The Boy and I spend Sunday in the country at his cousin's house. His cousin, we'll call him Ricochet, is also a good-looking Congolese man like My Boy. He has a 14-year-old son, Jickety, and his girlfriend, Dido, is five months pregnant. None of these names are their real names, but that's ok.
Jickety was born in Congo, but eventually made his way over to France a few years ago. Dido is from the French-speaking side of Belgium, young, friendly, and lovely. She also has a blushing problem to the same extent that I do. She is helping Ricochet to raise Jickety, and soon they will be a nice happy quartet once their baby arrives in February.
What I loved about these people was that, technically, they would make a recipe for disaster. Dido and Richochet met by writing letters to one another eight years ago. They fell in love and eventually met in person. The details get a bit hazy around there, but somehow they met up in France and moved to a small town of about 25,000. They lived seperately until Jickety came to join his father, at which point they all moved into a studio. Dido's white, Jickety and Ricochet are amazingly black, they new baby is obviously going to be mixed. Dido is acting as Jickety's mother-that-never-was, even though she's only twelve years older than him. Hell, Ricochet was only 18 years old himself when Jickety was born. Ricochet works in a factory making paper, Dido's a hairdresser. They don't have much money, but what money they have they invest in the future.
How? Get this: they decided to buy a house outside of their already-small-town of 25,000 in a nearby village. Ricochet picked us up at the train station and said, "Are you ready for the real country? Cause we're going there."
Ten minutes later, we arrived in a small, cobblestone village. All the buildings are made of stone. Driving in, Ricochet said, with his thick African accent, "Oh, there they are... those are my friends," as we slowly drove by two 70-year-old French men clutching their baguettes bought at the one, lone bakery. They gave a friendly nod of the head at Ricochet's car.
"I know everybody in this village, I'm telling you. Jickety and I are the only black people here. Luckily the mayor went around and introduced me to everybody after we moved in, so it's no big deal to them anymore. I'm sure if the mayor hadn't done that, everybody would have been wondering what on earth a random black guy was doing in their village, but now I know all their names and have had dinner in all their homes."
Here are some stats and figure for you of their village:
Population: 115 (soon to be 116)
Median Age: 62 (Jickety is 14 and Stephen, the "other" youth, is 18. Then there's Ricochet and Dido who are just past 30. The next youngest person is over 50)
Mayor: Guy (we never got to know his last name).
Opening hours of the village hall: Friday, 12.30-18.00.
Number of people who have jobs other than farming: 2 (Dido and Ricochet)
It was amazing. It was so insane that it seemed entirely normal. How Ricochet got to France in the first place is still sort of mysterious to me, but I suppose he's having more of the authentic "French experience" than I am. I can't wait to go back.