Tear-gas Tuesday

Jon was at his usual Tuesday morning French class, revising verbs, when he heard what sounded like gunshots. His tutor turned on the radio and said (in French) "No need to worry, it's only tear-gas. And the problem (a student demonstration) is a long way away...it's at the university."

"But we live next door to the uni," Jon replied, "and my wife is at home... alone." So he hopped on his feminine-looking pale blue bicycle and raced home.

After a bad night's sleep, I was still in bed...I figured the shots were fireworks. (Jon was slightly amused I was still in bed.) We started to smell the tear gas as it wafted into our yard. So we shut our windows and checked our front gate was locked, then Jon peeked over the fence to see students running down the street, chased by authorities.

We don't have a radio, or TV, so didn't know what was happening but we didn't feel unsafe and the neighbour's kids were still making loads of noise playing outside. At the height of excitement, we heard a knock on the front gate. After peering over the top of the gate, Jon unlocked the entrance to allow two women and their donkey in, who come every week to collect the rubbish. The day's activities weren't going to stop the rubbish collectors doing their job.

We received a couple of phone calls from friends (and one local minister) just advising us that everything was fine, but better to stay indoors, so we went about our ESL preparations (it was test night Tuesday night for our 70-odd ESL students).

Things quietened down, and our friend who lives nearby came past in her car and invited us for lunch. She lives right near the entrance to the uni, so was even closer to the protest. Her housekeeper had freaked out when the students tried to push their way through the gate into the property, as they were trying to hide. So she went and hid under the bed! We thought this was kind of funny, but she was obviously scared something bad was going to happen.

We ate lunch together and things were starting to heat up again, so we stayed for a siesta at her place. We were a bit anxious about getting home as we hadn't finished preparing the tests for our students (warning against procrastination!). When we eventually walked home late in the afternoon people were just hanging around on the streets like they do everyday.

Our friend told us to pack an overnight bag as we may need to stay somewhere else, but everything was fine, and our classes weren't cancelled and all the students came for the test (some even came early, for once!).

Cathlin