A Market and a Strike

I heard last Saturday that their was going to be a transportation strike today. Then on Monday a teacher handed out a sheet while I was in her class announcing that she and other teachers were also striking on Thursday: there would be someone to look after those of her students who showed up, but there would be no class. So yesterday I called my boss at the school administration and asked her if I should show up to work today. She told me not to. I already don't work Wednesdays or Fridays, so that left me not knowing what to do with myself.
While the transportation workers are protesting Sarkozy's proposal to take away their very early retirement age, which dates back to the days when train conductors shoveled coal all day and thus were allowed to retire a few years before they died of emphysema. Nowadays they have a normal life expectancy but can still retire in their 50s and live off of social security for the rest of their lives. That does need to change. However, the teachers are striking because they want to reduce the number of teachers in schools. I'm teaching in small towns and the schools don't have receptionists. Once classes start, the doors of the school are locked from the outside because their is no one to monitor who could come in. The principals also teach their classes full time, and most elementary school classes have 25-28 students. Their doesn't seem to be teachers to spare, so I do think the teacher's strike is valid.

Yesterday morning I went to the weekly market with my roommate, where I bought lots of vegetables, fresh goat cheese, black olive tapenade, and "scrubland" honey - tasty because scrubland in southern France includes herbs like thyme, lavender, rosemary, germander, savory, oregano, and wild fennel. It was all very cheap, and very tasty. So I've started a tradition of a market-day omelet.



We also went over to the house of our neighbors Lynn and Frank after Lynn popped round to tell us she was skipping class that afternoon. We hung out for a while and had a new awesome treat: Macademia nut icecream with dark chocolate pieces on top. We spent half an hour on the phone with their company and got their wifi to work on my computer by removing the password which for some reason just wasn't working on any computer except Lynn's. So, now I have internet at home! Which means I can skype, and write on this thing more often so that each time I post, its not monstrous. Frank, who is a gardening teacher at the high school, came home and told us about swimming pools where plants are used to clean the water. Sounds really cool.