Sunday, July 31, 2005

Questions, piffle and spice!

Interview courtesy of Doris @ Gran's on Bran - I knew they'd be good!!

If you were a cartoon character which would you be?

OK, if I was a cartoon character I would be a strange mixture of Ariel from The Little Mermaid, Nala from The Lion King & Wile Coyote! Why? I am always singing like Ariel and I have this "need to know" which she has all the way through the film; she has a passion for seeing other parts of the world! Nala was a rambunctious, mischievous, and adventurous cub in the Lion KIng who became brave and loyal, with a strong sense of justice. I'm not particularly adventourous anymore, but I am loyal and I'll stand shoulder to shoulder with my friends; supporting them in any way I can! And then there's Wile Coyote - I have such good ideas, (a sad combination of brute force & blind ignorance!) which when I have the guts to follow them through, so often blow up in my face & I love fried chicken!!

little-mermaid
nala
coyote

Right, I am off to try and photoshop them together!!

What is the most unusual present one of your school kids has given you at the end of the school year/Christmas?

I am always incredibly grateful to anyone who buys me a gift @ Christmas or at the end of the school year. I have a job that I absolutley adore & I get paid & then someone buys me a gift! The children always say "if I was going to buy you a present, I'm not going to but if I was going to, what would you like?" No prompting from parents there then eh? So I always say "tell Mummy/Daddy I like red and flowers!" However, over the years I've had lots of awful crystally things, like this!

crystal

This is absolutely not the worst present I've ever seen. A colleague of mine had a present from the "unusual parent of an unusual child" one year. It (see below) still lives on the shelf in her office ..... just in case the parent/child comes back and asks to see it!!

plasticlobster

The best present I ever had was in my first year in the present school - I cried on the playground as I brough the children in. The parents had got together and bought me vouchers for Ikea which were fab BUT they also gave every child (and their siblings) in the line a rose; so they all trooped past me and gave me a rose as they walked into school - *breathes deeply* it was beautiful!

You've been to lots of places in the world - what is the strangest toilet you have used?

Oh boy! In my third year of university I went on a study visit to Botswana. We travelled through the country with teacher training students from Tlokweng College in Gabaronne; the students were fantastic - so friendly/welcoming. Most of them came from rural areas in Botswana and as part of their teacher training, they went on a journey around Botswana to find out about their own country. As honoured guests, we were invited along with them - a 4 week journey in the back of a cattle truck, through the country from north to south and back again. We slept each night on the floor of a local primary school, on a mattress that we carried with us - not your usual 4* Safari tour. I feel really priveleged to have made this journey with those young people; down into the Kalahari desert, north through the Magadaki Salt pan, the Okovango delta (where we travelled by mokoro - dugout canoes), into Chobe National Park and finally into Zimbabwe and Victoria Falls - the world's biggest wet t-shirt competition!

Public toilets in Botswans were few and far between - I got quite adept at finding bushes in the desert to scoot behind. When there were loos, they were tiny, little concrete buildings perched over a pit ..... it took me 8 weeks to remember that Basadi and not Banana was Setswana for women, so going to the loo was always a lottery! There were huge spiders; Sarah and I always went to the toilet in pairs, so we didn't have to close the door to imagine the horrors behind them - we couldn't see as it was pitch black in there! And then in week 2 of our journey I picked up a stomach bug - probably water that I hadn't purified properly but it knocked the feet out from under me! Oh and then the toilets became even more of a horror - I could no longer "hover" over the black holes in the concrete slabs, instead I lined the abyss with wet wipes and was as quick as I could be!!

Strangest toilet - small concrete hut containing a concrete slab with a hole in it over a pit, with no roof in Bokspits (most southern point of Botswana, on South African border) - there was no road into Bokspits, we had travelled along a dry river bed in the lorries. Sarah and I went to the loo (we became very good friends by the end of the trip!) I can see stars (that I can't recognise being in the southern hemisphere), I'm peeing as quickly as I can; I can hear lions calling in the nearby Gemsbok National Park, something was scratching around by my feet and then this little voice says "wine gum Jo?" Truly and beautifully bizarre!

A few Botswana piccies for you to enjoy

Botswana accomodation
on the back of a lorry to the desert
Welcome to Zimbabwe
the world's biggest wet t-shirt competition

How old were you when you first learned to use chop sticks?

I don't remember learning to use chop sticks, but I do remember the excitement when the Chinese take-away opened up in our village! This was West Wales circa 1979/80, I was 10 or maybe 11 I can't remember exactly. Ok there were Chinese restaurants in Swansea (10 miles away) but nothing in the village. No black, brown or yellow neighbours or friends; the Italian families who ran our local cafe were still considered "exotic". We had one black girl @ our primary school, she had been adopted by a white family in those days before political correctness went mad and left black/Asian children in local authority care unless there is a suitable family of colour to care for them (oh I am opening such a can of worms - worse than the caravan comments - eh Doris!?!)

