The customs of a new country can be delightful, startling, or disturbing, and sometimes all at the same time. Last week Zoe took part in Carnival, a festival where all the children in the town dress up in costumes, follow Monsieur Carnival through the town, and then eat snacks- or at least that's how I understood it. There was one aspect I hadn't quite grasped. The evening after Carnival when I was picking Zoe up from her nanny's house, I asked about Carnival. Zoe was a little scared apparently because there were so many children and it was too noisy, but overall she enjoyed the parade through town following Monsieur Carnival, the arrival at the square, the subsequent BURNING OF M. CARNIVAL, and then the snacks. I repeated this back to the nanny, thinking that with my limited french I had misunderstood the Carnival customs, but no, M. Carnival gets burnt at the end (and then everyone gets snacks). Somehow I had missed the part about burning M. Carnival a la the Wicker Man in the description of the Carnival events in the town newsletter. Zoe didn't seem too traumatized-I think the presence of enough papillote (little candies is foil paper), brioches, and assorted bon-bons made up for the potential trauma of human sacrifice.
