Bring on the rain....

             Luckily the rain waited until AFTER I had finished teaching for the week. A 15km/45min soaking wet journey does not appeal massively :S But pretty much since Friday it has been rain times! Don't get me wrong, its not all day, I can still have a nice 2 hour swim in the outdoor pool, or sit and have a juice and a cookie from the hut on the river, but for a few hours each day it is tempting to snuggle up in my sleeping bag and nap the day away. So far I have been quite enjoying it. After months of feeling guilty for spending a single second inside when the weather is so nice, finally, it is cold enough to wear trousers (sort of- if you put the fan on full) and not feel bad for watching three episodes of Gavin and Stacey back to back.
         

  In other exciting news, I arrived home on Thursday (after a cheeky desparados and lesson planning sesh) to find internet installed and working in our flat. YAY! No more having to trek to the supermarket for my limited 90 mins before the battery runs out. I've even worked out how to get Iplayer working. Ok, so in the new year I'm going to try and not just chill and watch English tv/radio, but for now, its Christmas, its raining, my roommate has left so I have the room to myself, Im going to make the most of it.
            Its not been a particularly exciting week, in fact I have been fairly healthy. Lots of yoga, Lots of swimming, Lots of vegetables, and No Alcohol (1 desparados in 10 days does not count)! In fact its been an actual detox! Not sure what Im going to do with the 15 plantains and the 5 Aubergines that I have to eat before wednesday but Im sure we can find a use for them.  Bikini body for Miami, here we come. (5 days to go!) I've checked the weather forecast and apparently its around 25. Will be taking a hoodie and jeans.
           On Friday, I went to one of my schools (voluntarily!) for the Christmas party, and got to see Santa arriving in a canoe from across the river while all the children sat and waited. Potentially the worst Santa costume EVER but I suppose you have to work with what you've got here. The kids then sang some songs (the 10-year old conductor did a VERY interesting job)... and sat down for some juice and yule log. I was invited to sit at one of the tables. But, didn't realize that me sitting down, was because they wanted one of the other girls sat there to leave. I explained that this wasn't very nice and why would they want here to leave? I didn't know quite what to do with the response : "Well, we want to have all white people at this table." Right. So, I grabbed an extra chair so no one would have to leave and tried to tell them that this was not an acceptable form of arranging seating. Had a conversation with one of the girls at the table. "Madame, I used to live in Suriname" Me: "Thats nice, whereabouts?" (as in, which city)... "You know, the red house with the white door..."... Me: "?? Oh, yeh.... cool..."
            Im getting ready for battle this afternoon at the supermarche. On a normal day, you have to wait about 20 mins for a free checkout counter, even if you want to buy one item! But today, when it is opening expecially for christmas shopping madness, who knows! I could be there for hours ! whoop. No turkey for me, at this rate it looks like plantain and aubergines with whatever else I can find for a bargain price... i.e- nothing! I also need to get two bottles of wine, which, will probably end up being drunk (obvs) but are primarily to fill the santa trousers wine-carrier my sister felt the urge to send me :D

Mastering "le stop"

Well, it seems like my pleading letter in poor French to post-office customs worked, because I arrived home from a weekend away to find a package awaiting in the mailbox for moi! How exciting. It’s safe to say my inflatable Santa and ridiculous novelty sunglasses are pride of place in the room. Cheers Lor! I even have three wrapped things to open on actual Christmas day. It’s looking likes it going to be a bit of an about-a-boy sort of Christmas. Me on my own watching movies, eating food and drinking wine, but fingers crossed we are getting internet installed chez-nous this week so I should be able to do lots of skyping to get over the loneliness. :S Either way, a group of assistants are coming up on boxing day and then it’s off to Paramaribo on the 27^th to get ready for Miami- so don’t feel too sad for me!

I ticked off another first this weekend. Hitch-hiking. And I didn’t start at the shallow-end. Oh no, as a matter of fact in my first weekend of faire-ing “du stop” I traversed over 500 Kilometres, met 9 friendly and interesting drivers and even got one of them to drop me off at Macdo for a much-needed and long-awaited Hangover maccy-d’s. Bizarrely, it has also been one of the best opportunities that I have had here to practice French for a long period of time with a small group of people (i.e me and Katy and the driver). Here is a brief summary of how I saved 70 euro!

