It's not a good idea to write when I'm grumpy, but what can I do - it's a grumpy time. Neighbourhood speculation is that I'm allergic to the mango trees' pollen, as they are currently in bloom and I am currently sneezing every 8 seconds. (Except for when I'm doped up on Drixoral, as I am right now, and the problem is more of the falling-asleep-standing-on-the-sidewalk variety.)
Having to run around the city getting paperwork organized so that I can finally get my social security in order is also a pain, not to mention busting my butt to get to my doctor's appointment and then waiting an hour and a half because everyone's on lunch. (Why give me a 12:30 appointment when lunch is 12:00 to 2:00? Are you KIDDING me with this?)
For your enjoyment - or your vicarious frustration, if you're in the mood - I tell you what's written on the sign on the waiting room wall: your appointment isn't so much a fixed appointment that the doctor has to show up for, but more of a tool to help reduce some of the waiting time. In other words, you come while we're on lunch and wait 90 minutes so that we won't waste our precious time once we get back.
Oh, that Guadeloupe. What a blast.
[For those of you who are interested in the original, perhaps to better understand why there is no future for me in translation: Le rendez-vous que vous donne la secrétaire n'est pas un rendez-vous fixe exigeant l'exactitude du médecin, mais une convocation réduisant une partie de l'attente.] [I know "convocation" isn't "tool" - I was just going for a quick approximation. Get off my back!]
Last week was a good one, though, as a certain Madam Honey came for a visit. Bearing English books (hooray!) and deodorant (it's 8 euros a stick here), my mom came to spend March Break in the sand and sun. It was a bumpy beginning, as snow on the plane's wings caused a delay - snow! I can't even conceive of the stuff! - and she got here two hours late and boiling hot, but once she changed out of her sweater and jeans and we piled her stuff into our wee rented Twingo to head home, it was smooth sailing.
Except that my claims of "don't worry, it's cool at night" were obviously ridiculous to someone who had experience a 50-degree temperature jump in one day, and then it was rainy and gloomy where I had so confidently assured sunshine. Hm.
But the weather returned to normal after the first day and we spent the week visiting various rivers, beaches and hot springs while my mom became pink and relaxed. Not as relaxed as she would have been if she hadn't come to my classes with me, though, as two days among my perma-wired students is a rough part of any holiday. (She wisely elected not to make any second appearances throughout the week.)
She did see my precious ones, the ones I want to smuggle home, and the interesting school lay-outs, and went home with a deeper understanding of why her Caribbean-raised students have so much trouble functioning in a Canadian classroom. The base noise level and the teachers' indifference to schoolyard (or classroom) violence make it hard for kids to suddenly sit still and keep their hands and comments to themselves. This is a good lesson for me as well; next time my blood boils into my throat and I find myself going for a ten-year-old’s jugular, instead of shouting, “I hate you! Shut up! For the love of God, shut up!” I will simply smile, zen-like, and remember that the problem is a question of cultural differences and I embrace cultural differences. I. Embrace. Cultural. Differences.
The definite low point for us both was Wednesday. It’s my day off and we were going to do some glass-bottomed boating with a little bit of snorkel fun tossed in at the end. The bus got there just three minutes after the boats left (both boats leave at the same time, which is obviously BRILLIANT) so we stayed on and went another hour along the lovely coast to Deshaies and its gorgeous beach.
I thought it was pretty crappy when a huge wave sucked me under, rolled me around, went up my nose AND stole my all-time favourite and very stylish army-green Che Guevera-style cap, which I was wearing to protect my fragile scalp from the sun, if you must know. (In all fairness, though, I only have the hat because I saw it on Bronwyn and she looked so super cute that I went out and shamelessly bought the same one. Such flagrant style-biting rarely goes unpunished, so here is my one-year-later karma coming back to bite me where karma bites you, and I think you all know where that is.)
I saw things more in context, though, and realized that a lost cap isn’t such a big deal, when we went back to our stuff and discovered that Mom’s money and my cell phone had been stolen out of our bags. How do you like THAT. And the worst thing is that it’s this punk kid I met on my last visit to Deshaies, when he tried to convince me that the waves went further up the sand hill than I thought and I should move my stuff closer to the forest where it’s safe and dry. Not so stupid as that, little man, I thought smugly to myself, I know what game you’re playing and I am not a sucker.
But then I saw him on the beach this time, definitely recognized him, and STILL went confidently in the water because I thought he had left, while he was most probably sitting in the forest behind us, waiting for us to leave all our valuables and run carelessly into the water. You know what that makes me? A sucker.
We called the police and went into the station to make a report. They knew exactly who we meant, confirmed by our finding the right mug shot (mug shot! I thought it was just a little beach brat!), and halfway through our statement-making they got a phone call from the punk’s sister – his family clearly as tired as we are of his punkish ways – saying that he was walking down X street with the cell phone he “found on the beach.” The cops caught him, but not before he was able to dump my phone, either in a friend’s bag or over a bridge or I don’t know where. Interestingly, there is significantly less concern over the rights of the accused here, as the cops went through the kid’s pockets in front of us, found Mom’s money, called some chief guy to okay the thing and handed it over to us. And that took care of that.
Various people I know have since claimed to have extra cell phones they’d be happy to lend me for the rest of the year. All I have to do is buy a SIM card, and I don’t know what that means but apparently it’s cheap and will do the trick. Things tend to fall through here, though, and people are quick to offer unsolicited help but then disappear for three months, so I’m not actually counting on anything coming through. For all that I hate cell phones, when it’s all you’ve got and then you don’t have it anymore – with all the phone numbers in it and the alarm clock, not to mention people calling and getting my answering machine and not understanding why I’m not calling back – it’s a big hassle. Hotmail keeps shutting down, I have no phone, most of the phone booths in Basse-Terre have been vandalized… I’m uncontactable! Woooooo!
So Bronwyn arrives on Saturday, in the middle of the Easter week-end shut-down. The streets are already empty (everyone’s camping on the beaches and eating crab, as is the Easter tradition) and the buses M.I.A. today, the Tuesday before Good Friday, so I’m a bit nervous about our chances of finding a car rental/bus/hitchhike in the middle of the week-end. However. We will find a way, we always do here in sunny Guadeloupe: Pa ni pwoblem.
I hope there's no more snow to shovel and that you have lots of Easter chocolate to keep you warm.
Kathryn
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Tuesday, March 1, 2005
In the Loupe, Chapter 18
Hey everyone. Frankly, I don’t have much to tell, but I’ve paid for my internet time and I’m determined to use it: you’re getting an update. If you don’t like it, too bad.
Remember Steve and Jeff, the Dominikan guys who were painting my apartment when I moved in? The basketball players? Well, in friendly conversation, I had said that sure, if Steve got a piano I’d give him lessons. Why did I say this? To be nice, to shoot the breeze, because I never thought he’d actually go through with it. I mean, what do I want to teach piano for? I hate teaching piano! Well, guess who bought a keyboard. I’m a sucker piano teacher once again.
Our first lesson was on Monday and was okay, except that their apartment is a sauna – an actual sauna. They wear towels around their necks, which I think makes it pretty clear that they’re sweating too much. It’s time to get a fan, boys. I rubbed ice cubes on the back of my neck for most of the lesson and stared longingly out the window, where I imagined there might be a breeze. (Which is unlikely, actually, as we’re now smack in the dry and BRUTALLY hot season, and if you want a breeze you have to get in a boat and go out to sea, which is just highly impractical.)
What’s fun is that Steve has the big beefy hands of a welder and basketball player, so playing the little kiddie songs with two thumbs on middle C is a bit chaotic. He seems to enjoy it, though, and bobs his head along like he’s listening to Motown; Twinkle Twinkle Little Star has never been so happening.
I don’t care about the lesson so much as the Jeff and Steve show: they live together, work together and play basketball together, yet somehow haven’t strangled each other. Jeff is super tall and has a long face and he’s the worrier. He does the cooking and most of the cleaning and he sat quietly and watched our entire lesson – I could barely stay awake, it was so boring; what was keeping him interested? – nodding in approval when Steve would play well, shaking his head a little when he heard a wrong note. He even offered encouragement when Steve got frustrated, telling him Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was Twinkle Twinkle, which I think is the best pep talk I’ve ever heard.
Steve is the shorter of the two and has a round face, and he giggles a lot and is always munching. He’s easy-going and anytime they have a disagreement he backs right off and lets Jeff have his way. He wears stripy t-shirts and he wants to be a gospel singer.
Are you following? Do you see where I’m going with this? Tall, long-faced and serious? Round-faced, giggly and always eating? They’re the Dominikan Bert and Ernie! It’s a dream come true!
The unfortunate part is predictable enough, as Steve thinks he should show me the light of God. I think that brings the total up to eleven people this year who have fretted over my heathen ways. (It’s time I learned to just lie, lie, lie, get down and pray if I have to, to get these people off my heathen back!) So if I have to haul ass all the way to Rivière des Pères and sit in a sauna for an hour, and THEN be preached to about all the Jesus love I’m missing in my life, this game is over. I’m going to have to lay my cards on the table and see if I still have to teach lessons; maybe having a black and hopeless soul will be my ticket out of teaching piano. It has to serve some purpose, after all.
