eloignement

Il y a des jours comme ca ou je ressens beaucoup de tristesse quand je pense a combien la relation entre Leila et moi a change depuis que Coline etait dans mon ventre. Aujourd'hui c'est de la tristesse mais la plupart du temps je ressens de l'agacement, de la colere ou de l'impatience envers Leila, qui, experte pour deceler ce qui coince en moi, l'amplifie jusqu'a ce que je sorte de mes gonds. Je remets en cause mon amour pour elle (je ne la remet pas en cause a elle, je sais qu'elle est formidable) et je l'evite, ravie qu'en ce moment elle aime surtout etre avec son papa, aller a l'ecole et regarder des DVDs, et aussi aller a l'Alliance Francaise ou elle se tient simplement a cote de moi, fait ses petites affaires sans me solliciter.

demographics

As we discovered in National Geographic's September 2011 issue, by having two children Cristiano and I have contributed to an increase in Brazil's fertility rate. Who would have known?? Well demographers, of course, but who else would believe that from 6.3 (!) in 1960 the number of children a woman bears on average has dropped to 1.9 (!!!!) in 2009 without any government policy to even promote birth control.

je prepare mes cours de Francais

La pipe au papa du Pape Pie pue.

Jacques Prevert

Qui dit mieux?

What's new?

Coline has teeth, she can sit up and tries to stand by herself, she is one big smiley baby, she likes pear sorbet "a la Algrid" and she enjoys playing by herself in a cot. Leila looooves her daddy, she can write her name and mostly speaks her own (fourth) language, generally through her dummy. I just got involved with Ouro Preto's recently created Alliance Francaise and am loving getting in touch with the French and Brazilians there, as well as the challenge of preparing lessons for two 6 year old children (and Leila) twice a week.

And... we have a dog! Cristiano surprised us and even he took some time to decide whether the surprise was a good one or not, because this little 2-month-old Tintin (prononcer tchin-tchin) is just another messy baby in the house! He is also very cute and good tempered, and so he is definitely already part of the family.

France 2011

We are reaching the end of winter here and it is hot during the day, cool at night and extremely dry the whole time. Thankfully it is not as hot as our last days in Lyon. Why is it that whenever I go to Lyon there is a heat wave? Enough about the weather. There we were: Toulouse, Seignosse, Narbonne, Lyon, Lisboa, friends, family, beaches, gardens, parks, merry-go-rounds, etc.

We had a wonderful time in France and it took me about two weeks to recover from the return to Ouro Preto. Two weeks to stop thinking about what we do not have here (my family, my friends, the ocean, comfort - decent cheese, ham, bread, raspberries, natural yogurt, organic food, anything unsweetened, and a couple of other delicacies - hot water from the sink, safety on the roads and in kiddies playgrounds, public swimming pools, trains, am I forgetting anything?). Writing it down at once was pleasurable and I can now focus on the other aspects of life that I truly love here: how friendly the people are, in particular with kids and families. The plane was loaded with Brasilians who did not seem at all annoyed by us, but instead smiled at us as we exercised our legs up and down the aisle and greeted us with compassion when either Leila or Coline expressed their discontent. I also like our town very much, walking up and down its streets, the mountains around, the tropical fruits, our neighbours, how peacefully slow things are, I like how few shops there are and how limited the choice of anything, and I hate that too.

Winter in Ouro Preto is coldish, sunny and dry, so dry that the whole town has been coughing for the past two months and so have we. Luckily Leila, Coline and I are soon going to breathe the moist and fragranced air of Les Landes. That is, if the 3 of us survive the trip from Belo Horizonte. I am only starting to panic a little at the idea of us waiting for our connection in Lisboa at an hour which we normally call the middle of the night.

Coline and Leila are getting along really well. Coline cracked laughing yesterday as Leila made a funny noise with her mouth and I made an effort to ignore the fact that meanwhile she was spitting all over the room. It was so wonderful to see them laugh together. Coline has found out how to get her thumb to stay in her mouth and she is loving it. She also has a ball playing with her feet, cooing and grabbing whatever is within reach (hair, plate, food, sand, Corentin's ear...). Leila now chats in Portuguese as she plays. Unfortunately others in her classroom are not able to do so and so she has been seriously bitten by one of them who comes close with the intention of giving a hug and ends up biting (shoulder, forehead, cheek...).

Now let me go and start packing!!











Festa Junina at Leila's school (she did not feel like dressing up or dancing but we enjoyed watching)

a beautiful sunday

I just loved our town today. For starters, the sun was shining and it was warm again, and so the four of us set out for a day out in town. We hiked up to praca tiradentes (with a decent cup of coffee on the way at "Natasha's coffee") and we bumped into a parade of clowns, samba school, musicians, gigantic puppets and comedians on stilts. They danced on stilts on the ultra-steep street where people fall with common shoes! We had a bean soup on a terrasse with live "song and guitar" in the background, relaxed and played for hours on the grass and went home through the botanical garden. What a beautiful day in Ouro Preto!