All the students of Cours Francois Villons in Zinder (1989)

I had a happy expat childhood going to a tiny French school where there were less students in the entire school than in my Swedish class. Lol, I was supposed to teach the other Scandinavians French but ended up learning fluent Danish instead. We had a lot of fun, but it was small world, benign to intrigues. A Libanese-Indian girl and I (we were the oldest of the girls at this time, and the only two students in our “class”) always ended up fighting, and every time we did, the school would part in two, half of them siding with me and the rest with her. Now the funny thing was that Danish twins would be on one side each, and then at the siesta break, they would get together and share all “internal” information with one another, information that was then passed on to the rest of the group when the evening classes started again. You can bet we had a lot to gossip about! I have no memories whatsoever of the banal things we would argue over anymore (I do remember not understanding half of it, but the fight scenario was pretty cool and an interesting happening nevertheless) but I remember a trick I had if I grew tired of the “war” and saw the need to reunite with my one and only classmate: which was nothing more advanced than telling her how my mom had wanted to name me the same as her and that we therefor had many things in common. It worked every time… Understand the logic of young girls if you like - I sure don’t - but it’s fun remembering!

There’s a person on the picture that I’ve always wanted to get in touch with again and that’s Danish-German Vibeke Pedersen (she’s the only other blond girl apart from me). I got in touch with the Danish twins Signe & Marie Nilson after a few years (then lost touch again - isn’t that so often the case?) but I never heard from Vibeke again after she moved back to Europe and I’ve always wondered what happened to her.