Ski Sick

I cannot move. I am totally paralysed. Immigration and intergration are totally totally over-rated. Stay with your people in your homes I say...DO NOT MIX!

I filled out a form that I half understood, about volunteering, to help with the kids' ski classes (part of the regular curriculum here) As a skier I respond to gravity...but that's about it. So I pictured myself stationed in the kids play-area. Where they have a sort of conveyor belt, bringing the kids up a slight incline and you sort of give them a shove back down. You bring the occasional one for a pee-pee. Pull the fallers upright. Easy Peasy! Well within my comfort zone.

So today I show up for the meeting about it. I happen to be in my ski gear and have my skis as hubby and I were throwing ourselves down various pistes all morning.

We are going to be tested! We are required to indicate our level of competence. There being no section for pee-patrol, I chose "D" which was described (at least what I could make out) as able to go down any red (intermediate difficulty) run, blah blah blah in french . Yep, that'll do.

Up 3 ski lifts we climb, to the summit of the Alps. Two testers, one in front and one behind the laggard (no prizes for guessing who that was!) Our first slope was the hardest I have ever been down. But no friends or family to prevail on to "eff this, lets go for a coffee!" So nowhere to go but down.

For any skiers reading it was a black mogul run with 15 of my fellow parents within 2 feet of me. Thankfully I didn't kill anyone and I got all the way down to the bottom on skis (getting down a black run is easy, doing it on skis is the challenge) and did an impressive somersault on the easy part. The only faller thus far.

On an on it went. We had to ski down and line up about 8 feet apart and then the top skier slaloms (weaves) between the others. My mantra was "whoever I kill, please may it not be on of the neighbours."

Then out of the blue I was saved from further humilation by an english teenager. He approached our tester and explained in english that his father had fallen and couldn't get up.
The tester called out for an english speaker....at last an area I excel! So I spent the next hour by mobile phone trying to get the piste ambulance to the english dad, who was off-piste on his own (sort of off road, so no landmarks) with a broken leg. The first aid guys had difficulty locating him and we left before he was actually found...but I did reassure him by telephone, in an inappropriately delighted tone...that all would be well...if he just kept me here a little bit longer.

We were running way late, no time for further testing, but instead had to belt down the rest of the mountain. Given that I had no idea where I was, my only option was to keep up with all these born-on-skis-people. The laggard-minder got fed up eventually and over took me...baastard!

They waited for me every so often. I wasn't that slow. But once I skied over one mums skis and the other time I nearly took the tester out. Accurate braking is an area I'm working on.

I'm wrecked and if I do pass muster for pee-patrol in the jardin des enfants...I imagine they'll insist I don't wear skis.

Update 13/1/03

Well I made it! Got the "job". Unfortunately all the positions on pee-patrol were filled by mammys claiming to have busted knees and some such guff. So because I seem so robust, I was assigned to actually go on the slopes, on skis, with the kids!!!!!!!!!!

I was a nervous wreck this morning. Studying the piste map, programming all the emergency numbers into my phone. Well 5yo sonny boy and I set off with the rest in two coaches (120 odd people) for the unfamiliar ski station. Course no-one speaks bloody english. That's the main problem with foreigners!

I was assigned a parent partner and a group of 6 good novices 7 yos.
All went pretty well except for the time 4 of the 6 fell off the button lift.
Not bad for the first day...5 to go..argghhhh!
Feel the fear and do it anyway!