Asian Antics - Dimanche, 01.10.06

Dimanche 01.10.06 Asian Antics

It’s such a relief to get a lie-in until 8am even if I am awoken by Madame Arlette’s squawking voice; well, she is 70 years-old so she has to shout from time to time. Her poor husband, Charles, must be near deaf…and well hen-pecked too.

David is in the spare bed and we just lounge about imparting our mid-morning musings. One conversation which sticks in my mind involved Beyoncé. David remarked on the presence of a bidet in the en-suite which instantly brought about thoughts of Beyoncé’s recent album titled B-day; as its release coincided with her birthday. Unwittingly she probably didn’t realise that it sounds like a European lavatory fixture. Of course over breakfast we had to discuss the benefits or otherwise of having a bidet in a bathroom. Parallels were drawn with a similar device used in Asia called a Bum Gun… I won’t elaborate as you may have, like myself, have eaten Coco Pops for breakfast.

Madame Arlette soon put a stop to our lewd tête-à-tête. She came down to announce that her mechanic had spotted a Volkswagen Golf for sale and had thought of us. Nicola was still to be roused from her bed (more likely enduring the after effects of our previous alcoholic indulgences) and Arlette, ever the gentil grand-mother was concerned to hear about her ailments and later brought her some homemade treats.

David was determined to go into Fort-de-France and so I set off with him to the bus-stop. We just arrived in time to see it shoot up the hill so we decided to go explore the neighbourhood. I had not previously ventured down the road past our house, and I don’t reckon I will again. Our road, Chemin de l’Acajou Pays is indeed, as its name states, full of Mahogany trees, and down the bend beyond our house we found ourselves in a cool, lush, vine-hanging, leaf-roofed hollow. The gigantic tree leaves above must have been laden with rainwater as the vegetation was so moist and soaked all the way down to the grass yet the ground below was mostly dry. Just round the next bend it totally opened up as the sky and more residences came into view. The road finished about 200 metres down a hill which must be at least at a 50° inclination. It was a bit daft to venture down as we ended up clawing our way back uphill in the midday heat. There was also a rabid Rottweiler to greet us at the bottom of the hill. He started fizzing at the mouth amid brutish barks and the clatter of his chain and his burning eye-balls were not at all reassuring. However we did pace past him to see the colonial mansion at the end of the chemin. It looked unoccupied but its façade was not unkempt. There was an ornate letterbox outside the boundary railings and with its upstairs terrace and the pastel yellow panels it would not have looked out of place in Cuba.

Back at the apartment we sat on the terrace while we refreshed ourselves. From the garden below I heard Roger greet me and I made my way down to see him. He was busy cutting up canne à sucre (sugar cane) and it wasn’t long until his whole family: wife Catherine, Elodïe, Anaïs, Lilian and an older son, were gathered around chewing on canne à sucre. What an alternative Sunday family outing! I tried to peel the cane with Roger’s machette but it proved more difficult and dangerous than it seemed. I stood under the shade of le manguier partaking in this family pursuit. Some time later when I had had my sugar fix and spat out the coarse fibres I parted company to bid David farewell and to rouse Nicola.

Nicola was soon tucking into Arlette’s rescue remedy which included bananes-jaunes and free-range chicken - both from the garden below. The bananes-jaunes look like bigger, straighter bananes-dessert but as well as tasting more like bread-fruit or yams than regular sweet bananas they also retain their internal yellow glow when you boil them (they are in fact vegetables). Arlette revealed that if it were not for her own ailments she would like to keep goats. But for the time being she has to content herself with the sights and sounds of her neighbours’.

With our washing out, our stomachs full and fresh bed linen courtesy of Madame Arlette it was soon time to take a little siesta. Around 17,30 we were awoken by the sound of thunder and the immediate downpour. David appeared a while later looking a bit sodden. Fortunately he had been on the bus for la pluie torrentielle but there had been numerous averses (showers) in Fort-de-France throughout the day.

With Arlette’s herbal tea on the boil we soon tucked into our Sunday dinner which we christened ‘Belgium Boil’ as it requires some simmering and it was a staple meal of ours in Brussels – it’s more appetising than it sounds! William, our Belgian neighbour, must have felt his ears burning as he appeared just in time to interrupt our meal and to interpret Arlette’s previous crazy Créole conversation. The evening passed gradually and we whiled it away by watching Richard Gere, Kate Hudson & Co. in some film about a charismatic doctor who has all the ladies dropping like flies at his surgery. That expression - dropping like flies – is in daily usage here as each evening we usually manage to sweep-up a dust-pan full of moths, ants and other beasties. Some dumb beetles actually play-dead by lying on their back. My last creature encounter of the day was with a teeny-weeny frog in the en-suite. We all hopped off to bed and I eventually drifted off… on my own ‘lil lit-pad’.