Playdough and Chateaux

Friday morning I woke up early, even though I didn’t have class, because I had lots to get done before I had to be at the church that afternoon. It was the weekend of Emmanuel International Church’s annual fall retreat in the Loire valley. I had signed up to help with the kids because it sounded fun, but also because if you help with childcare you go for free and I’m a college student and the dollar is weak so that’s really the only way to afford it. When we (the young adults because that’s mainly who does the childcare) were planning, one of the girls who had helped before said playdough would be a good thing to bring. I mentioned that we could make it really cheaply compared to buying large enough quantities for the kids to play with, and since I mentioned it, it became my responsibility. So Friday I got up and looked up playdough recipes online. I had to sift through any that required cream of tartar or jello mix or other things that I don’t know how to explain in French and don’t think they have at my local Monoprix. I found one that just called for salt, flour, oil, and water, and ran to the store to buy large quantities of the dry goods. I’m sure the cashier probably thought I was insane buying 2 big bags of flour and 2 boxes of salt. The problem of actually making the dough was that the recipe was in American measurements and I had no American measuring device. I could do the conversion if I had another sort of measuring device, but I had nothing to measure with period. So I figured it was time to get creative. I had a 1.5 liter Evian bottle, so I cut off the bottom third. I looked up that .5 liter is 2.1 cups or something like that, so I figured my makeshift measuring cup was about that. I used that as a guide and basically just guestimated the best I could. It was messy and pretty funny with me trying to find the proper consistency, but I kept making playdough until I ran out of salt which was about 4 batches.

I finished packing my bag and headed out to the church. It’s not easy getting to church, but it is even less fun with a suitcase, granted a small one. I was doing fine for time, but then evidently they were training a new bus driver for the route, and he was having a hard time, going slow, running over curbs, so it took quite a bit longer than usual. I managed to make it there basically on time to meet Ruth who was to give me and two others a ride down to the retreat. Too make a long story short, we got off to a bit of a late start, but we had enough time to get there even allowing for Friday evening traffic. It was a tight squeeze in the car because for starters, it’s Europe so the cars are small, and then we had 4 people with all their luggage, plus the coffee pot, offering plates, tv, kids activities, etc. etc. that we were hauling for the retreat because Ruth helps out at the church. I really enjoyed being out on the road. I don’t get to ride in cars often in Paris, and it was so nice to be out of the city. If you didn’t look at road signs or certain French varieties of trees, it wasn’t hard to imagine we were driving in the states. Some of the land looks so similar. It brought back a lot of good road trip memories. Since the retreat was starting with an evening service we were supposed to eat before we got there. We were on a toll toad so the only place to stop was at a service park. They had a food court/ rest area type thing that crossed the highway so that it was accessible from both directions. It also had a playground with the most disturbing zombie giraffe decoration I’ve ever seen. I don’t know who thought it was suitable for children. I took a picture.

Not everyone was arriving for the Friday evening, and my friend Sarah and I had volunteered to teach the first session of the kids. Since there were 6 people signed up to help with kids we planned on having 2 teach, 2 help, and let the other two go to the service so we could all rotate. We only have about 8 kids Friday night. The problem was that 6 of them only spoke French. We knew that there would be some French kids there since both congregations were coming on the retreat, but the materials they had given us for lessons and songs and videos were all in English. We colored and sang along with a video with motions and tried to do a video, but decided to forego the lesson until the next day when the rest of the kids arrived. We didn’t really do anything after the service but it took a while to get everyone’s rooms sorted out and get settled in so it was late when we finally got to sleep, and we had to be at breakfast at 8 the next morning.

The place we stayed was a retreat center translated The Farm at Courcimont. It was a cute little place with exposed beams and horses and a pond just outside of a tiny little village. Saturday started off foggy and cold and taking care of a bunch of kids was not really high on my list of wants. We decided to all go in to begin with until things got settled and then let whoever could, go to the service. I don’t think that happened. We had about 20 kids ranging from infants to 11. Some spoke English, some spoke French, and some spoke Franglais (french-english), and the majority of them were wild. The playdough was a big hit, and I was surprised how many kids and workers alike didn’t know you could make playdough yourself. I asked the French kids what they call it and they said it’s “la pâte à sel” which is literally salt dough. I was impressed because it’s actually a more accurate description than what we call it in English. And a random fact I learned while looking up recipes: Play-Doh that you buy in toy stores was actually invented first as a wallpaper cleaner.

We certainly had our hands full. I mean literally. I was holding a baby in one arm, trying to comfort a 3 year old bilingual boy with the other and entertain him to make him stop crying, while intermittently having to tell one group in French to stop running, and mediating arguments between 8 year-old girls in English. It was confusing having the kids mixed because when you are dealing with so many kids and switching back and forth between languages, you tend to forget which kids speak which language or forget which language you yourself are speaking. There were times when I’d turn around to say something to a kid and they’d be staring at me blankly for a good 30 seconds before I would realize they didn’t understand whatever language I was speaking. It was a frustrating childcare situation because the rooms we had to use were not designed for kids so you couldn’t just let the little ones run around like you would in a nursery or something. And what was more frustrating to me was the fact that it seemed that some of the young adults who were helping didn’t have much experience, or at least not much expertise, in dealing with children. So while there were always at least four adults in there, I often felt like I was having to do everything, or at least more than my share. But as chaotic and disorganized as it was, it was an adventure and had some enjoyable moments, although I think it’ll probably take several months for the memory to fade before I’ll be able to ever think about having kids of my own again.

