Getting ready to go

In all likelihood, this will be my last post from French Guiana. I'm scheduled to be booked solid from tomorrow morning until my departure. It is bittersweet. I really like it here, despite all the headaches and all the exorbitant prices. I enjoy the people, I enjoy the food, I like living in a place where I get to learn new languages and explore things. I would love to take people here, get people interested in this region, let them see both the beauty and the potential of the area. At the same time, I'm excited to go home, enjoy domestic life, start teaching again, earning money, and starting my dissertation writing and analysis in earnest. I'll have a good post when I return to the U.S. about several awkward moments that I've refrained from writing about. Stay tuned.

Grrrr

This morning was a relatively nice morning. I went to the market with relatively little food to buy, instead focusing on picking up some souvenirs for home and for a couple of friends who I'll be seeing for the first time in a while right after I get home. I sat around for a while with Violette and her family (who have all adopted me and brag about my Creole skills and even refer to me as their Haitian friend), essentially for the last time as I'm not sure I'll make it back to the market in time to see them on Tuesday. I bought a couple of paintings from them, including an original piece that the artist signed and dedicated to me on the back. What I didn't realize about the piece is that it was just slightly too big for a shopping bag to carry home (and also for my suitcase, as I would later discover).

With a beautiful, clear sky above, you might imagine my consternation when it started raining as I was coming home with it. The painting is acrylic, so I wasn't too concerned about the painting itslef getting ruined, but rather the chances of the dedication smudging (or mildew growing). I put the bike on a conveniently placed bike rack and started to walk home.
As I was rearranging the bags to protect the painting, I slammed my knee into a less conveniently placed stone bench. I no longer wanted to walk home, so I decided to hitchhike. After 5 frustrating minutes, some soldiers pulled over and picked me up. They had no idea where I lived when I told them, which suggests that they are either new or they have very little exposure to the area, spending all their time in and around the military bases here (which is a common complaint I've heard about them).
But they got me home fast and relatively dry, so I was happy.

I ate lunch, picked up a couple things for dinner/recording tonight and went back to town. I decided to hitchhike again to speed things up, and the very first car I tried picked me up. It was a Haitian family. As they drove me back to my bike, they talked to me in Creole for a bit, testing whether I actually spoke it. We had a nice little conversation, and when I get out to unlock my bike, I discovered that some jackass had tried to steal it. Luckily they failed, but the chain has some severe damage. I'll have to replace it, but since it still works, I'm tempted to take it home with me to replace the broken one I have at home. In any event, I'm glad that things have by and large worked out for the best.

Murals

Murals are very common here. Actually, all sorts of wall painting is common, whether it's pictures painted on houses, or graffiti on walls (my favorite: "bare walls, silenced people"), or poems painted on school exteriors. Above you see a mural welcoming you to what used to be Chinatown, and is now just a regular old bad neighborhood. I wanted to include more pictures, but the internet café is too slow. So we'll be low on pictures for the rest of my time here (just a few more days!).

Internet troubles

Last night, I went to my normal internet spot and was troubled to find that my internet was suddenly not connecting. I could connect to the network, but the network wouldn't load the world wide web. Hence no blog post. I will try again tonight, and if I succeed, there will be pictures of murals. If not it will have to wait for tomorrow.

My new glasses

Here are my new glasses that I talked about last week.

Hair Fashion

There is something I've been meaning to write about: men's hairstyles. But it's been difficult to do with a lack of an illustration, and I feel weird about just taking random pictures of people on the street, as though they are there for my curiosity's benefit. However, as I was coming home the other night, there was a fashion show going on. Nothing too impressive, at least not to my untrained eye, but there was a male model with exactly the kind of hairstyle that had jumped out at me. And since he was really putting himself on display, I decided to take advantage and get the picture. And here it is:

You'll notice the designs drawn in the hair. I've seen writing, elaborate designs, all sorts of things. I wouldn't say that all young men have them, but only young men have them, and they are not at all uncommon.

Back-ups

Every once in a while, things go very wrong. For that, it's important to have back-up plans. Take last night. I was supposed to have a recording session with one of my participants. He told me to call him the day before to confirm. I called him the day before, and the day of, and yet I got no response. No time to panic! I called the other participant, who was available to come downtown for a conversation session with his girlfriend. I grabbed my equipment and headed downtown. We found a quiet park bench and started to talk. Then I noticed something: the voice recorder wasn't working because it was too full, and it wasn't erasing easily. No need to panic! The other one was working fine. After a little while, I managed to erase the files taking up all the room, and started recording. We talked talked talked then I heard a strange beep: The battery was dying. No worries! I had spares in my bag. Always have a backup!

Too tired for a real post

I don't know why, but I'm exhausted early today. So you're just getting more food.

These are sériz-péyi, known in English as 'acerolas'. Tart, big seeds, not that good.

This is a watermelon, but look at the rind. This kind of watermelon with the solid green rind is a moulondlo (which translates literally as watermelon; how convenient). The kind of watermelon we see in the U.S. (at least the kind that we see as large as this) is called pastèk.

