Hawaii

Aloha from the Aloha State. Just a quick post here.

I left Martinique at 5PM on Wednesday and arrived here at 4PM Hawaiian time on Thursday. In case you don't want to do the math, it was a 30-hour trip. From one tropical paradise to another.

Except in this case, I think Hawaii is a superior tropical paradise.

There aren't really any mosquitoes here. My perpetually bloody, scabby legs from the daily biting and scratching in Martinique are beginning to heal, slowly, and I'm looking more and more like a normal person when I walk around in shorts or a skirt.

It's hot here but it's not desperately hot, the way it is in Martinique. And it's not humid. When you walk outside here, you can actually breathe. It's a relief, a very welcome change.

And of course, it's AMERICA. Familiar American stores and restaurants and efficiency and the English language surround me wherever I go. I'm savoring it while it lasts.

Also, a miscellaneous tip: If you ever have to spend the night in the Philadelphia airport, go to Terminal C. The seats don't have arms, and there's a 24-hour Au Bon Pain and CNBC News Store for those late-night munchies. And if you ask at the information desk, they'll give you a free pillow, space blanket, water bottle, and potato chips!

Nice for Carnaval

Nice Carnaval

Right before I left for the states, I spent the weekend in Nice, because it was the start of Carnaval, the two-week festival ending with Mardi Gras. I guess I sort of have a thing now, for collecting festivals.

The theme was La Mer Méditerranée, or the Mediterranean Sea. So the floats were mermaids, fish, and then representations of different countries. My favorite was called “The King of Greek Debts” and it was Odysseus-themed. Traditionally, a King and a Queen open the parade, and at the end of Carnaval they put the king on a raft, send him to sea, and set the raft on fire. But don’t worry, the king is a gigantic doll on a float—I was confused too when I first heard. There’s also the tradition of the batailles de fleurs, or a battle in the streets where everyone throws flowers at each other. The atmosphere of Carnaval was just fantastic. It wasn’t like you’d imagine Mardi Gras in New Orleans. There were a bunch of kids out, and they felt totally entitled to spray you with silly string if you walked close enough. Kids manned the floats too, and you could tell the whole town had a lot of pride in this celebration. People were in full out costumes, because you could get in free that way.



I also had another great CouchSurfing host, who taught me how to make this Australian dish she picked up while living there, and gave me some medicine for my fever (yup I got something like the flu again that weekend, and was sick my entire 12 hour flight home yaaayy). She also hosted a few other surfers from Marseille, and they showed me how to make aioli, a typiquement Marseillais dish, which was basically homemade mayonnaise whipped from an egg yolk plus lots of garlic. I met a bunch of other people but the most memorable was probably the girl from Dijon who had moved around, living in different cities and many different countries every six months since age five, because her parents wanted her to experience a lot of different cultures. She learned a bunch of languages and skills and didn’t go to school, but passed the bac on her own. Now she’s planning on taking three years or more to make a zero-carbon-footprint trip around the world with her boyfriend, biking and kayaking or taking sail-powered ships to cross bodies of water. I love that I get to hear about things like that! Or the guy from Ashland, Oregon who told me that I should go into the pizzeria industry, because it’s quite lucrative. Your wages are low so you don’t pay much tax but you can make a lot of tips doing catering and deliveries. Would I have ever gotten that advice in my normal life? No. This is great.

Sunday I had enough energy to go see the Museum of Modern Art in the morning. There was one installation that was clearly made my someone who can’t throw anything away, like me, so I liked it. And I discovered this wonderful niçoise artist named Niki de Saint Phalle, who at least during one phase made beautiful brightly colored drawings and sculptures, and now I’ve stolen her style to make some signs of my own. They’re motivational post-its and valentine cards.

Bandol + Full English Breakfast

February 12th I made a day trip to Bandol, another little beach town to the east of Toulon.

Bandol

The next day one of my English friends invited some of us over and made us a Full English Breakfast, which took about five hours to digest.

Bacon, eggs, hash browns, mushrooms.

I set the table.

Really full.

