My New French Friend

Last night I met Chantal, a 58-year old retired teacher. She sent an email to all of the elementary school English assistants looking for someone to spend a couple of hours with a week. I respond yes…and yesterday we had our first “meeting” (if I should call it that).

I am really excited about this opportunity. Chantal did the same thing last year with another assistant named Diana (who is now in Brazil) and they spent time together cooking, walking around Tours, going to the movies, shopping for groceries, etc. Chantal speaks English and is doing this purely for her pleasure. She hopes that her English will improve, she will make a new friend, and she can help me perfect my French.

I arrived at Chantal’s beautiful home (filled with furniture and art from Asia and Africa) around 5:30PM. I was late….I misread the email (which had actually said 5:00PM). I get confused because the French use military time so whenever I see 17h00 I never think 5:00PM right away. Anyways, I made it and we had a cup of tea together and she went over the emails I sent her and corrected all the grammar/word usage for me! It was great! When we were talking she would stop me mid-sentence to correct my verb conjugations, prepositions, and masculine/feminine problems with nouns. I met her husband (Francois) and granddaughter as well….who I think I will be seeing regularly when I go to her home.

We are going to meet once a week (at least)….most likely every Wednesday around 5PM. I am looking forward to my next visit to her home….when Kaitlyn will accompany me! She will learn some French and Chantal will be forced to speak English! ;)