My time is up, so you’re free to go. I hope all is well with you – heathens notwithstanding.
Kathryn
Remember Steve and Jeff, the Dominikan guys who were painting my apartment when I moved in? The basketball players? Well, in friendly conversation, I had said that sure, if Steve got a piano I’d give him lessons. Why did I say this? To be nice, to shoot the breeze, because I never thought he’d actually go through with it. I mean, what do I want to teach piano for? I hate teaching piano! Well, guess who bought a keyboard. I’m a sucker piano teacher once again.
Our first lesson was on Monday and was okay, except that their apartment is a sauna – an actual sauna. They wear towels around their necks, which I think makes it pretty clear that they’re sweating too much. It’s time to get a fan, boys. I rubbed ice cubes on the back of my neck for most of the lesson and stared longingly out the window, where I imagined there might be a breeze. (Which is unlikely, actually, as we’re now smack in the dry and BRUTALLY hot season, and if you want a breeze you have to get in a boat and go out to sea, which is just highly impractical.)
What’s fun is that Steve has the big beefy hands of a welder and basketball player, so playing the little kiddie songs with two thumbs on middle C is a bit chaotic. He seems to enjoy it, though, and bobs his head along like he’s listening to Motown; Twinkle Twinkle Little Star has never been so happening.
I don’t care about the lesson so much as the Jeff and Steve show: they live together, work together and play basketball together, yet somehow haven’t strangled each other. Jeff is super tall and has a long face and he’s the worrier. He does the cooking and most of the cleaning and he sat quietly and watched our entire lesson – I could barely stay awake, it was so boring; what was keeping him interested? – nodding in approval when Steve would play well, shaking his head a little when he heard a wrong note. He even offered encouragement when Steve got frustrated, telling him Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was Twinkle Twinkle, which I think is the best pep talk I’ve ever heard.
Steve is the shorter of the two and has a round face, and he giggles a lot and is always munching. He’s easy-going and anytime they have a disagreement he backs right off and lets Jeff have his way. He wears stripy t-shirts and he wants to be a gospel singer.
Are you following? Do you see where I’m going with this? Tall, long-faced and serious? Round-faced, giggly and always eating? They’re the Dominikan Bert and Ernie! It’s a dream come true!
The unfortunate part is predictable enough, as Steve thinks he should show me the light of God. I think that brings the total up to eleven people this year who have fretted over my heathen ways. (It’s time I learned to just lie, lie, lie, get down and pray if I have to, to get these people off my heathen back!) So if I have to haul ass all the way to Rivière des Pères and sit in a sauna for an hour, and THEN be preached to about all the Jesus love I’m missing in my life, this game is over. I’m going to have to lay my cards on the table and see if I still have to teach lessons; maybe having a black and hopeless soul will be my ticket out of teaching piano. It has to serve some purpose, after all.
My time is up, so you’re free to go. I hope all is well with you – heathens notwithstanding.
Kathryn
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
In the Loupe, Chapter 17
Well, Carnaval is finally over. At least until the end-of-lent party and then black and red day, whatever that might be. For right now, though, it's over.
The big night parade was kind of a bust because it rained, though that seems to be tradition for Carnaval. It was cloudy and threatening rain all the next day, for the big Mardi Gras parade, but the party gods smiled on Guadeloupe and it stayed dry. And relatively cool because of no sun, so spectators and paraders alike were grateful for the breeze.
This was the fourth parade I saw and definitely the best, as there were some very exciting costumes and choreography and floats and of course the music is amazing. There were odd things as well, though, such as the group of motorcycles that drove by, at least twenty of them, revving their engines. No music, no costumes (at least be Hell's Angels or something), no special bikes, classic or co-ordinated or otherwise. Just a bunch of dudes on ugly motorcycles filling in a gap in the parade.
There are lots of independent people who wander between groups wearing masks and makeshift costumes, either monsterish, hobo-ish or women's clothing. They clown around and dance funny, flirt with the ladies, annoy the crowd. One guy had a funny sign about being out-of-work and this little goat dressed up as a market lady. Perhaps he didn't know that there would be a bajilliion food vendors and most kids would have popcorn, cotton candy and a greasy McMuffin-type thing called a Bokit in their laps. Needless to say, the goat - clearly unconcerned with his health - made a beeline for all this artery-clogging food and caused many a tear among the front-row kiddies. All hell broke loose when he went for a little girl's ear and she was so scared she peed, and then the goat man made fun of her and her dad almost punched him out. Woo!
The hobos and clowns were actually really good, funny dancing and exaggerated body language and so on. Can I tell you something, though? I don't think I like masks. The facial expression doesn't match what the body's doing and I find it very unsettling. There was a group that stuffed big beer bellies into their suit-and-tie costumes and had masks of Bush, Clinton, Chirac, and especially Saddam Hussein. (Which is vaguely offensive, isn't it? I can't put my finger on it but there's something weird there. I'm pretty easy to offend, though, so I'm not a fair judge.) But with the unmoving facial expressions and then this crazy pelvis-based dancing, it was very, very uncomfortable to watch. Funny, but uncomfortable. When people talk about the heebie-jeebies? I had them.
I also saw that kids CAN dance and play and be rhythmic and co-ordinated, they just have to be Caribbean. Eva's school is in an area where all the government workers live, so all the French people who come here for a few years send their kids to Saint Claude. All the kids I saw who tried hopelessly to follow the dance captains and ended up crashing into each other and falling to the ground? Foreigners. The kids who have grown up on the island, raised on Carnaval and local drumming, can MOVE. They shake it for all it's worth and they're right on, and in their tiny little costumes it's really something. I'm sorry to break it to you, all you non-Caribbean folk who try to loosen up and shake it: we'll never get it right. They do it like they breathe and the well-meaning non-islanders who try to fit in stick out like big hairy sore thumbs. What are you going to do.
The saddest thing about each parade group is that the least attractive ladies are always stuck way in the back. You get used to oohing and aahing over the hot stuff front-and-centres, then settling in to a sympathetic smile for the girls who just aren't feeling it. The costume doesn't quite work, the dance steps aren't happening... you kid yourself that you'd be in the first row, maybe you'd even be chosen to wear the huge and sparkly bird costume, but really you know that you'd be back there with the strugglers, making snarky comments about Miss Universe up there in the hideous feathers. (It seems that hideous and over-the-top costumes are the most popular and get the biggest positive response from the crowd, even though the result is flying papier mache in the ugliest possible colours.)
While I loved an African-themed group (with, obviously, the best drumming) and the all-female steel band group dressed up as breasty and intense amazon women, I didn't so much like the groups that drove a truck with speakers on it, no costumes, just a giant thug posse yelling thug posse-ish things at the crowd like they're the next Snoop Dogg (a big seller here.) I also didn't like the kids with giant whips scaring the bejeezus out of the babies near the front. It represents slavery and the rest of the group is really good, but the kids walking in front and cracking these things all over the place - maybe Carnaval will be less fun when you're on your hands and knees looking for the eyeball you just whipped out of some kid's face. How about NOT giving large whips to the teenage punks who aren't good enough to be drummers for their group, so now they have something to prove and lots of testerone to burn. Really now.
What I found most interesting was how eager all the men were to jump into a lady's dress, usually with a stuffed bra and lace stockings. There was one all-out drag queen as well, lip-synching as she was driven by in a fancy car, and she was the hit of the parade: the crowd went wild and the women whispered excitedly about how beautiful she was. Most of the dance captains were gay, even Fabulously so, and winked and flirted with the crowd, including the men. And the men - get this - DIDN'T BEAT THEM UP!! In Guadeloupe! Macho, homophobic and misogynistic as a rule, and all of a sudden they're open-minded and fun during Carnaval? Does that mean progress? Or just extreme intoxication? Hard to say, my friends. Hard. To. Say. Either way, thumbs up from my side.
For the end of the vacation, Franck and I were going to go to neighbouring English island Dominika, beautiful and mountainous and super cheap, especially when you're bringing your euro up against the Caribbean dollar, which is even weaker - and you have to believe me on this, impossible as it may seem - than the Canadian one. Weaker than the loonie, my good people; I would have been queen of the island and bought piles of English books since I've run out again.
However, this being Guadeloupe, the travel agency in Basse-Terre, one of only two cities on the entire island, was uninformed that there were technical difficulties with the boats in Point-à-Pitre, the other city. I guess when you have two whole travel agencies on an island, it's difficult to keep each other up-to-date on such insignificant problems as the three-times-a-day-route-that-goes-to-four-other-islands being out of order. Understandable.
Having hitchhiked our way to P-à-P, though, as there are no buses during Carnaval, we refused not to go on a trip. We waited all day and then took the 5:15 boat to Marie Galante, a small dependency island South of Guadeloupe. After a shaky boatride - either you sit inside and vomit or you go out on deck and the wind turns your eardrums inside-out - we docked in the middle of the Black and White festivities, where everyone wears black and white and bangs on drums. I don't know if it would have been as unexciting in Guadeloupe, if that's just the nature of the event, or if it's because Marie Galante is too small to have both participators and spectators at a parade, so the effect is mostly lost. All I know is that the hundred or so people involved walked around and around the town square from 6:00 p.m. (or maybe earlier) until 1:30 a.m., when they finally burned the damn end-of-Carnaval puppet and put the drums away.
