News from the French countryside

Well, we have not been very predictable with our blog here, but at last, an attempt to add something for you all to enjoy.
We finally finished the retaining wall and Bob and Sheri are gone to Dallas for their son's wedding. It's pretty exciting here with no one but each other with whom to speak fluent English. One of the regulars, Fred, told me last week that he hears a drastic improvement in our accents already and said that we have exceptional accents for Americans. I can hear a lot more of the French as well now even if I don't understand completely the sense of the words. But there was one man at Dîner last night who knew a bit of English and he shared it with us, "No speak Englich."

We have a sizable group of Finnish men here, but only two speak English at all and they are conversant, but not exactly fluent.
On that subject, Finnish is quite an interesting language. It's amazing that any country could make sense of the letters produced from pounding ones fists on the keyboard, but then, they fill in the spaces with sound you'd make while falling down the stairs. For the ignoramuses who don't know (and ignoramus is defined here as anyone who doesn't know something I didn't know 3 days ago), Finnish is an Asiatic language that has no comparison grammatically or phonetically to any European/Romance Language. For that matter, it lies completely outside of the Indo-European parent language progeny. Whereas, in most European languages, if you don't know the word in the language, you can spell your word and it is 75% of the time a cognate word and the other party could figure out what you mean. In Finnish, if you want to say, "Would you like more eggs?" you have to say, "Haluatko kanan munnat?" and then to ask, "Is it good?" "Onko hyvä?"
"Hyvää" is about the only word I've been able to memorize and hear from them. I means, "Good." "Hyväämentä" means, "Good Morning." when I asked one named, Kimmo, if "mentä" meant "morning," he gave me a funny look and responded, "If you say, 'Morning' and I say, 'What "-ning" mean?' what you say to that? ...She is a Chinese Lady and I doesn't know how she got in there!"
Finnish people (at least the ones I've met) have a lot of fun and know how to joke without getting dirty.
I asked if they did any kind of Internet networking like facebook or something and the best English speaker, Sammi, responded, "I have no friends. I lost book, but have still the face."
Another time, we were all about to go to bed and Sammi and Kimmo were having a smoke on the porch of their chalet as Amber and I passed by on the way to ours. It was after 11 pm and BLACK. Sammi pointed to the sky and said, "like Finnish sunrise. Darker at noon."
I communicate with the others by pointing and giving them a thumbs up if I like something such as Tapani's pictures of the moose he killed in Northern Finland and Tapsa's Harley. I asked Tapani if he lived near the Arctic Circle in Northern Finland and he responded that he didn't because that was at least 100 km (62.137 mi) away.

For your enjoyment, I'll also put a video of the celebrated actors of Finland: Pirkka-Pekka Petelius & Aake Kalliala





The Finnish may not speak English the best, but I have had my share of linguistic blunders here as well. The French language is organized in such a way that changing one syllable can change the entire sentence. We were at that traditional dance a couple of weeks ago and I introduced myself after Amber and said, "Je suis sa épouse." instead of the correct "Je suis son épouse" which I changed my intended meaning of "I am her husband." to "I am her wife."
Also, as I mentioned sometimes it works to just use the English word with a French accent and they understand, but other times it can phonetically mean something completely different. For example a man came to Le Colorado where we are and I ask «Avez-vous vos (and I forgot the word «Chambre» here and replaced it with the English equivalent "Room," but with a French accent which sound exactly like the French word «Rhume») room?» but the poor man heard the French word, what being French and all and therefore I asked him, "Do you have a cold?"
The third problem I have with French right now is that I have a built in vocabulary of Cajun French words that are indeed French words, but usually crass and vulgar by today's standard of proper French. For instance, Amber and I were trying to get somewhere in Paris and I had a detailed map that showed me several streams, but I couldn't figure out which one was the one right in front of me. So I asked a passerby, "what is the name of that stream down there?" and tried to make it easier by pointing, but the man responded in a choler, "I don't understand the sense of what you just said!?" "That STREAM down there!?" I repeated and he ran away. Well, it ends up that one of the popular words for a stream in Louisiana sounds amazingly like a terrible word to the French and I was asking him the name of that #@*! down there.

Well, what do you do? I've started to tell people that I'm just going to leave my Cajun words in Louisiana.

In other news, there are edible mushrooms by the dozens growing here and I'm learning how to cook them like a true "Français."

Until next time....

Learning Lots!

Wow! It's been a long time since we've updated our blog! Sorry about that... we've had some problems with the Internet, and we've been keeping busy here! We're getting to know the Misegades and the way they do things, we're getting to know the "regulars" here as well as the occasional guests and even some new people... and we're getting to know Égletons. Here's a sign that we thought was really funny. It points to Soudeilles (a town) and "Other Directions." We were the only ones laughing, but that's ok. :)
We're enjoying the food... I got brave one night and made crêpes. They were pretty tasty! I also found a recipe online for Anaïs to make pancakes. She was SO excited!!! She *loves* pancakes. :)
This is a picture of a small part of open market. It happens on Sundays when weather permits, I think. They have all kinds of local produce, cheeses, honey, sausage, clothes, etc etc etc. It's a great place to try new things and talk to people about what they're selling... most of the time, they made it!
This man makes some mean boudin and andouille!
So Sunday during open market, we went to get some fresh bread. There we ran into a friend of the Misegades, Sabine. She was so excited to hear that Charles is Cajun! She asked if we would be interested in hearing some local music and learning some dances. She said she'd love to also learn about Cajun music and dancing. We said absolutely, that would be right up our alley! So Monday night, we went to the dance lesson. Charles played with the two accordionists, and I danced -- for 2 and 1/2 hours! We had a blast! :) I thought I'd get to take pictures, but I got pulled into dancing, so this is the only photo I have. We also went, that Friday night, to a rehearsal of a group that plays traditional music from this area. It was really interesting! We got invited to come back to their next practice and play with them. We're really excited at the opportunities this gives us both in music and in building new relationships.
I'm really loving my camera that my parents gave me for my birthday... This is a picture taken early in the morning, from right in front of the house we're staying in for now. It's colder than it looks, though! This morning, it was -6 degrees Celsius (I think that's around 22F). Charles on a Sunday afternoon :)Me and my new friend, Anaïs. She's a passionate young Christian girl studying to get a Bible certificate. She loves to talk about the Lord, and talking with her is really helping my French!
Charles and Bob, hard at work on a wall they built to be a future retaining wall for a future swimming pool. This wall has been a lot of hard work for Charles and Bob, as well as Christian, who comes every Wednesday. When Christian is there, they speak only in French, and this has been a big help to Charles' French. He keeps up conversation very well. (We also speak French at dinner.)
Now we're preparing for the week and a half that Bob and Sheri won't be here. We've been planning menus and stocking up on food supplies. A few of their friends will be here to help us, which is good, because there will be between 20 and 30 people to feed every day -- potentially 3 times each day, even. Charles and Bob have been doing some dinner music some evenings. They're quite a pair! I've been really enjoying the women's Bible study -- both the study and the ladies who attend it. I'm able to follow it and even share my thoughts sometimes, but I still speak quite slowly.

The weather is colder than we expected. We found out about a thrift shop kind of place in Égletons, though, so we might see about getting some gloves. The Misegades have given us their spare coats. They're taking very good care of us! They also gave us this weekend off since the next two weekends we'll be going full speed without them here. So we're going to spend Saturday in Tulle, we think, and browse some music stores and maybe attend a gospel concert we read about in the paper. Anyway, keep us in your prayers and keep us posted on what's going on with you! We miss y'all!