Vacation

In Martinique there are a lot of strikes. When we just arrived there was a gas strike where no one could buy gas. There's no self-service gas pumping in Martinique. It has to be pumped for you by a professional pompiste. The crazy thing about this strike was that it was a preventitive strike. What that means is that the pompistes weren't striking because their work conditions were so bad - they had already done that for 6 weeks last Febuary - they were striking because they anticipated that maybe some of the things they won in the last strike wouldn't be respected. They were striking just for the pure pleasure of flexing their muscles!

Then I went to school and in the middle of the second week there was another strike. The school tried to call home but the only person home to answer the phone was my grandmother who (no offense Grandma) doesn't speak that great French or at least doesn't have the cultural background that would allow her to deduce that of course schools might close at any moment because there was a strike. (It's kind of like Maureen's college level students who may or may not have understood when she said, "Stand up and talk to someone else in the classroom." The idea of standing and talking and not just passively sitting and taking notes made them think they couldn't possibly have understood what this crazy teacher from NY was saying). So I went to school for a little while but not for too long, not too long at all and then once upon a time the lunch ladies decided to strike. My dad fortunately met my friend's very nice father who picked me up and brought me home.

And then yesterday, I thought the cafeteria and after-school people were going on strike but I later discovered that all the aids and the custodians were also going on strike so the school could not fuction. No school today. It's like a having a weekend in the middle of the week because of course tomorrow, Wednesday, there's no school - except for my swimming and sailing lessons :)

Maybe there will be a long strike. Now's the time because in less than three weeks we have two and a half weeks off for vacation. So I hope that this school strike lasts for about two and a half weeks. Then my All Saint's Day vacation could become a summer vacation for me.

It's ok though because my learning in French is exponential. Yesterday, my new teacher told a girl that I had better handwriting than she did. That's quite the insult her for her because I'm still learning script but French students start learning it in kindergarten.