Our hotel happened to overlook the square, is why I had it up to here with the drumming. And by "hotel," of course, I mean "the attic of some guy who charged us 30 euros for a non-functioning toilet, a curtainless and baseless shower that automatically drenched the bathroom and flooded the hallway, and the sheets of the guy who had slept there last night, potato chip crumbs and all, conveniently located above the seven-and-a-half-hour parade." While Marie Galante is a huge tourist destination, you see, there is not a single hotel in the town where the tourists actually arrive. Go figure.
After a bizarre half hour of wandering around lost (this entire town is the size of a grocery store - I can't explain how it happened and I'm still ashamed), we had a nice dinner beside our luxury hotel. I was particularly pleased that the waitress was the exact twin of my mom's friend Elisabeth. I was even happier when she confirmed that the cd playing was Cyndi Lauper, thus winning my bet and a day at the beach from Franck, who was convinced it was Madonna. (Not only "Time After Time" and "I Drove All Night", but "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"! Where is this guy COMING from?) (Dave, if you judge you can't love.)
We upgraded to an actual hotel the next day, in the next town, excessively uphill but with a nice view, air conditioning (no mosquitoes) and - most importantly - silence. We rented a car to tour the island, saw the most beautiful beaches imaginable and realized that Marie Galante is off its rocker. Everyone tells you the people there are open and welcoming, but it turns out they're hostile and don't like tourists. They also don't like Guadeloupans, and let's not even talk about mixed couples. It was a real treat. Our only moment of kindness was when Franck forgot his bag at the hotel and a lady drove down to catch us before we left and give it to him - except that 80 euros were missing. Warms the heart, such kindness.
As far as being a tourist, it's not easy: nothing is marked or explained. There are attractions on the map such as "Black Lake" or the intriguing "Devil's Hole," so you drive around in circles looking for sideroads you might have missed, then finally ask a fruit seller on the side of the road who falls off her chair laughing. This is Black Lake. "But where's the lake? This is a dirt road." Yeah. It's Black Lake.
So it turns out that these must-see attractions are actually just the names of neighbourhoods. Decrepit, sad, empty neighbourhoods.
On our third time past where the path to the famous Etretat-type cliffs was supposed to be, the frustrations of the past few days caught up with me and a bad joke of Franck's threw me into a laughing fit, full-blown hysteria, which made it necessary for me to pull over so as not to crash our already-barely-functioning '91 Twingo into the bushes. It is thanks to this puilling over that we saw the sign we had missed the first two times: a rectangular piece of dark wood, the size of a piece of computer paper folded lengthwise, at knee level, with small black hand-painted letters: Gueule de Grand Gouffre. Black on dark brown, see? Almost on the ground, in the bushes, slightly bigger than an envelope. To the most famous attraction on the island. What happens to the tourists who can control their laughter? No Gueule for them.
The sign they do have a lot of is "Slaughterhouse," the best-indicated site this side of Niagara Falls. If there's one thing they want you to see before you leave, it's dead animals. (In case you can't read, there are pictures of cows as well; no discrimination here.)
We took comfort in the fantasy beaches until it rained, then decided to turn in the car and get the next boat. It was hard to drive in the rain, as neither the windshield wipers nor the headlights worked. This was unsurprising, though, as the passenger side door didn't open, the trunk didn't close, the radio didn't work, the rearview mirror was non-adjustable and set for someone of about 6'2" (makes sense in a backpack-sized car) and the whole car sounded like it was on a set of very creaky bedsprings. This was the good car, though, as they first gave us one that wouldn't start unless you pushed it; they found our insistence on changing cars unreasonable and only grudgingly gave us the Twingo dream car when we said we wanted a refund.
It was a relief to get on the boat, nausea notwithstanding, and bid farewell to our newly-dubbed Marie Galère (Marie pain-in-the-ass, roughly?) and return to comparatively highly-functioning Guadeloupe.
Carnaval: check.
Kathryn
The big night parade was kind of a bust because it rained, though that seems to be tradition for Carnaval. It was cloudy and threatening rain all the next day, for the big Mardi Gras parade, but the party gods smiled on Guadeloupe and it stayed dry. And relatively cool because of no sun, so spectators and paraders alike were grateful for the breeze.
This was the fourth parade I saw and definitely the best, as there were some very exciting costumes and choreography and floats and of course the music is amazing. There were odd things as well, though, such as the group of motorcycles that drove by, at least twenty of them, revving their engines. No music, no costumes (at least be Hell's Angels or something), no special bikes, classic or co-ordinated or otherwise. Just a bunch of dudes on ugly motorcycles filling in a gap in the parade.
There are lots of independent people who wander between groups wearing masks and makeshift costumes, either monsterish, hobo-ish or women's clothing. They clown around and dance funny, flirt with the ladies, annoy the crowd. One guy had a funny sign about being out-of-work and this little goat dressed up as a market lady. Perhaps he didn't know that there would be a bajilliion food vendors and most kids would have popcorn, cotton candy and a greasy McMuffin-type thing called a Bokit in their laps. Needless to say, the goat - clearly unconcerned with his health - made a beeline for all this artery-clogging food and caused many a tear among the front-row kiddies. All hell broke loose when he went for a little girl's ear and she was so scared she peed, and then the goat man made fun of her and her dad almost punched him out. Woo!
The hobos and clowns were actually really good, funny dancing and exaggerated body language and so on. Can I tell you something, though? I don't think I like masks. The facial expression doesn't match what the body's doing and I find it very unsettling. There was a group that stuffed big beer bellies into their suit-and-tie costumes and had masks of Bush, Clinton, Chirac, and especially Saddam Hussein. (Which is vaguely offensive, isn't it? I can't put my finger on it but there's something weird there. I'm pretty easy to offend, though, so I'm not a fair judge.) But with the unmoving facial expressions and then this crazy pelvis-based dancing, it was very, very uncomfortable to watch. Funny, but uncomfortable. When people talk about the heebie-jeebies? I had them.
I also saw that kids CAN dance and play and be rhythmic and co-ordinated, they just have to be Caribbean. Eva's school is in an area where all the government workers live, so all the French people who come here for a few years send their kids to Saint Claude. All the kids I saw who tried hopelessly to follow the dance captains and ended up crashing into each other and falling to the ground? Foreigners. The kids who have grown up on the island, raised on Carnaval and local drumming, can MOVE. They shake it for all it's worth and they're right on, and in their tiny little costumes it's really something. I'm sorry to break it to you, all you non-Caribbean folk who try to loosen up and shake it: we'll never get it right. They do it like they breathe and the well-meaning non-islanders who try to fit in stick out like big hairy sore thumbs. What are you going to do.
The saddest thing about each parade group is that the least attractive ladies are always stuck way in the back. You get used to oohing and aahing over the hot stuff front-and-centres, then settling in to a sympathetic smile for the girls who just aren't feeling it. The costume doesn't quite work, the dance steps aren't happening... you kid yourself that you'd be in the first row, maybe you'd even be chosen to wear the huge and sparkly bird costume, but really you know that you'd be back there with the strugglers, making snarky comments about Miss Universe up there in the hideous feathers. (It seems that hideous and over-the-top costumes are the most popular and get the biggest positive response from the crowd, even though the result is flying papier mache in the ugliest possible colours.)
While I loved an African-themed group (with, obviously, the best drumming) and the all-female steel band group dressed up as breasty and intense amazon women, I didn't so much like the groups that drove a truck with speakers on it, no costumes, just a giant thug posse yelling thug posse-ish things at the crowd like they're the next Snoop Dogg (a big seller here.) I also didn't like the kids with giant whips scaring the bejeezus out of the babies near the front. It represents slavery and the rest of the group is really good, but the kids walking in front and cracking these things all over the place - maybe Carnaval will be less fun when you're on your hands and knees looking for the eyeball you just whipped out of some kid's face. How about NOT giving large whips to the teenage punks who aren't good enough to be drummers for their group, so now they have something to prove and lots of testerone to burn. Really now.
What I found most interesting was how eager all the men were to jump into a lady's dress, usually with a stuffed bra and lace stockings. There was one all-out drag queen as well, lip-synching as she was driven by in a fancy car, and she was the hit of the parade: the crowd went wild and the women whispered excitedly about how beautiful she was. Most of the dance captains were gay, even Fabulously so, and winked and flirted with the crowd, including the men. And the men - get this - DIDN'T BEAT THEM UP!! In Guadeloupe! Macho, homophobic and misogynistic as a rule, and all of a sudden they're open-minded and fun during Carnaval? Does that mean progress? Or just extreme intoxication? Hard to say, my friends. Hard. To. Say. Either way, thumbs up from my side.
For the end of the vacation, Franck and I were going to go to neighbouring English island Dominika, beautiful and mountainous and super cheap, especially when you're bringing your euro up against the Caribbean dollar, which is even weaker - and you have to believe me on this, impossible as it may seem - than the Canadian one. Weaker than the loonie, my good people; I would have been queen of the island and bought piles of English books since I've run out again.