What linguists do

Yesterday, I had a meeting with the owner of the restaurant, the man who had told me if I ever had any questions I should stop by and see him.

So I went to visit him at his office, and he was happy to sit down and answer my questions. But he was taken aback by the way I asked questions. I think now is a good time to show you a bit of what we did.

Warning: NERD ALERT! If you want to get to the summary, scroll down tow where it says "IN SHORT" (yes, all caps).

Joujou timoun yan pèdi.               (joujou plural? Timoun plural?)

game  (of) child  the lost

Joujou tiboug ké tifi ya pèdi.        (joujou plural? tiboug plural? tifi plural?)

game (of) boy and girl the lost

Tifi      profèsè a kouri bokou.           (tifi plural? profèsè plural?)

girl (of) teacher the ran   a-lot

Tifi        mo frè kontan kado ya.          (tifi plural? Mo frè plural?)

girl (of)  my bro  likes     gift the

We basically spent an hour looking at sentence like the ones you see above. The sentences all have possessive subjects (The first one is "The children's game(s)"), and I was trying to figure out if any of the words in the sentence could be interpreted as singular or plural ('game' or 'games), given the following words at the end of the phrases: "ya" (plural 'the') or "a" (singular 'the'), or the absence thereof.

IN SHORT, linguists basically try to poke around the littlest parts of the grammar, prodding to find what's okay to say and what's not, what's ambiguous and what's clear. We do this by crafting sentences we know are good, sentences we know are bad, and sentences we're curious about. Then we ask speakers to listen to them and tell us what they think. The guy I was talking to was not expecting this at all.

Food!

Apologies to those who came here yesterday looking for a post. The server was not working.

After a few food-heavy posts early on, I've shied away from them for two reasons. The first is that my dishes haven't been either pretty or particularly distinctive. The second is that the market has had disappointingly few new foods that haven't appeared on this blog. In a way, it makes sense because I've been here at this general time of year before, but still I was hoping for more. And today, I found some!

First we'll start with the cucumbers.

This is called a long cucumber. It's kind of an understatement. This is a massive cucumber, stretching to at least 16 inches (and this is a small one of this species).

This one is a konkonm tochon, or rag cucumber. Notice the ridges. The skin is very tough while the inside is soft and bland. I'm not a fan.

These cucumbers have appeared on the blog before: konkonm pikan, or spicy cucumbers. They earn their name.

Lastly, here's a comparison shot of the different cucumbers, including a regular one, for comparison.

Onto the fruits. This fruit is a zabriko or abriko péyi; in English its name is usually a variation of mammey. I haven't tried it yet, but I've heard it's good.

These are kénèt or Spanish limes. They are the size of cherries. They have a crispy, easily removable peel, and the flesh is a small layer wrapped around a comparatively large seed (probably three times the size of a cherry pit). Good flavor, bad texture.

Finally these are mari-tanbou, or "water lemons" in English. They are basically just a different kind of passionfruit, with the same sour taste. With sugar, they are very good though.

American

I try to avoid using the word American to describe myself whenever I'm in South America. People in South America (and much of Europe) are taught that there is one continent that takes up most of the Western Hemisphere, called "America", while those of us from North America learn that there are two continents, collectively known as "the Americas". In South America (and indeed, much of Latin America) American is used to mean both "from the US" and "from the Americas", while in the US, American can almost never be used to mean "from the Americas" (though one exception is the Organization of American States, which is countries of the Americas). Because my English so heavily affects my French, and because Europeans frequently use American to denote only people from the US, it's a tough habit to break. There is a word for someone from the US, étatsunien, which I have adopted to describe myself and my home country.

This habit recently paid off. I had lunch yesterday at a gratin restaurant, with really good food but slightly higher prices than I would have liked. As I was leaving, the owner and waitress asked me what I was doing in Cayenne (Vacation? No. Mission? Definitely not.), and I told them about my project. They seemed interested in it, and then they asked me where I was from (Germany? Belgium?), and I said I was étatsunien. The owner said that he was really happy I used that word, that it seemed very respectful, and that if I needed him, I should call him and he gave me his card. I will be going back and taking advantage of that offer.

Glasses

I have had the same pair of glasses for 7 years. I like them, but I've had a hankering for a change for a while now. Well, I noticed that this place with good reviews was having a sale, buy one pair of glasses, get the next two for 1€ apiece. I thought to myself, Hot diggity, I think this might be the time to change. So I looked at the fine print, where it said that one of the extra pairs had to come from a pre-selected collection, and I thought, that's not too bad, I can live with that.

So I woke up Monday morning (feeling like P. Diddy), I grabbed my glasses, was out the door, and was gonna hit the city. I got to the optometrist and really wasn't sure what to do. There was no front desk, all the salespeople were occupied, and I hadn't been to an optometrist in France before, so I really had no clue about protocol. I sat down where a bunch of ladies were sitting, waiting. After about 10 minutes, I looked over at one of the desks and saw someone new standing there: the receptionist, who had apparently just arrived. I went to her, asked for an eye exam, and she was like, Do you have insurance? I had a moment of worry: Was the exam only free if you had insurance that covered it? In any event, I answered that I didn't, and they said, Well, you'll just have to pay the normal price for glasses. A big relief.

