On Death

One huge difference between the western way of seeing things and the west indian way of seeing things is the attitude to death. It fascinates me how death, which is treated with euphemisms and silence and delicacy back home, is embraced so noisily here.

A neighbour of ours died on Sunday morning and within hours the whole community was aware of it and chatting about it - the fact that deaths are announced on the radio helps to spread the news! This particular neighbour was notable as she wanted Bertie to marry her granddaughter and used to call him her grandson in law. I often wondered if she was put out when I arrived on the scene!!!

As with many people here, one of her two children was in France so they waited for his return to hold the Veillee (wake). This happened last night and boy was it the social occasion of the month! The street was packed out with cars, Bertie popped in and said that there were groups and groups of people (including many of his family) sitting around chatting and eating - and laughing and joking! See what I mean about a light-hearted approach to death...! Even if you only know the person's brother-in-law or granddaughter or something, there is still a good chance that you will attend out of respect for your friend. It does seem easier for people to attend such events here - unlike at home, life is very quiet and little happens in the evenings (or even the days!) so there is not a full calendar to juggle with in order to fit such an unexpected occasion in.

The family has to provide refreshments and just about anyone can come along so there is quite a feast on hand. Plenty of rum too. Hence plenty of men who like their tipple (especially free) attend the occasion. I have heard on several occasions that there is more cheer and laughter at a wake than a party!

A traditional dish for a wake is soupe de pattes - I thought this meant pasta (pates) but actually it meant beef feet! Not feet, what do we call them? There might also be music, and the wake can carry on well into the early hours - Bertie's sister was an early bird getting in at 1am. It is a great chance to catch up on people you haven't seen for a while. The coffin is in the house and people are supposed to go in and pay their respects, and the food is in a marquee type place outside. Mamie said that on this occasion they had singing and prayers too, but I imagine that depends on how involved in the church the person's family is.

Then the funeral was this afternoon. We went for a final walk by the sea with mum and as we were coming back up to the house we could hear trumpets so I asked Bertie's niece if it was the Carnival. She explained it wasn't, but was in fact the musicians accompanying the coffin to the church. (Not all families choose to have musicians but apparently this lady loved to dance - so they played tango music.) All the people attending (and there were a lot, judging by the number of cars outside again) met outside the house, generally dressed in black and white (though my mother-in-law told me any colour goes, except red she added with a bit of horror at the thought!) and followed the coffin. After a short service they went to the cemetry and then I suspect that there will be more food back at the house after.

The Catholic tradition then involves a week of prayers each evening, which is attended (usually) by good ladies from the church (presumably the lack of rum available reduces its attraction significantly) as well as mass for the person. And the grand finale is another party on the 9th day, again with plentiful refreshments and rum, and a large number of attendees. There is then yet another mass and party on the 40th day All of which sounds rather exhausting! Mamie said that when Bertie's brother died, she was indeed tired out by all the proceedings.

There are also lots of traditions and superstitions tied up with death here, which I would love to know the root of. As with Gwada myths, was there some reason and logic initially to these? I have heard that the body has to leave the house feet first; a parent isn't allowed to follow the hearse to the church if her child has died or she will lose another (I checked with Bertie's Mum and neither she or Papy went to their son's funeral for this reason); it is not good to visit someone after a funeral, and so on.

I have discussed with friends on many occasions the whys and wherefores of the different attitude to death here - is it perhaps to do with the strong Catholic background of the island, that means people are much more comfortable with the idea of the afterlife? Is it the strong community atmosphere (people are far more in contact with death here than we are)? Or just the generally more laid-back, accepting attitude to most things that there seems to be here?

In any case, it seems to me a good thing that a death can bring people together in such a way and that an elderly person dies in the comfort of their home, surrounded by family and friends, and that their life is celebrated by many from the community, rather than being alone, perhaps in a nursing home, their past life unappreciated and their passing barely noticed.

