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!