On Friday morning I met Louise at Joliette. I was going to her school. It's an Ecole Primaire in Les Quartiers Nords - 'Les Quartiers Difficiles' to say the least. From the outside it looked like it wouldn't be a very nice school. It was in a dodgy area, there were bars on the windows. But inside it's was really nice, clean, colourful, well equipped. So different to my Lycee. Next door to the school are huge blocks of flats and at every balcony was a satellite dish and washing. It was a picture. Apparently the satellite dishes are so the families can get the tv channels from all over the world. This part of Marseille has a high proportion of immigrants. Louise said that she has about 150 children and can count the white children on one hand. The families are big. Often the children have 7 or 8 brothers and sisters and when they're not in school it's often because they've had to stay at home to look after a younger sibling. It's the poorest area of Marseille. But, judging bu the graffiti, it is also the best educated area - ha - joke. The graffiti read 'We don't need education' which is quite impressive and ironic for the area. I was at Louises schoo because her school needed people to help with the outings and I said I'd do one because a) I thought it'd be good to see a French Primary School and b) my Lycee were proving pretty useless and I had plenty of spare time and c) it's les quartiers nords - it'd be an experience. So I went to meet the teachers. Louise's School is so completely different to mine. All the teachers sit down together in the staffroom for lunch. Because it's a primary school it's smaller and there are fewer teachers and everyone knows everyone else. They're like a family. All the teacher's were really nice and I met Alain who is also going on the trip on Monday. In the afternoon I stayed with Louise and one of her classes. She had 10 students at a time and played Bingo with them. Because they are younger they don't really speak any English so she has to speak French. It means she uses her French far more than I use mine. I did one of the games of Bingo and I also played with the students too. It was really good fun. I left before her 6ieme came as I had my cours de conversation. I had just spent 3 and a half hours playing Bingo - more time than I'd worked in my school all week!! I went to my cours de conversation in the evening and then Louise came round for tea. We had pasta. It rained.