1)      First stop- we had to wait all of two minutes for a car to stop and take us on a brief journey to a better “hitching-spot”. He was a film-maker heading to the beach with his baby daughter Venus in the back of the car!

2)      We hit lucky with the second guy, a Parisian who was on his way to the airport in a swanky rental car after spending three weeks working here, and thus he drove us over 200 kilometres, nearly all the way to Cayenne. He even apologised for not being able to take us all the way... as he was about to be late for the flight!

3)      This guy wasn’t even going the same direction as us but he picked us up anyway, and after a slight detour to pick up and drop off his friend (who gave us some yummy Brazilian food) he drove 30-mins out of his way to drop us off in Remire-Montjoly about 10km outside of Cayenne. We even stopped for a cheeky desperados on the way.

Way home:

1)      A nice portugese teacher again dropped us off at a better starting point and wished us luck in getting ALL the way to St. Laurent by “stop”. I think this was code for, you girls are crazy!

2)      After a bit of competition with a homeless looking man also trying to hitch (we won obviously) a nice couple who have been living here for over 10 years took us an hour or so to Kourou. They have lived in all the major towns in Guyane so it was interesting to get their perspective on the different places and the people that live there.

3)      Ok... so this time we had to wait like, a whole 10 minutes for someone to pick us up, and I was beginning to panic. I even let down the hair and put on the shades and everything. Soon enough another swanky rental car stopped and a woman agreed to take us the 10 or so km t the turn off she was taking. She was new to Guyane having just spent 4 years living in La Réunion. Why she came here I’m not sure. Turns out she got lost, missed the turning and ended up taking us about 30km before having to turn around.

4)      After being dropped off in the absolute middle of nowhere, the problem was not that cars were driving past us. The problem was that there were no cars! Luckily, the very first car stopped for us and the young girl drove us all the way home. Slight incident with the Gendarmes because, she didn’t have an L-plate (apparently you still have to have them for 2 years after you pass or something ridic) and also, they couldn’t find the photo in my passport. I mean seriously, its not that hard. And in record time we were home, in about the same time it would have taken in the taxi. Admittedly, the speedometer in the last car was broken and the girl herself admitted “I honestly have no idea what speed I’m driving. Ha! I think its safe to say it was well over the 90km limit.

Should probably explain why we went to all this effort in the first place. Well, being the socialites that we are here in Guyane :S we had two birthdays to celebrate in one night! The first one was at Olivia’s house (cough: Mansion- don’t even really wanna talk about it... key words: Jacuzzi, pool, 4 FRIDGES!) and it was a surprise party for Laure, another assistant. We showed up with a bottle of rum and soon we were sat drinking in the Jacuzzi catching up with everyone and celebrating our successful journey. Drank some more Rum (quite a lot), had a pizza takeaway, a birthday cake, and then we were off to the second party at Anne’s house. (She is the teacher that came to Trinidad and Tobago with us). Oops- I guess we all forgot it was a fancy dress party. Everyone else looked good though! Quite frankly most of us were too drunk to care. I think I personally managed to drink enough rum for everyone there, and had to have a cheeky sit down for 45 mins and be the DJ as that was all I was capable of doing :S At around 4am – it felt like about midnight in my head- we walked back to Olivia’s and everyone found a suitable hammock/bed/sofa to crash on. My head was not my friend the next morning. Neither was the sunshine. Or the heat. Where is the rainy season that we are supposed to be in the heart of right now ?

                In other news, I’m happy to have made it to the last week before the holidays. Most classes are going well, but some I am on the verge of giving up/ not caring for a couple. If the teacher doesn’t care, why should I? I am not going to waste 45 minutes a week shouting at them, so if they end up colouring for the whole year and not listening to me, so be it! If nothing else, I have learnt that I really don’t want to be a language teacher permanently. On Friday though, i don’t have any classes as it is the school Christmas party, but if I want I can go check it out. Apparently Santa is arriving by pirougue (big canoe). That’s a first for me! But must just be how we do it here in the amazon.

