A trip to Remember!

When we think back to that trip, from Paris to Marseilles to Bordeaux, it seems like "the mother of all trips", as they say!  The Arnolds and we were headed at last for West Africa.  We were booked to take a ship out of Bordeaux, but we decided not to go directly there. Instead we took a little vacation time along the way.  None of us had seen the southern coast of France or the city of Marseilles, and so we decided to go the long way around to Bordeaux from Paris.  (Paris being north central France and Bordeaux being the large port city to the west.)

We had heard through friends in Paris that there was a gentleman, Papa Lejeune, living in Marseilles, who ran an inexpensive boarding house for Christian workers and sailors on leave in that port.  So we inquired about it, found the price was affordable, and signed up for a couple weeks stay.  It was a pension, so both lodging and food were included in the price.

We tried to time our sorties in town so that we could be back at the boarding place for meals as we had already paid for them.  It was a good place for children also. We all ate at long tables in a common dining room and each family had his own rooms.  The food was plain, very plain.  For example, most nights we started our meal with "bread soup". The French eat a lot of bread with their meals and that bread dries out quickly so it is not good the next day. Whatever was left over from breakfast and lunch was dried in the oven and grated and made into a soup.  The contents of the soup were some water, bouillon, a few spices and the grated bread crumbs which gave it substance. It really didn't taste bad, but they served it most nights. 

But we did have a good time there, going out during the day to explore that area, which was new to us.  The weather was beautiful.  We had made friends with some Christian people at a church camp earlier in the year, and they lived near Marseilles. They invited our family to have dinner with them and we enjoyed that. They had a teenage son who loved to talk to us, but we could understand little of what he said.  His parents told us that they often didn't understand him either, as he spoke a combination of Marseilles dialect and teenager slang!  But it was interesting to get into another French home.

While we were in Marseilles, we had to start taking our anti malarial drugs.  And this was a battle, especially with Cheryl!  We and the Arnolds were giving the nivaquaine pills to our three children together as we thought that would encourage them to swallow the pills. It worked for Debbi and John but not for Cheryl.  We put the pill in food, gave her milk to drink with it, tried to put it on the back of her tongue and pour in water.... she would struggle as we struggled to get the pill down, and after she had swallowed the bread or milk - or whatever - the pill would always still be there and she would spit it out. We went through several nights of this, but finally got all three kids dosed with their anti-malarial drugs. It was a battle!

We left Marseilles and went as far as Lourdes that first day.  We had some pillows and blankets with us, and we found a rickety, old dormitory where we could rent a room for a dollar a room a night. So we and Arnolds each got a room.  And we saw the sights of the healings and cathedral of Lourdes, the caves where healing had taken place, etc. 

We ate very frugally as none of us had any extra money, and we knew that we could not get to the hotel in Bordeaux for two more days. So that meant another night on the road. We stopped by a sandy beach along the ocean, not far from Bordeaux, and made ready for our overnight stay there.  The men dug out a big square in the sand and covered the recessed place with a layer of pine branches from the trees that grew along that coast. It was wide enough for Dave and Jan and Dad and me to all sleep together.  We put down a wool blanket on the pine branches to keep us warm underneath, used our pillows and put a warm blanket over the top of us.  It was a cold night under those bright stars but we did get a little rest. In the meantime, you three kids were snuggled up warmly in the VW.

We wakened early the next morning and drove on into Bordeaux and found the hotel where we were scheduled to stay until our ship left port.  Dad and Uncle Dave went into the hotel to check us in (we were a pretty bedraggled looking bunch by then!) and then they came back to get us.  But while they were in the hotel, the desk clerk kept telling Dad that Mrs. Pierce was in such and  such a room waiting for us.  Well, the Mrs. Pierce that Dad knew was sitting in the car waiting to get into a room and have a shower and a change of clothes, so he had no idea what the clerk was telling him.

What a surprise for him to finally discover that the Mrs. Pierce in the hotel room was his mother!!  She had been on a European tour and didn't really care for the company she was with, so she made arrangements to go to our hotel in Bordeaux and wait for us there to spend a couple more days together before we sailed!!  What a surprise that was! And we had a great day or two together in that lovely hotel. And Mother got a chance to be with her granddaughters and us for a couple extra days. She flew back to the States from there. 

And so it was off to Africa, our long awaited destination.  The Alliance had a travel rule at that time that stated on a large ship (like the SS United States)  their missionaries travelled by tourist class.  But on a small ship - like the one we were boarding in Bordeaux - missionarites travelled first class.  So we had all the conveniences of first class.  Lovely staterooms, a playroom for the children and a nurse to take care of them. The children were fed early and then cared for while we ate our meals as adults.  It was like a lovely vacation, that week (or so) trip by sea to Abidjan!  They used the same crystal and china for the children as for us adults. One mealtime, John Arnold was drinking out of a thin goblet and bit into the goblet and the blood was running down his chin along with his milk!  It was a good trip and we had pleasant weather and I do not remember anyone's being sick.

Finally we arrived at the port city of Abidjan - AFRICA at LAST!!