However, this being Guadeloupe, the travel agency in Basse-Terre, one of only two cities on the entire island, was uninformed that there were technical difficulties with the boats in Point-à-Pitre, the other city. I guess when you have two whole travel agencies on an island, it's difficult to keep each other up-to-date on such insignificant problems as the three-times-a-day-route-that-goes-to-four-other-islands being out of order. Understandable.
Having hitchhiked our way to P-à-P, though, as there are no buses during Carnaval, we refused not to go on a trip. We waited all day and then took the 5:15 boat to Marie Galante, a small dependency island South of Guadeloupe. After a shaky boatride - either you sit inside and vomit or you go out on deck and the wind turns your eardrums inside-out - we docked in the middle of the Black and White festivities, where everyone wears black and white and bangs on drums. I don't know if it would have been as unexciting in Guadeloupe, if that's just the nature of the event, or if it's because Marie Galante is too small to have both participators and spectators at a parade, so the effect is mostly lost. All I know is that the hundred or so people involved walked around and around the town square from 6:00 p.m. (or maybe earlier) until 1:30 a.m., when they finally burned the damn end-of-Carnaval puppet and put the drums away.
Our hotel happened to overlook the square, is why I had it up to here with the drumming. And by "hotel," of course, I mean "the attic of some guy who charged us 30 euros for a non-functioning toilet, a curtainless and baseless shower that automatically drenched the bathroom and flooded the hallway, and the sheets of the guy who had slept there last night, potato chip crumbs and all, conveniently located above the seven-and-a-half-hour parade." While Marie Galante is a huge tourist destination, you see, there is not a single hotel in the town where the tourists actually arrive. Go figure.
After a bizarre half hour of wandering around lost (this entire town is the size of a grocery store - I can't explain how it happened and I'm still ashamed), we had a nice dinner beside our luxury hotel. I was particularly pleased that the waitress was the exact twin of my mom's friend Elisabeth. I was even happier when she confirmed that the cd playing was Cyndi Lauper, thus winning my bet and a day at the beach from Franck, who was convinced it was Madonna. (Not only "Time After Time" and "I Drove All Night", but "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"! Where is this guy COMING from?) (Dave, if you judge you can't love.)
We upgraded to an actual hotel the next day, in the next town, excessively uphill but with a nice view, air conditioning (no mosquitoes) and - most importantly - silence. We rented a car to tour the island, saw the most beautiful beaches imaginable and realized that Marie Galante is off its rocker. Everyone tells you the people there are open and welcoming, but it turns out they're hostile and don't like tourists. They also don't like Guadeloupans, and let's not even talk about mixed couples. It was a real treat. Our only moment of kindness was when Franck forgot his bag at the hotel and a lady drove down to catch us before we left and give it to him - except that 80 euros were missing. Warms the heart, such kindness.
As far as being a tourist, it's not easy: nothing is marked or explained. There are attractions on the map such as "Black Lake" or the intriguing "Devil's Hole," so you drive around in circles looking for sideroads you might have missed, then finally ask a fruit seller on the side of the road who falls off her chair laughing. This is Black Lake. "But where's the lake? This is a dirt road." Yeah. It's Black Lake.
So it turns out that these must-see attractions are actually just the names of neighbourhoods. Decrepit, sad, empty neighbourhoods.
On our third time past where the path to the famous Etretat-type cliffs was supposed to be, the frustrations of the past few days caught up with me and a bad joke of Franck's threw me into a laughing fit, full-blown hysteria, which made it necessary for me to pull over so as not to crash our already-barely-functioning '91 Twingo into the bushes. It is thanks to this puilling over that we saw the sign we had missed the first two times: a rectangular piece of dark wood, the size of a piece of computer paper folded lengthwise, at knee level, with small black hand-painted letters: Gueule de Grand Gouffre. Black on dark brown, see? Almost on the ground, in the bushes, slightly bigger than an envelope. To the most famous attraction on the island. What happens to the tourists who can control their laughter? No Gueule for them.
The sign they do have a lot of is "Slaughterhouse," the best-indicated site this side of Niagara Falls. If there's one thing they want you to see before you leave, it's dead animals. (In case you can't read, there are pictures of cows as well; no discrimination here.)
We took comfort in the fantasy beaches until it rained, then decided to turn in the car and get the next boat. It was hard to drive in the rain, as neither the windshield wipers nor the headlights worked. This was unsurprising, though, as the passenger side door didn't open, the trunk didn't close, the radio didn't work, the rearview mirror was non-adjustable and set for someone of about 6'2" (makes sense in a backpack-sized car) and the whole car sounded like it was on a set of very creaky bedsprings. This was the good car, though, as they first gave us one that wouldn't start unless you pushed it; they found our insistence on changing cars unreasonable and only grudgingly gave us the Twingo dream car when we said we wanted a refund.
It was a relief to get on the boat, nausea notwithstanding, and bid farewell to our newly-dubbed Marie Galère (Marie pain-in-the-ass, roughly?) and return to comparatively highly-functioning Guadeloupe.
Carnaval: check.
Kathryn
Monday, February 7, 2005
In the Loupe, Chapter 16
The problem is that the first thing I want to tell you about is one of the single funniest things I've ever seen, and I can only hope that you're all good at visualization so that you'll see it too.
As you know, I get hit on a lot here - a lot. Well sure, you're thinking, I'd hit on you too; you're a stone fox. Which is nice of you to say, but actually it's just because I'm discernibly female; I've seen some pretty hideous women get whistled at, which obviously let the air out of the Tire of Overconfidence I'd been steadily inflating since I got here.
However, my no longer being flattered makes the attention no less constant, especially as I'm white, "blond" (I swear I've been described that way more than once - I love this place!) and often walking alone. From construction sites, leaning out of cars and trucks, down the grocery aisle, in front of the church - everywhere, the men whistle and make kissy noises and hiss this hideous "tssst" sound that makes me turn my head every time, an infuriating reflex. They invite me to the beach, for a drink, to bed. They tell me I'm beautiful and say I've bewitched them with my mermaid eyes, or - and this is obviously my personal favourite - they lick their lips and tell me they like "round" women. (Next guy who says that one gets it in the nuts, are you with me?) So I figure I've seen every possible wink, heard every comment, witnessed every display of ridiculous machismo, until:
I'm walking home from school when a 20-something guy passes me on a motorcycle. He "tssst"s at me and then looks so satisfied with himself that I laugh a little, which he apparently interprets as "yes, I'm interested." Understandable, as only a fool would try to resist the power of the "tssst": so subtle. So original. So... romance.
He circles back at the next roundabout and stops across the street from me. I couldn't help but notice, blah blah blah, how about a bit of dinner tonight, blah blah blah. I politely decline, then less politely when he insists, and I move on my way. And this is when the magic happens.
Whether determined to go through with the seduction or just to make sure I realize what could have been mine, our young hero comes through with his one-two-three punch, knock-out pick-up strategy, well thought-out and brilliantly executed.
First he shows me that he is persistent - perhaps alluding to his stamina? - to the point of creepy, by coming back up the hill for a third go. Second, he shows that he is sensitive, eloquent, a man of this century, by yelling "nice ass!" A key move. Finally, his moment of glory, he displays his mature, adult side by pulling his bike up into a giant popper-wheelie.
Unfortunately, unfamiliar with the physics of uphill-biking, this giant among men overshoots said popper-wheelie, falls backwards onto the road as traffic screeches to a halt behind him, and watches the tail end of his bike crash into the pavement and shatter, motorcycle parts flying in every direction. It happens so fast -- by "nice ass" he's already solidly into the popper-wheelie - and is so fantastically, hugely stupid, that the entire street freezes in shock. Eventually a couple of people step out of their cars to help him to his feet and to reassemble the bike parts, and I duck into a side street so that I can fall to the ground and laugh. By the time I have recovered (and wiped the tears from my eyes), my sweet Romeo has left the scene - probably walking his bike to the nearest mechanic - and it's as if nothing every happened.
Another story, not mine and not very funny but pretty amazing: Franck leaves work last Thursday and hitchhikes, as per usual, to get back to Basse-Terre. Everything's going fine until the policemen doing a routine road check find bags of crack, cocaine and whatever else in the glove compartment, as well as thousands of euros in the guy's pocket. Man, thinks Franck, this is as bad as it could get. Little does he know, however, that the policemen, looking under the blankets in the back of the truck, are going to find half a dozen Haitians being smuggled into Guadeloupe. Ka-POW.
Franck spends eight hours in jail as the police check his story and call various employers to make sure he's not an accomplice as they thought. He's released into the night at 2:00 a.m. and told to come back as a witness when it goes to trial. How wild is that? Wild, let me tell you. WILD, even.
Meanwhile, back at the bat cave, Carnaval is now in full swing, including kiddie parades on the last day of school. Karine's daughter Eva invites me to join her school's parade, so I don the carnaval crown she made me and dance down the main street of Saint-Claude with the four neighbourhood schools. Needless to say, it is mass chaos. It "starts" at 1:00, so it starts at 2:45, and the sun is whack down on our head: hundreds of little kids wearing heavy cardboard costumes and marching in the afternoon sun? Yes, please!
