Montezuma’s Psychedelic Revenge

For those of you that are fervent Friday-Night-Facebook-Stalkers, your creeper archives can surely attest to the fact that this past Vendredi was a shit day for me. After having announced to the entire town of Capesterre (police people and grocery store clerks included) that my father would be arriving on the 10:30pm flight from Puerto Rico, he did not.

 

In a surefire and successful attempt to mock me, Her Holiness the Deity of Foul Fridays decided—in addition to leaving me without an excuse to bake and consume copious amounts of welcome Chocolate-Chunk-Banana-Muffins— that I should spend the whole night on the toilet, with explosive diarrhea, truly wishing someone would just kill me once and for all.

 

For the first couple of hours of my malady I played the strong card; I folded laundry and engaged in intellectual conversations about German cinema with my roommate in-between trips to the loo. By eight o’clock though, neither Estela nor I were convinced by my declarations that I was  “ooooooohhhh-kay,” that it was “juuust a little tummy ache” and that it was “ alllllll good.”

 

Our skepticism of my declarations could have easily been based on the fact that I couldn’t stand up without subsequently folding in half, clutching my stomach as if I were clutching my purse in downtown Rio de Janeiro; cognizant, too, that my relatively tanned face was now approximating the colour of an SPF 75 sunscreen, Estela and I hypothesized that things were perhaps not so peachy in the intestinal department after all.

 

It was in this moment in time—in my debut as a phantom contortionist— that Montezuma’s Revenge began to take on psychedelic dimensions. After about my twentieth session in the W/C, I flopped onto my bed, exhausted, took a giant gulp of the 2-litre orange pop that I used as an excuse to “rehydrate” myself, and began dreaming.

 

I dreamed—not that the world had decided to put an end to war—but that I was swimming in an ocean of orange pop. A giant ocean, a sweet ocean, with placid swells and tranquil waves—an ocean where 

I splashed and chatted with my dear friends Estela and Raquel, and occasionally gulped some carbonated yellow number 5

 for the sake of it. I closed my eyes and floated on my back, allowing my body to be rocked back and forth by the gentle pull of the tide, not lucid enough to realize that I would most likely be getting devoured by an army of mosquitoes if I were to truly to basking in a sea of sugar. All of a sudden, I felt a kind of intrinsic sense of urgency, and opened my eyes; there was Raquel waving at me like a madwoman, warning me of something. “OH SHIT!” I screamed “YOU’RE RIGHT! I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM NOWWWWWWWWW!” And I got out of bed and went about my (excruciating) business.

 

As I sat there on my favourite, donut-shaped chair, I realized how lucky I was to have such good friends in Guadeloupe. Friends who—even in dreams—remind me when it’s time to wake up and get my shit together.

 

 

butidunwanna

Growing up is weird.

As you may or may not be able to decipher from my latest pathetic attempt at “free verse,” (see last post) working for the Public School System in Guadeloupe has me conflicted on a variety of levels.

 

To begin with, the rapport between teachers and students is entirely different from the way it is in Canada.

 

Here, if a student makes a mistake, she or he is (in my experience) immediately scolded, and is (in my opinion) made to feel “stupid.”

 

For example, if a student is asked to write something down, and she misspells it, one could expect the teacher to say something along the lines of “what are you doing?! What is this? Erase it immediately!”

 

As you can imagine, those who commit more serious mistakes are in for punishments of a more grave nature: a child who slouches while lining up outside the classroom is shoved against the wall in disapproval, one who laughs at another in class is asked to stand up on his chair for five to ten minutes as his classmates remain seated; anything more “daring” usually results in a “light” whack to the back of the head or a twist to the ear. I kid you not.

 

To be honest, I don’t know why I haven’t talked about this before with you Canadian lot.  I definitely mentioned it to my roommate and fellow Language Assistants during my first week at work, but after that, denial was most likely the reason as to why I said nothing to anyone.

 

As a foreign teacher, I find myself in a very uncomfortable position. To be working within a school system that endorses physical punishment—having grown up learning that said method of discipline is violent and ineffective—leaves me feeling morally conflicted.

 

While I certainly do not practice any “physical punishment” myself, I do feel like a bit of an accomplice-by-default at times. You see, my English lessons work in the following manner: I teach classes of twenty to thirty-five students for 45-minute long lessons. While I am solely in charge of giving the lesson, the classroom teacher is required to stay in the room to assure that the students are well behaved.

