Loto fun!

Walking around this weekend, we noticed several signs indicating that Loto was going on at the cultural center on Sunday at 2:30 and that big prizes were going to be awarded. Since we don’t have much of a social life here and intrigued by what kind of lottery it could be (I imagined a sort of Chinese auction), we took the two-minute walk over there. There are always challenges in a new place and our first this time was to find the right door in! The place really looked closed up tight, but then on the other side we spotted two women smoking outside a door. Sure enough, we were at the right place at the right time. As soon as we got to the Loto room we realized that this was not a lottery at all, but a Bingo gathering! I didn’t really want to spend the afternoon playing Bingo, but the people were so nice—explaining how their version of the game works and finding two adjoining places for us at a table—that we decided to stay.

The room was quite large and absolutely packed with people. Both of us noticed right away that the average age of the group was at least sixty-five; we only found out later that it was a “loto du club du 3ème âge” or a Bingo club for the elderly. On the stage were three people—a man whose job was to spin the basket (boule de sphère) with the numbered balls in it; a lady who reads out the numbers as they come up; and a woman “helper” who writes down the winners’ names and distributes the gifts. The lineup of gifts was quite impressive; there were at least ten of them, including a not-very-good painting to a digital camera, a special kind of steam iron, and a microwave. Besides that, at the entr’acte (or intermission) there was a tombola (a raffle that we missed out on by arriving a bit late) which contained individual prizes of, among other things, various liquors and liqueurs, a big ham, a trip to Menton (that we would’ve loved to win), and a big TV.

The people sitting around us were very friendly and welcoming; they explained that there would be a two single quines (where you win if you get one row covered each time) followed by a carton plein (where the whole board is covered). If there are two winners at the same time, they draw a number out of a bag (tirer la ballotte) to determine the winner of the big prize; the other one gets a tin of cookies, so all is not lost. Gisèle, the lady across from Ray, told us that she had actually been to Boston to visit her daughter who lived in Arlington at the time. She was obviously a seasoned Loto player, having orange pions magnétiques and a little wand (une baguette or attrape-pions) that picks them up as you sweep it across the board! Gisèle’s husband, also named Raymond, was quite a character—un vrai personnage. The word curmudgeon comes to mind whenever I think of him; a cantankerous fellow with a gloomy look and a gravelly voice who’s funny even though he doesn’t always intend to be! The first thing he said when we told the group that we're American is: “Vous n’êtes pas obèses!” (“You’re not obese”—a comment that we could only laugh at.) All in all it was an enjoyable way to spend a few hours on a Sunday afternoon.