In Cold Blood

Having recently become concerned about the volume of insect repellent my lungs are filtering every day due to my manic determination to destroy mosquitoes before they destroy me, I have decided to ‘go natural’ and try to hone my manual killing skills instead. The following is a report on the various techniques I have recently employed and mastered (to a certain degree) in order to fight my flying foe.

Review of the author’s contribution to the global mosquito massacre

Also known as ‘Winged Virus Bringers of Doom’ and ‘Crepuscular Warriors of Satan’ (citation needed), mosquitoes have plagued mankind since its very beginning.

There are many methods by which one can extinguish these flying disease vectors. One of the most popular among novices is the ‘Landing Creep Smack Technique©’. It is essential to remember that while inherently stupid, mosquitoes do have a very fast reaction and take-off speed - around 0-80mph in 0.02 seconds I believe (figures not based on actual fact) and therefore some level of stealth is required when employing this method. Whilst very effective once mastered, this technique is much more difficult than it may seem and is therefore not recommended for complete beginners. It is also worth remembering that this method can leave behind a somewhat messy residue on one’s walls.

My own preferred method is the ‘Applause Technique©’. Developed by myself, it uses what I call The Method of Joyful Departure; what better way to die than to the sound of rapturous applause? This technique is for use when faced with more than one opponent of the flying variety and is, in my opinion, the most efficient and least time consuming of the known techniques, one round being sufficient to destroy up to three mosquitoes. However it can take time to perfect - one must learn to find one’s own inner silence before commencing the onslaught. It is essential to be at one with oneself in order to gain the reaction speed necessary and to avoid unnecessary hand soreness from over clapping.

Other techniques include ‘Stun and Stamp©’, for use when the Applause Technique fails. It is very easy to lose concentration when in the required state of intensity for the aforementioned technique, and when this happens one may find that the clap fails to completely envelop the target. In such an instance as this, the creature is not destroyed, but merely deafened and stunned and will fall to the ground momentarily only to take off again a few moments later. Haste is vital here. The beast is likely to be embarrassed and angered by its ungraceful landing, and will immediately begin plotting a campaign of violent retribution towards the applauder if allowed to live. Therefore it is essential to deliver the stamp within the stun period to avoid unnecessary blood loss on the part of the clapper.

Highly effective but somewhat less hygienic is the ‘Curtain Crush©’. The peripheral perception of a mosquito is second to none, a factor which makes the Land Creep Smack technique so difficult to master. However, despite arguments to the contrary, it has been proven that mosquitoes do not have x-ray vision. Therefore, if one should rest its weary wings on your curtain, or indeed on any fabric, it is possible to slide one’s hand behind the fabric, out of view of the mosquito and then either crush up the landing area or incorporate the Applause or Stun and Stamp technique.

One must of course use one’s discretion with all these techniques. There is no hard and fast way to ensure slaughter. But with time and practice this writer truly believes that anyone is capable of bringing about their own mosquito massacre.

Pas delle yeux Rhône que nous - *groan* ...sorry

I am once again the proud holder of a driving license. I’m off sick today with suspected mild anaemia (that’s my suspicion by the way – I’m not seeing the doctor until this afternoon and he might just tell me to stop being mardy...who knows?). But luckily being at home today meant I was in to receive the special delivery of my precious and long awaited permis de conduire. Now all I need is a car. I’ve got a couple of people looking out for one for me though so it shouldn’t be too long before I finally have my own wheels.

Yesterday we went on a kayak adventure in the Mangroves. Nick’s girlfriend is here on holiday at the moment so Courtney and I took the opportunity to join them in some touristy action. A great time was had by all despite the early start and very long and arduous journey there...

I left Trinité at seven to get a taxico and meet the others at Fort de France. From the bustling taxico park in the capital we jumped in another one to Ducos and once there got a bus to the kayak base at Canal Cocotte, arriving at about quarter past ten. If I’d gone from here to there by car it would have only taken about forty minutes. That’s how annoying not having a car is!

I’m consoling myself with the thought that a lack of public transport means at least we’re not affected by the constant grêves that are currently bringing Paris and the rest of ‘la Métropole’ to its knees ...but that thought doesn’t really help me much when I’m lugging my folders and teaching materials around in the blazing sun or struggling to get my shopping up Dead Cat Alley.

So I fell asleep in the taxico on the way home, nearly missing my stop and then went to bed soon after I got in after having called off taekwondo and not eating dinner. (Yes, you read that right. I skipped a meal. It must be serious.) I couldn’t eat any breakfast either when I woke up ten and a half hours later with a slightly grey face, puffy eyes, a cracking headache and wobbly achy legs but I managed a piece of toast a while ago so things are looking up. I’m going to have another sleep before I go to the doctor but really I don’t think it’s anything a nice bloody steak and some green vegetables won’t fix. I just need to make it to the supermarket to buy said items first. Wish me luck!