After about 10 minutes of waiting, the optometrist took me into an exam room. The technology floored me. I don't know if it's the fact that France has such good health care (which occasionally carries over into French Guiana) or if it's the fact that I haven't gotten an eye exam in five years, but I was impressed. The first thing they had me do was look one eye at a time into this little machine that showed a picture of a road leading to a multicolor hot air balloon. The picture was clear, then blurry, then clear. At the end of two minutes, there was a printout of the shape of my eyes, complete with the astigmatism. Un-frickin'-real.

Then we went through the part of the exam that I was more familiar with, where you look at the letters and read them off, then make judgments about which view is better. The only part I didn't recognize (and therefore messed up) was when there was a screen split between red and green colors with some large letters. I was asked which color stood out more, and it wasn't until we got to my second eye that I noticed that one side was supposed to be blurrier than the other. I was focusing so much on the colors that I ignored the letters. I'm not too concerned, though. At the end of the exam, he told me to compare my vision with my current glasses with the view that he was about to prescribe me. I needed new glasses badly, apparently.

So I went out, and an associate sat down with me and helped me figure out how much my lenses were going to cost. It turned out that it was buy one lens, get one free, so I could get much better frames than I had anticipated, staying right within my budget. The salesman helped me pick out some frames, offering his opinion on what looked good but also helping me realize that if I picked frames that didn't completely go around the lens (i.e. like the frames I've been sporting since July 2004), they'd have to give me slimmer, more expensive lenses. So he helped me a lot. Unfortunately, one thing the billboard didn't make clear was that the 1 euro pair of glasses had to BOTH be from the pre-established selection; if I wanted to get a frame that wasn't from that selection, I'd pay full price for it (but the lenses would still be free). So I ended up getting the pair that I liked best that was made in Europe, rather than another one that I liked that was from the US figuring I could get it in the US for cheaper if I really wanted it. I also got a back-up pair and a pair of sunglasses. The three together totaled 261€, 11€ above my target, due almost entirely to the fact that sunglass lenses were a 10€ fee (which I knew from the start). All three pairs will be ready in a week (which for me is insanely long, since here we usually get ours in an hour or so). Once I get them, I'll put pictures up.

The M Word

I meant to post about this a while ago, but it slipped my mind. But there's a word in the local creole makonmè. This word denotes the godmother of a child that a man is the godfather of. However, it is very close to another word makoumè (which actually comes from the same French words ma commère). This word is a derogatory term for a gay man, and is more generally used as an insult to any man. So at the baptism party, where I basically knew no one yet because I had a camera I was asked to stay near the godmother (among other important people), you can imagine how unnerving it was to keep hearing this word shouted over and over in my general direction. Eventually, I figured it out, but until I did, I didn't feel very welcome.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

I was playing soccer this morning as I do most Sundays. It was high tide, which meant I couldn't really enjoy the waves because they were just too high and I'm a lousy swimmer. I made a promise to myself: I am not going to die in French Guiana. Anyhow, I commented to one of my teammates that the day I score a goal is the day that the goalie commits seppuku. I rarely take offense and I almost always pass to someone with better control of the ball. But about 5 minutes later, I found myself with the ball and an open goal within striking distance, and I made my first goal after several months of never coming close. I shouted "seppuku!" at my opponents and from that point on, made menacing comments about breaking out my secret talent that I only use every three months.

Work day

Today, after a brief visit to the market where for the life of me I could not figure out what I wanted to buy (and therefore bought nothing), I spent the rest of the day trying to work on a linguistic problem, coming up with sentences to ask people about.

Nothing else to report. Better entry tomorrow!

Languages

I'm always thinking about languages down here, since it's what I'm here for. But the last few days have been really kind of remarkable for me.

For starters, I've been doing some translating between language pairs that I'm not used to. Now I've gotten to the point where translating between English and French or English and Spanish, or even French and Spanish, is not that tough. I'm not perfect, and there are some rough patches, but it's not taxing. However, over the last couple weeks, I've had to interpret a couple times going from Guianese Creole to Spanish, and once between Haitian Creole and Portuguese. I think that it shows the remarkable multilingualism of the region, and how much people are expected to speak each other's languages. As one man put it to me, when we get here, we're just kind of obligated to learn all these languages. Now this isn't a legal obligation, or even a logistical one. If you want to speak French with everyone, you will basically have no problems. And yet, people feel the pull to learn other languages.

Also, apparently it's not rude to speak a language with someone that others in the conversation don't share. This was weird for me. Today, I went past Alex's workplace, and I saw that he was there with his daughter and two other people. They called me in and they invited me to chat a bit. It turned out that the two other people were from St. Lucia, a Caribbean island with a French creole and English as the two official languages.    I struggled to find a way to be inclusive: I started with French, but then they seemed to not speak French. I tried Creole (breaking out my one sentence of St. Lucian Creole), but then they invited me to speak English, which Alex doesn't speak. But he didn't seem to mind. So I used English, which I rarely use here, and we switched into Creole every so often.