They start all peppy and excited, showing their fish/turtle/coral/whatever cardboard cut-outs proudly and shouting along with the music. As the arm straps cut into their skin, though, and the music from the huge speakers in front of them starts giving them headaches, and the same three songs play in a loop for 90 minutes - a Creole version of "Brazil," this annoying helicopter song that includes backsteps and all sorts of complications, and the highly irritating "Dominique-nique-nique" on trumpet - and their make-up begins to melt in the heat, and other kids are stepping on their heels because they're all bunched together despite renewed and useless efforts from the teachers, well, there's a lot less pep by the end.
The standard intro to every song, and then it happens a few times throughout, is a "ba-da, ba ba, ba-da da - oué!" The drums do the ba da ba ba part, which I realize means nothing in writing, but kind of follows the rhythm of the sentence "tigers don't like molasses." Then everyone shouts "oué," which is "yeah". (Pronounced "way" but without dip-thongs.) By thirty minues in, the "oué" is already half-hearted; by an hour it's a group groan.
There are kids falling over from exhaustion all over the place, with a bus driving behind the parade to pick them up. I see one boy who gets to the parade late, already a funny pale green colour, his mom explaining apologetically that he was sick and it was hard to drag him out of bed. Slap on a costume and some glitter and he's good to go: she pushes him in through the "rows" until he finds his "spot," then hisses something in his ear about doing Mommy proud, before heading out with her camcorder to capture the magic. Ten minutes and he's passed out in a fellow turtle's arms.
Ba-da, ba ba, ba-da da - oué!
My favourite things in the parade:
1. Two women are up in front leading the dance moves, and can they ever move. Then I look to the children themselves, stumbling along in confusion and trying to copy this sexy hip-swinging, inaccessible to six-year-olds at the best of times, not to mention with large pieces of cardboard strapped to their tiny selves. When they try to turn around, costumes crashing into each other and always at least one kid falling over, it's my favourite thing in the world. Kiddie bumper cars.
2. A roped-off group of pre-schoolers leads the parade to set the pace, adorable in their little insect costumes. Every single one of them is bawling by the end, most of them carried by their irritated parents, and this crazy lady who is walking with them, dressed in an outlandish fairy costume - and too small, as she has a formidable bosom - is generally displeased and keeps yelling "mais c'est de la MERDE, ça!" over the little guys' heads.
3. One little bumblebee, the first to reject the parade, sits down in the road and has a tantrum while the hundreds of kids stop behind him to wait. He does this three times and is finally taken out of the parade, inspiring other bumblebees, ladybugs and dragonflies to follow suit. The group quickly disintegrates as tired little insects go home: a successful coup d'état.
4. Teen-agers show up along the parade, I assume to mock the event and try to sabotage in some way. I'm wrong, it turns out, as they dance along and shout encouragement at the kids to tell them they're doing great. All thugged out, chains and hair-combs and pants with crotch-at-the-knees, and they're unsarcastically cheering on the kiddie parade.
5. Rather than block the road, management lets people discover there's a parade once they're stuck behind it. Snaking up behind the pass-out bus is a long line of frustrated traffic, moving at a hot three-year-old's walking pace and stopping every four minutes when the parade pauses for a child down, a rebelling bumblebee, what-have-you. The parade lasts an hour and a half; that's a whole lotta slow driving!
There's a parade on the street as I'm writing this, a warm-up for the big parade tonight, and the place is hopping. All of a sudden, people in Basse-Terre: amazing.
Ba-da, ba ba, ba-da da - oué!
Kathryn
As you know, I get hit on a lot here - a lot. Well sure, you're thinking, I'd hit on you too; you're a stone fox. Which is nice of you to say, but actually it's just because I'm discernibly female; I've seen some pretty hideous women get whistled at, which obviously let the air out of the Tire of Overconfidence I'd been steadily inflating since I got here.
However, my no longer being flattered makes the attention no less constant, especially as I'm white, "blond" (I swear I've been described that way more than once - I love this place!) and often walking alone. From construction sites, leaning out of cars and trucks, down the grocery aisle, in front of the church - everywhere, the men whistle and make kissy noises and hiss this hideous "tssst" sound that makes me turn my head every time, an infuriating reflex. They invite me to the beach, for a drink, to bed. They tell me I'm beautiful and say I've bewitched them with my mermaid eyes, or - and this is obviously my personal favourite - they lick their lips and tell me they like "round" women. (Next guy who says that one gets it in the nuts, are you with me?) So I figure I've seen every possible wink, heard every comment, witnessed every display of ridiculous machismo, until:
I'm walking home from school when a 20-something guy passes me on a motorcycle. He "tssst"s at me and then looks so satisfied with himself that I laugh a little, which he apparently interprets as "yes, I'm interested." Understandable, as only a fool would try to resist the power of the "tssst": so subtle. So original. So... romance.
He circles back at the next roundabout and stops across the street from me. I couldn't help but notice, blah blah blah, how about a bit of dinner tonight, blah blah blah. I politely decline, then less politely when he insists, and I move on my way. And this is when the magic happens.
Whether determined to go through with the seduction or just to make sure I realize what could have been mine, our young hero comes through with his one-two-three punch, knock-out pick-up strategy, well thought-out and brilliantly executed.
First he shows me that he is persistent - perhaps alluding to his stamina? - to the point of creepy, by coming back up the hill for a third go. Second, he shows that he is sensitive, eloquent, a man of this century, by yelling "nice ass!" A key move. Finally, his moment of glory, he displays his mature, adult side by pulling his bike up into a giant popper-wheelie.
Unfortunately, unfamiliar with the physics of uphill-biking, this giant among men overshoots said popper-wheelie, falls backwards onto the road as traffic screeches to a halt behind him, and watches the tail end of his bike crash into the pavement and shatter, motorcycle parts flying in every direction. It happens so fast -- by "nice ass" he's already solidly into the popper-wheelie - and is so fantastically, hugely stupid, that the entire street freezes in shock. Eventually a couple of people step out of their cars to help him to his feet and to reassemble the bike parts, and I duck into a side street so that I can fall to the ground and laugh. By the time I have recovered (and wiped the tears from my eyes), my sweet Romeo has left the scene - probably walking his bike to the nearest mechanic - and it's as if nothing every happened.
Another story, not mine and not very funny but pretty amazing: Franck leaves work last Thursday and hitchhikes, as per usual, to get back to Basse-Terre. Everything's going fine until the policemen doing a routine road check find bags of crack, cocaine and whatever else in the glove compartment, as well as thousands of euros in the guy's pocket. Man, thinks Franck, this is as bad as it could get. Little does he know, however, that the policemen, looking under the blankets in the back of the truck, are going to find half a dozen Haitians being smuggled into Guadeloupe. Ka-POW.
Franck spends eight hours in jail as the police check his story and call various employers to make sure he's not an accomplice as they thought. He's released into the night at 2:00 a.m. and told to come back as a witness when it goes to trial. How wild is that? Wild, let me tell you. WILD, even.
Meanwhile, back at the bat cave, Carnaval is now in full swing, including kiddie parades on the last day of school. Karine's daughter Eva invites me to join her school's parade, so I don the carnaval crown she made me and dance down the main street of Saint-Claude with the four neighbourhood schools. Needless to say, it is mass chaos. It "starts" at 1:00, so it starts at 2:45, and the sun is whack down on our head: hundreds of little kids wearing heavy cardboard costumes and marching in the afternoon sun? Yes, please!
They start all peppy and excited, showing their fish/turtle/coral/whatever cardboard cut-outs proudly and shouting along with the music. As the arm straps cut into their skin, though, and the music from the huge speakers in front of them starts giving them headaches, and the same three songs play in a loop for 90 minutes - a Creole version of "Brazil," this annoying helicopter song that includes backsteps and all sorts of complications, and the highly irritating "Dominique-nique-nique" on trumpet - and their make-up begins to melt in the heat, and other kids are stepping on their heels because they're all bunched together despite renewed and useless efforts from the teachers, well, there's a lot less pep by the end.
The standard intro to every song, and then it happens a few times throughout, is a "ba-da, ba ba, ba-da da - oué!" The drums do the ba da ba ba part, which I realize means nothing in writing, but kind of follows the rhythm of the sentence "tigers don't like molasses." Then everyone shouts "oué," which is "yeah". (Pronounced "way" but without dip-thongs.) By thirty minues in, the "oué" is already half-hearted; by an hour it's a group groan.
There are kids falling over from exhaustion all over the place, with a bus driving behind the parade to pick them up. I see one boy who gets to the parade late, already a funny pale green colour, his mom explaining apologetically that he was sick and it was hard to drag him out of bed. Slap on a costume and some glitter and he's good to go: she pushes him in through the "rows" until he finds his "spot," then hisses something in his ear about doing Mommy proud, before heading out with her camcorder to capture the magic. Ten minutes and he's passed out in a fellow turtle's arms.
Ba-da, ba ba, ba-da da - oué!
My favourite things in the parade:
1. Two women are up in front leading the dance moves, and can they ever move. Then I look to the children themselves, stumbling along in confusion and trying to copy this sexy hip-swinging, inaccessible to six-year-olds at the best of times, not to mention with large pieces of cardboard strapped to their tiny selves. When they try to turn around, costumes crashing into each other and always at least one kid falling over, it's my favourite thing in the world. Kiddie bumper cars.