Photobucket Album

More new photos (click on the photo)

Photobucket Album

Finally uploaded photos! (Click on the photo below to see more)

Photobucket Album

Dis donc

My brain is officially mush. I was talking to someone in English the other day and managed to say ‘elle’ twice instead of ‘she’ as well as inserting ‘donc’ randomly into every third or fourth sentence. At taekwondo last week I was counting out some movements in Korean and I had to stop to explain something. When I started counting again I’d got as far as ‘four’ before I even realised I was speaking English. And when I couldn’t remember how to say ‘five’ in any language, including English, I got very embarrassed and tongue-tied and could only speak in snuffles and grunts for the next few minutes. I think it was just too much for my tiny yet highly convoluted brain to deal with. I’m hoping this is an essential transitional period of language learning but losing control of my English as well as my French is mildly disturbing to say the least.

I went on a boat trip yesterday. Courtney’s ‘proprietaire’, Alex, invited us both to a day-long tour of Martinique’s fortifications and geographical features on the Caribbean coast. Alex is a geographer and natural scientist, and a wealth of knowledge on all things to do with Martinique. The boat left Trois Islets at seven which meant a VERY early start for us all. But I got up extra early to make sure I had eaten a hearty breakfast. Tiredness mixed with hunger is a recipe for a very grumpy Lindsey and I wanted to make sure I enjoyed myself since it cost 35 Euros for the trip.

I needn’t have bothered getting up before the sun though as there was so much food provided during the day I didn’t have time to get hungry. We were given a huge baguette for (second) breakfast and then a rather large meal of Antillean specialities for lunch. There was goat, lambis (a shellfish which was a bit like whelk), a white fish which no one could tell me the name of, rice, igname (that’s yams to you and me) and red beans as well as a salad with morue (salted cod) and a fruit salad for dessert. They also gave us a snack in the afternoon – a choice between gateau de la confiture and quiche.

We were told all about the fortifications going north along the Caribbean coast, such as the various remaining battery walls, the forts (at Fort de France for example) and the city fortifications at St Pierre including a wall which still bears the scars of cannon ball fire from an attack in the 1600s. This was all explained by a man speaking French with a very strong West Indian accent. I’ve heard a slightly different accent here from time to time, for example they say ‘pén’ rather than ‘pain’ and ‘lot’ rather than ‘l’autre’ but this was the first time I’d heard such a strong accent as his. I had to keep reminding myself to listen to what he was actually saying instead of just relaxing and enjoying the lovely musical lilt of his voice.

After Alex had given his talk about Mount Pelée, the famous volcano, and its contribution to the formation of the Caribbean coastline, the boat moored at Le Prêcheur (so called because of a rock resembling a preacher which used to be there in the 1800s before it was eroded away by the sea) and we all trooped off the boat and onto waiting coaches which took us to Anse Céron. Once there we then had to squish onto a tiny bus, one step up from a charabanc (well it had a roof at least) to be taken on the most perilous and terrifying journey I’ve ever made. There were hairpin bends leading down to what looked like a bottomless pit of tropical forest every few hundred yards, and every time the bus had to go uphill it kept slipping backwards as the motor struggled to deal with our combined weight.

So when we finally reached Anse Couleuvre (anse means beach by the way) we all breathed a huge sigh of relief before trundling off into the forest to look at the ruins of a rum distillery that used to be there a hundred years ago or so.

The beach at Anse Couleuvre is AMAZING! It’s a truly tropical paradise – quite secluded and surrounded by tropical forest, it has black volcanic sand with palm trees stretching high over the edges and crystal clear water with little rocky coves dotted along the shore. It was worth risking my life on the Toy Town bus just to swim at that beach! And I’m definitely going back there when I finally get a car. On the way back to get the tiny bus, we were told it had broken down – in fact it had returned to Anse Céron backwards! So I was glad I missed out on that particular journey.

Back on the boat the staff were serving punch – creamy coconut punch, fruity ‘punch planteur’ and ti-punch (a mixture of rum, sugar and a chunk of lime). Courtney and I tried a ti-punch each but I found it a bit fiery and strong for the afternoon sun so after a couple of tentative sips I handed mine over to her to finish off and got a refreshing guava juice instead.

All the way home a DJ played biguines, mazoukas, and drum rhythms and music while people danced the Bélé, the traditional African style dance of Martinique which dates back to slavery times. Old ladies kicked off their shoes and hitched up their skirts to dance with young men and people dragged partners onto the dance floor to join in. I made sure to stay well back - It looked like good fun but I think I’d need to take a few lessons before being brave enough to dance in front of people.

