Ondulating hills…

Le 23 mars 2005.

It was another beautiful day today. As such, I decided to walk to my internship, which was a wonderful decision as I thoroughly enjoyed my 40 minute walk through Metz. It was just such a great day to be out.

Anna left this morning for almost a full week in Nice. I’m so envious of her! I’ve yet to go to the Riveria and as I was telling Pia this evening, I doubt it’s happening this year.

As I promised my Delphi kid in an email this afternoon, I wanted to post my photos and thoughts from the day trip to Verdun yesterday that I helped chaperone. (Who would have thought I would be a chaperone of middle schoolers! Yikes!) I have to first say how proud I was of our kids, especially when we were watching a movie on the battles at Verdun during the first World War at that Ossuary and a pack of sixième students came in. The little kids would just not shut up during the movie (hence I didn’t get loads out of it) and it was ridiculous as they had about five teachers with them who didn’t even quiet them down. It was our teachers and one of the chaperones who ended up hushing the little kids up. Our kids on the other hand were angels; something I don’t really expect out of them really! :)
We visited the Ossuary after our 5 km hike to it from Fort du Vaux. It was really interesting comparing the forts and midway shelters to the Citadel in Halifax and how they employed the method of building into hillsides so as to be less detectable to the enemy. The midway shelters were really not more than stone walls and a stone roof covered by terrain to blend in. Truly not build with comfort in mind. The trenches were so tiny when you consider that the men crawling through them were boys of 5’8” or maybe a little more and carrying a half of their body weight again in the sack on their backs. Even almost 90 years after the fact, you can still see the trenches running around the country side. Most of the area though is now forested, but you can imagine this bizarrely twisted landscape without the forest and it just seems so surreal. I mean, everywhere in the forest you looked, you could not find a bit of level land. The entire forest floor is this multi-pocked terrain. You’ll have to see the photo of the land around Fort de Vaux. It’s just horrific when you think that there was no forest just all this mud, artillery bombs falling every couple of seconds, and the boys crawling around in it just 18 or 19 years old. Inside Fort de Douanemont that afternoon, the guide simulated the sound and echo of the cannons shooting and the bombs falling- something that again happened every couple of seconds. And when you think about the fact that there was hardly any sunlight inside the forts and the Citadel de Verdun, on top of the noise and the constant moisture and dripping water from the condensation, it’s truly not unbelievable that people went insane if they didn’t die first from these cruel elements. It’s not such a wonder to see the literature that came out from that time. The guide said that in the trenches it could take ten hours for the soldiers to crawl just 6 feet in the mud.
I’m extremely grateful to have gotten to go with the school on the visit, to have had the guide along, and that we took that 5 km hike. For me and maybe for the students, the hike was one of the most impressive aspects of the day. To see that mutilated terrain, still so distorted even almost 90 years later. Maybe too, the students were more attentive since I was along- an American coming along to learn more about one of their most important parts of recent history might have encouraged them to understand the importance of it all more.
It was first in Robert Cook’s Portaits of France that I came to understand a bit about the physical influence of the First World War on the landscape of France and later that I came to realize the mental impact a bit, but still it’s not something I completely understand. Though after seeing Verdun, and talking last weekend in St. Julien to the Algerian War veterans, I can begin to understand why France is so adamant to stay out of wars in today’s age.