crépes

Thursday night was a crépe fest here at school. I got 3 or 4 to turn out correctly. They are like extremely finicky pancakes. Little did I know the importance of that experience. Duh duh duh!

Tonight was youth group at church. I rode my bike up to Clamart (6 miles- it was nice out) at 5:00 and then wandered around the church for about 10 minutes before I figured out who I was supposed to talk to. After that there were some brief moments of awkwardness, quickly resolved by a technical problem. I love technical problems! They give me an excuse to not sit around and have awkward silences. This particular technical problem was computer related. As is common in these situations (well, at least 25% of the time) I never got it fixed, and neither did anyone else. By the time we had entirely given up hope, most of the youth were there.

I introduced myself extremely briefly. Then we watched a French movie. If you have ever seen a French movie, you will understand why I specify. A movie and a French movie are not the same thing, and it isn't just the language. This was the most normal I have seen so far and one of the cleanest (which doesn't say much). After that, we made CRÉPES! I'm glad the blundering American didn't have to stand there in shock and awe at the goings-on. I actually knew more about crépery than a lot of the youth, so I was able to give pointers! As we were cooking and eating I finally got to talk a little bit with a couple of the youth and also the youth leader. The first guy I talked to said that he plays basketball. I got halfway through the sentence before I realized that I don't know how to say, "I can never hit the basket." Nevertheless, I managed to communicate that I am lousy at basketball but love running and playing hockey. He had never even heard of ultimate frisbee, which made me sad. If I can introduce that delicacy of English-speaking athletics to France, I will have made the world a better place.

One of the young ladies is interested in drama. I mentioned in my testimony on Wednesday that drama is part of my job, so the youth leader asked me if I could maybe create some dramas for the youth group (especially that young lady) to perform. I told her "sure, why not." This could be a really good chance for me to get some practice with drama (especially directing it in a foreign language) and also do something at the church that right now nobody else is doing. The first major hurdle: finding something that works with French culture. Drama is like film, and I am far from understanding French film.