Anyway, so sorry to leave you all wanting more (i’m sure) but Gavin and Stacey is calling me and its almost 11. (I have become a boring old person who likes to be asleep by 11, has to get up at 7 and generally needs at least an hour napping at some point in the day. )

Perhaps over the next week when I have lots of free time (read: awkward Christmas loner with nothing to do) I can entertain/ educate you all with some fascinating and well thought-through insights into this department and its functioning. Then again I could just stick to rum-drinking and general bantering. On verra! 

Dora the (north-west of French Guiana) explorer

Yet another week has passed which means time for another blog. I’m writing this over a delicious dinner of jam and toast with bread that I had to traverse a country to buy (I took the canoe over to Suriname this morning for a cheeky spot of shopping- what is that about??). Let’s just say that with only a small fridge and no freezer between 5 people and an ice-tray that leaks and spills fridge-juice everywhere, I am going to have to start being creative with what can be considered a meal.

Update on all things my life:

The feet: Good news! It seemed for a while over the weekend that the whole fungus/ worm/ unknown thing was improving, however it now seems it could have just been the anti-itch cream which was reducing the reaction. Bad times- it seems to have spread to my hands as well. The whole thing is becoming rather non-drole. But: I’m still trying hard with positivity, so not going to moan.

The Christmas present: So, after having been exciting about a package in the mail coming my way for well over 3 weeks, I received a letter from customs today saying that unless I can provide a receipt for the goods inside it is going to be sent back to England. I am hoping that a handwritten letter explaining that it is a Christmas present from my family and please, please can I have it, will be enough. 

The teaching: Last week I made approximately 200 Christmas cards with the children. I promised to send them all to England. I even promised to send one to the queen.  I am such a liar. This week we are making snowflakes. I’m not even bothering with English anymore, we are going for, this is a cultural thing that all English school children must enjoy every Christmas season. I’m hoping for some more inspiration in the new year.

*Note: Dear teacher of CM2 at Terre Rouge, putting a bag of Christmas decorations on the floor and handing a staple gun to 10-year-old, is NOT an acceptable way to spend 45 minutes.

The Nenge Tongo lessons: Mi wani ferstan Nenge ma a de fanado di mi taki moro. Mi musso du moro! Ha! Try and find a translation for that one on word reference. Two classes in and three to go, I think I really need to do some revision tomorrow. The teacher announced that he was worried about me and Katie’s progress at the last lesson. Well, it is potentially because 1) he goes at a million miles an hour 2) Its the only thing I have actually had to use my brain for, for a number of months or 3) The fact that because he is teaching in French, for us, every word has to go through 2 translations in my head in a number of seconds Nenge-French-English. Even though Nenge is supposedly 45% English based, sometimes when you go through French you lose all sense of the similarity. For instance it took me almost a whole lesson to work out that kondre (con-dree) is actually not that far away from country. Through pays in the middle and its easy to get confused! Never mind. Tomorrow, I plan on doing a cheeky bit of revision with a Desparados when school finishes at 10:30am? Too early for a beer? Well, it is nearly Christmas, not that you would know from the 33 degree-ness that persists.

The weekend: Really fun actually! Laura, a girl that we met in Trinidad and again in Tobago, flew over for a week of exploring South America and came to stay for the weekend. As she arrived on Thursday, we had the perfect excuse for a long weekend. (Ok, I did have to work 3 hours on Friday, but in my mind it was a long weekend.) We rented a car whoop! (we are not going to talk about the 1800 euro deposit on MY card that doesn’t seem to have been refunded yet... am I panicking.. no... not panicking... no panic here.... will check again tomorrow :S) But yes, the car was great for freedom and Friday afternoon we were picking up the car and heading straight for a swim in the river – so much nicer knowing you don’t have to bike back! We then got dragged around by a friend of a friend and ended up at the worst restaurant ever. Waited over an hour to be presented with a pile of soggy chips and a piranha with eyes and teeth that had been fried so much you couldn’t actually pull it apart, let alone enjoy it. The night did improve luckily. Me and Laura pre-drank to chase and status in our kitchen with a bottle of 3 euro rum. That was finished soon enough so we headed down to the Mombari for a boogie and some more rum. I asked for one beer and one ti-punch, got presented with three beers. Told bartender I only wanted 1 beer. 5 mins later, she comes back with 3 ti-punch. No! One of each. Evil glare ensued. We moved onto Chez Ones in the Charbo until around 4 before retiring. (We won’t tell the rental car people about the jokes time we fitted 7 people into a kia picanto :S)

