Hurricaine Katrina and La Rentree

The news is filled with images of New Orleans and the complete devastation there. It is the top story in every French paper and news broadcast. We have been checking in on the people we know - some of whom were gravely affected and hoping for the best.

Meanwhile, though, life goes on as normal here. Today was La Rentree - back to school day. The whole city seemed to be excited about it. Everywhere were parents walking their children to school. I even passed two construction workers who were painting the front of a building and talking about it, "Look at those kids. What an occasion." "Yeah, a big day. So exciting."

Ella had a great day. She was very excited and also a little nervous. She arrived at school with Abe and settled right in coloring with some of the girls in the class. There is one bilingual English/French girl, Olivia, whom Ella immediately connected with. Ella got a little bit teary when Abe got ready to leave, but by the time we picked her up at 4:30 she reported that she had a great day. She loved the gym where they played fun games with hoola hoops. She enjoyed having lunch in the cafeteria, where, to her delight, they put sugar on her yogurt. She loved the play kitchen area, and reported, "it was so frustrating. We girls worked hard to make a meal with all the food, and the boys just came over and ate it all!" She did some worksheets about counting and writing that struck her as real, honest-to-goodness kindergarten work. She said the kids are nice, the teachers are nice, and the art area is good. Her teacher even reported to me at the end of the day that Ella was very talkative (in both French and English apparently). All in all, a great day.

On the other hand, Jonah's day was less than ideal (it almost made us wish we had not been successful in proving Jonah's Jewish identity with my parents' ketubah!). I have never seen such a chaotic and insane place as his school. There were children and grownups everywhere with no clear distinction as to who was who, and who belonged where. Every child in Jonah's class other than Jonah was crying hysterically when I dropped him off. People were holding some of the kids and yelling over the chaos, "Does anyone know this child's name? Who is this child?" The little boys (many of whom are orthodox) have not had a first haircut yet, so they were wearing ponytails to keep their long hair out of their face. Nearly every child had a pacifier in their mouth. The toy selection, contained in two big tubs, looks like a yard sale from the 1970's. You get the idea. When we picked Jonah up at 12:30, he was also crying (and who could blame him with all the chaos going on around him). It was absolutely heartbreaking. One teacher said to me, surprised, "he doesn't speak any French!" I had explained this to the other teacher (or at least to a woman in the room who acted as if she was a teacher) in the morning, but I guess she didn't think it was important enough to pass this information along. So, all in all a big disappointment.

Jonah, who is so optimistic, however, reports that he had a pretty good day. He says they have lots of toys in his class including a Mimi the mouse which he liked a lot and a fire truck. He had an apple at lunch from the "pomme guy" that made him happy. We asked if they spoke French to him, and he said no, English (which isn't true, so maybe his French is just that good). He wants to go back next week. Needless to say we are less than thrilled with the way this school handled the first day. We are going to give it another chance Monday (and maybe Tuesday), but if things don't shape up soon, we'll be looking into other options.

Congratulations to Sarah and Matt on 5 years of marriage and to Grandma and Papa on 61 years!