 

Thus, even though I spend approximately 40% of my time telling students to “please be quiet” and to “look and listen,” they nonetheless have a tendency to ignore me and continue talking/throw spitballs/sing/draw/crawl on the floor/laugh. That’s when the teacher comes in. Most of the time, they will speak to the child harshly and “shush” them. But every now and then, they will whack the students, and it is then that I feel like a terrible person and an awkward teacher.

 

In direct correlation to all of this is the fact that—even without physically punishing students—I feel so unlike myself when I’m in “teacher mode.”

 

Before my first day of class, I received numerous speeches from a plethora of teachers telling me that I had to be “strict” and “distant” with the students at the beginning, so that they would comprehend that they would not be able to “eat me alive.”

 

Scared shitless by such a warning, and more than lightly traumatized by my experience as a basketball-assistant-coach-in-a-tumultuous-Montreal-suburb-at-the-age-of-17-who-no-one-respected-because-I-was-a-softie, I’ve tried to maintain a straight face for the past month and a half.

 

To an extent, I believe it’s working. I’m almost certain that if I were to be my chipper, smiling, giggling (snorting) self all the time, the students would not take me seriously and would walk all over me. At the same time however, it’s exhausting—it’s like I’m acting all day long; I put on my “cold teacher” mask in the morning and don’t take it off until the afternoon, when all I want to do is crash on my bed and watch merengue music videos from the 80s to cheer me up….

 

And even at recess, guys! Even at recess I don’t know what to do. Because the students are so exited to see me (being Canadian is quite the novelty in Capesterre J) but at the same time, they try and touch my hair, they crowd around me, they ask me a billion questions…. and even though they’re adorable and I politely answer their questions, I have to sort of delineate that “power differential” between teacher and student, and I try to not engage in too much conversation with them.

 

Sigh. There are some moments, however, where I don’t feel like such a biotch. Magical moments in which I’ll be teaching a phrase, and then the phrase will turn into a musical performance/rhythm involving clapping hands, stomping feet and smiling faces—the students shush, they smile, I smile—and I let out a deep breath. I am myself for a moment. And it feels so good.

 

Guess I just need to work on my musical career to further my 7-month vocation as a teacher…

 

In any case, I’ve decided that I’m going to speak to my “Professeur Referrant” about the matter; I’m going to tell her that I feel uncomfortable with certain methods of discipline employed by the teachers. Additionally, I’ll ask her if it’s appropriate (in terms of cultural norms) to approach the teachers that I work with and ask them to please not whack the children while I am teaching. I think, in this way, I will not feel like an accomplice of something I disagree with, and maybe, in speaking to the teachers, I can learn a little bit more about their views on discipline. What makes it all a little more complicated, is that the teachers are truly, genuinely very kind people. Outside of the classroom, they are so so so sweet—they are always asking me about my time in Guadeloupe, offering help should anything ever come up, etcetera, etcetera so…it’s not like they’re “bad guys.”

 

Donc, it’s a hairy situation.

 

Anyway, if anyone has any alternatives as to how to handle such a prickly affair, do let me know. I would be delighted to receive any suggestions. (I love the word “delighted.”)

 

I could go onto about five other different reasons as to why “growing up is weird” but I will stop here for tonight. It’s 10:20 pm (PAST MY GUADELOUPIAN BEDTIME) and tomorrow I have to start getting ready for Ramon’s visit! (My pops arrives on Friday for ten days J )

 

Anyway. Hope everyone is well, and thanks for reading.

 

Love.

 

 

Not the Time

Right now is not the time to speak of the quotidian

I repeat I repeat I repeat I repeat I repeat I repeat

MAIS TAISEZ VOUS LA MADAME PARLE

Et ca sera quand, alors? Teacheurr teacheurr how do you say asdalsdjlaksjdla

JE NE REPONDES PAS AUX ELEVES QUI NE LEVENT PAS LES DOIGTS

 I want do, I really do, je suis pas mechante du tout, je vous promete maisECOUTEZ MOI

“Ils vont t’avaler sinon/Il ne faut pas sourire/Il ne faut pas etre amicable”

 

Comment ca? I’m getting frown winkles where my laugh creases were already starting to

DEVELOP THE EDUCATION SYSTEM BY ALLOWING STUDENTS TO EXPRESS THEMSELVES

 

A little mama bird once told me “give them space to express

I’m happy because last night I ate ice-cream/I’m sad because my hamster died/I’m scared because my dad hit me…”

 

Mais ca l’est egale a M. Desjardins qui en tout cas gifle a ceux qui parlent

Et l’inspecteur viendra le semaine prochaine so make sure you’re on top of the curriculum.