Vacances Hiver

I'm home now, and it feels nice. It's not as unreal as I thought it would be; it's kind of just normal. But it still does a soul good to see one's friends and family, and eat. Plus there's something great about not having to think about whether or not my actions are culturally appropriate. It's the culture I grew up in so I can do that part on auto-pilot.

I've been taking pictures of the most banal things, because this time I know what it is I'll miss! Otherwise, I have some catching up to do so I'll proceed to add some posts about little events from before leaving France.

Martinique

More than anything, more than the culture shock when I first arrived in Martinique, the suffocating humidity, the incessant catcalls of the men everywhere in the streets, the tendency of everyone to burst into Creole n’importe quand, the disorganization and inefficiency and lack of public transport here, I found it hard to get used to the pace of life.

In general, I like to be busy. Thrive on it, even. As Alice put it before, the American in me wanted to go, go, go.

The attitude towards work was most surprising. I meet people all the time who tell me, oh, I never work Fridays or Tuesdays. (Can be substituted for Mondays or Thursdays. Or Wednesday mornings. Et cetera.) Martiniquan people work much, much less than their metropolitan counterparts. And all the métros I talk to here tell me they don’t miss France at all. Which completely boggled my mind at first. How could you not miss the (semi-) efficiency, organization, and diversity of the good old Hexagone?

But, as one collège prof I met told me, I work eighteen hours a week at school (considered full-time for a teacher here), and three more at home. And on the weekends, I get to go to bivouacs and go surfing and canyoning and kayaking, sans souci. “La vie est douce ici,” another métro told me. Indeed.

Once I asked another métro how the heck this island is still up and running when it seems like no one works at all. He told me that it’s kind of a national attitude. People here aren’t married to their careers the way they are in America. Work is something that they do just enough of to get by; instead, they prioritize things like leisure time, family time, even old-fashioned pastimes, like sewing and cooking and cleaning. And with that attitude comes inefficiency, things happening slowly (or not at all), long lines, and stuff closing at five every day (and at noon on Saturdays). But everyone’s just accepted, decided even, that that’s simply the way it’s going to be here.

And after almost five months, I can kind of see the point. I’m finally starting to appreciate how lovely it is here, to live simply, amongst nature, free of worry and constant stress over school, to have the time to read for pleasure, to not have to think at all before going to a social event (Do I really have time to do this?).

I also (knock on wood) haven’t gotten sick since I’ve come to Martinique, even though, relatively speaking, I’m sleeping and eating rather poorly here. (My bed isn’t very comfortable, and the Caribbean diet is pretty meat and starch-heavy.)

At Berkeley, on the other hand, I was averaging about two colds a semester. My friends marveled at how I could get sick so much. But I know now not to underestimate the effects of stress on your well-being. I think people in America are aware of this, too, deep down. But it’s our national attitude that you have to work hard to get ahead, and be the best at your career. Job stress and workaholism are rampant, a part of everyone’s daily life. We’re almost enslaved by it. There’s no escaping it.

So, to get to the real point here, I’ve been thinking a lot about going to med school next year and what it will mean.

I’m excited to be busy again, of course. But when else in my life will I ever get to take a hike through the tropical rainforest with sweeping ocean views and mountain views and butterflies stunning balisier flowers on a Wednesday morning?

Les Pitons du Carbet

Papillon, Boucle d'Absalon

Balisier

Or go on an adventure, all by myself, to the Jardin de Balata, in the winding hills north of Fort de France, to see orchids and hibiscus and porcelain roses and walk on rickety bridges amongst the trees on a Tuesday afternoon just because school was on strike?

Or spend literally the entire weekend at the beach, bivouac-ing with assistants and splashing through the waves at dusk and watching the moon rise over the Atlantic?

[Supposed to be another picture here but Blogger is acting up]

Martinique has been an adventure, to say the least, filled with the most dramatic ups and downs I think I've ever experienced, at least in awhile. But now, just as I’m approaching the end of my stay -- just five weeks left here after the Vacances de Carnaval is over -- I can honestly say that I’ll miss it when I go. Really and truly. But it’s always like that, isn’t it? When you don’t fully appreciate a place until right as you’re about to leave?

