One for the record books

Josiah was keen to invite some of his new friends for a birthday party. When your child—in a new country, who's doing his darnedest to make friends with children he can barely communicate with—asks to invite kids over for his birthday, you put aside your own concerns about the million little practicalities and Make It Happen. My wonderful grad school friend Evie came to the rescue once again and talked me through the expectations surrounding kids' birthday parties here. For example: they're almost exclusively held on Wednesdays from 4 to 6 p.m. or Saturdays at that same sort of time, they're low-key affairs, parents rarely stay, one serves cake but never ice cream, favor bags are expected to be small bags of candy...the list of little expectations that go unnoticed in one's own culture but are so interesting and important (and potentially stressful) when you're in another culture just goes on and on!

Galvanized by the call with Evie, I Googled up some general wording, and Josiah brought invitations to five school friends the following day. This was a week ago. We set the time for today, Saturday, in the afternoon, and we were delighted that three of the children were able to attend (one girl, two boys). And yes, I put a little comment at the bottom of each invitation saying that we were newly arrived, spoke very little French, but would do our best!

The children all arrived at the appointed hour. We had friendly if a bit awkward "conversations" with the parents at drop off. I put quotes around the word because of course our communicating relies heavily on gesture, simple sentences, and lots of hopeful smiles. 

We told each parent they were welcome to stay if they wanted, but each politely declined. And perhaps that was for the best, because, well, I'll let the photos do most of the talking from here:

Everything started off great. The sun was shining, and the kids played and ran around together. After a short while they folded paper airplanes and spent a while tossing them around, giggling (usually at me butchering words), and generally having fun.   :)

We knew that thunderstorms were forecast, and sure enough, an ominous rumbling began in the heavens. Despite still having blue sky above, it became one of those non-stop thunder rolls that goes on and on. I kid you not: It thundered without ceasing for over 30 minutes while we played outdoors. When the clouds eventually moved in, we headed inside to make some little parachuting Lego Minifigures. (We decided to flout the "candy for favor" tradition and do the little Lego guys instead. I mean, we're foreigners...we get to break a few rules!)

Over the course of just a few minutes, the sky went from dark to darker to black...to white? Hail descended. It was wild. We understood from the kids that hail is very uncommon, and of course we all watched with that mixture of excitement and fear that you get during really wild, powerful weather events!

Obviously we got a LOT of hail, often with heavy rain mixed in. Here's the level at the door when we opened it after the precipitation ceased:

If only that were the end of the story. Alas, no. 

In the midst of the storm—which went on long enough that we'd returned to our paratroopers long before it ended—I was bent over the kitchen table helping somebody do something when Noé blurted out, "Il pleut dans la cuisine!!"  

Did he just say it's raining in the kitchen?

I whipped around. Yes, yes he did. It's raining in the kitchen. This photo doesn't begin to do it justice. It was coursing down the walls and there was a steady, faucet-like stream falling from the middle. Mind you, this is what I could see on the bottom floor of a three-level house...a looooong way from the roof. 

Jesse kicked into high gear upstairs, where it really was indeed basically raining inside. There was water coming waterfall style down the stairs from the boys' room to the middle level. Unbelievably, inconceivably bad.

What could I do? Serve cake and sing "joyeux anniversaire," that's what. Couldn't exactly abandon the kids! Plus the floors were dangerously slippery, we didn't want the children to leave the (dry) kitchen table area, and well, it was all pathetically hilarious. You can sort of see the white-out conditions out the door behind Josiah...   Happy birthday, kid!

 Once the storm passed, with Jesse still bailing like a madman upstairs (buckets were filling literally faster than he could make the rounds to empty), the kids begged to go outside and experience the novelty of the hail-covered landscape. With trepidation, worsened by the fact that I don't really know how to caution kids in French, I agreed. 

No, I didn't press them into hard labor (below). They asked for the brooms and were excited to sweep a path through the 3-4 inches of hail, clearing the way to the door and moving enough so the door could open when their parents arrived. 

The parents confirmed that this was utterly bizarre weather, one of the worst storms ever to pass through Thouars (some of them have lived here their entire lives). One dad said his house too sustained roof damage and was flooding badly throughout, like ours.

This is my sum-up portrait of the party:

Party post-script:
Once the guests left, the real fun began. Ugh. We've been in touch with our landlord, in Canada, and are documenting areas of worst damage. The entire house feels waterlogged (and regretfully is beginning to smell the part too). Much of the water that came through was black and horrid. Paint is bubbling on most ceilings, areas are still dripping clear to the bottom floor now hours after the rain stopped, walls are wet to the touch, water is everywhere, pretty much every towel has been destroyed in service of protecting bigger and more important items. Unfortunately, most of the boys' books that we brought were ruined, as is their Monopoly game. Jesse's and my toothbrushes got a good dousing in nasty black water too, and I'm trying to decide if scrubbing them in the sink with boiling water (which I intellectually know will clean them) is going to satisfy me psychologically enough to put it in my mouth before bed tonight. Hmm. Shops are closed now until Monday, so I guess I can't wait that long to brush my teeth!

Apparently there were no promises made about our particular house being saved from flood.  :)   (Rainbow seen out our back window an hour or two after the hail storm.)

 

One last note: We were so touched when one of the dads returned to our house a few hours later in the evening. We must have looked so helpless during pick-up time, and he came to see if we needed any help. There really wasn't much more to do at that point but wait for things to start to air out, but we were incredibly grateful...especially considering that he's the one whose own house was likewise wet. We've kept his number and are thankful that we can call him if needed.