Meeting with Jacqueline

          Today, I will tell you about my first meeting and acquaintance with Mrs. Jacqueline. It is a continuation of stories related to my school. Let me start by introducing her person.

I share this photo, just to read this post
in the future, have a real memento
of this woman.

          Mrs. Jacqueline was a woman who was French, but her favorite occupation was learning foreign languages. Despite her age - when I met her, she was 85, she was self-taught and she loved traveling. In addition to her native French, she spoke Polish and dealt with: Spanish, Portuguese, German and attention ... Chinese. She impressed everyone very much. She was a beloved woman because, unfortunately, last year, in January she died at the age of 94. Today's post will be a very big memory for me and evoke strong feelings in me.
          Let's start with meeting with Jacqueline how it happened. As I wrote in the last post, I had a huge problem with the language at school. My tutor quickly noticed and invited me and my parents for an interview - I did not understand anything but my father as much as he knew French, understood that the teacher gave us contact to another teacher who knows Polish and French and can help me deal with French. So my parents quickly made the decision to lead me to this lady. I remember that I was stressed how this meeting would look like. We came to her house, her dog "Smaki" welcomed us at the gate, and after the bell ringing, I saw an older woman leaving the house. I could not believe that a woman who could be my great-grandmother has to teach me a totally strangeness language. She invited us to her home and when I heard her speak Polish well, I could not believe that the Frenchwoman could speak so well in a difficult language like Polish. She explained that she would like to meet me every day after classes, because the girl from the neighborhood also goes to her for lessons - it turned out that it was mentioned from last post - Vanessa.

          And so the story began - I got along with Vanessa, Portuguese perfecting her French and every day after class we went together to Jacqueline, where we did homework together and then, she taught me French. Every day I understood this language better and I was able to communicate with other children.
          My learning began with the establishment of a notebook in which every day Jacqueline saved me from 30-40 words written out of school textbooks, and I had to teach them the next day and so on. She helped me and Vanessa in every task and at the same time she fed us. To this day I remember the taste of this cocoa drink and cookies, which she gave us every day and we always wanted more.
         Thanks to her, I learned French for half a year, learning it 24 hours a day for 24 hours. I learned this language so that I could communicate like native people. At this point, despite the fact that she can not read it anymore, I would like to thank her for everything she has done for me - for learning French, thanks to her I am where I am, for the time devoted to me, for those delicious afternoon teas and new acquaintances that I was able to make up.

Thank You Jacqueline for everything!

French school - new challenge for me

          In the previous post I wrote about my walks with my grandma's dogs, today it's time for school - yes, I went to a French school. I remember till today, when after the last week of holiday lazing, the time has come that my parents decided to go and save me and my sister to school. Unfortunately, there was no talk of a Polish kindergarten and a Polish school - within a few tens kilometers there were only French schools. It was very hard and stressful for both me and my sister because none of us knew French. My sister, with only 2 years and 8 months, was learning to speak Polish so there was no talk of communication with French children.
          Let's start with my very first day at this school. If I remember correctly, it was Tuesday. The headmistress of the school decided that he would not take me back to the first grade, but I would go with children at my age to the second grade. In a quick pace he showed me and my father basic places, such as the toilet, the locker which I was assigned for the jacket, the pitch and the common-room. It's time to say goodbye to my dad and go to school, which was supposed to last until 4:30 PM - in this school classes began from 8:00 AM and lasted until 4:30 PM with a 2 hour break for dinner at noon. I remember this stress. The headmaster took me to the classroom and I suppose he introduced me, but I did not understand. I sat down next to one girl and sat there until noon. I was so stressed and nervous about this situation that despite the earlier learning of French words I could not even ask if I could go to the toilet. 
          Around noon, the teacher came up to me and showed me that she was going to show me that it was time for dinner, but at the time I did not know that the canteen is not in school, but only about 8 km by bus. There were not as many children in the canteen as in Poland, because our school had only 4 classes.  The ladies in the cafeteria were not nice, almost surly in relation to children, I still have the same opinion about them today. However, I will leave the topic of the canteen to the next post because it can be written for a long time. After returning to school, the girl next to whom I was sitting introduced herself and from that day I knew that her name was Vanessa, and later I would describe the development of our friendship because it involves another topic. But returning to the subject of the school, if the parents did not come for the child at 16:30, they were led to the common-room in which the tutoress played with us, and took us time, for example, to come up with various occasional gifts for parents or grandparents, such as flower pots made from scratch by us, and many more. She often did homework with us so that we would have free time when we returned home.
          The first day in this school, in the cafeteria and the common room was perhaps one of the most stressful moments in a child's life. Because I did not understand anything at all who was talking to me or I could not say anything at all, it did not make things any easier. In the following posts, a story about friendship with Vanessa awaits you, about meeting old lady Jacqueline, who helped me learn French and the subject of the canteen. I hope that these posts are not boring for you, for me it's nice to recall memories that make me smile on my face and pride that I have survived such a difficult period in my childhood.

