What’s that saying...? ‘Horses sweat, men perspire and women glow.’ ...Bollocks! I’ve lost about 3 litres today already and there’s no way I ‘glowed’ all that lot out.
I’ve just got back from the housing benefit office (the CAF) – it seems I might be eligible for some help with my rent which is good news if true. The CAF is in Sainte Marie – a lively town with an enormous and eerily ornate graveyard on its approach road, whose inhabitants are called ‘Samaritains’. However most of the inhabitants I saw today looked more like junkies, drunks and layabouts than their biblical namesakes. There was some Caribbean music blaring out from a shop on the corner of one road which added a bit of atmosphere to the town, but on the whole, if you took away the beautiful sunshine, it was pretty much like going to Skegness out of season.
While wandering around looking for the CAF a woman came up to me and asked me for money. I did a confused face and said in my best English accent “Err je ne parle paz froncay” but then much to my chagrin she proceeded to tell me all of her woes in English. I didn’t have any change in my pocket and was a bit reluctant to start flashing my wallet around in Junkieville so I just said no, at which point she gave me a look that could have killed Satan, flung her empty beer can over the wall and walked off in a strop shouting obscenities. Needless to say I didn’t hang around there long.
The man at the CAF was very friendly and helpful. He complimented me on my French, saying he used to speak English very well himself but that he was out of practice and perhaps I could ‘learn’ him again. And we laughed and I thanked him and left with my huge bundle of forms to fill in – the French have a thing for bureaucracy; if it doesn’t have more than ten pages it’s just not a real form.
I got to Sainte Marie by taxico (or taxi collectif), a kind of minibus-cum-taxi that you hail from the street like a cab but which follows a specific route between two towns. They’re really cheap – it cost 1 euro 10 cents to get to Sainte Marie which is about 7 km away from Trinité - and everyone piles in and then shouts “Arrete!” when they want to get off. Today I was squashed up between two massively fat Martinique women and their shopping bags, who had what sounded like a hilarious conversation in Creole over my head (in both senses). And I got a face full of one of the women’s enormous arse as she manoeuvred her way off, which was a bit scary. It’s all good fun though...
I’m going to taekwondo again tonight providing that Jessica, a woman who goes to the club, manages to find where I live from my slightly wobbly directions. I’m terrible at giving and receiving directions in English so what hope is there for me in French?!
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