And then in the October the Chinese takeaway opened - my mum & dad were going out for the night, my grandparents were baby-sitting and I was given money to get dinner from the Chinese! My grandfather was horrified; he had been in the merchant navy for nearly 60 years and had been to pretty much any country in the world with a sea-port. His memories of China (and Chinese food) were of the ports he had visited - Shanghai, Xiamen and Ningbo - were dog and cat were often on the menu in the restaurants and markets around the docks. I had sweet & sour pork with fried rice and chinese vegetables. I can still remember the taste, the delicious crispness of the batter on the pork, I still don't like water chestnuts - & if memory serves me correctly, I used a fork!

If you were a TV reporter what would you be reporting about?

Africa; drought, starvation and AIDS - more people need to now what's going on! Live 8 has been and gone and relief agencies are still having to ask for money for starving kids in Niger - come on guys!!

Now the rules
Leave me a comment saying 'interview me please'.
I will respond by asking you five questions here on my blog (not the same questions you see here!)
You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions
You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post
When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions


I don't expect anyone to ask me to interview them ........ I won't be upset *smiles broadly* it was just that I knew Doris's questions would be fab!!

17 comments:

Doris said...

Phew! You certainly don't short change :-) What a feast of answers and I loved the pictures to illustrate. I'd give you 10 out of 10!!

The rose incident at school was beautiful - made me cry. I've worked in schools and can imagine. Loved the idea of the lobster for one of your colleagues. What a scream.

You didn't disappoint with your toilet scenarios, and I knew you'd have something to conjure up concerning the chop sticks.

I do hope that others will ask you to question them because that is actually as much fun and part of the process.

Meanwhile, I can see I am going to have to add a PS to my post and put links to these great sets of answers.

Ms Mac said...

I loved the story about the roses, brought a tear to my bif sappy eye!

I have already been interviewed once so I would like to respectfully decline.

But I loved you answers!

GreekGoddess said...

Hello, Michele sent me.

Tracy S said...

aweee the rose "ceremony " sounds very cool :) It sounds like you have a group of great kids ..What was with the lobster as a gift ..lol

Here via Michele's
Have a great weekend !!

Anonymous said...

That was a really fascinating post Jo :)

And please, please interview me. my blogging gears are rusty after three weeks of not being used!

Sara said...

I would love to be interviewed by you!

Lisa said...

Wow, that was fabulous reading. I could feel how choked up you were with the roses, how beautiful. And that 4 week trip in the back of a cattle truck, what a fantastic experience...minus the toilets and their spiders that is lol

Total enjoyed reading that. Thanks :)

Fizzy said...

What a fantastic interview and questions. I am comingback to read this again laer on today when I have a bit more time. See you later on

Recovery Road London said...

Grumpy or Bashful..or both...split personality.
:-)

Katya Coldheart said...

that was one of the best interviews I have ever read...fab questions and great answers...

:0)

Le laquet said...

Sorry about the question delay guys, as I finshed the answers I pretty much left on my 570 drive/journey to France. Arrived yesterday; showered, ate and SLEPT!! More awake now ..... so -

Doris - they were fab questions and I really enjoyed them!

ms.mac - thanks, my mother always says "your bladder is too close to your eyes" .... I cried about the roses to!

presentstorm - if I had been handed a lobster I don't know how I would have kept a straight face!

Le laquet said...

Fi – I know exactly what you mean, sometimes a meme is just what you need. So here's your questions.

1. What, now that you are living back in NZ, do you miss most about the UK and why?
2. If Miss 4.10 lived in the UK, she would be due to start school in September, what advice would you give her to get the best out of her school years?
3. If you were an ice-cream sundae, what combination of flavours and toppings would you be? Why?
4. What book/piece of literature have you enjoyed reading most as part of your course work?
5. If I was coming to NZ on holiday, what 3 things would be musts to see whilst I was there?

Le laquet said...

Slinky - writing your questions right now!

Sara - thanks and I'm glad you enjoyed!

Fizzy - it was such fun to do, I had a ball!

Kenny - a mixture of grumpy and bashful .... where's my photoshop?

Katya - *blushes* thank you very much!

Le laquet said...

Righty-o Slinky – here’s your questions

1. What song(s), taste(s) and smell(s) transport you instantly back to your childhood? Why?
2. What are the best & worst things about living in Colorado Springs / Colorado?
3. My friend Ruth says “honestly” @ the end of sentences all the time (imagine Billy Connolly in a Glaswegian accent!) I don’t take the mick (tease her) – much! What word or phrase do you use “too much” in every day speech?
4. What were you doing in Peru? What was the best thing about your visit? Why? *
5. If you could teach everyone in the world one thing, what would it be?

* Ok, I realise this is technically 2 ½ questions … go on, let me get away with it, just this once!

Fizzy said...

I am back again. I loved reading it. Really good answers. a Lobster????? I think I know the kind of parent and the kind of kid

Sara said...

thanks for the questions, the answers are on my blog :)

Katya Coldheart said...

hubby did that on our air bed when we went camping, do you have something to blow it up with and if so where did you get it...???

you can borrow my pencil anytime btw...lol

:0)