Our hosts, John and Jill, had bought an 18th century stone farmhouse about 5 years ago, with the plans to renovate and resell it while living in the French countryside. They'd been frustrated with French contractors and not making the progress they wanted to alone, so they started taking on volunteers when the twins were two. In the time they'd had the place, they'd installed a pool, converted the pigeonaire to a tool shed, converted an open space barn into a 2 story addition to the home with living room, office and master bedroom, and almost completed three bathrooms.
They'd warned on their profile that this wasn't a place to practice French, as English was spoken at home. After our language barrier challenges in Italy, we were excited for that change of pace. And after a robbery that made us seriously consider going home, the idea of an American household in France was comforting.
An American household in France was an understatement. It was a small American bubble resting in the middle of Provence. Yes, English was spoken exclusively. But more than that, we watched American TV, ate chili, egg salad, bagels, pancakes and sundaes, used Windex, Clorox wipes and American power tools, and listened to the only radio station in the area catering to expats. They even used Morton's salt, imported from the good ol' US of A. With our fragile state, this twilight zone America was the perfect home away from home for us.
Apparently, other volunteers thought so too, because it was a full house with a couple of volunteers staying on later than they'd originally planned. Our arrival brought the house count to 10, with 6 volunteers, our hosts, John and Jill, and Celeste and Camille, their girls. With the exception of one British volunteer, and the twins who were technically Niçoise, everyone was American, and 2/3 of us were from California. One of the other Californian volunteers joked that from inside the house, he could've forgotten he wasn't in Northern California with all the vineyards and mountains of Gonfaron.
Gonfaron is a quaint town, centered on one main street that happened to be under construction for the entire month of our stay. It's known mostly for its turtle sanctuary, and for the legendary flying donkey of French tall tales. While we were there, we didn't manage to see either. We did see snow. What was days of rain in Nice was nearly a foot of snow in Gonfaron when we arrived. With the unseasonably warm weather the week before, the trees had blossomed bright yellow but were now covered in snow. 
There were two wood stoves working hard to heat the first floor, and electric heaters set up in every bedroom. But after a day of travel, freezing weather, and hanging out with a sneezing twin on our first day, we both officially caught a cold. Our room was on the third floor, which was a converted attic. And apparently stonework negates the concept of heat rising. With two down comforters, two electric heaters, and a cat snuggling up on the bed, we still went to bed freezing and woke up colder - plus with a dry throat and nose from the heaters. So we got in the habit of sleeping in layers, and took Jill's advice about putting a wet towel on the heater to re-humidify the air.
A few days of snow later, we were feeling back to normal and things were warming up. David went out with the girls and tried his hand at building his first trulli, in igloo form. And Carl, it works!
The twins were a delight to be around when you were on their good side. We'd chase them as monsters, go for walks and play princess. But they were also at that fickle age, and at one minute would "wanna be your fwend," only to moments later insist that you "don't look at me." In spite of typical sister fights, at least they had each other's backs. When one of the girls was "mad" at you, the other would explain to you that their sister didn't like that and didn't like you. They also excelled at the tantrum arts. It was interesting from a developmental point of view to watch them make the conscious decision that they would have a tantrum, not just following instincts like a two year old would.
With so many volunteers, it felt like there were too many cooks in the kitchen - literally. Originally the plan was for Robin to handle childcare, cooking and cleaning while David worked on the renovation project, but with so many of us, we were outnumbering the kids when we were watching them and running out of sous chef spots. So soon enough, Robin was in on the renovation work.
The renovations had slowed a bit with John being on call for his job. Which is basically the job anyone wishes they could have: helicopter pilot to the stars. Just kidding, not the stars. But a multi-billionaire with a yacht big enough for a helicopter land pad, and the need for a private pilot to drive him to and from said yacht.
When we arrived, work had just begun on the two sets of spiral staircases connecting the kitchen to the bedrooms. The house was built in the 18th century, and the existing stairs were constructed with rocks, pieces of wood, and plaster. The first step was demolition, which involved a bit of guesswork because with the strange construction there was a fine line between removing the tile and rubble and clearing out the entire innards of the step.
Then came the wood-taping, cement-laying, plaster-spreading, facade-smoothing, primer-coating, painting, tile-planning, tile-cutting, tile-laying, mortaring, grouting and polishing portion of the work. Sure, it sounds like a regular day's work, but it took longer than that.
Then came the wood-taping, cement-laying, plaster-spreading, facade-smoothing, primer-coating, painting, tile-planning, tile-cutting, tile-laying, mortaring, grouting and polishing portion of the work. Sure, it sounds like a regular day's work, but it took longer than that.
