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Published: September 26th 2006
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Pineuilh Team Photo
in Limoge, after winning our second game. Time passes so quickly.
I have now been staying in Gensac, working at La Girate, and coaching baseball in Pineuilh for a week.
There are numerous projects going on at La Girate, the house that I am working on with Mark. My first day here was spent rearranging all of the spare wood and stored junk in the storage room: really exciting. Then I moved on to tearing out a ceiling, helping install the drainage system around the outside of the house, beginning to create a walkway around the house…..Friday and today were spent drilling holes at the base of the interior walls of the house, then filling them with water, then filling them with a chemical/solution that protects the walls of the house from humidity.
This afternoon was probably the most fun of all of the work so far; I was up on the roof helping David lay down the tile roofing.
Mark, who as I said before is Scottish, has a crew of three French workers: Laurent, Daniel, and David. They are all in their early 20’s/late 30’s, all originally from this region of France.
Laurent is always the first to arrive (he is always there when Mark and
Limoge Game I
in Limoge, after winning our second game. I arrive, and we are always early) and the first to leave. Daniel is always late. David is usually right on time. Daniel always greets us each morning with a handshake and a simple “oui,” and David always looks like he just rolled out of bed.
The French workday is limited to seven hours, so work begins at 8 and ends at 4pm, with an hour for lunch. Every lunch break David and Daniel eat their lunch quickly and then head into Gensac for a coffee and to play billiards.
All three are smokers, and it amazes me how they can work and smoke at the same time. I can’t imagine trying to lift boulders, hammer, saw, drill, all with a cigarette in my mouth. I have enough trouble catching my breath as it is. The other day I was working alongside Laurent and I couldn’t understand a thing he was saying to me because he was speaking with a cigarette in his mouth.
Here in the Bordeaux/Bergerac region it is wine harvesting season, which means that from before the sun comes up you can hear the picking machines start up and begin their rampage through the vines, picking
Machine de Vendange
The Monstrous Grape-picking machine. It rides atop the vines and has a column on each side with big flaps that hit/shake the vines as it goes through to knock off the grapes. grapes until after the sun has set. This goes on for a few weeks until all of the harvest is in. One after another, constantly, there are tractors pulling big bins full of grapes through the streets of Gensac. At the roundabouts on the outskirts of town (as well as every other intersection), the streets are covered with smushed grapes that have spilled over the sides of the overflowing grape bins. Driving through the vineyards, the smell of grapes is inescapable.
This past weekend I traveled with the Pineuilh Pitchers (the baseball team) to Limoge, a town about three hours north northeast of here. They were in the quarterfinals for the French 13-15 year old baseball championship. It was horrible weather for baseball; rain all day, both Saturday and Sunday. But luckily the rain let up just enough each day to give us time to play both of our games.
I served as assistant coach for Pineuilh, standing in at first base when we were hitting and working with the pitchers during the game. Lots of fun. And as an added bonus, the team won both of their games, the second game being against a very good team.
This
group of players is viewed by the parents and others as cocky and selfish, a group that doesn’t really play well as a team and who have a bad attitude towards the game. This comes from what people have told me since I have been here, but also from my own experience of working with them for a week. They were very frustrating to coach because I didn’t feel like they were ever listening to me, or that they even really respected my opinion or insight. So it was particularly exciting to see the guys play so well, to play as a team, and to be supporting one another.
For me it was little things like one time when one player missed an easy pop fly, and instead of getting down on him and saying things like ‘use your glove, Etienne!’, or ‘come on, Etienne!,’ they responded by encouraging him and saying positive things. Really great.
Winning both games puts the Pineuilh Pitchers in the semifinals, which will be played two weeks from now in Paris.
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