Note: This all relates to the Catholic tradition of celebrating death - the evangelical churches will undoubtedly have a very different way of doing things, but as Catholics are in the vast majority, these traditions are very much a part of life here.

Recent Happenings

We were very excited on Friday as we got to put up our Christmas tree! Actually, it belongs to Mamie but as she is away, I asked Papy if he minded us putting it upstairs, and unsurprisingly he didn't! It is pretty tall, made up of three sections, and there are lots of decorations too. Stella and the girls helped me put it together, but I have to admit I redecorated it after they had gone to bed, for a bit more aesthetic pleasure! Then on Saturday we decorated some little card frames Mum sent us and put various pictures inside, now these are hanging on the tree. I would like to put a few chocolates on, but I just know that CassCass will eat them all up! I have a bag of chocolate in the fridge that I have been keeping tied up, just to make sure it is safe and untouched!
When I went for my bible study on Saturday evening, Bertie took his girls to a Marche aux puces in Gosier, and they enjoyed eating pineapple cake and walking on the beach in dark, but with lights on (if you see what I mean!). They then went to Pointe a Pitre and heard a bit of the Jazz festival happening on the main Place de la Victoire. Their favourite moment though was finding a shop that sold bokits (our tea!) called Chez JoJo!
Bertie has finished mending his bike and celebrated by going for a long ride this morning - he is still recovering poor boy, and only just hobbled his way to church! And a good job too (it is mended that is) as another set of people are threatening more blockages on Tuesday. Honestly, this country!!!!
The girls love going to play next door at the neighbours, and all the more so as they have recently acquired a Charlotte aux Fraises playhouse complete with cooker! I can watch them out of my bedroom window and it is fun to see them with the big girls.
My menus have been going well and continuing to make life and cooking much easier. I made a couple of meals for Papy this week but he wasn't very impressed with the lack of salt, so I put a bit in for him when I made a colombo. The plate was scraped clean so I presume that it met with his approval!
Congratulations to Bertie's brother Abel and his new wife Martine, who tied the knot in Versailles yesterday. She is the fifth Madame E****** I have calculated! Apparently the weather was not too good but it was otherwise a marvellous day, finishing at 4am or so. Hopefully we shall get some photos through soon.
Still no sign of the pig, despite a long trek through the fields by Bertie. Sniff! I am still chuckling at the thought of it wandering across empty roads during the blockages, in front of a somewhat bemused audience!
We learnt last night that there are some trees that, if they don't bear fruit, you can hit them hard and they will start to. (It was used as a spiritual illustration during our bible study!) I have to check this out and ascertain if it is a Gwada Myth or not...

Peeking At Pika

Tuesday (both 4 and 11 November)
You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl...after 40 years plus of city living, Mum showed she is still a country girl at heart by her appreciation and enjoyment of the Guadeloupean countryside - aka Pika!
We had two lovely mornings there and I think she tasted pretty much everything growing, and photographed almost every plant! Well, perhaps not quite....! So here are some selected highlights. (I have planned a separate post for the plants so I haven't included those here. They will come one of these days!)
Mum enjoying some sugar cane - chew, suck and spit it out! And a cuddle with her favourite Baby JoJo

Grandma and Papy in the midst of a tour of the newly ploughed field. This is the close up shot for Evs!

This is a rare one of Papy smiling - usually he looks sooo solemn!

A tender moment between Papy and Baby JoJo

I told you recently about the tractor ploughing the field and here it is in action. The part on the far left of the picture is Bertie's section and he went shopping at a garden centre last week for tomatoes, parsley and lettuce which he then hurriedly planted on Saturday. Why hurriedly? Because here they are great believers in planting according to the moon's cycle (which I referred to here) and as it was the full moon that weekend, that was the time to do it! I looked up a few websites about this, and various farmers testified to the validity of this claim, that their plants grew much more when planted as the moon waxed rather than when it waned.