Les reines du Carnaval

Yesterday, I went to a beauty pageant, Martinique-style.

It was a competition held in Fort de France to crown the reines (queens) of Carnaval. There were three different categories: Reine Mère (for older women), Mini Reine (for little kids), and simply Reine (for younger women). There were five or six competitors in each category.

First, the girls and women had to process out in tenue traditionnelle, or traditional Martiniquais dresses. Except they didn't process, really, so much as dance. There was a live band in the background, playing some standard catchy Caribbean-ish accompaniment, and the girls all had to come out and strut their stuff (whilst fanning themselves with their oh-so-Martiniquais évantails) as best they could in time to the music. Their outfits were judged on style, accessorization, and presentation.

Here's a picture of the older women lined up with their tenue traditionnelle. My camera's not that great, and they were all moving so quickly, so it was hard to get good action shots.



Then, there was the travesti portion of the competition, or the Carnaval costumes. People don't mess around with Carnaval here. It's serious business. And the ornate, elaborate, multicolored outfits the girls had constructed proved it. The theme was Martinique; according to the announcer, each costume was supposed to make you think, "C'est ça, la Martinique!"

The outfits were judged on creativity, originality, adherence to the theme, and audience response (ie, the loudness of the cheers. Very scientific). Most of the costumes had incorporated some kind of palm tree, flower, or tropical fruit. Here's a picture of the girl who won the Mini Reine competition. She dressed up as solar panels and a windmill, both of which you can see dotting the countryside when you drive through the more rural parts of Martinique.


Of course, the entire spectacle was peppered with musical song and dance numbers in the interludes, from baton twirlers to hip-hoppers to flamenco-esque productions. Two male performers dressed in drag, dancing and lip-synching to random Martiniquais songs, garnered the most applause. Even grown women in their forties were shrieking at the men-turned-women like teenage fangirls.

Parts of the show were in Creole so we didn't understand what was going on a lot of the time. And it being Martinique and all, the competition finished an hour and a half after it was scheduled to. After having sat in the same chair for five hours, we were practically snoring by the results ceremony. Still, though, I'm glad I went. It was, at the very least, a sneak peek of what's to come in the next few weeks!

Americanization

Just wanted to share an anecdote. As I've mentioned, I've been teaching eating vocabulary to the kids, so I made a worksheet with a bunch of different foods and dishes. First of all, most of them don't know what a burrito is. But the real story is that for the box of fries, about half of them draw a yellow "M" and color the box red if I tell them they can color the sheet.

In other news, I am packing for going home!!!!!!!!!

Valentine's Day

In general, I'm not a particular fan of Valentine's Day. As I told some of you, for once I was glad not to be in the United States for this glorious Hallmark holiday. But celebrating today with my CM1s and CM2s made me remember how fun it was as a kid. After all, who doesn't like eating candy and doing art projects all day?

First, I passed out blank paper to the students, which they cut up into card-size pieces. I'd taught them a few key phrases, like "Happy Valentine's Day," "I love you," and "You are nice/beautiful/perfect." They were allowed to write to whomever they wanted -- the teacher, their family, any members of the class. The teacher and some of the students had also brought candy from home to staple to their cards.

I can't tell you how much it melted my heart. No one had any shame about writing "I love you" to their classmates -- everyone loved everyone, it seemed. And even boys were telling boys they were beautiful. The maîtresse was by far the most popular person in the class, though. Two girls asked me how to say "I wish you were my mother" so they could write it in their letter to her. And every time one of the students gave her a card, she bise-d them or gave them or a kiss on the forehead. Could anything be sweeter than that?

I know we mostly think of Valentine's Day as a holiday for les amoureux, but today made me remember the real sens de la fête, the love you feel for n'importe qui dans ta vie.

I got a few cards and candies from the students myself. Here's my collection...



In other news, the post office in Trinité has just reopened, so I'm sending out a fatty batch of postcards for the very first time. Given the speed of the post here, expect them in a month or two...

L'enfant qui sommeille en moi

Because Thursday was a jour de grève and I didn't have to work, I got recruited to babysit L, the little girl I give private lessons to. She's 10 years old, CM2.

