1st day at class & my new friends

Yesterday was my first day at class. It was a long and tiring day for me. Fred took the day off to look after Lucas as we had not managed to arrange for a babysitter. In the past 4 months I'd gotten used to getting up and taking my time making Lucas' breakfast, chasing him a couple of times around the apartment to change his clothes, getting Lucas to brush his teeth and then having my coffee and croissant. This time however, I didn't have that luxury of time even tho' I woke up at 7.45 am. The night before Luc must have "known" that he would not see mama nearly all day so he woke up at 5 am and didn't want to go back to sleep until I brought him to our bed. He fell asleep after the sun rose and I managed to sleep for another hour of so before the alarm went off.

My class has 15 people including me - 4 Armenians, 2 Chechens, 2 Moroccans, 2 Vietnamese, 1 Thai, 1 Nigerian, 2 Uzbeks and 1 Malaysian. When I arrived the students who were already there had already "booked" places for their friends, so I ended up sitting in a "wedge" between 2 tables. I thought the Armenians were a bit unfriendly at first but by break time, we were all friends. Ludmilla brought me cookies and the Thai girl from ChiengMai (I didn't get her name) brought me coffee. No one in the class spoke any english except for the Thai girl and Charles, the Nigerian but we managed to bond over our broken french :) One of the Armenians, Edward is really funny with his quips in Russian and broken french and had the class crack up in laughter throughout the day. The Eastern Europeans in my class speak to each other in Russian, I reckon by the time we finish our french lessons in a few months, I may be able to speak some Russian as well since they translate everything in French to Russian to help each other out.

Ludmilla and her very pretty daughter Rosanna (waist length long black hair, tight jeans, black singlet, dark kohl eyes....) are from Armenia. Rosanna told me they actually live in Odos and walk (yes, WALK) 5 kms to attend class! The government helped her family by providing shelter and food, but neglected to give them a free bus pass!
Sitting on my right is Raya from Uzbekistan. She is a qualified nurse in Uzbek and would like to look for a job in France. Her spoken french is a lot better than mine, and yet she has problems getting a job. All the students in my class are jobless. All of them expressed that they would like to work but most of them are blue collar workers - mechanic, welder, roofer, Edward does plumbing for heating systems and they do not have the diploma required from France to work in their field.
My professeur Elizabeth told me at the end of class that I will join the more advanced class starting on Monday. I tried to tell her that I didn't want to change the class but to no avail. She wants me to try that new class on Monday and then if I really cannot cope, I can go back to this class with my new friends...