                Saturday was a late started due to slighttt Rum headaches and general laziness. Checked out the Christmas market and the normal market and then bought all the ingredients to have a typical French picnic. Except it was the 8^th December and we picnicked in bikini’s by a creek. We had lots of cheese, baguette, salami... and that seems to about cover the French diet. It was really nice just driving around and seeing some different scenery and places even though we didn’t go that far. Checked out Apatou and stopped by some waterfall things on the way back. However, no one seemed to like my mp3 player choices and kept swapping to the Caribbean reggae Cd we have heard a million times and quite possibly could provide most of the top 10 worst songs ever in the world. I was not impressed. They only made it 4 bars into 1D and skipped earthquake before it could even get going! Saturday night was more chilled, and involved juice and cookies from the hut by the river, pizza takeaway and lots of Gavin and Stacey. Perf.

                Sunday: Bright and early start to make the most of the car which had to be back by 3 to the garage. Drove to Mana and then onto Awala-Yalimapo (bit of a mouthful) for some beach time! We did manage to pick the first consistently cloudy day we have had since we got here to go, but in somes it was nice. Almost like an authentic English beach experience, except I could still swim in the sea in December without dying of hypothermia. We saw where the ocean meets the Maroni river and lots of people  kite-surfing and even snuck in a nap. On the way back to St. Laurent we stopped in Javouhey. This is a Hmong village so the people are (their ancestors probably) were refugees from Laos who were brought here by the French government to do agriculture and provide fruit and veg. The climate here is also quite similar to laos. There was a craft market and I bought yet another traveller style purse with a long strap – you can never have enough! And we then went to one of the many food stalls for some delicious spring rolls and other South-East Asian delights. Not sure pineapple cake is one of these delights, but, I bought that anyway! It was such a nice Sunday morning thing to do, and obviously popular with the metropols as the place was crawling with them. The afternoon was a blur of more napping, dropping of the car and sorting out petrol money, but we were back on track by the evening.

               For weeks now I have been attempting to hit-up the local “chorale”, but I’m either not in St. Laurent until late Sunday night, or tired, or some other reason. But this week I was determined as one of the teachers I work with had specifically invited me. After a fair bit of biking slowly looking shady, I found the place and was like, erm, please can I come sing ? Everyone was really welcoming and I’m definitely going to try and go every week I’m in St. Laurent. The level is slightly... school standard, but, it’s just nice to be singing and if nothing else it is really good sight-singing and French-language singing practice. Afterwards, me and Laura went to the Goelette (bar on a boat, jazz music), for a cheeky despé (desparados) to finish of the weekend and chill out. And Voila another week down, and only 17 days until I fly to Miami to meet a certain Mr. James Sanderson. More than psyched to hear some good music and be in a proper club and chill by a pool and the beach!

All that stands between me and the holidays are a further 100 christmas cards and 250 snowflakes. On y va!