2. A roped-off group of pre-schoolers leads the parade to set the pace, adorable in their little insect costumes. Every single one of them is bawling by the end, most of them carried by their irritated parents, and this crazy lady who is walking with them, dressed in an outlandish fairy costume - and too small, as she has a formidable bosom - is generally displeased and keeps yelling "mais c'est de la MERDE, ça!" over the little guys' heads.
3. One little bumblebee, the first to reject the parade, sits down in the road and has a tantrum while the hundreds of kids stop behind him to wait. He does this three times and is finally taken out of the parade, inspiring other bumblebees, ladybugs and dragonflies to follow suit. The group quickly disintegrates as tired little insects go home: a successful coup d'état.
4. Teen-agers show up along the parade, I assume to mock the event and try to sabotage in some way. I'm wrong, it turns out, as they dance along and shout encouragement at the kids to tell them they're doing great. All thugged out, chains and hair-combs and pants with crotch-at-the-knees, and they're unsarcastically cheering on the kiddie parade.
5. Rather than block the road, management lets people discover there's a parade once they're stuck behind it. Snaking up behind the pass-out bus is a long line of frustrated traffic, moving at a hot three-year-old's walking pace and stopping every four minutes when the parade pauses for a child down, a rebelling bumblebee, what-have-you. The parade lasts an hour and a half; that's a whole lotta slow driving!
There's a parade on the street as I'm writing this, a warm-up for the big parade tonight, and the place is hopping. All of a sudden, people in Basse-Terre: amazing.
Ba-da, ba ba, ba-da da - oué!
Kathryn
Friday, January 28, 2005
In the Loupe, Chapter 15
So I'm walking along on my way to school, humming happily to myself about Napoleon and his soldiers (a good walking song, but I don't know the end so I have to sing it in an irritating three-line loop), and I cut through the dirt path shortcut where you have to be careful not to slip and tumble down on the rocks. Not quite careful enough, I lose my balance but can't fall backwards because my guitar's on my back, so I jump down a few steps and hop here and there until I land with solid footing, at which point something catches my eye: there is a cat a foot and a half away, and it's not moving. Why isn't the cat moving, I ask myself; is it asleep? Isn't it weird for a cat to be ----- and then a wave of nausea rises up in my apparently weak stomach as I see the flies and the rotting bits and the bloated bits and I run out of the path so quickly that I actually - literally, as in a Hollywood romantic comedy - collide with Jean-Louis, the school custodian who thinks I'm too nice with the kids. (Why do you have a guitar and not a striking rod? Crazy foreigner.)
Interestingly, what impresses the kids is that I could be so white; they've never actually seen the colour drained out of someone's face. The dead cat, which most of them passed on their way to school (as well as the other one which was apparently further up the path - aren't dead cats pretty rare? What the hell is going on here?), doesn't faze them in the least. Do they have zero sense of "that's really disturbing," after their pig-killings and similar, or am I just excessively wimpy? At any rate, add "carcass removal" to my ever-growing list of Jobs-That-Just-Aren't-For-Me. (And add 'carcass' to my list of Words-That-I-Just-Don't-Think-I-Ever-Spell-Right.)
On a brighter note (brighter than dead cats? the hell you say!), I have finally seen that there is, in fact, night activity in Guadeloupe, contrary to my first impression. I realize, of course, that being often anti-social and preferring quiet candle evenings to having strangers bump and grind against me in a sweaty club, I am entirely unqualified to comment on a place's nightlife. Just as you won't ask a vegan if there's a good showing of steak houses in town, you won't ask Captain Tea-and-Cards for the latest hot spots and their passwords.
However. If you go out after 6 pm on a weekday or after 2 pm on the week-end, you will be alone. As in the beginning of an apocalyptic, secret-killer-disease-got-everyone-but-the-hero-and-the-bad-guy movie, the streets are empty and look recently lived in but certainly not welcoming. A stray piece of paper blows quietly across a roundabout, somewhere you hear a door slam. The all-night zouk parties and carnaval celebrations are the obvious exceptions, but as they happen in somebody's house, they don't inspire people to wander the city strees, so that if you walk the dog at 7:30 pm, people worry that you're a young girl walking alone so late.
There are big tourist towns, though, like Gosier, where there are strips of hotels and casinos, bars and restaurants. Franck - a pianist - was playing in one of these clubs with a cranky reggae group - seriously, a more crotchety bunch of old rasta men you will not easily find - so I had my first taste of a full parking lot and young people socializing. And guess how I felt about it.
I live in such a sleepy town, and I like to make fun of how it's so dead at night, but yowza! Keep those tourists away from me! If there's one thing I hate, it turns out, it's a bar full of drunk tourists who are trying to be cool and island-vibey and hit on - oh, I don't know, let's say, FRANCK. (Though, honestly, I didn't pay too much attention to it because I was too busy peeling men's hands off of my own body to worry about the slimy just-want-to-get-laid-in-the-Caribbean ladies who were prowling around Ol' Blue Eyes) (so named after Frank Sinatra, who couldn't be any further from Franck if he tried - don't you think that's PARTICULARLY funny? I think it's the best thing I ever came up with, but no one else seems to care.)
And all the fake air-kissing, and the irritating hippie dancing... luckily, Franck and I got our babyfoot (fooze-ball?) asses kicked by a pair of smarmy Spaniards, which made us both feel great. And even MORE luckily, his ex-girlfriend showed up and he was completely freaked out and moody and playing badly and man, it was the best night ever! I can't wait to go back to Gosier, if only for the memories. Hooray!
Fortunately, the next night's gig was in Bouillante, as sleepy as Basse-Terre and then some, so the crowd was a whole bunch of locals who heard the music and came down to see what was going on. (No ex-girlfriend in sight.) They played better and with much more variety than they were allowed for the tourists ("do you know any Bob Marley?" "hey, do you know any Bob Marley?" "you guys are awesome - listen, do you know any Bob Marley?") so there was lots of soca and zouk and beguine and it was a moving and shaking kind of night. Half the crowd played with them at some point or another, either reggae-rapping into the mic or hauling a ka drum out of the car to join in (rather than First Aid kits or spare tires, the general Gwada population always has an extra drum ready for action), and by three o'clock in the morning, everyone was dancing and singing and crying. Really, lots of crying - drunk? Moved by the music? Dead cat behind the bar? Hard to say. Either way, a good, good time.
And-that's-what's-new-on-my-end. (Since it's such a hyphenated entry, why stop now, you know?)
Kathryn
Interestingly, what impresses the kids is that I could be so white; they've never actually seen the colour drained out of someone's face. The dead cat, which most of them passed on their way to school (as well as the other one which was apparently further up the path - aren't dead cats pretty rare? What the hell is going on here?), doesn't faze them in the least. Do they have zero sense of "that's really disturbing," after their pig-killings and similar, or am I just excessively wimpy? At any rate, add "carcass removal" to my ever-growing list of Jobs-That-Just-Aren't-For-Me. (And add 'carcass' to my list of Words-That-I-Just-Don't-Think-I-Ever-Spell-Right.)
On a brighter note (brighter than dead cats? the hell you say!), I have finally seen that there is, in fact, night activity in Guadeloupe, contrary to my first impression. I realize, of course, that being often anti-social and preferring quiet candle evenings to having strangers bump and grind against me in a sweaty club, I am entirely unqualified to comment on a place's nightlife. Just as you won't ask a vegan if there's a good showing of steak houses in town, you won't ask Captain Tea-and-Cards for the latest hot spots and their passwords.
However. If you go out after 6 pm on a weekday or after 2 pm on the week-end, you will be alone. As in the beginning of an apocalyptic, secret-killer-disease-got-everyone-but-the-hero-and-the-bad-guy movie, the streets are empty and look recently lived in but certainly not welcoming. A stray piece of paper blows quietly across a roundabout, somewhere you hear a door slam. The all-night zouk parties and carnaval celebrations are the obvious exceptions, but as they happen in somebody's house, they don't inspire people to wander the city strees, so that if you walk the dog at 7:30 pm, people worry that you're a young girl walking alone so late.
There are big tourist towns, though, like Gosier, where there are strips of hotels and casinos, bars and restaurants. Franck - a pianist - was playing in one of these clubs with a cranky reggae group - seriously, a more crotchety bunch of old rasta men you will not easily find - so I had my first taste of a full parking lot and young people socializing. And guess how I felt about it.
I live in such a sleepy town, and I like to make fun of how it's so dead at night, but yowza! Keep those tourists away from me! If there's one thing I hate, it turns out, it's a bar full of drunk tourists who are trying to be cool and island-vibey and hit on - oh, I don't know, let's say, FRANCK. (Though, honestly, I didn't pay too much attention to it because I was too busy peeling men's hands off of my own body to worry about the slimy just-want-to-get-laid-in-the-Caribbean ladies who were prowling around Ol' Blue Eyes) (so named after Frank Sinatra, who couldn't be any further from Franck if he tried - don't you think that's PARTICULARLY funny? I think it's the best thing I ever came up with, but no one else seems to care.)