And then at the market, I used Creole more freely, which I don't usually do because so many people reacted negatively when I first tried it when I arrived. But now, I think word about me has spread in the market, so people don't think I'm condescending when I use it. One woman was particularly surprised to hear me use it when she mistook cornmeal for fine manioc flour and I politely asked if she was sure. And of course, sometimes my knowledge is used as a means of sending the grandchildren of Haitian immigrants on guilt trips because they don't speak it and I do. It's nice that some things, like guilt, are present everywhere.

Blur

The last couple days are a bit of a blur due to their unremarkable happenings. I'll try to reconstruct it.

On Tuesday, I went early to the market. Now, Tuesday is not one of the regular market days. I didn't even realize it was open that day until Violette asked me to come visit her that day so that she could show me a book in Haitian Creole. I in return would show her a dictionary that one of my advisers edited. Well I showed up, and she had forgotten the book (but I didn't care because I had forgotten to show up to the previous meeting). But we spent a lot of time going through the dictionary with her grandson (who seems to be about my age) and her friends, talking about different words. She's fond of telling me that Haitian Creole is tough because "There's a lot of consonants and vowels." I'm not quite sure what that means or what that's in comparison to, but I like it.

And then I went to help Jorge out, serving as an interpreter with his lawyer, who's helping him chart a way forward in his quest to stay in French territory. That took an incredibly long time, only because the lawyer made us wait a half hour.

The rest of the time has been spent working and cooking. I made beef with bok choi (surprisingly, this is a French Guianese dish) along with a fried-plantain tart. Pretty darn good, I have to say. I'll be making it at home.

No post

Sorry, just forgot to write one

Birthday party

Last night I went to a birthday party for a six year old, but unlike most kids’ birthday parties, this one really seemed to be more for the adults. Lots of food, including a pork fricassee and French fries. But I think the highlight of the evening was the cake ceremony. Unfortunately I won’t be posting any of the pictures, because I don’t have permission. But basically, they lit those self-reigniting candles for the kid, sang Happy Birthday (Creole translation of the lyrics: Apre bèf la se ou ‘After the cow, it’s you’— I’ll find out what the hell that means some other time), and then right at the end of the song, they opened up a bottle of either champagne or sparkling grape juice and sprayed the kid with it, exhorting him to blow out the candles. I for one HATED the “magic candles”; in fact I’m pretty sure I cried when they were deployed on me.  And if I had just been sprayed, I think I would have seriously flipped out. But the kid took it all in stride. I was impressed.

Baptism Party

Last night was another party with the Haitians. Lots of people there, which meant the music was louder and the conversations more difficult, so I actually got less out of it linguistically than I did the first night. But some observations:

1) The men party, the women do all the cooking. The women did not seem to be having much fun.

2) Lots of drinking, very little drunkenness. This was a baptism party, and the booze flowed freely, as evidenced by this gigantic bottle of Johnny Walker whiskey on a special stand that allowed it to be poured easily. Oh and the four year old twins that were the guests of honor opened the champagne bottles and took a small sip.

3. Sparse decoration. These balloons were basically the only decorations there were. The emphasis seemed to be less on making things look nice than making them feel nice. There was some great music all night long, and everyone was clearly having a good time, eating good food, dancing, very relaxed.

4) The cake: Delicious. No one could tell what flavor it was though.

5) Obligatory picture of me, with a Guadeloupean friend.

Barbecue

So some of you might have noticed that the other day I said I was going to a barbecue, and then I didn’t talk about it. Well I had gotten the day of the party mixed up. It was last night, and again tonight. It was a party being thrown in celebration of the baptism of two Haitian twins. My friend brought me, telling me that at the party it was probably all going to be Haitians, and that I should expect that he and I would be the only white people there, which we were. But it was fun, good food (albeit not much of a variety). And everyone was very nice, and they all had opinions about the premise of my work, telling me that the local creole is “heavier” than Haitian and that they need to speak the local creole to get by. I might get pictures today. Last night, it slipped my mind.

Departmental Museum

Today I went to the Departmental Museum of French Guiana. It's right downtown, and I don't know why I'd never visited before this trip. Anyhow, it covers essentially three things: nature, history, and to a lesser extent, art.

Here's a mini-tour.

These are some old pharmaceuticals, made from local trees.

A stuffed blowfish.

A couple of birds. They showed the process by which the animals are stuffed by a taxidermist but it was too gross for me.

A picture of the migratory trajectories that some birds in French Guiana fly. I don't think you can tell from this picture, but there are little LEDs that light up. This trajectory that's lit shows how egrets fly. They go from my hometown in Connecticut to Cayenne. How fun.

If you don't like bugs, hit 'End' to get to the bottom of the page, and scroll up till you reach the steel ball-weights from a ball and chain. In the meantime, here are some gigantic bugs.