The other "Gwada myth" Papy has shared with me is that women shouldn't touch certain trees at that time of the month. These include the avocado tree, lemon tree, orange tree and cherry tree, which he termed fragile, but not the goyave tree, mango tree or star fruit tree! I asked what would happen and he said that the tree would dry up and die... Having previously scoffed at this, I googled it and discovered research done many years ago suggested women had a toxic effect on plants and animals during this time if they touched them....any thoughts?!
Father and son hard at work!
Bertie's sister in France kindly sent over a swing I think she found in a garage sale (here, passing an item to someone coming over is a common postal method!). Bertie put it up on the manguier and it is a big improvement on the plank of wood previously used!

As you can imagine, the girls are thrilled with this new toy! Their favourite activity is when they get twisted round and round and round and then left to SPIIIIIIIN!

Mamie has a separate plot of land where she is mainly harvesting sweet potatoes at the moment. When I see them all hard at work in the boiling sun, digging and hoeing, and getting rid of all those weeds that the constant rain produces, it reminds me how much I admire those who work the land to produce the vital crops for us all. When I see her hat however, it reminds me of one worn by our friend Samson!

Sisterly love!

Can't Stop Blogging!

I could go on for hours with all the pent up blog entries inside of me but I will try to restrain myself!

All last night and this morning the rain lashed down so there was no house painting for Bertie. Instead we set off the Post Office. I had been warned about the queues there but didn't really take it seriously. However, we did wait about 40 minutes to be served! On the plus side, today was Environment Day and they had a group playing lovely music throughout our wait, plus you were served a croissant and coffee, mmm! The rain meant that it was ever so chilly - a mere 23 degrees according to our town thermometer! I was tempted to put on a cardigan (except I didn't bring any) and I am not surprised we are all down with colds, baby JoJo has it the worst.

This evening I put my new oven to use and made a Banana and Papaya cake from the muffin recipe in this book "An Embarrassment of Mangoes". It is a nice read (an American couple sailing through the Caribbean) but in addition has lots of lovely recipes with local ingredients that I am looking forward to trying out. The cake was delicious in any case, and accompanied by a very refreshing cerise pays fruit juice that Bertie made.Thanks to the taker of these photos. They are just out at Pika so we are getting to enjoy them lots at the moment. The thing I notice about fruit here, apart from them all being various shades of orange for some reason, is that they all have huge stones or plentiful pips. Definitely not convenience foods, sometimes it takes quite a lot of work to get the bit of fruit and get rid of the rest! These cherries have three stones in them, and I tried a so-called plum the other day which was nothing like its European counterpart, as the stone was about 9 tenths of the fruit!

There are a lot of traditions surrounding plant growing here, and I remember my shock during my first visit to Guadeloupe in 2000 when my FIL told me I couldn't touch the tree if I was having a period! He also believes in planting according to the moon.

On an entirely different note, we have succombed to the television on a few evenings and yesterday had an interesting few hours watching The Blair Decade in french!

Random Things

It is pouring with rain today. Very noisy.

LissaLou has just had her hair redone. The excitement is wearing off and her patience is wearing thin for the length of time it takes to do and undo!

We went shopping on Monday and ordered a cooker - very exciting! We just need a fridge now. I am looking forward to taking control of my own cooking. Less salt, less meat, more veg are on the menu! We also bought local bananas for 29cents a kilo, yummy! And just as exciting, we got a yoghurt maker. Mango yoghurt coming up!

I have started a list of price comparison and who sells what to help me in my efforts to shop frugrally and healthily. Leader Price is also a good shop with a great variety of pastas (all the other shops just sell macaroni!) and organic flour! Did I mention that I saw flour for making bread here? It cost €6, or £4! I shall stick to buying bread - especially now I have found that our local baker sells baguette complet (wholemeal).

Bread is sold from a van here, which drives around giving a cute tootle. I shall see if he can deliver my complet when he is back from his holidays.

In view of our forthcoming cooker, Bertie worked hard to clear out the kitchen space yesteday and it looks much improved. We don't have any cupboards though, just a sink.

