Well, guess I’m almost done …! Just a few finishing touches, such as cutting the edges straight and sanding, and voilà! Zee French-Guyanese chess board experience is complete!
(No, I’m NOT carving each individual little chess pieces!)
Click on image for more photos.
Caroline, one of my 11 year old students, spoke to me a little bit after our lesson tonight.
Caroline: So … there’s snow in Canada, right?
Me: Huh? Yeah, sure!
Caroline: About … how high?
Me (thinking of this year’s enormous downpour and wanting to be impressive): About … (pointing at my head) this high, this year.
Caroline: WHA? How can that be??
Me: It happens every year. Snow falls.
Caroline: But … but isn’t that dangerous?
Me: Nah. We can navigate easily enough. We shovel our walks, and there are big trucks with huge shovels that clean our streets once in a while.
Caroline: But … (then gestures a huge 6-feet-high piece of snow falling all in one chunk)
Me: What? Wait, no! Snow doesn’t fall in one big chunk! Ack! That would be terrible!!
Caroline: Then how DOES it fall??
Me (really giddy, because it’s just so cool to get to describe snow for someone who’s never experienced it – ever – not even on tv … ): It’s fluffy, light … Like, rain … but softer … Basically it’s rain, but it’s so cold outside that the raindrops freeze before they hit the ground.
Caroline: Wait! Rain just freezes? Before it hits the ground?? So how cold IS it, then?
Me: Pretty cold.
Caroline: Like, how would you dress?
Me: AH! Ummmm, ok. Other than underwear? Pants, socks, shirt – then, boots, sweatshirt, scarf (Caroline’s mother: “What’s a scarf?” Me: “A thing that keeps your nose from freezing but strangles you.”), coat, hat, mitts … on the coldest days, that is.
Caroline: Wow … so, um … do you ever think of coming back to French Guiana?
Me: Well, I’m pretty sure I’ll visit within the next five years.
Caroline: Can you do something for me then?
Me: Yeah?
Caroline: When you come back, can you bring me a jar of snow?
——————–
Note to readers: Caroline was aware that the snow would have melted by the time I reached the country. In her defense, I was considering bringing back a small jar of rain forest rainwater myself a few months ago.
I love taking a weekend to travel to Cayenne. No matter how crazy it is.
First off, this time I got to drive the little Twingo the long distance because the car’s finally completely fixed (and has passed the legal technical driving test – making it legal to drive the darned thing in public). It was Philip, Caity (a friend of Philip’s from Georgia, USA) and I manning the Twingo.
On the road between St-Laurent and Cayenne. Click on picture for a few more.
And this time, we were off to Cayenne for the French Guiana Baha’i Convention. This means: election, mega consultation on stuff, and organization of stuff. Basically. I thought, when I’d taken a day to pick up the ballots of 10 different local communities (details explained in the April 24th post linked here), that I could not possibly learn more this year about Baha’i administration.
Boy, was I wrong.
Anyway, between having to translate all the consultations and discussions to an Auxiliary Board Member from French to English (and back again when he had comments to add) and having to draft a letter to the Universal House of Justice on behalf of the Convention of the Baha’is of French Guiana, I learned many many administrative nooks and crannies. Interesting ones at that.
And had a lot of fun.
Why?
1 – I learned to drum on a djembe for the first time of my life. Not only was I able to keep the beat – I learned fast enough to bring the beat to a good speed for songs and other things! Yay!
2 – There’s a theater in Cayenne. As in, movie theater. Which was playing the new Indiana Jones. In French. But who cares if it was in French. The whole story is set in the Amazon. And, I mean, come on! It’s worth it just for the Indie theme! (*cue Indiana Jones theme*)
3 – Nothing could stop us 6 youths (including said Auxiliary Board Member) to pack in the tiny Twingo and drive to the movie theater. Not even getting the car in a ditch.
Conventions can be fun.
And on a completely unrelated note, Sarah was kind enough to post some of her pictures of me and the goat. Which I shall share here.
“lula and marie-claire go head-to-hand: a fierce contest of wills ensues…”
“and the winner gets to eat the loser’s pants”
(captions courtesy of Sarah Windle)
And so the “dynamic duo” is reunited once again, as a friend put it. Sarah has landed in French Guiana (“I bet I’m the whitest person ever to set foot in this country!” – indeed, I should get a picture comparing our arms … ).
Despite the different climate, country, culture, and surroundings, having Sarah walk through my house door on Friday night seemed like the most natural and normal thing to me. She plopped on the sofa and we chatted like we were still in our tiny snowy Montréal apartment.
Well, to me, it felt normal, anyway. Most probably because I’m much more acclimatised, apparently. Sarah pointed out that she had to take a few seconds to realize there WAS oxygen in the air, and not just humidity, when she first walked out of the plane. I guess I easily forgot how the extreme humidity was the cause of my viola’s unglueing …
She is now living a little ways out, between my house and the village I visit every weekend. A short drive really. I therefore got to visit her and her new home for the next three months on Sunday.
They have a gazilion pets at that house. Two cats (I finally got my purring-kitty fix, after six months), two big black labs, many chickens, and … a goat.
Called Lola.
And the goat’s role is really just a house pet.
I was a little weary at first, but Sarah showed me how you could lean your fist on Lola’s horns and forehead, and she’d playfully push back. I obliged.
Goats are strong. It was really amusing.
What I didn’t realize was, once I was done playing, she wouldn’t want to stop. So after I removed my fist, she contented herself with leaning on, then strongly pushing, my knee cap.
Cute. Real cute.
Now I want a goat too.
John, a friend of mine who has traveled to a few countries and stayed in a village in China, has coined the following: “The Six Month Hump”.
He means that when you live in a new area (let alone a new country), it takes about six months for you to really start getting into the new culture and the new rhythm, and find your own space in it.
I’m inclined to agree.
This week was the first week that I brought out the fiddle to someone’s house without it being an event. Just – bring the fiddle to fiddle a bit after a children’s class. The whole family got into it. The father was laughing out loud, he found it so different and fun. But I wasn’t playing French-Canadian fiddle tunes like I would have done a few months ago. I was playing along a song in Sranan-Tongo.
This is what John meant by the six-month hump. I can now go in a house here, feel comfortable with their slightly different ways, and feel comfortable pulling out some of their tunes and get everyone going. Just as if I were at home playing a French-Canadian tune.
It was nice.
I plan to do it again.
Other things to celebrate my six-month hump:
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