 

NOW IS NOT THE TIME. Save it for when it’s too late.

Ta Gueule, Bureaucracy!

Good morning, Maria Carolina. My name is The Isle of Guadeloupe, and I would like to present you with the ideal Toussaints Vacation Package. Listen, and prepare to drool...

On Monday, October 26th, at approximately noon, you will recieve a very fancy looking letter from the government of France. Praying that Michel Foucault has been appointed as the Sociological Spokesperson for Gringo immigration, you will tear the envelope delicately, with a smug smile on your face...it's about time that La France offered you citizenship. You are, afterall, Simone de Beavoir's intellectual BFF;Jean Paul Sartre held your hand tenderly as you waded through the muddy notions of "being and nothingness" last year, and you watch "Amelie" about twelve times per year. "I'm totally being offered the legal right to purse my lips at irrelevent points in time for as long as I l live," you will think, sighing with joy.

But alas, Maria Carolina, you will have trompe-ed your poor, little, helpless Canadian soul. Instead of an abstract invitation to join the "imagined community" of France, your eyes will meet a short and cold convocation to the Office of Immigration and Integration in Point a Pitre, asking you to complete the transactions that will permit you to legally reside in France for the next six months.

What will be most spectacular about this letter, is that it will tell you that you have to be at a hospital for YET ANOTHER MEDICAL EXAM, two hours ago, and THEN in the capital city for your official meeting in one hour.

You're totally pumped. This kind of incongruency is your idea of the perfect holiday...Recieving a legal invitation two hours too late... partay time!

You'll go home and call the good folks. They'll promise that "il n'y a pas de soucis", and to come to Point a Pitre on Wednesday and you'll have the meeting then. You smile with joy and agree.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009
You'll wake up at the beautiful hour of six am with the sweet sweet kisses of muthaeffin mosquitoes and the off-tune sing-song of hypothermic sounding roosters. In honour of the fantastic day that awaits you, you will break your fast with stale cereal doused in tepid, concentrated guava juice, because you purposely ran out of milk the night before.

Pysched for the appointment, you'll revel in the joys of nausea for the whole two hours of bus ride to Point a Pitre.

"Sit down and don't talk" the government official will instruct you kindly when you arrive at the office.
"Ok" you'll respond angelically. "But I should explain to you that I recieved the letter too late and I haven't yet had my medical..."

"If you could be quiet that would help," he'll snap back. "Do you have your passport?" he'll grill.
"Yes"
"What about your proof of lodging?"
"That too", you'll say.
"And your medical examination documents?"

"Well, no, unfortunately, because as I began to explain earlier, I received the convocation for the medical appointment too late and..."

"Whoa whoa WHOA, you mean to tell me you expect me to do something for you here if you don't have the necessary documents?" he'll stand up and look around the room spastically, like a fly trying to find its way out of a locked room.

"I called yesterday and you said that..."
"Yeah. You just didn't know, did you? Go talk to the secretary. Goodbye."

You'll go talk to the nice lady at the front desk who assures you you will recieve a phone call "within the next month" informing you that you will have to PICK UP another letter revealing A NEW MEDICAL EXAMINATION and BUREAUCRATIC DATE in Point a Pitre. You'll ask her to kindly direct you to the closest internet cafe so you can rant to your people back home in Canada who will understand your frustration.

Happy Effing Holidays.

MERCI!

Just wanted to thank all of you that read the blog and make such lovely comments. I will respond individually when i have internet at home (one glorious day....)

love you all.

I, Miss (and not Madame)

-expressing myself without looking like dingbat
-Coffee Shops
-Anonymity
-Having an ant-free abode
-Going for brunch
-Being able to afford things like going for brunch
-Going to the movies
-live music in unsexualized environments
-climbing
-riding my bike
-having to walk long distances to get places
-the people i love

pictures! more coming soon!

Above: the most photogenic picture in the world. From left to right: me with my classic double chin, (yes, i walked a bit too deep into the ocean) raquel: a spanish language assistant, benjamin: a friend from surf class, and estela: my roommate


Above: View of Les Saints (islands close by... where i will go this weekend!)

