MY FRIEND HEATHER

I have a friend named Heather, we went to Hotel School together in 1991 and graduated after many tears and much laughter in 1993.  She was living in the UK with her husband and two little girls and moved to the States - NY - the same week I moved here.  She recently wrote a letter to her friends telling of her difficulty in the States, with her mother and life in general.  I laughed when she said how stupid Americans seem to be (generalization of course).  I remember living in California with Manu and being asked by the checkout girl if I wasn't scared of all the tigers in the garden back home in AFRICA. So Heath, I feel you.  Here in France however the French don't appear to be stupid but more outspoken.  They have absolutely no problem in telling you off in the park because your children have no shoes on (Roux that's for you) or shouting at your kids to shut up in the library, they drive up your backside, give you rude looks if you add butter to your bread with pate, refuse to say goodmorning if you are not at least three generations from the village and my best - have total disrespect when visiting a foreign country due to the fact that they don't eat the same foods that they do. 

I have had a bit of a hectic time here to; six weeks on my own without Manu, up and down to Autophonists (speach therapists), Psychologists, child Psychiatrists etc.  We finally got a break and Samuel was diagnosed with Dysphasia, then everything was blown out the water yet again when the doctor down graded him to Gross Language Retardation, which means it's mechanical failure not mental failure with the speach side of things.  Great but not.  Seems Samuel is now not bad enough to warrent the special needs we would have got if he was Dysphasic not that I wish for a dysphasic child but now no assistant for school, no paid for sessions with the pyschologists and my child at 8 years of age still cannot repeat the alphabet, hence today was a very down day.  And then a little angel appeared.  His name - DIDIER. 

We've been taking Samuel to Didier for a year twice a week so he can be taught French in a small group situation, provided by the government schooling system for all exchange students.  We've been told to drop him by the pyschiatrist and just use a speech therapist which we are doing anyway.  So today we got a message to be at the school at 13h30.  It was Didier in person, he drove 45km to speak to us and beg us to send Samuel to him once again for one more year.  He is so nice and so commited, he so wants to help this child and wants us to use his services.  How easy would it have been for him to say OK I agree because to be quiet frank Samuel's lack of language is dire and I think Didier has been even more frustrated than us at times.  So now we will use him instead of a class assistant take him twice a week and see after six months where we are.  So you see Heather when you think there is no more left in you or no more nice people in the world the world surprises you and hands you an angel you just have to be patient.

So to my friend Heather and all you girls our there I send you a little angel to spark up your day xx