méconfiance

under-appreciation i don’t know if it exists objectively I guess it can’t

 

                                                but when you mock my spirit

                                                it drowns in méconfiance

                                                for a moment and only

                                                                          springs back

                                                                                    stronger.

 

I’m here to be me

not for you

 

my lens is imaginative

                        and yes I see cupcakes next

                        to the stars

                                    violin cases and Kings

                        embracing

 in smoky

                        laughs of contagious

                                                depths.

 

and yes I do muddled accents

                        muddy dirty indistinguishable

                        but I am alive

 

and maybe you should

check your pulse sometime

because

some of us don’t replace our

oxygen intake with superiority

complexes.

Et Sinon, Ca Va?

So today I Sinon, Ca va’ed and actually got a good result out of it.

 

For those of you foreign to this popular Guadeloupian activity, Sinon Ca-va-ing is the act of engaging in a short and casual conversation with a friend or acquaintance with whom you (think) you have nothing to say to.

 

The procedure usually goes along the lines of the following:

 

You spy your neighbour from the other side of the street as you make your way home from work. Although the last time you talked was approximately, mmm…twelve hours ago, you know they’ll be coming back for more conversation if they see you. Admittedly, they are wonderful, fabulous, generous, beautiful people, and you would be happy to talk to them all the time…if they would just cut out the Sinon, ca va-ing.

 

So you try and avoid eye contact and speed up your pace, thinking about the discount cookies and imitation nutella that await you for as snack back home on this blisteringly hot afternoon. But just as you squeak open your front gate, thinking you’re home free, you hear that dreaded word…your name.

 

“CAROLINAAAAAHHHHHH, CAROLINAAAAAAAHHHH…CA VAAAAAAAA????

 

You turn around, and there she is. Your neighbour. Bra-less, fearless, glowing, and full of love. But she’s about to Sinon, ca-va you, and you can barely handle it.

 

“Bonjour!” you say, acting as chipper as possible

“Bonjour” she replies, making you note that it’s been far too long since the last time you saw one another. You smile politely.

“Eh, bon, ca va?” she asks you

“Oui, ca va, ca va, et toi?” you inquire, knowing the answer before she utters it.

“Oui, ca va” she responds

 

And that’s when it begins. The Sinon ca va-ing, that is. It is always preceeded by a punctuated, awkward silence, a bit of foot shuffling and nervous giggling, a few follow up questions like “et ta collocateur, ca va?”/ “et le travaille, ca va?” and then finally, as if with violins and symbols crescendo-ing in the background, the phrase is spat out “et sinon, ca va?”

 

What drives both my roommate and I crazy about the whole phenomenon is not so much that Sinon, ca-va-ing is a repetitive and a redundant operation. It is, instead, the fact that neither individual is comfortable enough to admit to the other that there is truly nothing interesting to report. That they have been ca va-ing just fine for the past twelve hours and that truly not much has changed in their lives since.

 

The phenomenon had been driving me so up the wall lately, in fact, that I began to realize that this was—indirectly—perhaps one of the main pillars of my homesickness: the fact that there are plenty of incredible people around to talk to, but that I have a really difficult time conversing with past the formalities and small talk.

 

I began to think that it was hopeless; that I would be doomed to this spiral of Sinon-ca-vaing with fellow Capesterrians for the rest of my stay, limiting my more expansive conversations to my roommate and other fellow language assistants. This thought made me think and feel lonely.

 

And then my Step dad gave me some food for thought. Loneliness is real, he assured. And being far away from family and friends, in a different culture is real as well. But as people, most of us tend to be a bit neurotic and create our own kinds of loneliness, within our psyches— loneliness that can follow us wherever we go, unless we are prepared to address it.

 

So this is what I have been trying to address throughout the past week—this loneliness and neurosis within that tells me I am a “failure” at engaging in meaningful conversation with locals.

 

Last week, I decided to take sinon ca-va-ing head on.

 

On Sunday, a man sinon, ca va-ed some friends and I and we responded “no,” because it was raining and we had planned to go to the beach. He suggested we take cover at a pizza place, and half an hour later, we were feasting and watching a local carnival band parade by.

