Author: Emmanuel

It feels strange living here

I grew up in Vimines, a village about ten minutes drive from where we now live. I went to primary school in Vimines, but spent the first few years of my secondary education in Cognin, the town where we now live, on the outskirts of Chambéry.
Living in the countryside, we often went to Cognin. The church was in Cognin. There was also a small supermarket in Cognin. I played basket ball in Cognin for a few years. It sometime took the bus to Cognin before heading home. But I never actually lived there. Cognin was a small place you had to drive through on your way to the bigger town, Chambéry.
But now I live in Cognin. It is a strange feeling. I feel like I know the place. I can find my way around. The buildings are familiar. But at the same time, I feel like I don’t know the place at all. Strange, and exciting new experience.

Where people meet

We’ve been in Cognin for about two weeks now. The centre of the town is mainly made of building blocks, about 8 floors high for most of them. Ours is the tallest, with 15 floors. It means it is quite compact. Everything is less than 5 minutes walk away.
Yesterday afternoon I took Jean-Baptiste to his first training session with the local football team. It is across the road. There is a also a park. There were dozens of children playing around. The parents were sitting on benches or standing around. Some were chatting, others were reading. It downed on me that when people live in building blocks, you have to get out when the weather is fine. So people seem to spend a significant amount of time hanging around and chatting.
It was different in Pabu. Many people had gardens around their houses. There were no building blocks. That meant that houses were more spread out, but also that many people didn’t feel the need to go out of their properties. It actually could be easier to make contacts here because many people want to get out of their small flats. Time will tell.