Look at the size of these beetles. Insane!

These are my favorite. They are called morphos, and they're everywhere. Sooo beautiful.

These are ball weights from a ball and chain from the prison at Devil's Island.

This painting is of a scene from the 1880 gold rush in French Guiana. This gold would later be how France repaid its debt from the Marshall Plan. Doesn't colonialism rule?

An outfit that a prisoner at Devil's Island would have worn. Also, one of the few black mannequins in Cayenne, which is weird, because almost none of the prisoners were black. They mostly came from Europe, and were therefore mostly white.

A couple of pictures of famous prisoners.

A model of a traditional house.

The proclamation of the end of slavery (I think it was the second end of slavery, since Napoleon brought it back and reenslaved all the blacks). The picture below it shows the creole translation. It was one of the earliest documents written in the local creole.

A picture of a prisoner being put through mouillage or 'soaking'. Those nearby sharks and the ball-and-chain on his foot are competing forces.

Oh and after the museum, I walked by the Hôtel de ville (kind of like a town hall, but not quite), and a wedding had just taken place there. Talk about a ball-and-chain.

Where I post

Anything good that's supposed to happen today is going to happen this evening, when I go to a barbecue with one of my friends, and I already posted my "reflective" blog topic for the week. So I really don't have much to say. So instead, here's a picture of the sunset where I type my blog. That's worth about 1000 words anyway.

Kids

Dominique's grandchildren are in, and boy, are they a rambunctious trio. The oldest, a girl, is fine. She's generally well-behaved, respectful, not a problem. But the younger two boys, they are a handful. They are loud and they go pretty much anywhere. I entertain them as much as I can, but I'm in an awkward position where I don't mind their bad behavior (I was never much of a disciplinarian), yet I can't just let them do anything they want because I know Dominique wouldn't want them to do certain things. Actually, I have the same problem with the cat.

I think that's a pretty good place to stop.

Colombo de cabri

I’m going to try to avoid letting this blog devolve into cataloging what I eat every night, but I’m making some different stuff now. Half of it is trying to perfect it before I get home and have to figure out what is going into my dinner rotation; the other half is eating as much stuff that is unavailable at home. Tonight’s dinner is halfway between the two. It is a goat curry. I was at the market on Saturday and I saw fresh goat for sale, which you pretty much don’t find here except once in a blue moon. It was $14/lb, so I decided to treat myself to a half a pound, figuring I could stretch that out to a dinner and a lunch portion. This curry’s veggies include eggplant, green beans, wild spinach, and to my surprise, cucumbers. I rarely see recipes that call for cucumbers to be cooked. They ended up tasting like jarred pickles. Anyway, here’s a picture of the final product, along with the cookbook that gave me the recipe. 

No substitutions, please

One of the reasons I enjoy playing soccer so much here isn’t because I’m good, or because it gives me much needed exercise, but rather because of the breaks that we take. We go into the ocean and just unwind, and we talk about all sorts of things. Today, I found out something about the French school system that surprised me. Now France isn’t exactly known for its academic excellence in the developed world, but of course, neither is my home country, so I can’t really throw stones (lest I break the glass walls).But as an example, when I showed Dominique the sections of a sixth-grade U.S. History textbook that talked about slavery and the slave trade, she was quite surprised at just how much discussion there was of it. France, despite its large slave industry in lands that are still politically part of France, doesn’t cover slavery in nearly that much depth, a fact that rankles many of my friends here, especially given the economic sluggishness that continues to plague the former slave colonies.

But I was really shocked to find out that teachers in France can pretty much take off whenever they want, and there is no substitute teacher. Now this isn’t to say that they can take off as much as they want, but they get way more time off than U.S. teachers. It’s not until a teacher is gone for at least two weeks —two freakin’ weeks!— that they start to look for substitutes.  Compare this to the U.S., where every course is supposed to be supervised, and substitutes go from class to class, overseeing what are supposed to be quiet days. France has on its payroll people who are listed as substitute teachers, but apparently, a lot of them have been assigned to full-time positions instead, in order to save money —this despite the fact that education is the largest part of the French budget (I’m not sure where education is in the U.S. budget if you combine the states’ and the nation’s budgets, but I’m quite certain that it’s not the largest part).

Apparently, it’s even worse here in French Guiana. Those of you who are regular readers and have a very good memory might recall that I mentioned in or around Post 100 that most of French Guiana’s teachers don’t come from here, but rather come from France or the French Antilles (Guadeloupe, Martinique), and they come for short periods of time to take advantage of the 40% salary hike that government employees get for working here. As one might imagine, they are not inherently invested in the success and well-being of these students, at least not in the same way as teachers in the mainland, who do not bounce around from region to region, since the economic incentives to bounce around France do not exist. I heard of a teacher who took Fridays off, with no substitute to cover her courses. Joris had a French teacher who was gone for 3 months, and was still not replaced. I’m not saying that these teachers should have been fired (actually I am, but that’s not my main point), but rather, that students shouldn’t be allowed to fall so far behind. It is unreal.