Before lunch everyone was split up into two teams and we played goofy team building games. It was fun and a neat thing to see the whole church, both congregations, doing stuff together, since my church at home is so big we hardly see people out of our department. Being at the retreat place and sharing bathrooms and eating at long tables brought back a lot of good Breakout memories. During the weekend all our meals were served on site in the dining hall. Now I know what you are thinking- retreat center food- ew. Well meals there were full-on 5 course French meals. Appetizer, main course, salad, cheese, dessert, coffee, and it was all pretty good fare, if not necessarily my first choice of dishes. But then, I’m not French, and I don’t have the same tastes as they do.

After lunch we had the afternoon free so everyone split up into small groups to go do various things in the area. There were plenty of chateaux nearby and a famous porcelain factory. I had been to two chateaux the last time I was here, so I ended up going with Ruth and a few other girls who were going to go to a different chateau from the ones I had been to before. We went to the Chateau de Cheverny. The weather was absolutely perfect and it was great driving on the rural roads in the fall afternoon sun. Ruth was teasing me because I got so excited about being out in the country. I didn’t realize how much I missed it til I was there surrounded by nature again. I felt so much more at home out in the countryside. The chateau was lovely. It’s a smaller one (as far as chateaux go) and belongs to a noble family. It was still lived in up to 1985. Many of the chateaux were built as hunting lodges, and this one is still a working hunting base. The family dogs are kept on the premises in the kennels. About 100 of them, and they take them out a half at a time to hunt Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, during hunting season. I had never seen so many dogs together in one place, it was pretty cool, but it did not smell lovely. And as we were getting ready to leave, the keeper showed up and said that they were about to bring the other half of the dogs back from the hunt. He locked up the half that had had the day off, and then left the gate open. He said, “I’m going to bring the rest of the dogs in. Don’t worry, they will run right past you and into their pen because they want to eat. Just please don’t stand in front of the door because they will trample you if you get between them and their supper.” So we stood there just a few feet from the door and in a few minutes he came marching out of the stables followed by 50 hounds. One broke from the pack and raced ahead into the pen where the big mound of food was waiting, but the rest walked behind him until they got almost to the gate and then it was a free-for-all to see who could grab a dismembered duck head first. Only one dog didn’t go in like he was supposed to. He stood up at the railing looking in on his friends. “Dumb dog! You are going to miss dinner!” the keeper yelled at him and he went in.

We drove by another one of the bigger more touristy chateaux on the way back to the center and made it there just in time for dinner. The kids were wound up after dinner and made the biggest mess you have ever seen in your life with the playdough, crushed Goldfish into the carpet and wrote on the dry-erase board with a permanent marker. Fortuitously, I had a bad experience with a permanent marker and a dry erase board freshman year of high school in which I learned that bug spray will take it off. We had no bug spray with us, but I figured the reason the bug spray probably worked was because of the oil, so I decided to use the playdough, since it also was made with oil. It took a little elbow grease, but the oily playdough did the trick finally.

After the evening service when the older adults and younger kids had gone to bed, some of us decided to play Taboo. There were about 14 people playing, not all native English speakers, so it was an entertaining game. It reminded me of my days teaching at the ELI because we use Taboo with the students to help their spoken English and it is never dull. It was a fun evening but we stayed up too late and did not get enough sleep before another early morning. After breakfast we had a few minutes before the service so some of the other girls and I took a stroll around the pond. It was cool out but the sun made the morning dew sparkle, and that same dew soaked our socks and shoes right through. I was glad I had brought a change. Sunday morning, Sarah and I said we were going to the service no matter what because we had worked every childcare shift since we arrived and everyone else had been to at least one service. We were a little bit worried though about leaving Glenn in charge without us there to assist, but we sat just outside the door so that they could come grad us if they needed extra hands. The worship service was really enjoyable, especially because it was both congregations together so we did some mixed language worship. I always love it when we do bilingual stuff at EIC. The speaker for the weekend is the President of the International Baptist Convention, but he’s a good ol’ boy so I felt right at home listening to his southern drawl. Ruth, who’s British, can’t stand strong southern accents. She said she almost had to turn off Beth Moore the first time she heard her because her voice was so annoying- lol. I love southern accents...but then I guess it’s all about what you are used to.

We packed up after lunch and got ready to head back to Paris. We made it through the whole weekend without any kids dying, and I made some little friends who kept coming to sit with me at meals, so I would put it in the success column. I was glad to get home and take a nap, but it was sad to leave behind the fresh air and open spaces of the country for the concrete and pollution of the city. One great thing about being out there was that you could see the stars wonderfully at night. That was another one of those things I didn’t realize how much I missed. And when I got home my internet had miraculously begun to work again. Go figure. All-in-all it was a really beautiful and enjoyable weekend and a lot of fun to be part of a community. That’s such a great feeling when you are far away from your friends and family.
Gotta run!
Ciao-
Lyndsey