12 Market Day

Meeting for field service on Monday at Marisa's and four brothers always get together this day. They will be walking towards the Flea Market, making a few house calls and talking to passer-bys.

Far left is Frederique, Bernard, Eric and Jose. They stick together like peanut butter and jelly.

Notice that St.Ouen isn't far from Montmarte; Sacre Coeur can be seen at the end of the street.

Today is covered market day and everyone in the neighborhood comes to get fresh food. This fish vendor has a nice variety.  Another vendor from north Africa has a wonderful selection of olives and other cured items, or dried goods such as cous-cous.                                                                    

Marisa is picking a few choice cuts

Tangerines from Morocco

Portuguese specialties

Outside, vendors sell everything else

Leaving the market, we stop by a local bakery to pick out a little treat for later on. This pastry shop makes their own chocolate and extra large macaroons...

Yummy

11 Construction Site January 1st

There was 'orange' alert in the Paris area which meant certain restrictions for driving vehicles and working on sites because of iced roads; construction at the Hall was cancelled for a few days. Then carpet was laid this week so I only went Friday and Saturday to paint.

Nellie, the first aid department volunteer, asked me to dinner with her family and friends Thursday night. Since they live locally near the Hall, I stayed over so I could ride with her to the site the next day. What a feast! She is from Cameroon and fixed specialty dishes; the other sisters each prepared awesome salads and crepes - a la Francaise...they are from the Brittany region.

Nellie and hubby, Freddie, have 5 children of which the oldest girl Gladys is studying business in school. She is looking to get an internship in the USA for 2 months. She speaks English and as an intern, agrees to work for free as an administrative clerk of any kind, so she can perfect her English. If anyone has a referral to a corporation that accepts internships, let me know asap.

Next couple days, I'm assigned outside painting of the eaves, doors, shudders and anything else that takes white paint.

Meanwhile, teams inside are doing various jobs such as installing the seats. The brother is drilling into the concrete floor while the dust is getting picked up.
Following right behind them, bench seats are set into place and bolted to the floor.

They are discussing where to place the new text for the year in French then also the one in Portuguese. He then shows the friends how to remove lettering and update text whenever needed.

The CCR carpenters are busy building the stage. This brother working on a circular saw is with a Cambodian group, of which there are only about 1000 people associated worldwide. There's a Cambodian congregation in Long Beach CA, I believe? He's French but learned the language when visiting the country.

This happy brother is sizing down the sliding doors to fit a storage closet just behind the book & magazine counter. He is from the Antilles...Guadeloupe.

Break time is whenever anyone wants a hot cup of cafe or tea and a snack...often it is a small baguette sandwich with salami or Camembert cheese...today, they made hot crepes served with home made jams and Nutella...of course.

The carpenters were first to taste the crepes

10 Massimo

Anne-Marie is Italian and was 30 years old when this picture was taken in Italy. She has always loved the Creator and reads the Bible daily, so recently agreed to a study. In her senior years, she moved to France to be near her daughter and is living in a retirement home at St.Ouen where Marisa has the privilege of visiting her weekly to examine the Scriptures. Because of her deep appreciation, Anne Marie reads over ahead of time all the study articles and paragraphs concerning the topic, researching every scripture. She said the worn pages of her Bible is like gold.

Anne Marie is 90 years old

Much of the preaching work for this community is done in the streets; Marisa does not hesitate to ask someone who accepts a brochure or pamphlet for their name and address, phone number, setting up a definite time to call at their home. They find it rather bold but comply, setting appointments even a month later if convenient. Most people live in closed buildings where residents can only be reached through intercoms, so precise information is important. This area is very mixed, not only culturally but religiously. Recently, all the friends here received the recommendation to also preach to Muslims.

Old fireplace in porcelain from Holland at the Flea Market

That evening, Marisa's son Massimo picked us up and took us first to his home for an 'aperitif'. We met his wife Sylvie and his son and daughter. After, we ate at a Chinese restaurant...

Back at Massimo's, the chatter was happy and loud; Nicolas and Manuel played music..classical guitars...we had a very pleasant evening...I'll upload the videos later on when I figure how to operate the program. Sorry.