Crisis in the Caribe

not going to lie, it’s not been an ideal week her in La Guyane Francaise. Character building, challenging and a patience-practicing are words that spring to mind. So the bike broke, my foot was looking rather manky, and then, after posting the last blog, I returned chez moi to discover that our fridge and freezer had been robbed. This is NOT IDEAL in a tropical country, where things like ice cubes and cold water are a necessary part of daily life. Oh and you know, non-mouldy food. The delightful man who stole said appliance, does not seem to understand a common concept that, when you move out of a house, you change the name on the bills. As such, he has been paying the electricity bill for our house for the past year, without living there. Funnily enough, many people have come and gone over the year, and some have neglected to pay the man for a bill we know nothing about as it in his name. Long story short- no one has paid him, he robbed fridge. My housemate tried to explain that this is not how reasonable people deal with this situation- but sadly to no avail. She also asked which day he would be going to change the name on the bill (so we could go together and arrange a straight swap)... he was very aloof. Turns out, this was so he could wait, and cut off the electricity on a Friday, when he knew we would be stuck the whole weekend waiting for the office to open without electricity. What a douche. His name is Teddy. What a douchy name. Not going to lie, Friday morning was a low point. Housemate had decided she would be leaving me alone in the Maroni while she went back to Suriname to hang out with some guy. This was not so bad, and after a slight panic, I decided that I would catch up on some writing, join the library, go swimming, nothing groundbreaking but still. After returning from the library (unsuccessfully- seems like you need an FBI background check, 15 signatures of recommendation, fingerprints and eye scan, and muchas photocopies before they will consider letting you be a member of the one room library, discovering the electricity had been turned off was not what I wanted to here.

After a frantic search for a taxi to Cayenne for asap, using FAR too much of my phone credit, it’s like 1 euro a minute or something tres ridiculoso, I found one willing to pick me up chez moi at 2pm. This gave me an hour to pull myself together and throw some stuff in a bag. No time for lunch, doesn’t matter anyway because lunch is difficult on the equator without a fridge. Anyway, I was on my way, I have never been so happy to see the cemetery which signals you are leaving St. Laurent. Thankfully, Laure and Sam, living in the really nice apartment with beaucoup de space, agreed to let me stay for the weekend. The Friday night was chilled, bit of sangria, Chinese takeaway and a sleep in an actually comfy bed with a FAN! Did I mention ours broke last week? Not quite sure what happened Saturday, but after a little cheeky bit of shopping and a baguette, the drinking started and soon we were on the beach drinking wine out of the bottle wearing shorts and flip-flops. That is definitely the first time I have been able to say that about the 1st December! At some point there was a Mcflurry drive-through, more takeaway food, more wine, back to the beach for a casual night-time rocket launch, and then on to a club to dance away the stresses of the week.  Bear in mind, that throughout all these activities we were going around with 4 of us in a 2-seater car, me and laure hid under a blanket in the boot bit in case anyone came for a look.

It’s so strange here how the nightlife can vary so much from Cayenne to St. Laurent, given that it is only a three hour drive. Well, I suppose its not that strange. Cayenne is on the eastern side of Guyane, closer to Brazil, and thus populated heavily with Brazilians who want Brazilian music. St. Laurent on the other hand, is much more African in terms of population and therefore we get the reggae and the Caribbean beats as opposed to the latin stuff. I think, I prefer the Caribbean stuff, but after a couple of hours, both styles leave you begging for some Rihanna. Honestly, even Gangham style will do which is the only worldwide song that they seem to like over here. Got in around half 4, and slept well again in a comfy bed, and Sunday was a bit of a write off. To be fair, you don’t even feel like you should be doing something because there is nothing to do on a Sunday. Buying bread and milk, good luck!

Got back to St. Laurent late Sunday night, to find the electricity ON --- I have heard rumours of illegal cutting of wires, etc... don’t wanna get involved.  Monday was another great day. Spent  5 hours at the hospital waiting to get my foot seen as the stuff that the other doctor gave me didn’t seem to have much effect. That was fun. But besides all this, I have decided today (although it will probably change tomorrow) that one must be positive and try to love life, even when life is a little bit boring and hot a gives you mushrooms on your feet (first it was fleas and now fungus is the diagnoisis. Not sure which is worse. Plus, we are learning the local language, Nenge Tongo, and had our first class today. It was the first time I have had to actually use my brain in far too long, it actually hurt. But apparently after 10 hours of intensive courses we will be able to understand all the people in the street and will be able to talk back! Ha! We shall see. Apparently it is 45% based on English so maybe we have a little head start whoop whoop. As for the rest of the week- its not looking too busy. At the weekend we are hoping to rent a car and go for a look around the surrounding area but who knows. I feel like Christmas is just going to come and go this year without me even noticing it. At this rate I won’t even have any English telly left to keep me going as I have watched most of it :S