Our Cathedral, St. Marie Auxiliatrice

Le Valdocco's Open! 

With school starting last month, the Valdocco's been hard at work!  As of right now we have 10 kids who've regularly been coming for afternoon homework help, and as the year goes on we hope to have more.  Some of the subject's we've been working on are Algebra and Geometry, Science, History, and my favorite English.  Unfortunately with my French still not being great, I'm a little limited to how much I can help, but we're usually able to get through the math and English fairly easy.

The way the Valdocco's setup is that we operate in collaboration with parents and teachers.  When a teacher/parent recognizes that a child is falling behind and needs help, or just a quiet place to work, they contact us.  We receive the majority of our funding from the state and therefore it's little to no cost for the parents to enroll their children.  We've already added 3 kids since school's started.  

 

Manu prepping the kids for his game

 

Ismael, my Valdocco co-worker, quizzing the
kids before they run our obstacle course

Being that we usually only work in the afternoons and after school's out, we've had plenty of time to prepare and plan for upcoming activities.  Our last activity was about two weeks ago.  The 6th graders were having a sort of field meet/activity day at a local park and we (the 3 staff from the Valdocco) went to participate.  We setup two stations, one was a relay obstacle course, where you could only start the course once you answered a 6th grade level question, and the other was a team building exercise that had the kids working together to try and get a rosary into a cup; the rosary was tied to a middle knot that had 4 stings coming out that were attached to 4 headbands worn by kids (much easier to do than explain).  Everything went well, all the kids had a good time and we were able to explain to them, and to some of the accompanying parents about what the Valdocco is and offers.  (This is only the second year that we've been open so a big part of our work is still just in getting the word out.)
  
Some of the other activities that I've been doing while not at the Valdocco are:

Talking with the 18 year olds
in English class

- Talking to the English classes about America:  This was a lot of fun.  So far I've talked to 5 classes (all the English classes for one teacher) and hope to talk to more, there're 3 or 4 English teachers here.  What made it so great is that I've forgotten how much I enjoy to (1) talk freely in English, (2) to talk about all the things I love and miss about America (College Football, big trucks, cheesy Mexican food, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches..) and (3) to explain to the students that to get a real feel for the US, you've got to go outside of NY and LA (all the best place & people are in-between!); and then of course that not everything's like what you see and hear in movies and rap/pop music.  They had some pretty good/interesting questions too, the most popular were:
- Do you have a gun?   I say "Bien sûr!"
- How long does it take to go from NY to LA?
- Where have you been for spring break, and is it like on MTV!?  
- Do you prefer American or French food (and girls)?  To each I say France is great, and has a lot going for it, but! America's just too good to top. (Sidenote: the girls are nice and pretty here, but quite feministic.. strongly opinionated.. ugh) 

- Helping with the young evangelizing groups:  For Tuesday and Thursday Manu and I have lunch with two separate age groups of kids; one group's heading into their first communion and the other into confirmation.  So far it seems to be similar to how CCD is run in the states.  We start with a small faith-based activity to get to group talking, then we'll have a lesson, and then we pray and head to the cafeteria for lunch.  Last year they helped organize a food drive and a couple other activities to help the local community.  In all we have about 25 kids, 12ish in each group, and we plan to have their 1st Communion and Confirmation sometime next spring.

 

One of the Morning Prayer poster:
"..See you in the Morning!?"

- Assisting with the Morning Prayer group:  To give the students and faculty a place to pray before the day starts, Manu has organized a morning prayer in our chapel.  They had something similar to this last year but at different times and not all week, so this should be an improvement.  We started last week and so far we've only had 3-4 faculty (out of like 50) and 2 students come.  ..So it can only get better!  I came up with a couple posters ideas to help spread the word but so far there hasn't been a real spike in attendance..

- Evening activities with the boarding school:  Part of the Fondation Don Bosco (the school's formal name) is to teach kids from outside Nice applicable skills so that they can go straight into the work force, similar to a Vo-Tech School.  Being that these kids aren't always from Nice they're allowed to stay and sleep at the school for the duration of the week.  Since there's not a lot going on in the evenings, and they aren't allowed to leave, the boarding school staff and I come up with activities for Tuesday and Thursday nights.  We started with just playing soccer and basketball but now that I my football's arrived, thank you mom, we'll have some decent options.  We'll also probably work in some baseball. 

 

Keep Calm and Come Pray!

That's about it for now.  As the year goes on I expect our schedule get busier in which I'll be sure to keep the blog updated.  Let me know if you have questions, comments or ideas for activities.

À plus tard!


More cultural differences:
- Popping wheelies is the thing to do, especially if you're teenage boy trying to impress some girls.  It's not uncommon to see a guy ride a wheelie (on bikes and skooters) for a 100 feet.. it's actually be kind of impressive.  Haven't seen anyone fall either (knock on wood)...
- Most things start later.  Except for the schools, most people start work around 9ish and finish around 5 or 6 (keep in mind they have 35 hour work weeks).  They also eat later, 7 or 8, and go to bed around 11ish. 
- We've fall break coming up, it lasts for 2 weeks!! booyah! (we will be putting on a mini-camp for half of it..)

Our Nice Coast!