that the english name is so much better), which of course, though it's one of my favorite forms of representational painting, is boring for children. And then, anything they had to say about the painting that wasn't a direct answer to her question or the exact answer she was looking for, she positively sneered at. We must have spent 10 minutes trying to guess what fruit the monkey was eating, which, of course, is completely stupid, since there is no correct answer. If the fruit is ambiguous, then the monkey is eating an 'apple-pear-peach-like fruit' and there is no correct answer to the question which one he is eating. I should have asked that stupid woman what color underwear Picasso was wearing in his self-portrait, maybe we could have tried to guess the answer to that unanswerable question too. Meanwhile, as the well-behaved children were trying to decide what fruit it was, and what insects were on it, there were two or three boys just climbing the walls, and answering me rudely when I tried to calm them down. It was complicated since one of the perpetrators' mother was with us and did nothing, and tough young guards from the museum kept having to reprimand all of us for being so loud and unruly.
Mimi's class, on the other hand, though they were a bit noisy and difficult to hold on to on the tram and bus (we were told NOT to let go of their hands, but it's hard to hold three hands with your two, especially when one of them really wants to get free), were completely spell-bound during the movie (a set of very beautiful, but not very action-packed animated movies from china). It was lovely to see them gasp because the little hedgehog's mother had disappeared into the watermelon she was trying to carry, or laugh when the little panda found the right size red boots for the little dancing squirrel.
Another foray into the depth of French culture: the kids and I went to get our vaccines for the H1N1 flu. I don't know how they are handling this minor epidemic in the States, but here, where everything is centralized and overly managed, the feeling has been almost plague-like. They've opened three 'vaccination-centers' in Nantes (many thousands across France), and every citizen received a voucher for getting vaccinated (in order of priority). I was surprised at how easy it was for us to receive them: all it took was one phone call and not even an hour of explaining that we were living here but with a US insurance etc. Anyway, during the first weeks of the campaign, people had to wait 3-4 hours in the centers. When we went, there were only two people ahead of us. So we had only a very short wait, and even then, no time to get bored since we got requisitioned to translate their paper-work into English. The great advantage of this is that I actually read the paperwork, for once, and finally understood what the big deal has been about this vaccine. If any of you understand already, you can skip this next bit.
Despite the feeling of out-of-the-ordinary emergency about this flu, lots of people have chosen not to get vaccinated because of the 'adjuvants' (not a word I knew before, but I guess it means additives) they have put into this vaccine to boost people's immune reaction to it. I guess the controversy is justified by the fact that the adjuvants are only necessary because of the small quantity of viral particles that they've included in the vaccine for economic reasons. I guess viral particles are more expensive than shark oil (one of the main additives)--clearly a case of a messed up market. Anyway, the adjuvants in this vaccine are not fully tested, and whatever else they do, they do cause a nasty reaction in the poor vaccinated (Magdalene and I really felt it for a few days, the others got the no adjuvant version, lucky them, but they do have to get a second dose in a few weeks).
We got the feeling, coming out of our vaccination center, that this was really a drill. This is a fairly benign flu, for the most part, though when it gets into the lungs it can be dangerous. But the time felt right to test the earth's governments' response to a pandemic, and so they put their protocols in place and are studying them closely, to see what can be improved and how, what they did right, etc. Interesting to be part of that in a country that's not yours. For some reason, feeling like this government was still going to vaccinate us (for free) though we weren't part of the social structure, made me feel more of a stranger here than I've felt even until now.
Sorry about the lack of pictures, I'll try to sneak one of Sean's brace in here for next time.
Interesting! We just got our shots here in the U.S. precisely because the UK is also using an experimental adjuvant... we aren't here long enough for the kids to get their second dose here, so I'll have to decide if they'll get a UK dose. In the UK it is relatively orderly. One was supposed to be contacted by the GP practice if one was in the first groups to be vaccinated. But they were giving out Tamiflu like candy! odd. In the U.S. the policies for giving it out have varied from state to state etc. In many areas there have been clinics held at schools where you'd also get a bracelet that shows you're eligible and then people were queuing for hours. Private doctors' offices have been later to get them. So there is some functioning public health system in the U.S. Surprising.
RépondreSupprimerWouldn't the kids second shot in the UK be without adjuvant? Here it's only the adults who get the shark oil, not the kids. On the other hand, on the matter of second shots, I have my doubts, because Simeon and Matthias weigh the same, and they got the same volume of the same vaccine into their blood-stream, but because of the age difference, Matthias has to have a second shot and not Simeon. That seems sloppy to me, the result of over-centralization and lack of attention to individual details. I guess your kids are both much younger, and so not in the hazy zone where it's not clear whether they really need a second dose or not. Maybe they got a much weaker dose, like Miriam.
RépondreSupprimerStill, the US seems to me to be much more careful about the doling out of medicines than France, at least. I don't think they'd have a policy for what amount of vaccine to inject based solely on age, they'd have to take weight into consideration, everything would have to be more individualized. But then again, maybe that's because there's more weight variation among american kids, all the french kids are such skinny little things.