Only Jesus Has to Judge It. (And Only Smarties Have the Answer)

I never thought tuberculosis would be a recurring theme in my life, but the sneaky little cough has had a particular way of seasoning each turning point I’ve endured thus far.

The year I turned fourteen, my obsession for musical theatre underwent a significant phase transition. Having spent eighty percent of my childhood memorizing the words to “The King and I” and wishing I were Maria from “West Side Story,” I suddenly discovered there were other equally intriguing worlds where music and drama uniteas cathartically as a they do in a Rogers and Hammerstein’s movie.

These worlds are, of course, those of opera and rock opera. In grade nine,I had the opportunity to join Vancouver Technical Secondary’s very own “Opera Club,” where, for ten dollars a production, students were entitled to watch a dress rehearsal of such fine performances as Aida and La Boheme. While I certainly cried tears of empathy for the couple that got trapped in a dungeon for eternityin Aida, it was La Boheme that truly swept me away. True love raging like fire against the bitterness of winter, poverty, and tuberculosis, tuberculosis, tuberculosis—what’s not to love? It didn’t take too long before I discovered a modern, rock-opera spin-off of La Boheme (RENT), and became obsessed with it, as well. (Although, I must admit, that instead of tuberculosis, RENT’s malady of choice is AIDS—which has fortunately not played as significant a role in my life…)

Tuberculosis made its next significant appearance the moment I went from being exclusively a theatre nerd, to being an “outdoorsy” one as well—the year of TREK. On one fine morning that year, my friend Georgia and I had decided we would walk to school together—from Commercial Drive to King Edward and Macdonald—just because we could. Equipped with Nalgene bottles and power bars, we left the East Side at 5:30 in the morning, arriving just in time for our math class at 8:40 am. Like any good Trekkie, I had consumed copious amounts of h20 throughout our escapade; our teachers had warned us that dehydration was not our friend, and I believed them. Consequently, I needed desperately to go to the bathroom the moment we arrived at Mr. Beard’s class, and was excused to do so. Twenty minutes later, however, my bladder informed me that it was in fact not yet satiated, and so I asked the teacher for permission to go again.

Mr. Beard looked up from his desk, took of his glasses, squinted his hazel eyes, and cupped his hands around his mouth, as if pretending to speak through a megaphone. Clearing his throat several times so as to attract the attention of other students, he shouted spastically, “TB! TB!”

I looked around, terribly confused, searching for an answer in the faces of my classmates; they shrugged, equally puzzled by Mr. Beard’s announcement.

I looked back at Mr. Beard, and quietly inquired “Do you mean Tuberculosis, Mr. Beard?”

Without a word, Mr.Beard got up from his desk, walked towards me, hunched down and, two centimeters from my face shouted “TINY BLADDER!”

Apart from empathizing with my dear friend Michaela while she endured apoorly diagnosed case of the eternal cough, my time as a university student proved to be surprisingly tuberculosis-free, and just when I thought that ithad exhausted its presence in my life, it decided to pay a surprise visit to me here in Guadeloupe. Well, ok, not quite tuberculosis itself, but its spirit nonetheless. Last week I received a letter from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs commanding me to present myself at a hospital in Point a Pitrefor an X-Ray so as to be assured that I am not a “vector” of the illness.

After a very sweaty two-hour bus ride, I arrived at the wrong hospital. Exhausted and moody, I bought a frozen chocolate bar from thelobby vending machine, and sat down on the curb next to the parking lot, staring off into space. All of a sudden, something strange came into focus. On the bumper of a Lexus, there was a caricature of a nude woman, sitting provocatively and smiling coyly. Beside her, were written the words “Only Jesus Has to Judge It.”

I laughed out loud for quite some time, and was reminded of the time my friend Sarah and I came across a similarly absurd motif on the back of a box of Smarties; the box offered a series riddles, all of which had somewhat coherent responses except for the last one. The question went something along the lines of “do zebras like ice cream?” while the answer was a pompous “Only Smarties Have the Answer.” After many a failed attempt to integrate the phrase into our high school lexicon, Sarah and I eventually settled on keeping the phrase as our own personal mantra. Bizarre as it was, it made us laugh; laughing puts things into perspective, and in the end, that’s what mantras are meant to do.