We spent almost entire morning at the beach behind her house. First, she showed me how to make sand balls. You have to make a hole in the sand near the water's edge and wait for the water to come fill it. You fill the (already-water-filled) hole with more sand and make the gloppy mess into a sphere. Then, you bury the sphere in dry sand, pat it down, and unearth it, solid as a rock.

Here's our handiwork.

Then, we made a stove out of sticks and pieces of coral.

L cooked the sand balls on the stove, and we made dining tables out of sand and used sticks as forks so we could have them for lunch. They were pork and beef-flavored.

Then, to go along with our dining rooms, we each made a bathroom and a bedroom. There were some leaves just shooting up right next to our workspace, so we made that the garden, complete with a gate and a fence.

Then we had another fancy meal. L made up some names for all the posh and tasty dishes we were eating.

We went back to the beach in the afternoon and went swimming in the water. We had a contest to see who could throw stones the farthest. Then we scoured the sand looking for interesting and odd shells and pieces of coral to take home. L insisted that I keep most of the good ones. I live right here, I can come back anytime, she said.

The mosquitoes were just starting to come out when we left. L started chanting, over and over, "Faut pas que je me gratte. Faut pas que je me gratte." I musn't scratch. I musn't scratch.

It turned into a song, which we sung together all the way home.

I spend all day with children here but I haven't played like one in a long time. It's nice to know my inner child is still in there somewhere, buried beneath all the adult-ish crap I've been stressing out over for the past few years.

Conversation in the doctor's office

I went to the doctor’s office yesterday, because, yes I am sick again. But I went more because I needed a slip to stay home from work, and also to get my medical certificate to say I can run a half-marathon. Not because I'm really that sick, so no worries mom.

The old lady in the waiting room was very nice, but my conversation with her was certainly stereotypically maladroit.

“Hello young lady. Do you live around here?”
Yes, madam. I introduced myself as an English teacher, and she got my phone number so her grandkids could get private lessons, which would be a definite plus if that actually worked out.
“Did you know that along the port there are Vietnamese and Cambodian missionaries who pass the time? You might enjoy that.”
Ah. Yes quite.
“Where are your origins?”
Like always, when people ask this question (Vous êtes de quelles origines?) I know that the answer they are looking for is "Chinese", as in, "What kind of Asian are you?" But I stubbornly always answer, “I’m American actually. I come from California. I was born there." And only if they keep pressing do I admit, “My parents were from China.”
“And do you have religion dear?”
Um, no.
“Buddhist? Or not at all.”
Not at all.
“Too bad. But it’s good that you’re traveling, because it opens your eyes to different cultures.”
Yes! Totally.
But before I could enthusiastically share about my cultural experiences since moving to France she continued, “You know, people’s cultures are very important. It’s their roots. You can’t go in and cut their roots because then the tree will die.”
Well, certainly I agree, yes it’s very ethnocentric to--
“Like what you’re doing in Afghanistan. Bringing them beauty products and teaching them how to live. But they have their own culture that should be appreciated. What’s going on now is no better than what happened in Africa.”
I managed to get out that I completely agreed, before the doctor called her into the office.

So here is where I got to feel the responsibility of being American!

Lampe

By most standards, today was relatively uneventful. Drinking coffee and killing time in the salle des maîtres, copying and laminating a million things, playing vocabulary bingo with CM2s and also filming them pretending to get gym memberships, going home and eating bread and butter (my cheap guilty pleasure in francophone countries) whilst fashioning homemade stickers for my students, trying to watch TV but giving up after all three channels were showing trashy French soap operas. Pretty standard Tuesday, all in all.

But today, as I was walking home from private tutoring, I heard a cheerful "Ello!" from somewhere behind me. I turned around.

It was the mother of one of my students, who lives down the street. I see her from time to time in the neighborhood, and have had a handful of conversations with her. She knows a few words in English, and her daughter is actually one of my star CE2s.

As she approached me, she said, I have something I've been meaning to give you. Do you live closeby so you can take it now?

