Café au lait

Mercredi 25.10.06 Café au lait

Wahoo! It’s midterm J How will I ever get used to working properly again after having it so easy here? Nicola has one class this morning but I have a typically lazy time and eventually rise to make an omelette and sort out my paperwork for the CAF meeting this afternoon.

Yesterday my CAF dossier arrived for me in Chateauboeuf. The headmistress, Madame Doh, gave it to me in exchange for a slab of brack and a handful of nuts. She could have kept it all because I now have more documents and red tape to play with. The CLLAJ (Comité Local pour le Logement Autonome des Jeunes Martinique) has organised a workshop to assist assistants in claiming back part of their rent under the CAF scheme (Caisse d’Allocation Familiales). Of course there’s a multitude of paperwork to sift through and many documents to be furnished before your application can even be sent off to be processed, and even after that you’re not guaranteed to get anything back. Most people who are fortunate enough to quality for the CAF get 40% of their rent back. But whether you actually get that before you leave Martinique will be another question…

I take the bus into town and then hop on the No.21 Bois Thibault bus to our HQ at GIP-FCIP, 4 Rue de Père Delawarde in Desrochers. The No.21 backtracks halfway up Route de Balata but it easier to take the two buses rather than hang around in limbo on the road for a connection. Nicola, Kyla and Claudia are also on the bus. Marjorie (Ireland/UK), Bea (Spain) and Gilbert (the Dell Boy responsable) are at the GIP to greet us. Lola (UK) soon appears and Carolina (Costa Rica) pulls up and then Madame Catherine Ciserane makes us scatter as she parks among our little grouping.

Our CAF meeting is scheduled for 14,00 but it starts half an hour later with only 20 assistants present. It’s understandable that some assistants don’t want to travel across the island to Fort-de-France for some poxy atelier on how to fill our forms. There are also a few assistants who get free or discounted accommodation because they live in college halls or rent a room in a family home so they have no need to attend. There are seven Spanglophones and the rest are Anglophones. Everyone seems a little drained. It could be the out-of-the-way location, the boring seminar or the desire to be on a catamaran set for Dominica that makes everyone weary.

Some assistants are venturing to Guadeloupe for a week and others are planning to hit Dominica for their midterm excursion. Gilbert has organised a catamaran to take some assistantes to Dominica for a few days during the Créyol Festival. It sounds cool; though a bit cramped and creepy, plus we prefer to be independent voyagers! There are a few people who are staying put in Martinique to explore the island or zip around in their recently purchased motors. Rodolfo and Philip have finally bought a car. Francesca and Bex got the windscreen on their rented car fixed for €180 and Francesca bounds over to us to say that she has just purchased wheels. It’s a former assistantes car. Francesca bought it off Gilbert. He says he’ll buy it back off her when she leaves... Also Madame de l’Inspectrice visited Francesca’s school and told her she would get an additional school after midterm as she was “spoiling this school with her presence”. That could well be taken as a compliment though who knows where the other school will be located.

By 16,30 we’re done with the workshop. The contract de location and the première quittance de loyer Madame Arlette gave us do not satisfy the CAF crew. We both need separate documents and they need to be more officially laid out. A carnet de quittance and a blank contract de location can be purchased in most book stores. It’s normally up to the landlord to have these but we may buy then just to speed up the process; if we’re entitled to this aide au logement why beat around the bush?

Supposedly there’s been a outbreak of mosquitoes with the ‘Dengue Fever’ around Schoelcher so we reconsider going into town with some of the assistants and instead head to Route de Balata to catch the No.22 home. We’ve only just stepped out on the main road when William, our neighbour, zips by in his jade Kid car. It’s timely because we had just started discussing our own car-purchasing prospects. William tells us that he has his eyes on a newer car and that he’s bringing his Kid to the mechanic to sort out the wipers and a weird clunking noise. We tell him that he shouldn’t bank on us to buy it as we’re reconsidering purchasing a car as a rental seems easier to manage and dispose of. He does seem a bit stung but he thanks us for our openness.

We get out at the telephone cabin near our house. It saves us getting into a custody case regarding William’s Kid. Plus we’ve to call Dominica to try get accommodation. We call the Sea View Apartments near Scot’s Head. Frank, the proprietor, seems very easy going; Nicola reckons he’s high. He doesn’t take any credit card or contact details but guarantees that we can have an apartment for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of November. On verra...

One of the teachers in Nicola’s school wants English lessons so Nicola contacts her to arrange a class. There will be two of them so if each pays €10 for an hour that’ll be the easiest €20 she’s ever earned. A few teachers in Chateauboeuf have hinted that they’d like to improve their English so I’ll have to get on top of that after Toussaint. Madame Bonne and Madame Ciserane both asked us assistants if we were willing to give extra classes so we’re bound to get plenty of supplementary schooling out of that too. Ça rapporte bien. ☻ It’s a nice little earner.

From schemers to earners and back again… We watch one of Nic’s DVDs ‘Relative Strangers’ with Brenda Fricker about a man with a family in Düsseldorf and Dublin. It’s strange to see all the Dublin landmarks; Fricker casts her wedding ring into the River Liffey outside the Four Courts. She stays in a B&B in Rathmines with half the cast of Fair City and Ballykissangel and she takes the rattling old DART to Bray each day to stalk her husband’s other family. Exciting stuff; though a few bottles of Panache and Königsbacher help it go down easy.