Settling into Rimlishof

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So after four nights of sleeping all alone and waking each morning to an eerily silent house, I decided I’d had enough. I had to move out. The apartment was no longer the Fau family home and was far from the welcoming, cosy building that I had come to know it as. Although my bedroom at the new place still wasn’t finished I had a number of different options for what I could do whilst I was waiting. The first and worst option was to share Anaice’s bedroom. I certainly did not want to do that. Her room is just big enough for her and it would have meant sleeping on the floor, as well as not having my own space. So this was a big NO. The second option was stay with Pascal, a lady from church and her daughter, Claire. I wouldn’t have minded this too much. They live in Guebwiller so the school is quite close to them and I thought it might be a good opportunity for me to get to know Claire and also Pascal who seems nice enough but just a bit distant and almost cold towards me sometimes. Another option was to go and live with Aida for a bit and share her nine-year-old daughter’s room. Kenza, Aida’s daughter, has a much bigger room than Anaice and doesn’t know me as well which means she tends to be more polite with me so sharing with her might have been easier than sharing with Anaice. Luckily, I had one last option which turned out to be the best. Cedric showed me a small empty room next to the garage at the Rimlishof apartment, which was clearly designed to be a bedroom. So for the time being, I have moved myself into this room. It has no furniture except a bed and my small bedside table. On the plus side, it has a sink and a mirror, something which I’m finding very handy as we currently have no bathroom – the one in the apartment is in the middle of being redecorated so is out-of-order.

Whenever I tell people that I’m staying in a room next to the garage, they pull a face or make some sort of expression of sympathy but it’s actually not that bad. It’s quite cosy and warm in here and I’ve done my best to make it my own little ‘home’. I’ve even managed to put up a washing line so I can dry my laundry – Laetitia is having to dry all the family’s on a little white rack in her bedroom. I miss the huge big space we had for drying clothes back at the old place. Worrying about details such as how to dry laundry makes me think that I’m becoming more and more good ‘mother’ material – a rather frightening thought. Laetitia even said to me the other day that she’s noticed I take more pleasure in spending time with the children than I used to – I suppose she’s right in a way. I’ve always liked them but I’ve learnt that I just need to be myself with them and they love me for that. I’ve also found working in La Maternelle isn’t as stressful and tiring as it used to be – or perhaps it’s just because I can deal with it better now. I enjoy working there much more than I used to.<span> I have been surprised to learn that even the teachers who work there find it very tiring and stressful - I used to think that people who chose to work full-time with children did it because they loved it and therefore, never found it too tiring or stressful, that they were always just as energetic and enthusiastic as the children but it’s not like that at all. But it’s all worth it because of the rewarding nature of the work. <span> On the subject of children, the baby that Laetitia is expecting is a girl, so as you can imagine they are all over the moon.

On Friday night we had a Christmas party with all the staff and refugee families who are staying at Rimlishof. It was a great night. Plenty of food, fun and fellowship. The evening commenced by a brief introduction of each family, the Fau family included because we’ve just moved here. I felt very vulnerable and stupid to suddenly find myself in the middle of a circle full of people all staring at us curiously. I attached myself to Laetitia’s side, pretending for a few moments that she was my mum and I could hide myself in her big maternal form. Cedric introduced me as Cathy from Wales who was staying with them (there was no mention of fille au pair, of which I was glad although I’ve realized I’m probably being a bit paranoid about it – so what if I’m given the title of fille au pair. David was a shepherd boy and God turned him into a king. Who knows? Maybe God can turn me from a fille au pair into a revivalist – I’m pretty sure Queen is out of the question). Alain, Cedric’s boss added to my introduction that I’m here to help out with the children and that no, I am not Cedric’s daughter or his other wife (ha ha).

Once everyone had introduced themselves we were urged to go and help ourselves to the aperatifs and non-alcoholic drinks on offer. There was also a large box of Haribos on the table which I would have liked to dipped my fingers into but I wasn’t sure if taking sweets meant for children would have been considered socially acceptable or not so I left it, eyeing it hungrily every now and again. Instead, I made do with crisps and peanuts like all the other grown ups. Sometimes being a grown up sucks.

I am never one for mingling at parties, especially when I don’t know anyone and especially when I’m in a foreign country. So I stuck to the wall but stayed within close range of the food table. Luckily my English friend, Rachel was there and she came over to chat, bringing two girls from the refugee families. Unfortunately, they don’t speak much French and barely any English – one of them is from Albania and the other is from Russia. Both speak German after living in Germany and Switzerland – Rachel speaks German too so we used her as our translator whenever we wanted to say something. I found I got on quite well with the one from Albania – her name is Joanna, which I only remember because it’s easy to say. When we went to sit down for dinner I sat next to her and Rachel sat opposite me.

I had been really looking forward to the meal, not because I was particularly hungry but because I was certain that I’d be able to eat more than I usually do at the Fau family mealtimes. Oh how I miss big portions. However, the meal that night wasn’t exactly what I’d been expecting. Big platters of raw meat and fish were set on the tables, next to mini stove things so we had to cook the meat ourselves. I wouldn’t have minded this too much but because of my position at the table I couldn’t even reach the platters of meat and they were too big to be passed over so every time I wanted something I had to ask my Albanian acquaintance, Joanna, which I felt a bit bad about. Then when I wanted to get my piece of meat off the stove I had to lean over her, which I know from going to my Nan’s house, is very bad manners. So when the chips came round I took as many as I could to make up for not eating much meat. There was also bread and salad on offer, as is usually the case at French mealtimes. This is great but the salad tends to be a mixture of leaves; not the cucumber, tomato and pepper type salad that I used to have back home.

After the main course there was some time for talking about Jesus and getting across his message of love to the refugee families, some of whom are Muslims and none of whom are practising Christians. I thought this was great – here are these people who have no home, who are moved from country to country by governments who don’t want them, as if they were objects rather than people and who don’t know how important and loved they are. As part of the message of love that night, each refugee was given a present and each family received a few presents too. It was wonderful to see the happiness on their faces. It may just be a small Christian centre in a rural, isolated part of France but I can see there’s a great ministry going on here.

Dessert was the second best part of the evening – it was a help-yourself, all-you-can-eat type of buffet with plenty of cake on offer and whipped cream too! After my second round I was stuffed. To say thank you for such a good evening and to show my appreciation of the food that was on offer, I headed into the kitchen to give a hand, drying up. I broke a couple of glasses in the process but discreetly managed to tidy up before anyone found out.

We got back at 11:30 and I would have gone straight to bed but Rachel came and knocked on my door for a chat – her little studio flat is more accommodating than my small bedroom so we headed up to her place. It’s great being neighbours – a true blessing in fact. We stayed up until one in the morning chatting about relationships and men and so on; the type of conversation I haven’t been able to have in such a long time and Rachel admitted the same. I can tell that this is another God-made friendship – the friends God finds for me are always great. As our bathroom is out-of-order Rachel let me use hers up until she left on Monday. She also gave me her bike helmet, something I’ve been needing for ages – this is what I mean about God’s provision. And she got to borrow my hair straighteners, which turned out to be a life-saver for her because hers have just broken. I was quite sad to have to say goodbye to her on Monday and I’m really hoping I won’t find it too boring and lonely here without her.

In the apartment we have made good progress with clearing boxes and although it’s much smaller than the old place, I find it’s much cosier.

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