09 Sophie

Marisa's daughter Sophie came up from Marseille to visit and it was a full house.Thomas is the grandson on the left and Nicolas is the tall guy on the right; Manuel and Sophie have been together 25 years. I had Sunday and Monday off since the site was closed, so we walked over to the Flea Market.

Because of the holiday, many of the stores were closed. Anyhow, the Flea Market is only open on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

.

We had the best crepe I've ever tasted, it was huge!

I decided to come back another day. Meanwhile, we went back home where it was nice and warm.

Fixed a little dinner and made plans for the next day. There was a type of expo in Paris I really wanted to see and Sophie knew all about it; but first, we thought we'd go to the Modern Art Museum near the Eiffel tower to catch a special art exhibition by Basquiat but the queue went out the door and around the block so we decided to find another expo. Took the metro to the Musee d'Orsay but ditto, the queue was so long that we got discouraged, so we walked over to the Museum Les Arts Decoratifs. It was awesome! 

We aren't allowed to take photographs inside but I managed to steal one...this is a hi-fi, radio, tv console in Furniture section...an era where catalog sales started to take off. Gotta see it. 

         

Every floor specialized in textures such as ceramic, glass and textile then in various themes popular during that era. The textile expo showed catwalk film of 1960-90's fashion creations, with also full size mannequins displaying outrageous styles that inspired the Pret a Porter fashion industry, shoes, purses, hats...very exciting.

Musee d'Orsay

Walking toward the bridge and the Seine River was furious...it is rising over the banks and this car is in for a ride! Crossing the bridge, you see a token of Parisian love...locks bound together forever.

 

  

Looking towards Place de la Concorde

Garden of the Tuilleries is the park near all the royal buildings including the Louvre. Though the ground is 50% frozen ice, people are still out wandering around.

The one seated on the horse is Jeanne d'Arc

Taken through Museum window, evening is here

08 Villiers Le Bel

Ingrid from the St.Ouen congregation met me at the bus stop near Marisa's to show me the way to the building site at Villiers le Bel. After a short bus ride to the train station, we took the rapid transit to Villiers le Bel and got there about 6:30 a.m. to find brothers and sisters doing street preaching work at the train station. Ingrid had to leave for her secular job but the friends told me there may be another sister somewhere in the station that morning, and she probably would be taking take the bus to the building site. We looked around but not having located her, I decided to take the bus anyway so I wouldn't be late for morning worship. Finally got to my stop 'Esperance'...and there were only two people getting off the bus. We looked at each other and smiled, and I asked if she knew the way to the Kingdom Hall? She said she was going there herself!  

After registering, getting my shoes and hat, I was assigned to help put up drywall board.

Here David is putting up 'placo' to soundproof the foreign language group room. Groups are Hindi and English, then the French congregation share the hall with the Portuguese congregation.

That morning, it hadn't started snowing yet and there was concrete work to be done. So they removed the pile of snow from the day before and got a team going with jack hammers and shovels.

Later, it did start to snow but the sisters and brothers kept on working. The temp is about -4°C...that's a minus 4! Very cold, folks. 

The siding on two sides of the Hall had to be reinforced and the scaffolding arrived while it snowed, but that didn't discourage the friends from getting it done.

Lunch time with a short 10 minute encouraging talk, and food was served to us at the tables like a restaurant. A typical French meal consists of an appetizer, such as a cold salad, then the main hot meal, followed by a slice of regional cheese or yogurt, fruit and maybe a small dessert, then cafe. Many in this area are from the Antilles or Martinique and we'd have the most wonderful ethnic dishes, full of spices and aromas.

Then back to work; they put me with the painters. On this project, the drywall mud, taping and finishing, was directed by the paint department because it kept the sequence of jobs going smoother. This way, the drywall hangers could come days in advance and get it up and ready for the next trade. 

The brother with the green shirt is Daniel, a master painter. He really knew how to to patiently teach us what we needed to learn. Daniel is part of the CCR North. Sevrine, in the middle, is a local volunteer who kindly took me to the train station at the day's end.   

The Hall seats about 200 people including the space alloted for the language groups and second school. The congregation voted on the choice of decoration and colors. The French love wall paper and the textures were really nicely done.

The Welcome wagon

This is the train station at Villiers le Bel, direction Paris-St.Ouen. We arrive when it's dark and leave when it's dark. Eh...its winter!