Following the same logic, I decided to take on this strange bumper sticker’s blasphemous wisdom as my Guadeloupian mantra…at least for the day.

Thirteen Euros and a talkative taxi drive later, I found myself in the correct radiology waiting room with three other English Language Assistants. Pathetically excited to see one another (it’s a little hard to get around the island and hang out with people without a car) we began swapping stories of our first three weeks in Guadeloupe. “I live in the middle of the city, yet seeing a cow on a leash has become a normality for me,” explained Paul, who had just spent his past year in London working for a fashion magazine. “Have you ever noticed that people extend their fists, instead of their hands here, when you go to introduce yourself?” asked Melissa, who was sun burnt despite having applied sunscreen twice that morning. Just as I began explain how being in Point a Pitre felt as big as New York after having lived in a small town for three weeks, I heard a very loud “MARRRRRIACARRRRROLINA.”

I turned around to find the X-Ray technician looking impatiently in my direction, and the rest of the waiting room patients tapping their feet in frustration. Apparently they had been calling me for a few minutes now. “Oops,” I said, and apologized profusely to everyone in the room. As I made my way towards the technician, I saw a man looking in my direction. When we met eyes, he pouted his lips, made very loud clucking noises and tapped his lips with his index finger. My friend Silvia had warned meof this facial gesture upon my arrival; apparently Guadeloupians do it to demonstrate their disapproval of something.

For a moment I felt special to receive such an “authentic”, “cultural” reaction to my wrongdoing; soon after I felt remorse and embarrassment, but finally, I invoked my mantra, and smiling, I reminded myself “Only Jesus Has to Judge It.”

Well, no doubt Jesus judged it, because my bus ride back to Capesterre was, for the most part, hell on wheels. Not only did I have to stand for the first hour and a half, but the weather went from awful to worse. At first it was blisteringly sunny outside and humid inside, but we at least had a nice Caribbean breeze that slightly relieved the ubiquitous smell of B.O. Soon after, though, the tropical rain began to POUUUR, and everyone closedtheir windows. It just so happened, of course,that I was sitting next to the only person that wanted the window open, and so as the bus swerved, I got repeatedly squashed towards the window and was soon completely drenched. Concomitantly, the smell of B.O. that we had managed to disperse earlier with the breeze only worsened, as the rest of the bus windows were now closed.

My salvation came at last about 5 minutes before my bus stop, when Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” began blasting on the high-tech surround system.*Ridiculously excited to hear it, I began to hum quietly, so as not to disturb my fellow buspanions. But soon I heard another little voice singing along, and realized that it was the woman sitting next to me. I watched her from my peripheral vision for a few seconds and looked around to see if anyone else on the bus was reacting. Nothing. People didn’t care. So, I thought, “feck it, I want to sing to.” And so I did.

And this time it made sense that only Jesus had to Judge it, because no one on the bus paid any mind to our off-key yodeling; it was us and Whitney and that was all that mattered.

Why so, do you ask?

Only Smarties Have the Answer.

* Nevermind the fact that the bus looks like it should have tetanus as a result of its ridiculously rusty nature; as long as the music plays, the bus goes.

Pictures!

My mailbox! With a slight touch up from iphoto, heh heh.

Above: Saturday soup at my neighbours house. Apologies for blurriness of photo, my camera batteries were too low to use the flash, and I suppose I bouged when I took it. Nevertheless, the picture still shows their lovely, generous smiles. :)

Above: the cutest child on earth. My neighbour's grandchild, Lucas. He remembers my name every time he sees me! And he has the most infectious laugh. Don't worry about the photo being blurry, you'll see a lot more of him; I'll be kidnapping him and bringing him to Canada.
Above: I found this in one of the textbooks I'll be using to teach. Hehehehhe. (I start Oct 1st, by the way!)
Above:  A fructose-filled representation of my landlord's awesomeness. I found the note and the fruit on my doorstop the other day. The note reads: "Hello Carolina, on behalf of Mme Quidal, here are some guavas and an avocado". Believe it or not, the avocados get bigger here. It's insane!

Above:  A street in Basse-Terre
above: breakfast in my dining room. 

Above: My landlord and her family-- The Quidals (my landlord is sitting down on the far right)

Above: bathing in the hot springs with Silvia (friend who received me at the airport the first evening) and her neighbours at La Soufriere- Guadeloupe's volcano.

