The sales

Tomorrow is the official beginning of the sales period here. In France, stors are generally prohibited from running sales except in January and in July (with a few loopholes here and there). And unlike in Paris, where I once said "Prices go from 'ridiculous' to merely 'unaffordable,'" here the sales seem pretty awesome. 5 € for a shirt, 20-50 € for shoes (marked down 70% in some cases), and more. So I'm on the look out for sandals so I can stop being overheated so much, and maybe a new shirt or two. I'll re-post if I find anything good.

Netherlands wins!

What a game! This was definitely the best game I've watched so far. The first half had two of the best goals I've seen, both launched from far away by each team. There was also a brutal moment where a Dutch player went for a header and a Uruguayan guy did a bicycle kick, striking the ball and the Dutch guy's head. There was a nice display of sportsmanship soon after, with the Uruguayan guy clearly concerned for the guy he kicked and a Dutch player patting him on the back to console him. And Uruguay really stayed in it to win it, scoring a goal in the last few minutes and really putting pressure on the Netherlands to stay on offense right until the end. Amazing! And my desire to see a new team win the Cup is now closer than ever to coming true.

Pati pa rivé

Talk about an up and down day. This morning was fun. I spoke to an immigrant from Cuba for about 45 minutes right outside where I post these blog entries. I'm not sure if I've already said this, but at times I wish I was doing an anthropology thesis, because I have really great access to the Hispanophone community here. I'll probably try to get IRB approval (i.e. university approval) to study them for when I come back, just so I can ethically collect data and report on my conversations with them, assuming they don't mind.

I then went to a local high school to drop off a letter for the Creole teacher, explaining why I'm here and giving him my number so that he can contact me if he wants to help me in any way. I also met the principal, who wrote her dissertation on the language (which I had ordered on inter-library loan long before coming here). So there's some leads. Also, I was surprised to see so many students there, since school was out of session. But it turned out that today was the day that all over France, students were receiving the results of the bac, the college entrance exam that all graduating students take. After a brief stop at the supermarket (where I purchased comou and soursop ice cream, among other things), I went home. While home, I made a phone call to the linguist I talked about recently, and I got no further than 'I'm doing a study on Guianese French Creole' when the phone slammed onto the hook. I felt depressed and rejected by someone I was told would be open and helpful, and the snacks I'd bought for the next couple weeks are now half-gone.

In an effort to avoid being hung up on being hung up on, I went to take a hike to places where I was told I'd see great views of the city, but instead, all I found at the top of a very long, very steep climb were signs forbidding entry. But I felt better having exercised strenously, and I went home, where I relaxed with World Cup soccer. I then went to one of my informants' houses, and he told me that he'd set up another interview for this Saturday, when his friends wouldn't be tired from working all day. And then I came here to type this blog post, and on the way, I received a call from someone I'd given my number to, offering to get together to speak in the local creole within the next few days.

After two days of blog entries with the exact same title, I put a bit more thought into this entry's title. It's a creole dolo (roughly, 'proverb'), meaning 'leaving is not arriving'. It felt really appropriate for today, where I started a lot of things, or continued things, but still didn't feel like I'd reached the point I wanted to. But since the day ended well, it's nice to know I won't wake up angry tomorrow.

Long day

Today, Jorge and I went to the doctor so he could have an exam done. Once he was under anesthesia, I went exploring and came across one of the hikes in my guide. It was hard! A LOT of uphill climbing, loose soil going down hill, hot sun, and hard to follow paths. And honestly, it wasn't worth it. But there were a couple of nice views. There was also a pilgrimage site, but since people were there worshipping, I didn't take pictures, except for the one of the lit candles (in the forest, around dried leaves...). The path led to a beach, which was a nice place to relax and prepare some elicitation materials, mainly drawings of faces and parts of the body. (nerd alert) I'm trying to find out the names for a lot of 'unimportant' body parts, such as the pupil, fingerprints, cuticles, etc., as well as the names for the different fingers.



I went back to the hospital and the doctor was very impatient with us. He spoke to us for no more than 5 minutes, mainly just telling us that there was nothing in the test and that we should leave.

Note: there were going to be pictures, but the internet here is telling me no.

Long day

I went to a party late last night with the woman from my building. To sxay I had fun would be an overstatement, but people were nice and one of them even promised to give my number to the person who wrote the last grammar of the local creole, immortalized in the name of this school (http://frenchguianaandbeyond.blogspot.com/2010/06/college-auxence-contout.html). I got home entirely too late and I decided to sleep in.

I woke up this morning and I thought Jorge and I would make a quick stop at the pharmacy and then I'd go food shopping and have a relaxing day. But it turns out all the pharmacies in Cayenne are closed on Sundays. So we had to go one town over, where there was an open one (French law requires that at least one pharmacy within a certain radius be open at all times). We went to the Haitian priest's office to see if he was going in that direction. And there was someone there that volunteered to take us. So we went, and it's about a 20 minute drive. We got there and Jorge said he forgot the prescription at the priest's office. So we call the priest, who's gone, having told his friend to come from 50 minutes away to open the office to get the prescription. So we waited for over an hour, and then, once the prescription arrived we were fifth in line, with each prescription taking a half hour to fill. And then we had to wait another hour for someone to take us home (who was very nice and might help me with the project). In short, a grueling day.

Computer

My computer won't turn on anymore and I don't know why. I do know that blog posts will probably have fewer pictures now, because I used to reduced my 5 megabyte photos to 0.4 MB using a program on my laptop, but now I can't do that and it takes forever to upload the larger photos. I'm hoping that the problem will magically solve itself (it has in the past), but I'm not counting on it.

Montabo Hill

I woke up a bit early today to beat the intense sun to go climb Montabo Hill, an easy hike that I have in my handy-dandy guidebook to hikes in the region. I packed my iPod (for the first time since I got here), my guidebook and my sunglasses and set out. It was a great hike. I saw a few cool animals, including the spider, lizard, and birds seen below, as well as a monkey and butterflies that just proved too elusive for my amateur camera skills. Even though I went alone, I was able to get a few good shots of myself, as requested. I also found some great views of the ocean, including the third picture, which is my new desktop photo.
















Notice the spikes on this tree. In the local creole, this is a pegn makak (literally a monkey comb(er)).

This is a picture of a sponge that magically made its way into the forest.



This was a restuarant at the end of the trail.





There's a bird on the big rock on the right.


This was a gate at a dojo.




(For those curious, this was my old desktop photo:)