I told her yes, I live tout près, and followed her worldlessly to her front door. I'm not sure what I was expecting, exactly. Some anglophone paraphernalia, perhaps, that she'd received and didn't have any use for, or a book, maybe, something she thought I could use with my lessons. Definitely not a three-foot-tall floor lamp made out of tree branches and calebasse. Which is, of course, what she brought out.

Oh, no, I can't accept this! I said.

Pourquoi pas? she demanded. I make these all day for my living, I have plenty, and I like to give them away to people I appreciate. If you don't accept it, I'll be very upset!

She started to raise her voice then, and I really was scared she'd actually get mad. I took the lamp.

C'est trop sympa, I said.

Ça te plaît? she kept saying to me, over and over.

Yes, it pleased me.

After assuring her I'd be very careful with the fragile calebasse, I walked away in semi-disbelief. After being here for four months, nothing truly surprises me anymore, but I still couldn't help but wonder if it was all a trick somehow. It was all a bit bizarre. No one's really that nice, are they? But in Martinique, I suppose perhaps the rules are different.

I'm still not completely used to living in a small town. I see my students all the time -- and they see me, too, even if I don't know it. At school, they're always telling me, "Je t'ai vue à [insert place name here]!"

There are, obviously, pros and cons to this situation. And now, I suppose I've discovered that one of the pros is that someone you barely know can give you a floor lamp as a gift, just because they felt like it.

It's actually a really, really nice lamp. It's varnished and everything, and the calebasse is pretty ornately carved. And the shapes make cool shadows on the wall. I'm pretty sure there's no way I'll be able to bring it back to the US, unfortunately, but for now, it's quite a sympa addition to my fairly drab apartment.

Saint Tropez + Lunar New Year

Yesterday I went to Saint Tropez. It’s where all the stars go to hang out in summer, although right now it looks like all other Rivièra towns plus some really high-end clothes shops, minus a lot of useful things like boulangeries. But it was really nice to get away from Toulon.

Saint Tropez

More importantly, I made wontons Friday night. There is one other asian assistant in Toulon, and he is actually from San Jose. Well, we decided to get together to make an Asian food feast for some of our friends, to celebrate the Lunar New Year. I made wontons and a cabbage stir-fry. He made fried rice (I discovered that the secret is fish sauce), and this delicious delicious Vietnamese dessert made from tapioca, bananas, and coconut milk.

Some adventures: There was no microwave so to defrost the spinach I put a bowl in boiling water and covered the pot for a while. As I was wrapping the wontons, I would switch back and forth between worrying I wouldn’t have enough peels to worrying I wouldn’t have enough stuffing, and therefore all the wontons varied greatly in size. On the bright side, I succeeded in making the stuffing taste good for the first time!

Midweek voyage

A few weeks ago, the MGEN (the mutuelle, our supplementary health insurance) sent all the assistants in Martinique a letter saying that because we hadn't sent them our (nonexistent) payslips, our subscription rates would be raised to 1089 euros. Up approximately ten and a half times from the 104 euros it was supposed to be.

And on Thursday, I was called in to the official "hygienic site" of Martinique for the official visite médicale to validate our visas. There, they wanted to do both a chest x-ray and a skin test to determine that I didn't have TB. But I've already been in the country for four months, so if I have TB now, I've already contaminated everyone.

The point is that to régler all this, I had to take a midweek field trip to Fort de France. I stayed there for two days and consequently had a lot of time to kill.

Just for fun, I took pictures of all the stores in the downtown area named after American places. There are, surprisingly, a lot of them. In no particular order:

Wall Street.

Miami Beach. For one reason or another, Miami is EVERYONE'S dream vacation here.

New York Ave. Complete with the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline, at left.

Beverly Hills.


San Diego, CA.

Here's a bonus one, not taken in Fort de France but in the Galleria, the huge shopping center in Lamentin.

A link

I thought I'd share the link to one of my friend's blogs, who is also an assistant in the Toulon area. He studied linguistics so the commentary on the French language is interesting, and this latest one covers some of the heartaches we've all been experiencing. Things French People Like: Saying Hello

Cong You Bing

Last week I made onion pancakes with my friend D, an Italian assistant who lives in the town where I teach. It was my second attempt, and this time I actually looked up a recipe (turns out they are made from dough, not batter! Oops).