SEVEN WAYS TO AVOID GUADELOUPIAN SPINSTER-ISM

 

1)   1)  Have faith in God.

 

Even if you’re a Conditional Atheist like me,* I promise his Holiness can do wonders when it comes to staving off a life of stray cats and thimbles. On Thursday my faux Catholicism paid off as I wandered the streets of Basse-Terre and came across the cathedral that I had read about in my tour guide**. Convinced the interior would look just like every other church I had ever visited, I nonetheless stepped inside—as a sort of strange homage to my very religious grandparents. (Of course, it didn’t hurt that the house of God provided a bit of shelter from the blistering heat…)

 

I didn’t think anything of the fact that I was the only person in there. It was lunchtime and everyone in Guadeloupe—the pious included, I assumed— goes home to eat. So I sat myself down in the front pew, stretched out my feet, and pouted; I was exhausted and lonely. I had no one to roam the streets of Basse-Terre with, and my confidence had been shot two minutes prior by the clerk at the boulangerie. With a giant smile, the kind Demoiselle had irreverently announced to the entire store that my French sucked.

 

All of a sudden, I heard a rustling at the cathedral door, and, guiltily, I took my feet off the knee-rest, placing my hands in prayer-form on my lap…but I saw no one. “Oh shit,” I thought, “is this the pre-amble to a religious apparition?” My mind flashed back to that traumatizing era of my life—between the ages of four and six —when I couldn’t even go to the bathroom with the door closed out of sheer terror that the Virgin Mary would appear before me as I wiped my bum. Surrounded in a soft light, I imagined the seven foot Virgin to simply float there in her pale blue dress, smiling down at me; arms at her side, palms facing up….Aaaaaawwwwwkwaaaaard… I remember wondering: “what would I say? What would I do? Would she kidnap me to some holy place? Would she read my mind to see if I had ‘sinned?’” The uncertainty of it all stressed me out.

 

I don’t think my grandmother and aunt had any idea of the impact their constant natter about Virgin Mary apparitions had on my cousins and I. We were so terrified that when we had sleepovers we would play rock-paper-scissors to see who had to sleep next to the night-table—where a figurine of the Virgin stood, quiet and menacing.

 

But the revival of my Catholic childhood fears was short lived, as all of a sudden, the sound of the rattling cathedral door changed shape and scope and turned into a gigantic “BUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRPPPPP”. Instead of a floating, celibate woman, before me stood a jaded construction worker, waddling back to his site after what sounded like an amazing lunch break. “Bonjour?” I called out timidly, not sure of what to do in the situation. I didn’t want to embarrass him by having him know that I had heard his echo-producing belch, but at the same time, I didn’t want to scare him. He didn’t hear me, and continued walking towards a little room on the far left corner of the cathedral. I shuffled my feet and bit my lower lip to contain my smile. That burp had made my day. It was just so full of satisfaction, of freedom—I would go as far as to say that it had its very own joie de vivre…

 

As I relished in that thought, the man caught site of me and titled his head upwards, as if to ask  “what are you doing here?”

 

“Bonjour,” I said again. “Euuuuh” (I tried my best to do the French version of “ummmm”) “Is the church euuuuh, closed right now?” I asked, just then realizing rhetorically.

 

“Euuuuh, yes, normally it is. How did you get in?” the man proded, puzzled.

 

“The door over there,” I pointed to the left-side entrance.

 

“Oh,” he responded, unimpressed. “Well, you can stay a little longer. You know, do your thing. But then you have to leave because normalement it’s closed, ah.”

 

“Oh, of course, of course. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize,” I replied.

 

He kinda gave me an up-and-down-who-the-hell-are-you look and continued on his merry way to his job site.

 

As for me? I said a little prayer to Dieu that I would one day be able to muster a burp of such caliber, and thanked the Holy Spirit for this man’s presence in my life. His gastrointestinal activity reminded me that I should never feel too old or too prudish to burp with satisfaction—wherever I may be. Because only spinsters confine their belches to the home-front.

