off to french camp

jj went off to camp this morning. one of the mom’s in conversation group had told us all about the summer camp sponsored by city of paris. it is a whole range of camps all over the country priced on a sliding scale depending on official income. the most expensive price was half the normal price of a sleep-away camp. i spoke with several other people who all said the camps were good. jj will spend 12 days on the coast in the south of france with her close friend a. and a’s little sister gg. (their mom is also in my conversation group). she needed to be at the train station across town at 6:15 in the morning. i had spent the last week in paris gathering the things she would need. there were pages of information about camp and at one point i had read something about a doctors note, but then when i checked for it again i found a “required” list that said nothing about that. turns out there were around 3 different lists of required items. sunday night jj found the first list again that said the doctors note was required. there are NO doctors working on sundays except for the emergency room and i didn’t think they’d be interested in writing her a note of health in between treating gunshot wounds (though i don’t really think there are that many gunshot injuries in central paris – more likely injuries sustained by being hit by a car reversing the wrong way down a one way street). i was worried that she’d arrive at the train station and they would refuse her and then we’d have to pay to get her down there ourselves. then i had an idea. i have a relative who is a doctor in the US. the instructions didn’t say anything about the doctor being an official french doctor. i copied the wording from her friend’s dr statement, translated it into english and emailed it to the relative who very kindly signed it and emailed it back.

when we arrived at the train station at 6:15, it was a predictable mayhem as they signed in the 50 or so kids, collected papers from each parent, organized the baggage and herded the kids to the proper train. i needn’t have worried that they would inspect the papers then and there and refuse my child because the dr’s note didn’t come from a french dr. i was admittedly a bit disorganized, but when i saw some of the ragged piles of papers that some parents handed in, i felt better. still to be seen if they accept it and allow her to participate in all the sports.

the group that assembled in the train station was extremely “diverse”. the fancy private schools that jj has gone to always talk about diversity. standing there, jj noted the actual lack of diversity in her school. she looked forward to the experience. the kids ranged in age from 8 to 17, and as usual, there were a couple of kids who looked like they were 25. 2 young women were about 6 feet tall and the way they had “done themselves up” looked more appropriate for a disco rather than 2 weeks in the woods.

Print this post