Ponm kannèl

Today I tried my first ponm kannèl, literally 'cinnamon apple' but its English name is sugar apple. If it looks familiar, it's because it looks like a smaller version of another fruit I tried last time, the soursop. It also tastes like one. It's pretty good, not one of my favorites. It's like a pomegranate in that there are a LOT of seeds, and very little flesh apart from that attached those seeds, so it's a bit of a chore to eat.

Soccer

Today was the first time in a couple months that I have played soccer. I am VERY proud to report that I am as good as ever (read: I suck.) Luckily my skills were overlooked due to the fact that both teams were playing against a common enemy-- the ocean, whose waves would creep up to our playing area and steal the ball from our feet. And I keep thinking my shins are sunburned because when I touch them they hurt, but then I realize that it's not sunburn pain that I feel, rather it's a bruise from smashing shins in an effort to get the ball. But still it's nice to have something to look forward to early on Sunday mornings. Plus, it's the longest workout I get all week.

Oh, and this is where we play.

Only

To make my phone calls down here, I have a cell phone, the same one I bought over a year ago. I bought it from this company called Only. Only is the “cheap” brand of cell phone service. The phone cost me 30 euros and is really just a basic, barebones phone. I can make calls and send texts, and take some grainy pictures, but that’s pretty much it. And the reception is less than stellar. Still, it serves its function.

However, over the last few days, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend: None of the small grocery stores where I used to buy my credits seem to have the phone cards. I went to at least 6 different stores, both downtown and near me, all of whom said they were out. One only had cards worth 3 euros, which I bought a few days ago and quickly ran out. Today, after going to 4 of those 6 stores, I finally found another card worth 20 euros. I had to make a quick decision: keep looking and only buying as I needed (thus risking not being able to find replacements) or spending too much money for minutes I might never use. I quickly decided that it was better to be safe than sorry, and I can now make phone calls. Hallelujah.

No weird food today. Check back tomorrow.

Unplanned

Today did not go as expected. What was supposed to be a quick trip to the market got prolonged by a couple hours, after I ran into Jorge, who insisted on spending time together. The fact that it was was raining cats and dogs made it all the more necessary to stay with him in dry places. From there I went home to put away the veggies and fruits I'd bought at the market and headed to a friend's house, the same family I spent my final evening with on the last trip. I expected to only spend a couple hours there, and I ended up spending the whole day there, catching up, talking about all sorts of things, meeting a friend and possible subject.

Then I ran home because I was starving and they clearly were not making dinner for themselves. So I went home and had shark. Again, delicious. Although I think there might have been a piece of scuba gear in it. I don't really know.

Yum

Rather than recounting my day, I'm just going to talk about my dinner because quite frankly, it was the highlight of the whole day.

I took a ride down to the fish market this morning to buy two pounds of fish for about 7 bucks. One pound of fish was carangue, seen alive in this photo. Carangue is my favorite fish down here, and maybe my favorite fish anywhere. It's got the meatiness of swordfish with the thickness of whitefish. Excellent. The other was a pound of shark meat, which I haven't had in a while and am looking forward to trying.



Anyhow, I needed to figure out what to make for dinner with next to nothing in the house. So, I chopped up some onions, green beans, and cabbage, then sauteed them for a bit. I poured in some red wine and added garlic, chopped and whole. Then I threw in some mustard and a bit of water to make it more of a sauce. After a while I added about 4 ounces of carangue. At the end, it was too acidic, so I looked in the fridge, and there was a small tub of cream, right at its sell-by date. I threw in two dollops, and I was done.

The result:

Frickin' delicious. You can serve it over rice, though I served it over kwak, manioc flour. I'll be making this again.

Getting settled

Today was the first day that the market was open. I desperately needed to go, as the food in the house is all a bit questionable. Dominique, who is usually the one who spends the most time in the house and the cook of the house, is not around, and no one seems to have eaten the meals she left behind. So some of them are good, but others have gone bad, like, spit-the-food-out-as-fast-as-you-can bad. Unfortunately, as I lay in bed this morning, still tired from a long couple days, I forgot about this fact, so I jumped out of bed at 11:45 and hurried to get downtown before 1:30 so that I could get there in time to actually buy enough food to hold me off till Friday, the next market day. Despite traveling on foot, having just missed the last bus that could get me into town when I needed, I managed to make it, doing a lot of impulse buys to get the ingredients I'd need for a sauce tonight and fish tomorrow (except I didn't get any fish, but I can pick that up tomorrow, something I couldn't do with the produce). I spoke to the same merchant who was so nice to me near the end of my last trip, and she introduced me to her Haitian merchant friends, who all asked me to come back on Friday to talk (and of course to buy things from their stands). It's so funny to me to hear how they talk to me, because they talk to me like I'm a child. To be fair, they're old enough to be my mother or grandmother, but I'm just not used to being talked down to. As a language teacher, I understand the desire to simplify language so that even a learner can get what you're saying, and it's been a really long time since I've been on the other end of it. It's actually kind of nice.