 

*I recommend “Conditional Atheism” to those who, like me, would whole-heartedly convert to Judaism should Robin Williams propose to them. I also recommend it to other OCD individuals who have to cross themselves 16 times before taking off on a plane. (4 times on the forehead, 4 times on the chest, 4 times on the chin, and 4 times from forehead to chest. I have proudly developed a condensed version of the years, that permits only a square root of this number…Consult me for more information…)

** Ah, to be a tourist-in-denial. If anyone has any suggestions on how to inconspicuously look at a map, please let me know. So far, my tactic of reading about places but not knowing where they are in the city is not proving to be very effective…

 

 

 

2)    2) Make Eyes at JC. 

No, not Jesus Christ—we’ve fulfilled the religious quotient for today’s entry. I’m talkin’ Jim Carrey; Ace Ventura; The Yes Man; L’homme avec la masque vert. Mmmbaby. What a man, what a man, what a man.

 

I am not ashamed to admit I have become a regular at the only movie rental place in town— Video Bello. In addition to selling me my radio***, VB has saved me from the common wannabe-surfer spinster ailment affectionately referred to as TBS (Tubular Boredom Syndrome). Thanks to VB’s selection of JC films, my cerebellum has been continuously stimulated all week. After watching “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” on Wednesday, for example, I spent the rest of the evening pining after Jim Carrey’s character and then the majority of dawn psychoanalyzing what attracts me to such emotionally unavailable men.

 

The following night I was mentally withdrawn from my lonely surroundings as I traveled to Lincoln, Nebraska with JC’s character in “YES Man”, and then engaged in some auto-intellectual-stimulation in my lime-green bed as I deconstructed the role of the explicit racialized comic relief of the film.  

 

Yes, with the aid of Jim Carrey and some torturous train of thought, I am escaping the spinster traps of “Jeopardy” and “Days of Our Lives.”****

 

 

 

***Which has saved the neighbours’ cochlea from my acapella attempts at opera.

 

****The fact that my TV doesn’t work and that Guadeloupe does not air these shows is entirely beside the point…

 

 

 

3)   3) Bonjour it up

 

“This girl says ‘bonjour’ to everyone as if she’s known them forever” laughs Robert, as he pours me a glass of Caraib beer. It’s 8pm on a Friday night, and I’m sitting at my neighbour’s house, enjoying the most social activity of the week; I am so grateful. I had gone to the video store in the afternoon, prepared to pay for Jim Carrey to lullaby me to sleep again, and was heartbroken to discover that Video Bello’s JC collection begins and ends with the two I had already rented. My cinematic options for the evening were thus limited to subtitled porn, thrillers such as Final Destination 4, and a awful looking rom-com with Susan Sarandon and Jennifer Lopez*****. I went with J-Lo, cuz at least she keeps it real (being from the Block, and all).

 

On my way home I stopped at the grocery store to buy some toxic cleaning agents; my potential roommate would be coming to view the apartment later in the day, and I wanted to make sure the place looked spic and span.****** As I wandered the aisles, looking longingly at the Nutella, I would say “bonjour” to whoever I made eye contact with. This was not, by any means, a flirtatious or tactical move*******. Rather, I was simply replicating what I’ve seen all over town; people greet each other here, they don’t plug into their ipods like we do in Vancouver.

 

When it was my turn to pay at the till, the clerk looked up at me and said “well look who it is…it’s my petite neighbour!” I stared at her and turned bright red. I had no idea who she was. We were neighbours? “Bien, ouais!” she assured. “I live three houses down from you, I have the scary dog,” she explained. “But don’t worry, we’ve never met. I just saw you from my balcony as you said ‘bonjour’ to another neighbour yesterday.” 

 

Relieved that my memory had not failed me, I smiled and introduced myself, and then went home to brew my newly purchased coffee and scrub the tub. Later that evening, covered in coffee grounds********and rocking out to Akon, I heard a distant “bon soiiiiirr” from outside. I looked out the window and saw the grocery store clerk I had spoken to earlier—Anique.

 

She invited me over for a drink, and the rest is history. I am BFF with that family now. Not only did they save me from spending the night with Jenny from the Bronx, but they have adorable Guadeloupian grandchildren that I got to cuddle with, their son in law is a French celebrity (a cyclist who won the “Tour de la Guadeloupe” in August), and they have an amazing sense of humour. (Granted, they could have been laughing at me the whole night and I would have not known the difference, but the important bit is that we got the endorphins going.)

 

 

Tonight they have invited me over for soup; every Saturday is “Soup Day” here in the “country,” whereas in the city the runny occasion is celebrated on Fridays. Fascinant.