I saw a tiny lizard and a huge cockroach in my room and am living in fear now...! Of the latter mainly. I have decided lizards are ok as they eat mosquitoes and flies.

The girls are getting much less bitten now which is an answer to prayer (we had it as part of our bedtime prayer for several nights with them!) but they still have lots of scabs and scars.

Today's myth - tickling babies makes them stammer later in life!

Someone in the family died so Bertie's parents went to the wake last night. First time I have ever seen his dad in trousers and shoes! Only the second time he has left the house except to go to Pika.

There was a family meeting two nights ago, discussing issues like land and...their aunty's presence, which has unsurprisingly turned from a few days to over two weeks! We await the next turn of events...

You anti-Olympics folk, how could you fail to marvel at Michael Phelps achievement, especially in the butterfly race where he came from behind and got it by a hundredth! Team GBR have stormed ahead, tee hee to France! I couldn't believe they have BMX racing though!

Enough randomness from me, I am off to make yoghurt!

Bites Galore

It may have been the rain last night, but we are all sporting masses of bites - even Baby JoJo has fallen foul to these nasty mozzies, ahhh! That's despite our snazzy new nets - the girls have a bright pink one (of course!). Ours is a white square one but with an interesting design that means it has no less than 12 gaps! Er, what's the point of that? We may as well put up a sign saying we welcome mosquitoes! On the good side though, the infirmiere who visits Bertie's dad early each morning advised me to put alcohol on my sting and it is now much better, though the sting is still in there. Any idea if or how it comes out? The alcohol is pure rum, well 90%, with the helpful "ne pas avaler" on the outside!

We watched the opening ceremony for the Olympics this morning - fascinating to see all the different countries represented, some with so few people! Great diversity amongst them, and strange to think of all the conflicts that are going on between them, all put aside for this occasion.

Just so you don't think life here is too different from elsewhere, Bertie is watching Colombo! Oh, he has just worked out who the baddies are!

We have been looking around for a car, but they are quite pricy and not always a very good condition. If you saw the driving here you would understand why... Yesterday with the Tour a two way road ended up with three lanes heading one way and cars squeezing past on the other side! Bertie said to clarify that it was a wide road...well that's alright then!

Bertie was talking to one car dealer when he learned another myth many people believe her - cars increase in value over time! Apparently one lady was most offended that he wouldn't take her 1993 Peugeot in exchange for this year's model!

We reckon there is no market for freecycle here as people use things until they are completely beyond repair. However, there are sales of furniture and cars amongst the metropolitans (from mainland France) who are returning after a short period here, so we will keep our eyes peeled for some things there.

Various Happenings

Sympathy please - two days ago I was bitten by a bee, owww! Now my leg is still inflamed and red and sore so I think I will pop into the chemist tomorrow. The most annoying part of the event was that the bee had been flying around for a while and I had been tempted to kill it but decided to leave it in peace. Never again! Death to all bees is now my new slogan, although I am now running a mile on sight of one!

Bertie's aunt has come to stay, allegedly for a few days but it looks like it will be far longer...she is a great talker and if you sit down for a minute you risk being there an hour. Except with me, as she prefers creole so our conversation doesn't go very far!

Meanwhile, our world has collapsed as Bertie's mum has gone off to her native island of Marie-Galante for a few days and her presence is sorely missed. The house really does cease to function without her! Or rather, she is the only one able to provide meals to his dad's requirements! We have tried a couple of meals but anything eaten was only out of desperation! Neither does he do anything in the house, so all the washing up etc has fallen to us.

Today we took the plunge and cleaned out the fridge. I won't shock you with the details of all we found within. Suffice to say you can now tell what colour it is. One interesting discovery was a bag of batteries. On questioning, Bertie said it came from the myth that if you leave them in the fridge they recharge! Hmmm...

Baby JoJo is making every effort to roll over. He can get onto his tummy in his cot, but then gets stuck and can't get back again. So cute!