The renovation was tricky because the house was also being lived in (by a lot of people), and working on the stairwell that connected the kitchen to the bedrooms meant that everyone and everything was in the way — all the time. We started with every other step to leave a pathway, which was horribly inefficient but a necessity. And we had to make everything livable again at the end of each workday, which meant a lot of set up and take down of the same things. You know, two steps forward, one step back. Har har.
But, as you can see, we did finish one flight during our stay, which we were very proud of!
But, as you can see, we did finish one flight during our stay, which we were very proud of!
After a day of working on the stairs, we'd hop down (literally) two flights for amazing dinners put together by the other volunteers. Every night was like a culinary experiment gone right by a different volunteer, from potato dumplings to homemade pizza to curried salmon to taco night (something which most of France lacks). When it was our night to cook, our experiment with risotto didn't go so well, as everyone was called to sit down for dinner well before the rice had finished cooking. In our panic, we added a bunch of liquid to speed up the process which resulted in a concoction that was both crunchy and mushy. C'est la vie.
The twins spent dinners entertaining us all with the different expressions and sounds they could make. "Everybody, look at this face!" And they stalled bedtime every night by requesting every fruit in the kitchen one at a time until they were finally whisked upstairs by their parents.
The rest of the night was usually spent gathered together in the living room, enjoying each other's company (and the internet connection and fire). We caught up on movies and TV shows, including far too much Holmes on Homes. Which we all determined was sound directed by one of Holmes' family friends. One night after watching Harry Potter, we came to the sad realization that we are getting old. I mean, sure, we're young and traveling. But all the other volunteers were young and traveling. Harry Potter was their Back to the Future. They're younger than Harry. And don't get us started on the fact when Aladdin came out, they weren't even born! To add insult to injury, they spent an afternoon reminiscing about their middle school dance songs, which included our college hit, "Yeah," by Usher and Lil Jon. For shame. It was a strange feeling to realize you're sharing drinks and jokes with people ten years younger than you. Or even that people ten years younger than you are drinking!
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| Kids these days: some of our awesome coworkers ...'borrowed' photo courtesy of CPJ |
Cami came home from school one day with a stomach bug, which stayed around for so many days that John and Jill took her to the doctor. They were worried that it might be a bigger issue, so they spent the night with her in the hospital. It was a very scary couple of days, and it meant that Celeste was stuck with us volunteers while not fully understanding where her family was. Thankfully, Jill helped us get Celeste into the bath mid-tantrum before she left, and once the bubbles hit the water she was too distracted to notice we were on bedtime duty. For a three-year-old with a handful of strangers and no family in her house, Celeste was a champ. She hammed it up in the tub and through story time. But then she said she would save the last story for when Cami got back, and we had to explain to her that Cami wasn't sleeping there that night. She walked around Cami's crib slowly, and sadly announced, "but there is nobody else in here." It was the cutest and saddest thing we'd heard.
Thankfully, after a brain scan, Cami returned home from the hospital with a clean bill of health, her usual gusto, and a giant chocolate cake.
Chapter 2
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| Robin with our second group of coworkers and a creepy float. |
So, as a farewell gift, Jill and John loaned us all the car for a day trip to St. Tropez, the city David had always wanted to see and just missed on both our Cote Azur road trips, and to head to the Nice airport to finally pick up Kaleigh's bag after a week of fighting with the airline. She'd been such a good sport managing with what she had on her back for that long. We spent a few hours in Nice, touring the antique fair, eating baguettes, and checking out the carnaval decor, before heading on to St. Tropez. We arrived just before sunset and hiked up to the citadel, where we scaled a wall and saw a peacock reach the top of a tree by basically jumping from branch to branch.
Best times:
After watching a successful home haircut performed by our fellow volunteers one evening, we thought, heck, if these kids can do it, so can we! So Robin had a glass of wine and scissors and an hour later David got a much needed haircut.
Learning about British culture from our only non-American company: Like that the word "lad," which we'd always thought meant a proper English boy, basically means a playboy manwhore. There's a whole website dedicated to guys bragging (*cough* lying) about various conquests and punctuating it with "Lad." E.g.: "Just hooked up with a girl while my girlfriend was in the next room. Sly lad."
Le Bowl Super - After a night of super bowl food (nachos, seven layer bean dip, guacamole, chili and chicken strips) we watched a morning after replay of the Super Bowl on the Armed Forces Network. John and David were pretty much the only football fans, Sarah had never heard of the Super Bowl, and Robin accidentally saw the end score on Yahoo. So slowly everyone lost interest and David watched the end by himself.
The Lovely Owl - watching Sarah get as emotional as the first time every time she watched the Lovely Owl. Then introducing her to Christian the Lion with full-on sob results.
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