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.
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.
