commencement

You know what's been the most nostalgic thing of all so far? The taste of shelf milk (the kind you don't keep in the fridge before you open it) and muesli (a granola mixture) in the morning. Weird. Anyway, things have been going wonderfully.

Turns out in my little suburban home I'm kinda far away from where I work in the 11th arrondissement of Paris; I wake up at 7, get ready, catch a bus at about 730, take the RER (metro lines that are a little newer and cover a lot of the outskirts), switch over to a regular metro, and walk a few blocks to get to the "fraternité". the main building where I work, by 9. I can't get over how amazing all the people that I work with are. They've been so kind to me, and care so much about the people that we work to help.

So basically, the goal of Les Petits Frères is to help people between ages 50-75, who for one reason or another, don't have anyone to turn to. Could be because they lost their job, could be because they lost their family or had a falling out...whatever the case may be, there are some people who need a jump start. Their motto is "des fleurs avant le pain", "flowers before bread". It's one thing giving someone a meal so they can survive, it's a whole other thing to give them what is necessary to live-- friends to talk to, things to do and to make them feel like they're worth something in this world. That can be hard to remember if you're aged and alone.

I spent a few hours on monday at a building called "L'Etape" [lay-TAHP], which is opened in the morning for the patrons. They can come there to take a shower, do laundry, read, play games, go on the internet, tend to some plants, have a light breakfast. I got to talk to some really interesting people...with age comes wisdom and awesome experiences! I was quick to become friends with a lot of them. I told one guy, Alain, that I had lived in Amiens, and he was all excited to show me a book he had with a picture of the tomb of Jules Verne there. He brought it by the fraternité the next day and gave it to me to keep! Too funny.

So, what have I been doing? So far, fairly miscellanious tasks, since my main contact person Eve-Marie has been gone a few days and I've yet to lay out a solid program. Most notably I spent a lot of time moving one of the patrons from one hotel to another. Turns out being able to drive (and willing) is a rare commodity at Les Petits Frères, so they plan on working me there! Oh man, driving in Paris is nuts though. If I didn't have the experience I do having driven in the big European cities of Lille and Bruxelles, I'd be screwed for sure. But I've got a handle on it.

So as myself and Elodie, another intern, were helping this dude Patrice move, we came to find that there was quite the cockroach problem in the old hotel... I lifted a book and instantly about 3247 exploded from underneath onto my hand. Man, no one should have to live in such conditions. Hotel is a loose term... it was more like a hole. Well, after several hours of loading the car and trying to manuver the one-way streets with our mismarked map, we finally unloaded in front of the next hotel. As the manager was showing us up the stairs, he notice a cockroach that happened to have made it out with us on the bag I was carrying, and he immediately took them and threw them outside, saying he wanted nothing to do with us anymore. Poor Patrice, who's already depressive, was crushed, and lamented that "life is nothing but misery". I tried to cheer him up, and called it an adventure...plus, he didn't want to stay there anyway, TV's were forbidden. I took him back to the frat and with one of the workers, Christophe, figured out a plan for him.

Boom. I've got a couple days off thanks to the abundance of French national holidays...more sweet pictures to come!