And all the fake air-kissing, and the irritating hippie dancing... luckily, Franck and I got our babyfoot (fooze-ball?) asses kicked by a pair of smarmy Spaniards, which made us both feel great. And even MORE luckily, his ex-girlfriend showed up and he was completely freaked out and moody and playing badly and man, it was the best night ever! I can't wait to go back to Gosier, if only for the memories. Hooray!
Fortunately, the next night's gig was in Bouillante, as sleepy as Basse-Terre and then some, so the crowd was a whole bunch of locals who heard the music and came down to see what was going on. (No ex-girlfriend in sight.) They played better and with much more variety than they were allowed for the tourists ("do you know any Bob Marley?" "hey, do you know any Bob Marley?" "you guys are awesome - listen, do you know any Bob Marley?") so there was lots of soca and zouk and beguine and it was a moving and shaking kind of night. Half the crowd played with them at some point or another, either reggae-rapping into the mic or hauling a ka drum out of the car to join in (rather than First Aid kits or spare tires, the general Gwada population always has an extra drum ready for action), and by three o'clock in the morning, everyone was dancing and singing and crying. Really, lots of crying - drunk? Moved by the music? Dead cat behind the bar? Hard to say. Either way, a good, good time.
And-that's-what's-new-on-my-end. (Since it's such a hyphenated entry, why stop now, you know?)
Kathryn
Thursday, January 20, 2005
In the Loupe, Chapter 14
This isn't going to be very exciting, so get your hopes down before you even start.
I wasn't planning to write but am killing time to see if the rain stops so I can go swimming - which is funny, because to look at the plant life around me, it's definitely the dry season. Everything's limp and suffering. So how can it be raining so much? What is going on? Apparently the weather's mucked up in Toronto and California and all the rest as well, so Gwada's in on the deal.
And why am I writing on a Thursday, you might be wondering, since I have school all day? (Let's be frank, you couldn't care less about my personal schedule and it didn't even cross your mind. But let's just say you were wondering, so I can explain.)
It turns out there's a strike today. As I've mentioned before, there are more than a dozen unions to which teachers can belong, so a strike never means that school shuts down or anything like that, but just that select teachers make a statement and everybody's schedule is disrupted. As it happens, three of the unions are on strike today and they include five of my six Thursday teachers; the sixth is on maternity leave and her replacement is a teacher-in-training, so he has to be there but I don't.
Which brings me to my new Guadeloupe anger: I am the only primary-level English assistant in Basse-Terre. Not just the city of Basse-Terre, but the actual region, province if you will, half of the island. (Like Quebec and Quebec City, yes?) There are two other English speakers and they do high school here and in another town, and that's it. So there are only three schools, you follow me, in the entire bottom half of Guadeloupe, with an actual, home-grown, native English speaker in them.
So now tell me. Why, but why, are the teachers-in-training who (as part of a new and experimental program) must do their own English/Spanish/whatever language they sort of mangle-speak, put in my classes? Seriously, why?
There are two young people doing three weeks in my teachers' classes - where the teacher doesn't have to be anywhere in the room, or even in the school, so I don't see how it's really training, is it? - and one of them asked me how you say "sit down." Okay. Maybe you're not going to know words like "disillusionment" and "incorrigeable." But "sit down"? Can you actually teach English to nine-year-olds without being able to say "sit down"? And that means that I don't have them for three weeks (one of my least favourite classes, so I guess that's good, but also one of my all-time angel classes) plus the week and a half of Carnaval, so by the time I get them back, all our routines, our songs and games and morning greetings: out the window. Out the window! Like I was never there!
And at first I told myself, you're overreacting, you should enjoy the fact that you get extra time off. But I don't really, because I still have to get to the school for the other classes, so then I have to kill time during their mangled new English class until it's my turn again. And also I just found out that the Inspectrice had the fantastic idea of just sharing me around to make up the hours. We're so lucky to have a native speaker, she says, that everyone should have a class with her and learn all about Canada. We hear she brought pictures. But it's not like I can slot the new classes into my old schedule, because I'm still at the school waiting. So now I have to go in on a Saturday or a Wednesday afternoon or whatever, haul ass to one class somewhere in Basse-Terre to show them the Rocky bloody Mountains. I'm not happy about it. And the snooty new teachers, with their teacher's college methods and their "well I would do it THIS way," and the kids are complaining to me at recess that their new teacher's a jerk and they keep having to write lines.
This place sucks! Get your act together!
What a jerky e-mail, but I'm out of time and I'm sending it.
Kathryn
I wasn't planning to write but am killing time to see if the rain stops so I can go swimming - which is funny, because to look at the plant life around me, it's definitely the dry season. Everything's limp and suffering. So how can it be raining so much? What is going on? Apparently the weather's mucked up in Toronto and California and all the rest as well, so Gwada's in on the deal.
And why am I writing on a Thursday, you might be wondering, since I have school all day? (Let's be frank, you couldn't care less about my personal schedule and it didn't even cross your mind. But let's just say you were wondering, so I can explain.)
It turns out there's a strike today. As I've mentioned before, there are more than a dozen unions to which teachers can belong, so a strike never means that school shuts down or anything like that, but just that select teachers make a statement and everybody's schedule is disrupted. As it happens, three of the unions are on strike today and they include five of my six Thursday teachers; the sixth is on maternity leave and her replacement is a teacher-in-training, so he has to be there but I don't.
Which brings me to my new Guadeloupe anger: I am the only primary-level English assistant in Basse-Terre. Not just the city of Basse-Terre, but the actual region, province if you will, half of the island. (Like Quebec and Quebec City, yes?) There are two other English speakers and they do high school here and in another town, and that's it. So there are only three schools, you follow me, in the entire bottom half of Guadeloupe, with an actual, home-grown, native English speaker in them.
So now tell me. Why, but why, are the teachers-in-training who (as part of a new and experimental program) must do their own English/Spanish/whatever language they sort of mangle-speak, put in my classes? Seriously, why?
There are two young people doing three weeks in my teachers' classes - where the teacher doesn't have to be anywhere in the room, or even in the school, so I don't see how it's really training, is it? - and one of them asked me how you say "sit down." Okay. Maybe you're not going to know words like "disillusionment" and "incorrigeable." But "sit down"? Can you actually teach English to nine-year-olds without being able to say "sit down"? And that means that I don't have them for three weeks (one of my least favourite classes, so I guess that's good, but also one of my all-time angel classes) plus the week and a half of Carnaval, so by the time I get them back, all our routines, our songs and games and morning greetings: out the window. Out the window! Like I was never there!
And at first I told myself, you're overreacting, you should enjoy the fact that you get extra time off. But I don't really, because I still have to get to the school for the other classes, so then I have to kill time during their mangled new English class until it's my turn again. And also I just found out that the Inspectrice had the fantastic idea of just sharing me around to make up the hours. We're so lucky to have a native speaker, she says, that everyone should have a class with her and learn all about Canada. We hear she brought pictures. But it's not like I can slot the new classes into my old schedule, because I'm still at the school waiting. So now I have to go in on a Saturday or a Wednesday afternoon or whatever, haul ass to one class somewhere in Basse-Terre to show them the Rocky bloody Mountains. I'm not happy about it. And the snooty new teachers, with their teacher's college methods and their "well I would do it THIS way," and the kids are complaining to me at recess that their new teacher's a jerk and they keep having to write lines.
This place sucks! Get your act together!
What a jerky e-mail, but I'm out of time and I'm sending it.
Kathryn
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
In the Loupe, Chapter 13
Forget it, stop the music: I have become a real-live Guadeloupan. I'm haggling at the market, I'm cold at night when it's 18 degrees, and yes, I have danced in a carnaval parade.
Carnaval itself is a week in February, but since Christmas has been over for, what, almost two weeks? everyone agrees that it's time for a new party. So every week-end from now until Carnaval, plus a few afterwards (to tie us over into Easter parties), there are just-for-the-hell-of-it parades in select towns. My landlady sisters are the big bosses in a parade group called Magma, and Jacqueline said I should come along to Sunday's big bash in Trois-Rivières. My private calendar told me I wasn't going to be feeling great that day (ladies, are you with me?) but couldn't think of an excuse fast enough, and then suddenly she was dropping off my fruit seller's dress and giving confusing and vague instructions and that was that.
It turns out that a Carnaval parade is a very complicated procedure, with specific steps to follow. If everything goes according to plan, it can run like a well-oiled machine. Here's a rundown:
1. No one tells you what time you're leaving because no one knows for sure what time it starts - also because everyone here talks in circles around you and never actually answers a question directly, so that the answer to "what time are we leaving?" is something like "you see, I'm in charge of our parade, so I have to be there on time" or "you understand, it's better to be early than late" or even "we need to be there either in the morning or in the afternoon," until you say "okay, great! see you then!" - so Jacqueline shows up at your door at 2:30, throws a petticoat at you and yells, "the bus is leaving! go, go go!"
2. You drive at German highway speeds through town and chase down the Magma bus, then sit on some burly trombone player's lap because there are no more seats.
--> 2b. You smile politely as Burly Trombone Player makes racy comments about what you might be selling other than the fruit in your fruit basket. Hilarity ensues.