Anyhow, traveling to and from town in the hot equatorial sun took all my energy, so once I got home, I was done for the day. I spent my day working on my dissertation and making said pasta sauce. Tomorrow morning, I get the bicycle that I borrowed last time I was down here (and hopefully the helmet, which I consider mine since I bought it and it doesn't fit anyone in that house), and I'll be on my way to zipping all over town.

An anecdote

Today was mostly a day to recuperate from the journey: sleeping till noon, walking around, getting reacclimated to Cayenne and picking up a few things that I needed, such as tropical strength mosquito spray and a card to put minutes on my phone. The bike that I used last time I was here has been returned to its rightful owner, and I’ll have to wait for Dominique to return so that she can take me to her friend’s house to get it back. Anyhow, onto the anecdote:




I spoke to Alex today about a topic we’ve discussed many times, namely the intersection of immigration, integration, and language in French Guiana. He pointed out to me that, despite all the institutional pressure to learn French (school, white-collar work, government, etc.), immigrants generally learn the local creole alongside French, though for this language, no institutions exercise any pressure. It is merely the desire to fit in, to become part of this society that they learn the language. I listened carefully, skeptical, as my experience with the Hispanophone immigrant community strongly contradicts this. A few hours later, having written an outline of my first dissertation chapter, I decided to go out to get a pizza. While I was waiting for my pizza to cook, a Brazilian man came up to the window and started talking to the chef (an African immigrant), the employee taking orders (a Guianese woman), a regular customer (a transplanted Frenchman), and me. And even though he was greeted in French by the employee, he immediately switched the conversation to Creole, where it stayed for the rest of the time I was there. So there is definitely something to this notion that Creole is a language of integration. The Spanish-speaking immigrants I’m used to talking to generally don’t see themselves as part of this society, but rather passers-through on their way to France.

Back!

In each of my trips down to Cayenne, I have become increasingly paranoid that during my overnight layover, I won’t wake up in time to make the morning flight out, the one and only flight that can get me to Cayenne on time. This has driven me to pull all-nighters each time that I stay in the airport. As a result, I am utterly exhausted on the plane and sleep like a baby during the flight. Actually, having sat next to a baby on the very first flight, I’d say I sleep way better than a baby (though to be fair, babies are really bad at most things, so I shouldn’t really be bragging). This caused me to miss the free lunch—if you believe that there is such a thing— that they handed out on the plane, which was a disappointment. Luckily, at the layover in Guadeloupe, they actually had food, a pleasant change from earlier trips when there was almost nothing to eat. When I wasn’t sleeping, I had an audiobook to listen to on my iPod, Tina Fey’s Bossypants, a very funny autobiography slash management advice book.

At long last, I arrived at Cayenne, much earlier than my previous flights here. I took a taxi home, and I could tell early on that the driver was taking advantage of me. Instead of going directly to Cayenne, he took me through a nearby town. In his defense, the house where I’m staying is close to the border with that town, but still, it added extra time to the drive. And then when I got here, he tried to charge me an “airport tax”, and that was it for me. Having made this trip twice and having never heard of such a charge, I paid him what it said on the meter and not a Eurocent more. I said if there was an additional tax that wasn’t going to show up on the meter, he should have said so before the trip, or he should have put it on the meter. He was pissed but he left without issue, only telling me I should look it up.

And unfortunately, no one was home in time to open the house for me, so I had to wait for someone to get home. Or so I thought. In reality, Joris was home and simply didn’t hear me knock. After an hour, his father — who lives rather close — came looking for him and found me waiting on the back terrace. He was able to call him, and lo and behold, I was able to finally get in the house after an hour. And now, I will finally be able to sleep.

My last day

Today was my last day, and it was spent tying up some loose ends. I went to the Haitian consulate to say good-bye and thank you to the consul, but he was out of the country. Which was odd because I spoke to one of his co-workers just yesterday and I told her I was going to stop by to say good-bye to him and she said, "Sounds great! See you tomorrow!" Anyhow, I went from there to the market to pick up a couple souvenirs from the lady who called me family a couple days ago. She wished me a good trip back and we said our good-byes.

Then from there, I went to a friend's house to make lunch, a calalou. It wasn't as good as the last time I made it, but everyone was very polite and ate it. This family has been very welcoming, and one of them in particular has been really helpful in rounding up participants, so I wanted to do something nice. It was also the birthday of the youngest child, who turned 13, so they suggested I bake a cake. I asked what kind of cake he wanted and he said "An American cake." So I gave him the choice between a carrot cake and a banana cake, and he chose banana. I went with his sister to get the ingredients (trying to find a suitable replacement for cream cheese isn't easy), then we went home and baked the cake. I went home while they went to church, I bought a soccer ball as a gift, then came back with the frosting. They loved the cake, and even did my family's tradition of placing a glass in the center and using that piece for the birthday boy. All in all, a very nice last day. Later in the week, I'll write a final entry reflecting on the whole two months.

Agouti

This is the creature Dominique has been telling me I should see, even more than the monkeys. He comes into the yard to eat things out of the compost pile, as you can see in the video below. Adorable.