And so I watched the sun setting over the sea as we sailed into Trois Islets. I felt like I had spent the day walking through a series of beautiful ‘Wish you were here’ postcards. It was a fantastic way to see more of the island. And 35 Euros well spent!

On chyen tini kat pat, i pa fè kat chimen

I fell asleep in a chair in front of the telly this afternoon like an aged grandma. So I decided not to bother going to taekwondo seeing as it had been such an effort to even stay awake. Well I did have a very tough morning – I went to the post office AND the beach! Yes... it’s a hard life you know...

School is going very well. I even seem to have charmed Monsieur Lazimo, an old man in the reprographics department at Pointe Lynch, who seemed barely unable to conceal his hatred of me the first time I asked him for 200 copies of a colour-by-number Union Flag.

After a few icy encounters with M. Lazimo in the first week I finally decided enough was enough and plucked up the courage to start a conversation with him – I chose Créole music for my topic since he was playing some in his room at the time, and after a moment’s suspicious hesitation he wrote down the frequency for the best radio station for me to listen to.

The next time I saw him I asked him about earthquakes (minor ones are quite frequent here and there was one last week that made Courtney wake up, terrified and clinging to the bed ...and which I happily slept through) and he was quite keen to share his knowledge with me again, telling me thay had earthquakes all the time here but that he wasn't scared of them. No way.

And then yesterday when I went to get my copies of ‘How old is he/she?’ worksheet, he told me if I ever wanted to go out dancing any time he’d come and pick me up and take me. So that was a bit of a turnaround. I only wanted a friendly smile and instead I got an offer I have to admit I’m slightly suspicious of.

In case you’re wondering about today’s title, I found it in a book of Créole expressions and proverbs that I bought the other day. It means ‘A dog has four legs, but it doesn’t take four paths’ - in other words, ‘Don’t try and do everything all at once’. Some others I enjoyed include ‘Ou bel kom zépina pousé an kaka’ which roughly translated means, ‘you’re beautiful like spinach that grows in shit’ (any interpretations of that are welcome as I’m completely baffled...) and ‘Lajan ka kasé fé’ or ‘Money can destroy fire’, meaning money is all powerful. I’ve decided to do my year abroad project (for uni) on the importance of Créole language for Martiniquais identity so I thought it would be good to start trying to learn a few words here and there.

I wish I could tell if my French has improved. I feel as if it ought to have, but then whenever I speak to people I still feel as if I’m struggling to get words out, and while my circumlocution is coming on in leaps and bounds it’s very frustrating not to be able to just say what I mean without going all around the houses in the process.

I have to make a very annoying trip to Fort de France tomorrow. I need to get a medical form signed by the doctor (everyone that trains has to do this so that the taekwondo club is not at risk of invalidating their insurance) but I can’t go to the doctor until I get my Carte Vitale from the Securité Sociale. I sent the Securité Sociale my HUGE pile of forms more than a month ago and still haven’t received the Carte Vitale, so I called them today only to find out they’ve LOST my forms and that I have to go to the office in person to redo them! Aaaargh! Everyone here is so disorganised and laid back and yet every piece of administrative material has to adhere to a strict set of French bureaucratic codes. I really can’t understand how anybody ever gets anything done here.

...I’m either going to come back in July incredibly chilled out or a complete nervous wreck!

Tha's reight kid!

When I asked my CM1 class what the weather was like today, the chorus of voices that came back saying ‘It’s sunny!’ all had perfect Sheffield accents. Well that was a surprise! I thought I was keeping my accent neutral. Clearly I’ve been deluding myself; the proof being in the kids’ amazing mimicry. I also heard very northern vowel sounds on ‘summer’ and ‘another year’ when we sang our song about the months of the year (which incidentally is driving me round the bend at the moment – I must have sung it about 30 times today). Well I’m glad I’m giving them a little memento of my home town, whether they’re aware of it or not.

Last night I shared my bed with a mosquito and consequently didn’t get much sleep. It must have got inside my pyjama trousers. It clearly found my left leg more appetising than my right as I found five bites there today. GRRRR! My killing routine has slipped. My powers are weakened from work, sun and walking tiredness – I must get back on murderous form. I don’t want dengue. One of the other assistants, Nick, has just had it. And even though his was quite mild, it still sounded very unpleasant. No thanks. Not for me.

I switched on the TV the other day and saw a very familiar spiky haired blonde person in a programme called ‘Les Condamnées’. That was weird. What was particularly weird about it was that unlike all the other characters whose dubbed voices are very similar in tone and pitch to their original English ones, I’ve been given a very strange, deep and yet still somehow squeaky voice. Imagine Bart Simpson crossed with Louis Armstrong and you’re halfway there. It must be a French ‘lesbian voice’.

