No, not really. They are a bit smaller and you don’t see lots of really tubby kids here. Most of the children have dark hair and dark eyes and I believe that’s because there is a high population of Spanish people living here. (I heard the statistic from a very reliable source – Toulouse Walking Tours guide, Elyse Rivin – that one in five people in Toulouse are descended from the Spanish people.) During the Spanish Civil War, many, many Spanish people left Spain for the safety of France, after traversing the Pyrenees mountains to get here in a grim and horribly difficult journey. Elyse tells me that it is as significant to the Spanish people as some of the horrors experienced by various peoples during the Second World War.
You will also see a lot of dark North African people, like the Senegalese, the people from Cote d’Ivoire. And then you will see people from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, who have been moving to France for generations now. Completely different visions of humanity from the Maori and Pacific Islanders I grew up with in New Zealand. Asians are few and far between, except for the occasional person from Vietnam with their French connections. Oh and there’s the gypsies. They take their begging very seriously and this includes asking for money at the metro stations, the traffic lights, offering to wash your car windows for a small coin or two and then starting to do it even though you say no, no, no, but then feeling really bad and giving them a euro or two anyway. To start with the children wanted to offer them all of their money-box money because they were so worried than the man at the lights might have many hungry children he was unable to feed ...
Dental hygiene is a bit of a problem here for the kids. It is not uncommon to see discoloured, rotting, decaying teeth, and that’s in the preschoolers! We read an astonishing statistic that on average every French person uses less than one tube of toothpaste a year. The source has been forgotten, but when we read it it certainly stuck in our minds! Yargh. Many of the children’s friends have several fillings or teeth removed.
So at school, the children play games like any other child does, but a noticeable difference is that there is a stunning lack of playgrounds for kids aged 6-12 here in France. You will find little playgrounds for children with spinning and wobbling and bouncing things, but not a lot of the climbing frames, in particular, that we have in New Zealand. Our children really missed those when we first arrived. (Although, good news! A park in nearby Castanet-Tolosan now has an enormous rope climbing frame, like the one on Oriental Parade in Wellington, only bigger!)
The school playground is not equipped with playground equipment. Not at all. The maternelle (preschool) has a few things, but for the primary aged children, there is a complete dearth. So the children occupy themselves with ball games, running games, ‘you’re it!' games, marbles, singing/clapping/action games, and they talk and talk and talk together. They also tease each other, and eat, drink and sleep like other kids (but they try not to sleep at school).
But then there’s the speciality of French life here called the bisous, a marvellous invention that works really well when you sort of get the rules. A bisous is a kiss on both cheeks that says hello to another person. It is not obligatory and it is not something you do to everyone. It is usually reserved for close friends and family, plus when you see someone for the first time after the school holidays or after a significant event. When children come to visit our house, they proffer their little cheeks for a bisous when they arrive. They look a bit bewildered if I forget!
You will see little children giving their parents a bisous before school and then at the end of the school day. You don’t bisous your teacher though (not at our school anyway).
I have to say that children here are generally more polite too and always say hello and goodbye and how are you to people they meet, as a matter of course. They are quite messy though and forget to pick up their rubbish, and that is something Olivia has noticed a lot and gets quite worried about. The children really love their computer games too and that’s partly why Matthew loves visiting his friends because he can play on their Wii which we don’t have. They also like playing with simple things, like Lego and Kapla which are small blocks of wood that you can make endlessly different and cool constructions out of for your Lego cars and trucks. Perfect!
They eat meals like we do, but at slightly different times of the day. Breakfast is, of course in the morning, and is often quite sweet. (In French it is le petit dejeuner which means ‘the little lunch’). Adults don’t usually snack before lunch, but they will mostly drink strong espresso coffee to get them through the morning, or indulge in a decaf if they are a bit caffeine-sensitive like me. Then they make a really serious thing of lunch (le dejeuner).
After school the kids get to have a snack (un gouter) which is often squares of chocolate in a wadge of French bread! Of course the kids love that. Then dinner (le diner) is often quite late at night – around 8.00pm – after playing, homework and a bit of reading. Bedtime can be as late as 10.00pm even for smallish kids, and if you go to someone’s house for dinner, you can generally expect the children to entertain each other, or be entertained by games or TV, until the wee small hours. Best not to do that on a school night!
There’s a scene in The Simpson’s where Bart and Lisa have to go and stay the night with Rod and Todd Flanders next door. After some fun Bible games it is time to go to bed. Bart and Lisa pull their bedroom curtain to one side to find the whole neighbourhood bathed in late afternoon sunshine, with children everywhere laughing, skipping and playing joyfully. That’s kind of how we felt when we were getting the children to bed early in the evening when we first arrived. They were honestly so tuckered out with their challenges at school that they really needed to rest. We didn’t dare let them look outside, for fear that they would see the neighbourhood children laughing, skipping and playing joyfully in the gorgeous dying rays of the autumn sun.
But voila! It’s surprising how quickly you adjust to the local traditions. We now eat later (possibly not as late as others) and spread the meal out more with courses separated out when possible.
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