Dented world

Last month saw the Mairie being moved from the large stone house it had shared with the school room until the 1970's.
The alabaster Marianne, the portrait of Sarkozy, the files, the board inscribed with the names of every mayor of the village since the Revolution, the computers, coffee maker, mugs and microwave, were all loaded into Alain's trailer and driven the very short distance to the new Mairie.
The drafty rooms upstairs are now being emptied, cupboards of old books and teaching aids which had been stashed there when the school closed.
Alain gave us the world. he said if we didn't want it we could throw it away.
It is old and yellow and colonial. Leopoldville is the capital of the Congo, France is ensconced in Brazzaville and all the shipping routes come out of Europe.
There is a big dent in the Indian ocean, and the earth's axis is broken, but this old battered world is one of the best things I've been given.