Vendredi 26.01.07 Pulling teeth on Sports day
It’s Sports Day in Chateauboeuf today. I don’t have class but I’m between two minds whether to go as I remember how much fun we had at our own Primary School Sports Day. I thoroughly enjoyed those events – especially the teeth-extracting Oatfield Emeralds, though I doubt races of the sack or potato and spoon sort will feature here. It’s touching 30°C. I don’t fancy watching kids passing out one another or just passing out in this heat. I have a vision of each class being made to do collective time-trialled laps and sprints under the sweating sun. My ROWNTREE jersey, O’Neill shorts and ruined runners will have to stay in reserve for another season.
Nic has an early start. I decide to go visit David at the IUFM. Of course I’ve made my intentions very clear; internet usage and intellectual stimulation only. His alien ideas give me the willies.
David’s a bit out of sorts today. Firstly, I think I woke him up when I rang to say I was outside. Though I had got a text from him this morning saying I could come over in the afternoon so he was aware of my upcoming space invasion. He tells me he was cleaning his room but it looks like a tip anyway. He goes off to do his washing while I log-on and do my thing. When he returns he displays his origami skills – and the depths of his boredom, by folding his laundry just like the Japanese. Neatly folded clothes are standard but ironed socks and jocks are taking things too far; he could get committed for that. Maybe he just wanted someone to talk to and bring him out of his boredom but there I was selfishly, yet somewhat unwittingly, typing and tapping away. He skips a class which seems very unlike him but I’m in oblivion overload and don’t take this on board...
He jokes that he could become a serial killer with so much time on his hands to contemplate things. “Yes, I could murder a bowl of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes right now,” I retort. Yes. I’m well aware that Mrs Steven’s is probably beyond that sort of wit but I just can’t help it. He shows me some family and college pictures and reads some extracts from Dahl’s The Twits, which in this Scot’s translation has been renamed The Eejits. It’s more confusing than funny but I’ll probably borrow it some day.
David’s now gazing out the window observing the comings and goings of the IUFM’s residents. I think stalking would be a better boredom-killing pursuit for him than being a Ted Bundy hatchet man. He may be off on a hack soon – on a boat, as a crew member for a friend’s friend’s friend. For the moment however he seems more occupied with shifting smoking evidence than hauling things overboard. Smoking is a killer. So is boredom. And procrastination. I had first hand experience of this during the Leaving Cert. Put Sixth Years in the same prep room and inevitably they’ll be up to all sorts of divilment. An epitomic example will be illustrated here in photographs once I return home. It’s titled Boredom at it’s Best; three hours of hard work, once black-bored and a few packets of multicoloured chalk. Those were the days….
Sports Day opportunities and suggestions come in all shapes and forms today. I get to meet the much-lauded and applauded French finer Sebastian who, much to my disappointment, is only dragging a cigarette when I see him and not ladies as I’d been told. He tells me I can participate in their team tactics just the way I am, barefoot or as the goalie. I tell him I’d rather be the football than let anyone score against me. It’s getting late and dark so I leave the guys to dribble and score with the group of equally ill-dressed, ladies who have just wandered unto the campus.
“Break a leg,” are my tactless, tacticless parting words. The day has been marred by news that our Welsh friend, Gethin, is going home for good due to an ankle injury. He broke his wrist just before Christmas at a rugby match in Diamant and two months later he finds himself lying, crying and dying on the same churned-up field clutching his milky pins and cursing calcium deficient calves. We can’t even throw a farewell party for him as he’s housebound and bed bound. He’ll be homeward bound by the end of the week.
His insurance is covering his flight but it can’t hide his disappointment. Gethin came to Martinique a lad with his umbilical cord painfully stretching all the way from Anglesey. He’ll be in pain again when he leaves but this time he’ll leave a man. He came back here after spending Christmas in Wales and he was full of confidence and hope for the remainder of his time here. He changed for the best when he changed his mind and decided to come back and take another run at Martinique. Or another run at a Martiniquan in studs and shorts as the story goes.
There’s another tour de cyclisme in town this weekend. I go on a cross-country route to get to the bus-stop. At least there’s no loopy Guadeloupean lady leaping around beside me like there was this morning in Post-Colon; the hills were alive with the sound of her wild musings about MacDo.
The bus journey, as per usual, is not without its characters. A lady sits beside me on the bus. Her son sits behind her. He makes such a fuss over his mother; leaning over to talk to her, rubbing her shoulders and caressing her hair. Could his name be Oedipus? Even though he’s about 14 he would possibly still sit in her lap. However, I can see she’s reaching boiling point. She’s tries to keep her temper under wraps by gently telling him to leave her alone; that is until he tries to pass her bag forward to her. With the winding of the road he misjudges his swing and it smacks her across the face. She’s alright but it gives her the chance to snap at him. With her giving him the cold shoulder he starts peering over mine. I’m trying to figure out how this Digicel Twins à vie scheme works. He pipes up that such-and-such a code should be entered. I give him my phone and he fixes it. Voila! His mother is suddenly gleaming. At least his over helpfulness was put to good use.
I spied JP outside La Croisière earlier in the day. I texted Nic on the off chance that we’d meet each other but she ended up mistaking her bus beau for J.P and retreated home. Imagine being at home, in Ireland, and having some stranger come up to you on the street asking: Ça va? You’d be miffed and caught on the hop. Well that’s exactly how her French fancy fella reacted with his automated English response: Eh,… I am fine thank you. And you? Nicola has probably frightened the poor chap off her radar altogether. She must have used a similar stunt with Fred and Verner this morning. They’ve left, and there’s nothing left in the house to suggest that their one week work assignment in Corsica provides them with a return ticket to Martinique - or more specifically Post-Colon.
Nicola and I have our own travel plans to be getting on with and we spend the evening making goodbye goodies for Gethin and planning our Paddy’s Day Guinness fest in Montserrat. For Gethin we have a little Irish souvenir tin into which we each place a written note for each month that he’ll be absent. If we had a whiskey for each absent assistant we’d be well on our way to wherever it is one goes when they’re on their way… Here’s a little ditty I wrote for Getty:
Always remember, never forget, that David and I both lost that bet!
You went home, on the mend, and your stay in Paradise came to an end.
I hope you recover in Anglesey. Have your fun by the sea.
Ireland and Wales are not so far and once we’re all home we’ll meet for a jar!
The big looming cruise ship toots three times and we watch it steer into the sunset just as our Welsh friend will when he leaves Boulevard Général de Gaulle for Le Pays de Galles.
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