Everything was so different to me. Having travelled in luxury by train for days at a time between Rhodesia and South Africa, I was expecting a comfortable compartment, the beds of which would be lowered from their upright positions by railway employees, who would then make up the beds with fresh linens. Not so in France in August 1967. Four or six bare bunks were in each compartment. Passengers slept fully clothed. There was no washbasin except at the end of the carriage in the toilet cubicle, and everywhere were notices telling passengers that the water was not drinkable. How was I going to get through the night, I wondered? I was thirsty, but there was nothing I could do about it. I had no idea that I was supposed to cater for my own needs during the overnight trip.
I arrived in Murat, tired beyond belief, thirsty, hungry, and feeling anything but clean and fresh. Two “surveillantes” in their mid-twenties, were there as promised, all smiles of welcome, but I didn’t understand very much of whatever they said to me, and certainly couldn’t respond.
I walked with them from the tiny railway station into what looked like a medieval world: stone houses, built up and down narrow, sloped, cobble-stoned roads, with no semblance of order. The entire village was grey: grey stones on walls, grey wooden shutters on windows, grey slate tiles on roofs. No relief from the grey, except for the green mountains in the distance, and the huge white statue of the Virgin Mary overlooking the village from her pedestal on a stark peak. With the supervisors chatting away to no avail, I crossed the edge of the equally grey, cobbled market square, in the middle of which stood an ancient stone fountain, where a few women wearing headscarves and wooden clogs, were collecting their water in large jugs. I could hardly believe what I was seeing.
This was when the supervisors pointed out the school to me. Where? I couldn’t see anything that looked like a high school, although a formidably stern building with shuttered windows and a long grey slate roof was facing the nearest end of the square. This was a school?! It looked like a medieval barracks, with a formal stone archway over an entrance, above which hung the French flag.
Yes, this was the school, but we didn’t go in through that same entrance. I learned later that this entrance was used by the mayor of the town, who had his office inside the building. Instead, we walked round the back of the building, where we walked towards a small dark courtyard, overpowered on three sides by the ominous grey stone walls of the school buildings, with their high windows and wooden shutters. To me, the place looked like a prison, so bleak, so cold, in every sense of the word, so unwelcoming, and not a sign of life anywhere. Yet the sun was shining, and the sky was blue. Had I travelled back in time, I wondered? How would I survive this medieval-looking building and this ancient village’s lifestyle?