 

 

Moral of the story:  Bonjour it up and ye shall haveth du Bonheur.*********

 

 

 

 

*****Although there was always the option of going to the only movie theatre in town and watching the Hannah Montana movie. Truly, a choice way to spend the evening…But since it’s “dangerous for a girl to be out on her own at night here,” I decided to wait on getting my fix of Miley Cyrus for when ECS and ECP come visit me. Or for when I have a Guadeloupian boyfriend. Whichever comes first. If either ever does. Which at this point is tragically unlikely.

 

****** For those of you that have messy roommates, read between the lines here: quarantine these entropic individuals until they go stir crazy. Then tell them they can only have human contact once they clean the toilet. Not only will the obey, they will practically drink the toilet water if you ask them to. Okay, that’s gross. Moving on.

 

******* Although if my greeting inspired a stranger to buy me Nutella, then, by all means…

 

******** I’m afraid my klutziness only worsens as I age.

 

********* This is not to imply that I respond to the ridiculous cat calls that occur every time I freaking walk down the street. I wish I could collect all these guys’ hisses in an airtight jar, and then, at the end of the year, open the lid next to all of their eardrums. HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. They would be temporarily deaf and (hopefully) eternally cured of the freakin DISRESPECTFUL behaviour towards women. Eff.

 

 

 

 

4)   4) Ride them waves

 

What can I say, nature renews, replenishes. It opens doors and closes pores**********. All because “you’re worth it.” Okay, maybe not quite, but I must admit that I felt like I was “but a child” again after spending the day body surfing at La Plage Bananiere on Wednesday. I was of course at first mortified, as I seem to be with most aspects of life. But after watching a four year old chilling in the surf with his boogie board, I figured the likelihood of me drowning was quite low. So I approached the water slooooooooowwwwwwly; tiptoed towards the waves with paaaaaaaatience. As I stood there contemplating the meaning of life, and whether I was ready to get my boobs wet or not, a skiiiiiiiiny skiiiiny old man came up to me, and breathed a breath saturated with rum: “are you gonna stay there and watch the waves all day? Cuz I’m gonna go for a petit swim, heh-heh-heh.” He laughed that delicious, whole-hearted-old-skinny-man drunk laugh that weird 23-year olds like me love so much. “No sir, I’m going in,” I replied with the same confidence I muster when I firmly tell the concession stand clerk at the movies that “No, I would not like to supersize my drink for 25 cents extra.”

 

As I watched this Gandhi-like man stagger into the ocean, cackling to himself, I knew that this would be a safe place to invoke my inner enfant, and swim the day away.

 

 

********** Granted, my pores seem to be open to visitors at the moment. I have recently developed three zits straight down the middle of my face. One between my eyebrows that makes me resemble a unicorn, another beneath my nose that accentuates its potato-like qualities (could be perceived as a potato ear or something), and finally, a witch-like blemish on my chin-- appropriate for scaring the children on their first day of classes with me; useful for enforcing discipline from the onset of my teaching career.

 

 

5)   5)  Flirt with Death

 

Ever notice how spinsters spend thousands of dollars to keep their cats alive, when in fact they’re at the age that doing so will probably mean that their cats will outlive them? I suspect that by keeping their cats seemingly immortal, spinsters live in denial of their own pending death, and thus feel no need to enjoy the “now,” or experience “the adrenaline of the moment”, bladdy-bladdy-blah. My personal solution to this delusional ailment? Flirt with Death. Aka: Take Guadeloupian Public Transportation. Oooooh yes. All them bumps in the road, all them tropical curves, all them open doors and 100km an hour makes for a rollercoaster ride you can’t miss. It’s like having botox on wheels— and its only 1Euro a pop!

 

 

6)   6)  Befriend the occasional Geriatric

Fact: One can never go wrong by making friends plus age que soi-meme. In other words “he who is younger than she will never cease to jeune at heart.”

 

 

7)   7)  Join the AOMCV—Association of Monetarily Constrained Vegans

 

Ever wondered what it’s like to be one of those hip vegans that invents weird, healthy, taupe/off-white/hemp-coloured meals? All you have to do is have an income that doesn’t permit the purchase of dairy and/or meats and poof! You’re one of ‘em. With all them beans you have to get creative with, you’re left with no time for traditional spinster foods, such as Tuna Casserole, or left over Whiskas. It’s grrrrrrrreat.