Done!

Finally, the project I set out to do during this visit is done. I have all the interviews i need for the pilot portion. It wasn't always smooth, but it worked out.

For starters, when I got there, I was surprised to find that not only was the building open, but there were lots of people there. This in spite of the fact that when I asked specifically if the building would be open this week, I was told that it would be totally deserted. So instead of having to do the interviews outside, we were able to do them indoors, although they refused to open any rooms to help me out. And the interviews went fairly smoothly, although almost everyone was late, and I had to turn away a bunch of people because they turned up too late, after we had started the interviews. But I was able to use the camcorders, which was good because at times the voice recorders apparently shut off on their own.

So tonight and tomorrow I can just tie up loose ends, getting ready to come home Thursday!

You've got to be kidding

Some of you may know that I have a rule for cereal in the U.S. : It has to cost $2.00 or less for me to buy it. Occasionally I have to violate that rule when there are absolutely no name brands or trusted generics that cost that little. Here, since everything is imported from France, there is no chance that I can find cereal that cheap. However, I have a new 3€ rule, which actually works out pretty well. I have to buy generics, but they're tasty. Most of the name brands cost about 4-5€. But the other day, I saw this:



At first, the box of cereal looks innocuous. But look closer.



Almost 8€ for a box of cereal. Seriously. That works out to almost $11. I wouldn't buy an $11 box of cereal even if it were Alpha-Bits in IPA.

If only I'd had a barrel, that would have been way more fun

Finally, after a month and a half of waiting, I finally got what I wanted. Look at this picture. Do you see?




In case it's not obvious, check out this close-up.


The monkey in the backyard! I was so happy.

I was out in the backyard putting my clothes out to dry on the clothesline (visible at the bottom of the close-up), when I heard a rustling in the trees. I looked up and there was this monkey, staring at me. Soon I saw another. So I slowly walked into the house, ran to get my camera, and came back in time to see them jumping from tree to tree. Unfortunately, I had trouble seeing my viewfinder in the bright sun, so a couple of the pictures I took had no monkeys in them. Luckily this picture came out great. So that's checked off the list.

Tomorrow is the last of the pilot interviews. Then I can go home with peace of mind.

Brazil!

While my passport doesn't show it, I have officially been to Brazil as of today. It was a disappointingly short trip, and most of my time was spent in a bus station, but still it was a real change from Cayenne. Oiapoque, the border town named for the river that separates Brazil from French Guiana, is a small town that has developed quite a bit in recent years, but still shows signs of an underdeveloped rural area. A colony as far from the minds of Brazilians as Cayenne is from the French. If ever a town made Cayenne look great, it was Oiapoque. That being said, it was really cool to just be over the border, because it felt so different from French Guiana. Different energy, different architecture, different people. Hopefully I'll go back one day. In the meantime, enjoy these photos.

This is my first view of Brazil.

This is the bridge that will connect French Guiana to Brazil.

But as you can see it's not quite finished.

This is a monument in the middle of the town.

This is basically the first thing I saw when I stepped off the boat.

This is the community of Saint-Victoria, which has been growing a bit over the last few years.

Postponed

My trip to Brazil has been postponed until tomorrow morning, so it will really be more of a day trip. With the extra time I had today, I decided to change my money in preparation for tomorrow's trip. The euro is strong against the real, so I should have plenty of money.

Then I wen hunting for bouyon wara (which I previously talked about in this post). To save you a bit of a trip, bouyon wara is THE national dish of French Guiana, eaten mainly around Easter and Pentecost. Its base is a paste of the wara, a fruit from the buba palm tree, a fruit whose flesh is quite fibrous and not that great to eat raw, though the flavor is delicious. The fruit is then cooked into a paste which forms the base of the dish, and to it is added pork, beef, chicken, and shrimp, as well as lots of spices (though shockingly it isn't spicy hot). To make a good bouyon wara (bouillon d'awara in French), you really have to start on Friday and keep cooking until Sunday. In the end it should be soft, slightly salty, with the meat being the consistency of brisket or pulled pork. After several days of searching for it, I finally found it at the market (though they hadn't been selling it the other times I'd looked). The price: 20€ for one kilo. I bought two. Why spend so much on one meal? Well besides being delicious, 20€ is actually a bargain for what it costs to make it at home. Assuming you don't want to spend a day trying to make the wara paste, you can buy a bottle of the paste for 15€ (the raw fruits to make the paste would cost probably about 5€, and then the oil would probably cost another 5). Then there's the cost of all the meat. Recipes typically call for several pounds of meat, because when you cook this, you really don't bother cooking for one. So actually, 20€ for a meal that would have cost me way more was a great bargain. I bought one kilo for myself, and one for Alex, who will be the only one home with me tomorrow night. He's done my interviews for free, so this is my way of repaying him.

And the rest of the day was spent working on my interviews and on my introduction to linguistics class that I'll be teaching this summer.

Finally here's a picture of me. I know I haven't had many pictures of myself up this time around, so in response to all the clamoring, here you go.