Two out of the three children have now been jabbed for 'la grippe de cochon' and I will be braving the nearest vaccination center tomorrow with number three. The older two were done at school and it was apparently, a bit of a performance. For starters, the surveillants ( who are a sort of cross between classroom assistants and dinner ladies) all got kicked out of their staff room and were dispatched to an unheated portacabin, where they spent the day being mightily pissed off and handing out random punishments to passing teenagers.
The staff room was turned into a temporary vaccination center. This involved lots of screens and curtains for privacy. I'm not really sure why, as they were sticking needles into their arms not their bums but hey, this is France. The screens and curtains meant that the people involved, nurses, teachers and children, kept getting lost. The eldest also pointed out that by the time she had proceeded through the three screens to vaccination central where the deed was to be done, the whole thing had become such a performance that she felt as though she was about to be sent to the gas chambers.
The sight of a huge vat of glowing vaccine did little to reassure her that she was not about to be given a large dose of radiation. Or something equally nasty.
The school secretary (who can't cope with paperwork at the best of times) had been roped in to oversee the administration. She had been given an assistant - a very elderly lady who had been brought out of retirement for the day. Unfortunately no one had thought to check her eyesight which had clearly deteriorated since she last had a job. They became increasingly panic stricken as the queue of children clutching vaccination vouchers and medical records mounted up.
I should imagine that when my two arrived with their records in English, it just about finished these two ladies off. The secretary was heard wailing 'I don't speak English' whilst the other poor dear thumbed through the books trying to find a relevant page. They must have managed in the end as both girls returned home with a vaccination certificate. So yah booh sucks to the swine flu. No doubt they will now spend the entire winter ill with other things instead. I think I should stock the medicine cabinet up pronto.
