M&Ms - Dimanche, 24.09.06

Dimanche 24.09.06 M&Ms

It’s 9,30 on Sunday (14,30 Irish time) and I feel like the British artist Tracey Emin this morning as I lie in my new bed. It’s a double bed with hardwood posts (and a harder mattress to match!), yet there’s a fairytale quality about the set-up. It’s a bed I’d want to exhibit. You may be glad to know I’m not much of an exhibitionist and I’ve only slept here one night so apart from my wallet and mobile under a pillow and my in-flight Air France earplugs and eye mask there isn’t much detritus, and certainly not of the Emin sort! The mosquito net which envelopes the whole bed, drapes down to the floor adding a magical touch – almost transforming a regular lit into grown-up girly fantasy bed like the four-poster princess kind. Even the pink and green floral patterned bed linen take on tropical qualities and the big cushion-pillows add un peu du luxe. After 20 years in a single bed this is luxury for me. (Two years sharing a queen-size with my sister Roberta doesn’t really count). It reminds of my parents bed and the bed I slept in at my grandparent’s house in Monaghan. I suppose when you’re away from home something which evokes familiarity is an anchor of sorts.

However, as far away from home as I may be there is always technology to keep people in touch. To my surprise my Irish mobile works in Martinique. It only works on the BOUYGTEL – C network although two others, F O2 and F-Orange, are available. I really didn’t think my phone would work here as it isn’t tri-band but thankfully it does so I can briefly contact home. But on the flip-side I only had €2 credit as I expected to use it for accessing numbers at most. Also, I didn’t bring a charger. In fact I gave mine to my sister Susan just before she left home to start college in Cork. Thankfully Nicola has a Nokia too so I can use that for now. The ironic thing is that she has two phones with plenty of credit – an Irish Nokia and a tri-band Ericsson, yet neither of them allow her to send messages or make calls. She has however, received messages from home and got some missed calls too so there is something functioning out there on the worldwide wires.

Our kind hosts have left us provisions for our breakfast so we dine on omelette à la Ruth, bread rolls and yogurt. For a Sunday it’s not as tranquille as expected. We eat our breakfast to the sound of the neighbours squawking poultry ensemble, and across the road some musically challenged kids are beating away on pots and pans.

Madame Arlette comes down this morning to offer us a lift to the supermarket. It closes at noon so we assemble upstairs and are greeted by Monique who is tending to a pot of thick vegetable stew on the outdoor stove which itself seems to be made from baked clay. (I presume Monique is Arlette’s daughter-in-law). Anaïs and her sister Elodïe are also there as are two little boys who are playing with les chats, Nanouche (small white) and Mouse (fat abandoned, promiscuous grey).

I’m surprised to see that the young boys both have flash mobiles. But then again, by Martinique standards Madame Arlette must be well off if she has two appartments and one studio to rent. The appartment beside ours is vacant but a Belgium guy, William, rents the studio upstairs. I’m sure she earns a pretty penny from us Western types. My ‘second world’ archetype is further re-adjusted and justified as we cruise around Fort-de-France later on…

We have a field day at the Hyper-U with Arlette and Anaïs. We arrive at 11.30 so our shopping spree resembles an episode of Supermarket Sweep with Dale Winton. We certainly do sweep items off the shelves as our shop totals €210. There are plenty of non-perishables and three slabs of beer so it’s all worth it. We return home to unpack and before Anaïs returns upstairs she offers to take us on a tour/hike of the garden.

An hour later we’ve hacked our way through canne à sucre(sugar cane), sniffed and picked lemon-grass and cannelle (cinnamon), spotted des noix de coco, mangues, avocats, bananas, fig-pommes, citrons, cerises, goyaves and many other strange and unpronounceable fruits and vegetables. The corresponding trees for the list above are as follows: le cocotier, le manguier, l’avocatier, le bananier, le citronnier, la cerise and le goyavier. The garden is full of other trees, some flowers, such as le muguet (lilies) and l’oeillet (caranations), and shrubs and grasses, not least of all the gigantic pousses de bamboo which grow up to 10 metres tall.

The layout and landscape of the garden doesn’t seem to follow any pre-arranged plan hence our ‘tour’ encorporating scrambles up embankments and leaps across gullies. There’s also a less steep plot with an old poulailler (chicken coop) and a fenced off flat patch for grazing. We didn’t venture down to the river as the growth was thicker and we had to pause to rustle the reeds as Anaïs said she saw a snake. She then proceeded to tell us about the big, black spiders on the island. It was probably just as well she was soon beckoned for her lunch as Nic and I had already had our fair share of bites and scratches and our fill of wildlife and the scorching midday sun.

The heat (32oC) and the hike finally made us retreat to our respective ‘creature canapies’; it’s amazing how many different bugs, beetles and bees I keep finding on the floor!

By mid-afternoon we’re awake once again as we cruise down town for a more relaxed tour of our surroundings. Even on this lovely day Fort-de-France does not exude the vibrancy and verve of a regular capital city. As a port town it serves its commercial purposes during the day and as night falls it does indeed shut-down to become an unconscious concrete and cardboard shanty town. There’s not only a perceived cultural unconsciousness here in the city; there’s a more obvious scattering of unconscious souls. We’re told these homeless people are more active and dangerous than they seem; I’m currently striking them off my list of potential friends.

The hills which surround the town are laden with frail looking structures which resemble a gigantic, unsteady house of cards more so than homes. There is also a clot of HLM buildings (high-rise council flats) which are an eye-sore/landmark for the unofficial boundary between the residential plateaus and the shuttered shops and centres of the town centre.

Arlette brings us to the schools we’ll be teaching in. Nic’s are first on our route. LGT Victor Schoelcher is like a multitude of mini yellow temples while LGT Joseph Gaillard (formally known as L’ECOLE DES NEGRES) is far less appealing; think Bad Girls or Prison Break… Both schools however, are not far from Fort-de-France and even though Schoelcher is a neighbouring town we’re told it’s more an urban coastal sprawl of the capital. While Nic is located in two secondary schools I’m in one primary school – Chateauboeuf A. The name of this school translates into ‘Beef Castle’. It has 400-odd pupils (I’m sure they’re perfectly normal!) and I’ll have 8-12 year olds.

Our friend Anaïs is very inquisitive and asks us about our lives and Ireland. She reveals that she would like to be a journalist. The nearest media school is in Guadeloupe (island north of Martinique) which is 20 minutes by plane or 3 hours by boat. She’s in troisième which is the equivalent of third year in Ireland. She’s 14 years old. For now she has to content herself with the two minute walk to school. Her family live in Ducos: a 20 minute journey from Fort-de-France. Their home is a modern two-storey and we soon find that they have pool in the back garden. We’re offered a dip but instead take Roger up on his offer to view cars at the local garages. In fact, since its Sunday they will be closed but who ever heard of girls passing up on some lèche-vitrine (window shopping)!

Yet again I’m the co-driver as Nicola sits in the back with Anaïs. Madame Arlette had me in the front too and was pointing out all the roads and routes. I suppose Nicola will have enough concentration spent on keeping to the right so someone needs to navigate…time will tell how my mental map works.

We visit a few car dealerships; some with Rothweilers and others with Rovers. Most cars are around the €5,000 mark which for us is too pricey. Roger tells us about a ‘Buy and Sell’ magazine which has all the petites announces so we can have a look at that sometime soon.