Pretty successful, I would say! Considering I used a roll of aluminum as a rolling pin. Next time I would make sure to only use the green part of the green onion, so that I can roll out the dough thinner and not worry about the bits of onion sticking out and breaking the pastry. And less salt. In general I need to become better at realizing how salty salt is.

I also made questionable borscht this week, because I am still trying to get rid of a head of red cabbage I bought like two weeks ago. All I can say about my borscht though, is that it turns out it is not poisonous.

My illustrious career as a teacher

A day in the life...today, in fact.

There's one class of CM2 (10-11 year olds) that's always a lesson or two ahead of everyone else, and today I decided I would ditch reading them Dr. Seuss as I originally intended in order to teach them the basics of the date, seasons, and weather, so I could work it into their regular routine. It wasn't well-planned, or planned at all really, but as I was trying to review the days of the week with them--"What day is after Monday?" "What day is it tomorrow?"--it came up that tomorrow is Chandeleur. Which is a day where you eat crêpes, as far as I can tell. Looking it up on the calendar I brought with me, I saw that tomorrow is also Groundhog Day. So I thought, Oh! What a perfect time to do a little bit of cultural exchange, so I launched into an explanation of Groundhog Day, in French.

“So in America February 2nd is Groundhog Day.”
I’m writing this on the board. Normally I draw new nouns, but do I really know what a groundhog looks like? No.
“A ‘groundhog’ is a…ah…a ‘rodent’. Is that the word? Um sorry I didn’t really prepare a lesson on this…a ‘rodent’ is like, well a mouse is a ‘rodent’, and so is a bunny.”
The word for rodent is rongeur, for future reference.
“Yes so it’s a rodent and it lives below…er, undergroundly.”
And I make a rodent-that-lives-underground face, with my hands up to my mouth. Is it a dog? No. Is it a praire dog? Uh, yes, close enough!
“And the tradition in America is that on Groundhog Day when the groundhog has just come from sleeping during the winter and it arrives at the surface if it sees its shadow that means it will be winter for another two months and if it doesn’t see its shadow that means the winter will be soft and spring will soon arrive.”
As I am explaining this I realize the last time I was clear on the specifics of this tradition was second grade, and I think I made Americans sound crazy.
“It’s just a tradition, a yeah, a tradition.”
Couldn’t find the word for supersition. Moving on! Let’s talk about the seasons.

For my CE1 (7 year olds) class later that day, I decided Green Eggs and Ham would be easier after all, since these were the kids from my rougher school and I didn’t think they could sit through a recitation of all twelve months of the year. I read through the book and explained what green eggs were. "Ham" I translated as meat. And I taught them how to express food preferences (very important, I am sure you will agree!). I do not like green eggs and ham. I like apples. I like bananas.

I was getting them to form complete sentences, which was great, but I couldn’t come up with foods they didn’t like, so they weren’t getting practice with the negative form. I didn’t really want to spend the energy teaching them broccoli, or brussel sprouts, which I can barely spell myself. So I made the decision, to reveal to my mostly Muslim students, that "ham" is more specifically a meat that comes from pig.

Ewww! Gross! Disgusting! And in English, “I do not like ham. I do not like ham!” Success?

Anyway, speaking of spelling fails. For another CM2 class I was teaching physical descriptions: I have brown eyes. I have blond hair. I am tall. And to test comprehension I asked, “Is Michael Jordan tall or short? He’s a basketball player.” Tall!

“Is Napoleon tall or short?”
Who? They can’t understand words if you don’t say it with a French accent, even if they are the same, so a lot of times I write it on the board, and then they recognize it. But I got to Napole— and realized I wasn’t sure at all about all the darned vowels in this language, and had to quickly erase it and just say it properly. Oh! Short. “Yes, Napoleon was short.” Then I thought about Napoleon and him as our image of French people and the fact that I was standing in classroom full of French kids in France, and I giggled.