Noumean Girls Enjoy Life In Christchurch

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30044, 31 January 1963, Page 14

Noumean Girls Enjoy Life In Christchurch

A holiday in Christchurch is being enjoyed greatly by two French-speaking schoolgirl sisters from Noumea, New Catedooda. They are staying with two schoolgirl sisters at St. Andrew’s HiM, who previously spent a month with the other pair in Noumea. The visits were arranged under an'exchange scheme.

The two families are well matched. The Noumea sisters belong to a doctor’s family of four girls; so do the

Christchurch girls. The Noumea girls are Marie-Anne and Genevieve Caillard. daughters of the director of the French Pacific health service; the Christchurch girts are Sheila and Moira Buchan, daughters of Dr. J. T. S. Buchan, Sheila is 14,

Miarie-Anne 13, Moira 12, and Genevieve 11. Marie-Anne and Genevieve are pupils of the Lycee La Perouse; Sheila goes to Rangi-ruru, and Moira will start there this year. Since arriving from Noumea on January 11, the tour have done some intensive sight-seeing. They have been to Mount Cheeseman (to see snow), Hanmer

Springs, the Cathedral spire, the Canterbury Museum, the McDougall Ari Gallery, the pictures, the Christchurch beaches, and the Christchurch Hospital. The visit to the hospital was necessitated after Genevieve tried out one of her hosts’ bicycles down Marema crescent. Genevieve’s forearm is till an plaster, but it is not seriously inconveniencing her. Another place the girls visited wes the 3YA studio, where the New Zealand Broadcasting Service hoped to record an interview. Un. fortunately the Noumea girls, although loquacious in both French and English among the Buchan household, were struck dumb when confronted with the microphone, and the interview did not eventuate. At the Buchans’ home “The Press" reporter had better luck, perhaps because they felt more ait home, but especially after the reporter (mate) had stepped backwards inadvertently into the

Buchans’ private swimmingpool.

The language barrier has been the more impenetrable tor the two smaller girls. Moira, by her own account, could speak no more of French than "Bonjour” when she arrived in Noumea, but she learnt fast and now has quite a useful vocabulary. Genevieve has only a few words of English, and prefers to use an interpreter where possible. The girls get on together so well, however, that among the four of them intentions are readily understood even when language is not.

The Noumeons have not found Christchurch particularly cold, although, according tn Marie-Anne, the waters of Pegasus Bay proved a bit on the cool side for them. In spite of shaverfag, however, they managed to stay fa longer than the focal pair. They enjoyed the snow art Mount Cheeseman—

it was the first they had seen since leaving France three years ago. The Caillard family and their negro maids gave several presents to the Buchan girts. The most prized are two dolls, dressed after the fashion of French peasants. More immediately in evidence when the reporter called were “pereos”—clothe fa exotic designs printed in Tahiti. (The Caillard girts were wearing cotton frocks, also in Tahitian designs.) Among the other souvenirs brought back by the Buchans were baskets, books, shells and dried moonfish.