diving right in

We have a swimming pool in our yard, but we don’t have a swimming instructor. So today after lunch Kaitlyn and I went to the pool to find the swimming instructor. Honestly, I’m not even so sure exactly why I’d been given this task of tracking him down. Another mom had set up swimming lessons by saying to herself “what is the most inconvenient times for lessons? Let’s see… 1pm on Saturday and Sunday all summer! Sign us up!” Then she seemed a bit taken aback when I said I didn’t really want those times. Anyway, the ball was eventually tossed into my court to deal with.

So we got to the pool, paid our 9 Euros to get in and asked for Alain. Oh, he was there… somewhere. You know him? He’s a big guy. He’d been pointed out to me and I was fairly sure based on memory and the above description that I could find him. I quickly figured he was the large older man perched in the lifeguard chair. Given that I think you don’t chit chat with a lifeguard on duty unless it’s to say “Where’s the life preserver?” I thought I’d wait till he climbed down… and hope I didn’t miss him.

As I was walking along the pavement by the pool to stake out a place for our towels, a man in the pool started talking to me. Which shocked me. What didn’t shock me was that I had no idea what he was saying. So he told me in English: no shoes around the pool. Naturally. Instead you have to walk on rough pavers that have been baking in the sun all day. Pleasant.

Finally, the large fellow climbed down from the lifeguard chair. I walked up and asked if he was Alain. Yup, I was right. I jumped into my speech about needing to figure out the lessons for Kaitlyn. When I tried to ask him how many lessons a kid normally really needs, he told me to just switch to English. I guess it was that bad in French. Whatever, the answer is 10. Or 5. Depends on the kid. So she’s signed up for next Wednesday and Thursday (gotta cancel an overlapping French lesson… but anything to avoid the public pool in the middle of the weekend)… then “we’ll see.” I could have waited till Wednesday for that.

Kaitlyn was already in the pool having a great time. The public pool here in our town is set up with three different pools. A baby pool, which I entirely avoided. No reason to wander over there. A kiddie pool, which is about 3 feet deep and bigger than our backyard pool. And a big pool for people who can actually swim. I don’t know how deep it is, but I can’t touch bottom anywhere. So it’s more than 5 feet deep from end to end. Kaitlyn had on her float suit and was going at it in the kiddie pool… where she can touch the bottom. After a while Alain walked up to the edge of the pool when he saw her and said “C’est toi, Kaitlyn?” (That’s you, Kaitlyn?) Then rattled off something about a lesson with him. He walked away I think because she didn’t say a word to him then she got out of the pool and rushed up to me and said “Mommy, that man said I’m supposed to go with him.” So her French isn’t that good yet. At least she thought to tell me this before wandering off. I assured her she’d misunderstood, which made her mad, and she went back in the pool.

We tried the big pool. That’s how I know I can’t touch the bottom on it anywhere. Getting in was a trick because the ladders were where the teens too chicken for the high dive were hanging out. God forbid they move long enough for a 5 year old to get in. I guess you jump in or you’re out of luck. Or like me, you’re pushy. Kaitlyn had on her float suit still, or we’d have drowned there. One lap of the giant pool and I made her get out. That was not fun. To go back, I’ll need a float suit!

She seemed pretty happy with me in the kiddie pool, though. We jumped and splashed and spun and swam. Well, she swam, I walked. There’s no happy medium for me. After a while a little French girl came up to Kaitlyn and said “give me your hands” (in French) and they were off. So I got out. I sat on my towel and opened a book, but didn’t read a word. I was too worried to take my eyes off Kaitlyn. The other little girl seemed like she was about a year older and a year more confident with the whole swimming thing. She had on those awful arm floats which do nothing but make you look stupid and give you a weird tan. She also liked to get out of the pool and jump back into it. And she lured Kaitlyn out to do the same. First, Kaitlyn sat on the edge of the pool and scooted her butt as close to the edge as possible then just slid the rest of the way in. But after a few times with that, she got braver. And she stepped off the edge of the pool. And she loved it. Then she started running to the edge and jumping in. I got up and told her there were two rules to this: no running and no just stepping off the edge. Jump at least enough to not be close enough to hit your head. The girls then spent the next hour jumping in and getting out and jumping in and getting out.

That gave me a little time to check out the characters at the pool. I realized that not everyone in France is skinny. Those who are really do need to eat something. Those who aren’t really need to invest in bathing suits with more fabric. A gut-load of extra kilos is no reason to give up the skimpy bikini. I also noticed that a lot of the pre-teen kids seemed to be the chubbiest. My guess would be that McDonalds is having an impact on the French. There was also an old guy there who walked around talking to all the kids, tossing in Euro coins for them to dive for and return. Amazingly, they did return them. There was another old guy who has mastered the art of tanning to a frighting level; he was the color of orange tinted chocolate. It was fairly gross. But not as gross as all of them parading around in Speedos… the required swim wear for men at the pool. I’m told it’s for sanitary reasons. They’re apparently afraid that people would wear their shorts around all day, get dirty and sweaty, then jump in the pool wearing them. I’m sure that’s far worse than the cigarette smoke wafting over from the snack bar. Or the fact that the bathroom has no sink.

Toward the end of the day, the little jumping girl’s mom invited Kaitlyn to join them at the smoke, er, snack bar for an ice cream. Kaitlyn accepted and told me not to go with them. I hung back for a while then couldn’t stand it and went over. The mom told me Kaitlyn doesn’t speak much French. No kidding.

After nearly 4 hours there, Kaitlyn didn’t want to leave. She fell running back from the snack bar, though, and cut her knee open pretty bad. The lady in the ticket office (I guess that’s what you’d call it at a pool) has a little first aid kit with some strange red stuff you put on to stop the bleeding. I don’t know what that was but at least it didn’t make Kaitlyn cry even more. And I figured you probably aren’t supposed to go into the pool with that goop on your knee. So we came home.

One Response to “diving right in”

  1. D.A.D. says:

    She’s ahead of me already. I still won’t jump into a pool in any way, shape or form. I walk down the steps. Glad to read she reported the man inviting for her to go with him, to you. She had no way of knowing who he was.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.