I wish I had a car. The moment my license arrives I’m going to buy one. I’ve already got several people on the lookout for one for me. I don’t care if it’s a tiny old rust bucket (I can probably only afford something like that anyway) but my life will be hugely changed by having wheels. The idea of family is valued more here than in the UK, so primary schools have a two hour lunch break while the kids go home and eat with their parents. I haven’t got time to get to Trinité and back in two hours by public transport (even though it’s only a few kilometers away) as Taxicos are not very frequent or reliable. So I’m currently spending lunchtimes in the supermarket near the school which is quite depressing. When I have a car I’ll be able to go home to have lunch (and maybe even a nap!), I’ll be able to leave much later in the mornings and I’ll get back much earlier too, which will mean I’ll have more energy for mosquito hunting! My life will be transformed!

Chichis - 04/11/2007

The Toussaint holiday came to an end today so I went down to the beach to celebrate my last hours of freedom with some sunbathing and swimming. The little bay near me is usually fairly empty - even at the weekend I feel as if I have my own private beach - but today was quite different. As I was coming over the brow of Dead Cat Alley I saw ten or so brightly coloured sails on boats in the bay. And walking past the rows and rows of parked cars I got a whiff of hamburgers and sugar coated chichis (they’re like donuts but they’re long and thin and come in a bag like chips) and saw dozens of families watching the luminous pink, orange and green sails of the boats come into shore.

Women in traditional dress were carrying baskets of sugared coconut, pâtés bananes, ananas, coco and goyave, caramel pistache (bars of compressed peanuts in hard brown sugar – yum) and other homemade pastries to sell around the beach, and all along the edge of the bay were brightly coloured awnings, from under which people were selling sorbets and snowballs (crushed ice flavoured with syrup), traditional Antillean clothes such as red tartan patterned skirts and shawls, accras (a kind of deep fried fish balls which are VERY tasty) and loads of other exciting traditional wares. Unfortunately I didn’t have a cent on me so I couldn’t partake in any of this but I walked around feasting on the sights and smells instead – and silently cursing myself for being so stupid as to come out with no cash when there was all this food crying out for me to taste it!

Courtney and I braved the town last night so fortunately I had already tried a few of these goodies anyway. (In fact we ate so much of the sweet coconut stuff back at my house I felt like I had given myself temporary diabetes and sugar blindness) A friendly non-sleazy Rastafarian called Bruno showed us the way to Trinité Cemetery so we could see all the flowers and candles laid out for the Festival of the Dead (All Soul’s Day). It was a very strange sight, hundreds of little tea lights and Jesus candles illuminating the already rather elaborate sepulchres and sarcophogi. They really love their dead relatives here.

So it’s back to school tomorrow and I’m feeling a bit nervous again though I’m not really sure why. I’ve planned my lessons – I’m doing months of the year, ages and birthdays this week. I also found a song about the months and seasons on the British Council website which has been annoying me all day. ‘Hey September, October, November, It’s December Winter’s here!’ Aaaargh! Someone make it stop!

Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight... - 01/11/07

I’ve just been telling Courtney about the joys of Radio 4. Now all I want in the world is to listen to the Shipping Forecast. Wow. I must be homesick. Or maybe I’m just sick of French and need an injection of random words spoken in a BBC accent to sort me out.

So now we’re listening to a programme on the R4 website about Eliot Ness. I have no idea who that is or what’s going on in this programme but I really couldn’t care less. At this very moment I can hear people speaking English - and it’s amazing! After two months of watching terrible American TV series dubbed into French and listening to awful radio jingles in Creole about car insurance and dark rum and sweet pineapples I’ve realised that spending the entire evening gorging myself on English is what I need to do tonight and I don’t care what anyone else thinks!

The mice haven’t got in yet. I had two lizards in my house this morning though. But for some reason lizards seem cute to me whereas mice are just dirty cheese eating filth mongers. I wonder why that is..? Anyway Lisette is going to put poison around the house so hopefully the midnight glass munching at will disturb me no more.

I managed to plan my next three weeks’ lessons today in a flurry of sticky-backed plastic, coloured card and felt tip pens. I feel much better about starting work again now. I even managed to get some beach time in too between the rain storms so despite expecting to feel like I was being punished by the world all day today I actually feel as if I’m on holiday still.

We’re listening to I’m Sorry I Haven’t Clue now and Courtney looks just as baffled as she did during the Shipping Forecast. Oh how I love being British sometimes. Humphrey Lyttleton you rock my world!