Dog walking and not only :)

          Hi, again. Today will be another memory, as I remember, when we already lived in France. As I mentioned, apart from my mother, father and sister, my grandparents were next to me. And today a little about them. 
          Well, my grandmother since I remember was a dog lover. Before leaving for France, she had 9 of them all at the same time. However, when we were leaving for France, there were only 3 of them left, which was not an option to leave them in Poland, so they left with us. My grandparents lived next to us in an apartment on the first floor where they were from what I can remember a very tall staircase. 
          And that I also love animals from a small child and I do not like when they get hurt, little Patrycja decided ... to teach dogs to go in and out of these stairs. And although now, if I think about it, what it must look like, I want to laugh at it, then for such an eight-year-old it was even a duty and obligation to teach them, because in Poland, dogs lived in a single-family home and never had contact with stairs. However, I did not think that they might not like it. While I tried hard to make them walk up the stairs, moving their paws, they snarled at me and ran away from me.
          Another thing is the many walks with my dog friends. As I mentioned in the last post - I was hyperactive, so what fun would it be if I would lead each of the three dogs one by one, if all three can be moved out at once? Yes, despite numerous prohibitions of my mother or grandma, I have always insisted on my own - "mother / grandma I will manage". It was a pity that each time one of the dogs turned me over because the important fact is that I was very slim and I had a lack of physical strength resulting from it. There was no option for me to give up and give satisfaction to my family saying "I told you?". I always got up from the ground and walked with dogs for a walk. Now when I remind how I used to fight with them because every dog wanted to go its own way, I think it must have looked funny if my family watched me from the window.
          These walks were really crazy, because all four of us - I and three dogs ran around such a forest, sometimes even half a day, so that my mother could not set me up for dinner. We came back home when I did not have strength in my legs anymore and then I lay on my grandmother's couch and called to me the dogs, which lay down as follows: one over my head, on the pillow, the other laying on my legs and the third near the couch. all three dogs watched over me so that nobody would do anything to me.
          There's no denying that these dogs and I were true friends. My first true friends, that is why when each of them died through their age, I was terribly sad. However, learning to walk on all fours and walks, cross-country runs with dogs will remain in my heart and my memory forever.

This is how I betrayed you my next childhood memory, I hope I did not bore you, to the next ! :)

Let's start

          Well, let's start the adventure with stories and memories of little Patrycja 😇 
          The first of them should be chronological - moving from Poland to France. Let's start from the beginning. I was 7 when one day my mother, as usual, took me from school and we stopped in the park to talk. My mother explained to me that my father got a job offer in France and he must leave with his parents. It was a big shock for a seven-year-old girl, but after a while she finished her thought. In a month we will join them as well. It sounded like an opportunity for a great adventure, but I quickly realized that it was equal to leaving school, my friends and teachers, whom I liked so much. Being only a child, unfortunately, I did not have much to say. When the information about our move away reached to my class, they decided to organize a farewell party. After roll call for the end of the school year, we all gathered in our classroom, where a gift was waiting for me, a diary with entries from colleagues and a farewell cake. It was really a sad farewell for me, but at the same time I was happy that everyone would say goodbye to me.

          The month has passed very quickly and it was time to pack, take away all the most necessary things. To this day, I remember the crying that I made when it was time to saying goodbye to my maternal grandparents.          
          The journey to the town of Le Gué-de-Velluire in which we were to live, from an adult's perspective, lasted about 26 hours ... Well, imagine how I and my sister suffered when we were sitting in the car, having motion sickness and having nothing to do. And it is worth to say that I was very restless child. Although, my mother tried to take care of me and my younger sister, who was 3 years old then, but neither games nor food, although it was always a remedy for all sorrows for me and my sister, helped. Sleeping also did not help, because there was no end to the road. When we passed these endless 26 hours we arrived at the destination.

          Unfortunately, the beginning was difficult because for a month my dad was unable to find a flat, but his boss rented us one of the bungalow trailers for employees.

          This is how the beginning of my adventure with France began. And in this bungalow trailer and in this place there were so many memories that I could write about it endlessly, but next memory in this place in the next post.

To the next !