Making strides

The last couple of days have been pretty darn awesome, I have to say. Last night, after I got home early, I watched the show A Kouman ('Huh?') for the first time. This is a short, 8-minute show that spotlights the different languages spoken in French Guiana. Last night's language was Russian, spoken by people working for the Space Center.

Then, as I was marinating some fish, I had a nice discussion with Dominique (my landlady), Alex (her significant other) and Alyssa (his daughter) about my project and Haitians/immigration in French Guiana more generally. This is a very intellectually engaged family, and it's nice to be able to weigh in and show my knowledge too. Too often, I'm reduced to sitting by, observing, taking in the discussion, but not being able to participate. While I'm learning a LOT about French Guianese society, I'm really not in much of a position to contradict people or add new knowledge to the discussion. But last night, I felt like I was on an equal footing because of my knowledge of the Haitian community here and elsewhere.


After firing off a few text messages setting up my first training sessions for my interviewers, I went back to my fish. I made my first 'pimentade'. A pimentade is a fish stew made by marinating fish in lime juice, onions, garlic, salt & pepper for a few hours, then sauteing more onions and garlic with tomatoes in a pot. After a few minutes, you add about a cup of water with a teaspoon of roukou ('lipstick tree spice') dissolved into it. Once that comes to a boil, you add the fish and its marinade, and cook it till it's fully cooked. And then you enjoy it. It's really good. I'll be bringing plenty of roukou home with me.


Then today, I had my first training session. I'm really glad my advisers told me to do this, because it is not at all intuitive to do these interviews. Essentially, they have to be able to strike up a good rapport with people, make sure they're always talking, respect the time limits for each part of the interview, and never correct people even when they use words that aren't Haitian. All of this can be quite difficult, and this person didn't seem to be a natural, but that's ok, because she has what she needs to be able to work on it at home, to get more comfortable with it, to speak with people who are actually Haitian (rather than me playing a 40 year old Haitian man).

Once that was done, I went to the library, except I went to a different brach, where a friend of Dominique's works. The other branch was taking its sweet damn time getting back to me about whether I could have a library card. When I went today, they told me I'd already been approved, even though no one bothered to tell me. So I have to go back tomorrow with 31 euros, a proof of Dominque's address, and a passport-size photo (which I have left over from my international driver's license). I'll also be allowed to use the internet there, which means no more paying by the hour.

So all in all, a pretty good couple of days. More news soon.