 

On Monday, a woman who I give English lessons to Sinon-Ca-va-ed me, and instead of simply ca-va-ing back, I began to tell her about my desire to learn the Gwo Ka (the local drum here). Two days later, I was sitting across from one of the most well known Gwo Ka players in Guadeloupe, learning one of the seven basic Ka rhythms from him.

 

My roommate seems to be subconsciously following the same trend. A gas station attendant sinon ca va-ed her last night, and—by slightly changing her response—she somehow ended up bringing home a roast chicken and French fries for dinner. (A real treat, in our crackers-n-cheese abode).

 

Moral of the story? Loneliness sucks. And so does sinon ca-va-ing. But don’t let either deter you from getting to know yourself better, meeting others, and learning a bit a about life.

Espiritu Nuevo en la Habana Vieja

Below I reflect on being a tourist in La Habana, Cuba. Similar to the preceding post, I touch on how feelings of (in)sincerity,  economic disparity and apartheid awaken a great sense of discomfort in my being. I wonder what is on the horizon for Cuba-- politically and economically. Change is in the air, it seems-- but is there a collective direction? 

For some reason I seek to isolate when uncomfortable with the imposed barriers, accentuating them even more. Desire for sincerity ironically impedes my own, creating a bubble of mistrust and redundant suspicion. Idealism and cynicism interlock, muddling my objection to simply observe and be.

 

I don’t wish to incite jealousy in anyone; I wonder about incentives alternative to money, alternative to the possibility of seemingly eternal landscapes and alternative to starch egalitarianism.

Once you have everything you think you need, what comes next?

What common struggle outside of hegemonic well-being can be shared?

 What  can create and inspire the same creative and political energies?

 

Contra-ditch

I wrote the following post after spending the day doing a guided tour of the countryside in Vinales, Cuba. I want to assure everybody that the pessimistic nature of this post does not at all reflect my entire opinion on the tourism industry in Cuba, nor does it intend to put words into anyone's mouths (especially my family that was there on the tour with me). It is instead simply a reflection on the contradictions and insincerities that tourism industries can create-- especially within a country where vast economic and political differences exist between citizens and visitors.

That one time that we spent the day walking through the Cuban countryside was. You know. What it was, in that way. In that red earth and green leaves kind of way; dry rocks and tepid skies with dry caves and no bats but plenty of wrinkles…kind of way.

 

When we went by their house—the tobacco farmers’—I became annoyed with myself. You know me- I hate faking sincerity.

 

I felt like, you know, we show up there and they’re supposed to be happy to receive us; thrilled to be performing “the ceremony of cigar making” to their affluent, camera happy audience (myself included), when really, they may feel subjected to the tourism industry’s equivalent of the Myth of Sisyphus—rolling tobacco leaves again and again and again as Sisyphus did with the boulder—with no foreseeable end or goal in sight except the chance of survival.

 

This was the way I felt two days ago—when we, as a group, reimbursed said individuals’ hospitality by exchanging money for cigars, and forcing first names and smiles.

 

It was not that I did not find these individuals charming. Indeed I did. But I felt uncomfortable at how our relation to one another felt so fabricated; you know….like the exchange that we were having was itself an elephant in the room even though that was the reason that everyone was there to begin with. (“I’ll let you appropriate my culture a little if you give me a shot at your culture’s level of consumerism”). I think I would feel much more comfortable with those sorts of interactions if everyone were ready to confront any awkwardness head-on from the beginning. You know? Like “hey, thanks for having us here. I’m North American, and yeah, I know there’s  economic tension between us, and I feel a little (a lot) awkardness having so much disposal income and knowing that my desire to smoke a Cuban cigar could greatly affect your lifestyle this month.”

 

But instead the conversations are all “oh, how long have you been living here?” and “how many cigars does your father smoke a day…” blah blah blah. So for me, it really produces the opposite effect. The whole fabrication of “a day in the life of a campesino” actually feels like to me “a day in the life of people lying to eachother.”

 

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.