on your journey, i will bless you...

My sore throat is better now, but I still have a nagging cough. Around four in the morning on Friday, I woke up coughing so hard that it took me an hour to get back to sleep. Heather and I went into town together Friday afternoon, and when I told her that I needed to buy some cough syrup, she said, "Yeah, I know, I heard you last night" (she has the room right next to mine), so apparently it is even worse than I thought. French cough syrup does not taste at all like it does in America, although it is a lot better than Jamaican cough syrup. Nakeisha gave me a dose after I almost couged up a lung in her room, and it tasted exactly like a mix of salad dressing and gasoline.

On Friday evening, the school held a small party for all the foreign assistants and foreign exchange students. I lost track of how many different countries we came from between all of us. There was a boy from Scotland who played on his bagpipes for us, and there was also an assistant from an Eastern European country (I forget which one exactly, possibly Poland) who was very excited to meet Nakeisha because, she said, "I never heard a Jamaican accent in the real life." Sara taught us all a few Chinese words, and Marlena taught us some in German. Nakeisha tried to say "I love you" in German, and you can imagine what German sounds like in a Jamaican accent – or maybe you can't, but suffice to say that Marlena laughed so hard she cried. It was a lot of fun.

Today Marlena told me that she was taking a trip into a nearby town with the German teachers here at school, and she invited me to come along. We went first to Pierrefond, a nearby town with an incredible ancient castle built on a hill. It dates back to the early 1300s and was supposedly the model for the castle in Disney World. We didn't go inside it, but we walked all around it, and it was breathtaking. I would really like to go back again. Then we piled in the car again and drove to Compeigne, another nearby town, where we walked through an enormous park designed by Napoleon III full of statues and gorgeous flowers. It was a pretty amazing way to spend my birthday, and even better, the weather here was beautiful – very sunny and warm, with literally not a cloud in the sky!

After the park, Marlena and the teachers wanted to go shopping, so we headed to the botique area of town. Unfortunately Rebecca is the kind of girl who buys her clothes at Wal-Mart or Goodwill, and so she felt very out-of-place and bored in swanky expensive shops devoted entirely to perfume or shoes or lingerie. The women I was with never seemed to run out of money, because they kept going into one store after another after another, while I recited the entirety of The Wizard of Oz inside my head to amuse myself. (As I said, I was bored out of my skull.) I had just gotten to, "She's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead," when thank God, they finished. I realized on the way back that I can count on one hand the number of times I've ridden in a car since I arrived here. I hope I still remember how to drive when I get back!

It seems like today and yesterday have contained a year's worth of good times and good news. 

Yesterday I went right over to Grandma's house after I got off work. She was serving dinner of shrimp gumbo, crawfish pie, and pizza, as well as several different desserts. Connie, Athena, Eva, and Karla Ann were there visiting, and Josh, Jacob, Cathy, and Mackenzie were in town from Alabama. So Grandma's house was full of people talking, laughing, and eating delicious food, which is exactly the way it should be. I hadn't seen Mackenzie since she was a baby, and at first I almost didn't recognize the big walking, talking 2-year-old. Although I usually tolerate young children at best, I found her extremely cute. Several people asked me about my plans to go to France during dinner, but I wasn't able to tell them much, since I was still waiting on pins and needles to get a letter from the school where I will be teaching.

After I got home that evening, I checked my e-mail, and lo and behold, there was a letter from the English teacher at my school. She seemed very polite, and she explained a lot about the town, the school, and its students; best of all, she filled me in on living arrangements. My school can provide housing for me, and no one can imagine what a huge relief it was to get that news. I will be renting a room with a bed, desk, dresser, closet, and sink, and sharing a bathroom and a kitchen down the hall with other assistants -- all for only 76 euros a month! I felt like an enormous weight was lifted off my shoulders. Although I'm still scared of going to a foreign country all by myself, I also think that it might just be the time of my life.

After I got off work today, Adam and I went right over to Eva's house for her 10th birthday party. Connie was serving fried shrimp and rice dressing for dinner, with a cookies, ice cream, and a delicious homemade birthday cake for dessert, and a lot of the family was there (but not Sara or Athena, who had to work). Eva's presents included a toy rifle and handcuffs, two plastic pistols and a holster, a cowboy hat, a three-pound bag of licorice, and a stuffed dog that was almost as big as her. I told everyone about the letter during dinner, and there were all very happy for me. Grandma must have felt as relieved as I did, because I think she almost cried; she seems to think that France is a third-world country, because she once asked me if they had washing machines there.

P.S. Yesterday I realized something that I should have realized when I booked my flight last week. I will be leaving the country on September 18, the three-year anniversary of the day Carolyn died, which was also the last day I spent with Dad, who died a month later. When I told Athena this, she said it was a good omen. I'm not so sure.