3. The musicians play and sing until you get off the bus, then again when you all get back on to go to the correct meeting spot.
4. You look at the other women in your group and admire their flattering costumes, extravagant make-up and glittering jewellery, and you think, "wow - look at all these curvy women! Traditional market ladies' dresses sure are sexy!"
5. You look at yourself in a car window and discover that in your too long and too big tablecloth dress and no make-up, you look flat-chested, short, flabby and pale, a sort of demented Bo Beep, and you consider getting back on the bus.
6. You strap on your straw hat, take your enormous basket and join the rest of your parade group, standing in the parking lot and waiting for the start signal.
7. After 45 minutes of standing in the sun in your long-sleeved tablecloth, you hear a rumour that it's starting, so you shuffle into parade formation in the street and get ready to begin.
8. You wait while the Magma bosses go find half the musicians, who went to a bar when they got tired of waiting.
9. Once reunited, and after three false starts, a broken drum strap and a last-minute pee break for Burly Trombone Player, you're off!
10. After about five minutes, you stop and clear to the side so that a parade group representing slavery - wearing newspaper scraps all over, with dirt-stained faces and huge terrifying whips that no one has told the children not to use when they're in the middle of a crowd of, say, US - can move in behind you in line. Parade resumes.
11. After about two minutes, it's decided that the slaves' drumbeats are conflicting with those of Magma and the other groups, so you clear to the side so that they can move back in front of you. White tourists along the side of the road turn off their camcorders again and make comments about folkloric charm. Parade resumes.
12. You remember too late that life in Guadeloupe is uphill, including parades. Carrying your car-sized basket and swinging your swaddled hips, you parade up and down through town until you get back to the starting point.
13. And then you do it again.
14. And you haven't had a washroom break in three hours.
15. While loving the exciting rhythms provided by the musicians who are walking behind you and watching said hip-swinging, you become suddenly and intensely aware of your shyness at dancing in a parade in front of hundreds of spectators. Your being the only white person in the entire affair - not counting the camcorder-wielding tourists giving you enthusiastic thumbs-up from their hotel balconies - doesn't help, as you are the hot topic of most conversations around you and the fact that you're wearing a traditional island costume, rather than the costume of the period's colonizing bastards, feels like a huge sham.
16. When it begins to rain halfway through the first circuit and you think, "too bad, I guess we'll have to pack it in," you are wrong.
17. When the rain becomes an all-out downpour, Carribbean buckets-from-the-sky style, and the spectators run for cars and bus shelters and the curvy ladies' soaked white lace dresses reveal the cleverly-chosen black bras and panties underneath and the rain distorts the sound so that you can't hear the beat from the twenty-five musicians who are three feet behind you and you think "okay, joke's over, it's more than time to pack it the HELL in," you are wrong.
18. In the end, though, with the musicians playing louder and faster in the rain, spectators screaming encouragement and honking car horns, and the ladies practically jogging to keep up with the beat, you start to feel like a real do-or-die Carnavaller. Wicked.
19. You find you have a new and overwhelming respect for women who can sexy-shake their booty AND walk at the same time, which is not so easy after all, even if you have more than enough of the booty itself. Ahem. You pray you don't look as stupid as you feel and make a mental note to practice when you get home.
20. By the end, wearing a big, wet and heavy tablecloth, your straw hat melting over your face and your bare feet aching because your wet shoes were too slippery and you couldn't keep up, you suddenly realize that you're shaking your ass for all it's worth, singing in Creole and winking at the die-hard-even-in-the-rain spectators who are screaming from under their umbrellas like you're Madonna in the Pride parade. You get to the end point, over three hours from the initial departure, and you think, "what, over already?"
21. Snuggling up against your new best friend, Burly Trombone Player, you sing along with the musicians the whole bus ride home, where you have a hot shower and a cup of tea and go to bed, only to shake your booty all through your dreams.
Kathryn
Carnaval itself is a week in February, but since Christmas has been over for, what, almost two weeks? everyone agrees that it's time for a new party. So every week-end from now until Carnaval, plus a few afterwards (to tie us over into Easter parties), there are just-for-the-hell-of-it parades in select towns. My landlady sisters are the big bosses in a parade group called Magma, and Jacqueline said I should come along to Sunday's big bash in Trois-Rivières. My private calendar told me I wasn't going to be feeling great that day (ladies, are you with me?) but couldn't think of an excuse fast enough, and then suddenly she was dropping off my fruit seller's dress and giving confusing and vague instructions and that was that.
It turns out that a Carnaval parade is a very complicated procedure, with specific steps to follow. If everything goes according to plan, it can run like a well-oiled machine. Here's a rundown:
1. No one tells you what time you're leaving because no one knows for sure what time it starts - also because everyone here talks in circles around you and never actually answers a question directly, so that the answer to "what time are we leaving?" is something like "you see, I'm in charge of our parade, so I have to be there on time" or "you understand, it's better to be early than late" or even "we need to be there either in the morning or in the afternoon," until you say "okay, great! see you then!" - so Jacqueline shows up at your door at 2:30, throws a petticoat at you and yells, "the bus is leaving! go, go go!"
2. You drive at German highway speeds through town and chase down the Magma bus, then sit on some burly trombone player's lap because there are no more seats.
--> 2b. You smile politely as Burly Trombone Player makes racy comments about what you might be selling other than the fruit in your fruit basket. Hilarity ensues.
3. The musicians play and sing until you get off the bus, then again when you all get back on to go to the correct meeting spot.
4. You look at the other women in your group and admire their flattering costumes, extravagant make-up and glittering jewellery, and you think, "wow - look at all these curvy women! Traditional market ladies' dresses sure are sexy!"
5. You look at yourself in a car window and discover that in your too long and too big tablecloth dress and no make-up, you look flat-chested, short, flabby and pale, a sort of demented Bo Beep, and you consider getting back on the bus.
6. You strap on your straw hat, take your enormous basket and join the rest of your parade group, standing in the parking lot and waiting for the start signal.
7. After 45 minutes of standing in the sun in your long-sleeved tablecloth, you hear a rumour that it's starting, so you shuffle into parade formation in the street and get ready to begin.
8. You wait while the Magma bosses go find half the musicians, who went to a bar when they got tired of waiting.
9. Once reunited, and after three false starts, a broken drum strap and a last-minute pee break for Burly Trombone Player, you're off!
10. After about five minutes, you stop and clear to the side so that a parade group representing slavery - wearing newspaper scraps all over, with dirt-stained faces and huge terrifying whips that no one has told the children not to use when they're in the middle of a crowd of, say, US - can move in behind you in line. Parade resumes.
11. After about two minutes, it's decided that the slaves' drumbeats are conflicting with those of Magma and the other groups, so you clear to the side so that they can move back in front of you. White tourists along the side of the road turn off their camcorders again and make comments about folkloric charm. Parade resumes.
12. You remember too late that life in Guadeloupe is uphill, including parades. Carrying your car-sized basket and swinging your swaddled hips, you parade up and down through town until you get back to the starting point.
13. And then you do it again.
14. And you haven't had a washroom break in three hours.
15. While loving the exciting rhythms provided by the musicians who are walking behind you and watching said hip-swinging, you become suddenly and intensely aware of your shyness at dancing in a parade in front of hundreds of spectators. Your being the only white person in the entire affair - not counting the camcorder-wielding tourists giving you enthusiastic thumbs-up from their hotel balconies - doesn't help, as you are the hot topic of most conversations around you and the fact that you're wearing a traditional island costume, rather than the costume of the period's colonizing bastards, feels like a huge sham.
16. When it begins to rain halfway through the first circuit and you think, "too bad, I guess we'll have to pack it in," you are wrong.
17. When the rain becomes an all-out downpour, Carribbean buckets-from-the-sky style, and the spectators run for cars and bus shelters and the curvy ladies' soaked white lace dresses reveal the cleverly-chosen black bras and panties underneath and the rain distorts the sound so that you can't hear the beat from the twenty-five musicians who are three feet behind you and you think "okay, joke's over, it's more than time to pack it the HELL in," you are wrong.
18. In the end, though, with the musicians playing louder and faster in the rain, spectators screaming encouragement and honking car horns, and the ladies practically jogging to keep up with the beat, you start to feel like a real do-or-die Carnavaller. Wicked.
19. You find you have a new and overwhelming respect for women who can sexy-shake their booty AND walk at the same time, which is not so easy after all, even if you have more than enough of the booty itself. Ahem. You pray you don't look as stupid as you feel and make a mental note to practice when you get home.
20. By the end, wearing a big, wet and heavy tablecloth, your straw hat melting over your face and your bare feet aching because your wet shoes were too slippery and you couldn't keep up, you suddenly realize that you're shaking your ass for all it's worth, singing in Creole and winking at the die-hard-even-in-the-rain spectators who are screaming from under their umbrellas like you're Madonna in the Pride parade. You get to the end point, over three hours from the initial departure, and you think, "what, over already?"
21. Snuggling up against your new best friend, Burly Trombone Player, you sing along with the musicians the whole bus ride home, where you have a hot shower and a cup of tea and go to bed, only to shake your booty all through your dreams.
Kathryn
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