TWO WEEKS IN NOUMÉA: GETTING TO KNOW THE PLACE

  Photo: Children playing in the American Park to the south of Nouméa’s CBD.

mardi, août 7, 2012 (Tuesday, August 7)

At 7.00 in the morning, we (Isabelle and I) left the house.

Robert had left earlier in his Landcruiser and Danny had travelled to school on his scooter.

A few minutes before 8.00, we arrived at the entrance of the institute.

 

As would be the normal routine for the next lessons, we, the students, would recount what we did the day before.

 

For today, however, we were asked to describe the family that we lived with - to the other students in class.

 

We were to describe the different family members and what they did. It was interesting.  

We also told the rest of the class members what we ate for dinner. We had a lot of practice with the passé compose tense in that exercise.

 

During the break our tutor suggested that I change class because the level of these students were a little above mine.

I asked that I be given a few more days to see how I fared.

 

At 11.50am, my host arrived and took me to Centre Ville, Nouméa’s CBD. She showed me the place I would wait at after each day’s activity to be picked up.

The plan was for me to go anywhere when classes ended each day at 12.00pm – to visit the museums, shops, beaches, jetties or parks. Then at 4.30pm, I would go to the park – the American Park and wait for my host to pick me up.

 

A few of my other course mates also would wait around for their hosts at the same place at around 4.00pm.

 

 Since I was too tired to walk around town today, my host brought me home to rest.