Nearly 300 children in a village which is made up of just over 400 souls, it’s crowded, it chirps, it runs, it’s bustling, it’s teeming with life. This is what happened in Salles-Courbatiers, last Friday: the day looks bad since, in the early morning, a small storm breaks out; then everything clears up quickly… When pick-up vans drop off groups of children on the square in the hall, accompanied by their companions, immediately welcomed, in Occitan, by Zélie and Mathieu from the AdOC 12 association.
“Patois” dialect
The “recampament” can begin, which brings together children from the schools of Ambeyrac, Bournazel, La Rouquette, Mayran, Salles-Courbatiers, Sonnac and Villeneuve… Lots of children, from kindergarten to older primary school children, that it is a question of entertaining, always to the sound of this Occitan dialect, not the strictly academic one but the deliciously patois and very local one. And the organization, just like the stewardship, follows without problem: 2 groups, 4 workshops. A first group, 138 little fellows, walks to the village hall of the Croix de la Garde for a show, that of TIO La Rampa “Quesaquo e Mascomprès” with 2 actors; the second, made up of the remaining 124, is divided into 3 workshops, occupying in turn by small groups of 25-30, some emblematic places of the village of Salles-Courbatiers: the hall, very recent but made in the old way, explained by Christian the carpenter, the carriageway of the swans, the mills of La Mouline and the small streets up to the church.
Sunny parenthesis
This is how the morning goes, punctuated by “cançons” and “danças” and after the “repais tirat de la saqueta”, the 2 groups are reversed until 3:30 p.m., when the coaches embark all these little people , delighted with this beautiful day. “E cric e crac la jornada es acabada… merces plan d’esser venguts ea l’an que ven!”. The village regains its calm… Before a few showers, harmless, come to close this sunny parenthesis, dedicated to Occitan and its joyful singing accent.
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