Halloween

The French don't really celebrate Halloween, so I decided to spend the weekend in St Brieuc with the other anglophone assistants who were equally determined to bring yet another American, highly commercialised* custom to rural Brittany. Maybe it was all those souls walking the earth, but it made for a surreal experience.

It all began at the train station at Montfort. I was sitting on the platform, waiting for the train, when I saw an elderly man carrying a guitar who attempted to cross the track (see L'amour et La Haine). The light had turned red, indicating an approaching train, but he decided to run across anyway. He tripped on the rails, sprawling on the track and I screamed in horror as the high-speed TGV to Paris came thundering towards him. He managed to get up and onto the platform the other side just in time; the train missed him by a gnat's crotchet.

For a man who had just been almost killed, he recovered remarkably quickly and explained to me that God had saved him. He began to tell me the story of Job and how it showed that God tests us but is merciful in the end. Though he spoke in an eccentric, singsong style, I had the feeling somehow that he wasn't just a drunk, religious crackpot and decided to talk to him. I'm glad I did; it turned out that he was, in fact, one of Senegal's most successful musicians, Seydina Insa Wade. After a personal serenade on the train, he gave me a hug and a CD - which turned out to be very good indeed - and I watched in bewildered amusement as the man who had just been playing his guitar for me went off to perform at a concert in front of thousands in Paris.

Shortly afterwards, I found myself killing time in an internet café in Rennes. Another elderly gentleman - South African this time - sat at the computer next to mine and was clearly struggling with the technology, so I helped him connect and log on to his emails. I couldn't help but smile when he complimented me on how good my English was; there is no praise higher than being mistaken for a local.

As for the Halloween celebrations themselves, I knew from watching Mean Girls that, in America, the rules for costumes are as follows:

1) Girls must reveal as much flesh as possible
2) It's so passé to actually dress as something scary

The only costume I had was one of my bellydancing outfits and since it adhered to both these rules, I decided to wear it. At the very least, it meant that I got served immediately in the bar. We went to an Irish place which had got into the spirit of things with even the bar staff dressed up, and ended up being entered into a costume competition. The results are to be announced next week but seeing as the five of us constituted over half of the dressed-up entrants, it's likely to be one of us. Watch this space.

The rest of the evening passed equally bizarrely, with a brief session in a disco where I ended up bellydancing to French techno music and a meeting with a man wearing an (apparently) traditional Breton kilt. Our group generally attracted strange looks followed by an, "Ahhh, l'Halloween," as the cent finally dropped. This being France, I got none of the leers and catcalls that a girl in traditional cabaret garb expects in the UK; instead of cries of, "Get yer tits out for the lads!", I was complimented on my dancing, told I was beautiful, and asked about my classes. British men clearly have a lot to learn about the art of seduction, which is probably why I'm dating a German.



* Even more so than in the UK. They even send greetings cards over there, apparently.