Party In Grande Terre

After the Tour we had a family party to celebrate Bertie's niece passing her bac and heading off to France for her studies in September. It was due to start at 1pm but...well, we are on West Indian time! Suffice to say we arrived at 5pm!!

First we had to prepare the food. Bertie's mum made a bébélé, tripe and dumplings soup (not my favourite!). There was going to be sorbet, so they squeezed the juice from 20 or so coconuts by machine and then Bertie squeezed by hand to make the coconut milk for it

Then we headed off via Cora, the nicest and most reasonably priced supermarket so far. We ended up spending quite a while looking around there, especailly as this is the period of gros volume, where you bulk on bulk in discount. We came back with lots of nappies!

We stopped at a petrol station to fill up when, horror! the key stuck in the thingy for the petrol tank and wouldn't come out! We twisted and pulled and struggled and prayed and fiddled and all sorts of things, all to no avail. We were beginning to wonder what on earth to do as we had no mobile and were quite a way from home. One lady came and looked supercilliously at us and commented, "Monsieur et Madame devraient acheter une nouvelle voiture..." Thanks for the advice! But after 40 minutes of effort, hurray, the garage man came and sprayed something and out it came! Why didn't we didn't think of that? So we set off again...

The party was at Bertie's Mum's cousin's house in the middle of the countryside right next to a windmill, previously used for making sugar. Most of them have now closed down since the industry has shrunk.

She has a huge piece of land - this is just a bit of it! In the distance you can see all the ladies chatting
See the men together under the tree? They barely moved all day and night, despite rain. Well, they were centrally situated next to the rum table!
Ah here they are, deep in discussion. No idea what about!
Baby JoJo enjoyed rolling about and being held by his cousinsThe girls took advantage of the space to run here there and eveywhere with the other kids. LissaLou (with her cousin and a little friend who took a liking to CassCass) looked around incredulously and asked "are these all my cousins?" Well most of them were!
I sneaked this photo of Mamie doing what she is best known for - falling asleep whatever else is going on around her! Usually it is in front of the tv!The sorbet was delicious. The girls fell asleep on their parents and it was rather a late night. Bertie's aunt came and lost her temper with everyone. Ah, family parties!