Advice Post

At last, friends, we have come to the end of my TAPIF experience. Though I never saw a lot of the adventures coming - most of all the way I would leave TAPIF - I'm glad that I've taken the time here to reflect on my experiences and record them in a somewhat meaningful way.
While I would be the last person to over-inflate the importance or utility of this little blog, if it could do one thing, I would hope it could inform and advise others who are considering spending a year doing TAPIF themselves. To that end, I have taken notes throughout the year on things I wish I had known or that someone had told my less globetrotting comrades. I've tried to organize and sensibly present them here, so that others can enjoy my rich wisdom.
While I myself didn't enjoy my year in Martinique, I know the experience could be fulfilling and insightful for others. If you're considering TAPIF or study abroad, I think it's generally a great idea. I also think it's generally a great idea to keep the following in mind.

Enjoying your Life Abroad

• Try to think of the things that are different as interesting aspects of a new cultural experience. Things work differently wherever you go, and adjusting to that system takes time and will involve mistakes made, time lost, money wasted. Learn to laugh at yourself and try to take a neutral perspective on the culture / bureaucracy. You'll have time to form your judgments when you get home / go online to whine (like me!)
• Take photos. This isn't New York City, everything is not, in fact, online.
• When (not if) street harassment and generally unwanted gestures from men become a concern, talk to French women about it. Part of the gender warfare of harassment is that it makes you feel ashamed and frustrated and effectively silenced. Learn the culturally appropriate ways of dealing with it from the locals.
• If you see something in person / online that you're interested in doing, do it right then or write it down to do it later. Foreign countries are filled with exciting and wonderful sites, and you think you'll have plenty of time to do everything. You have plenty of time, then you have plenty of time, then you're gone and you never did it in spite of the fact that you lived next to it for months. 
• At least at the beginning, avoid dishing out money for the food you normally eat at home. Pay attention to what locals eat and which local products are affordable. Try to adapt the local diet to your dietary needs. Eventually, you're going to miss home so much that you're willing to dish out 5 € for a tiny jar of peanut butter, or whatever your comfort food is, but at first it's worth making a habit of trying the new stuff. Even if buying a cookbook is not your style, when you look for recipes online, search in French and look out for regional websites or blogs.
• Find your balance between the routine and the adventure. On the one hand, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take advantage of Europe / France / your region / your city, with plenty of free time on your hands to Do All the Things. On the other hand, seven months is a long time to drag yourself along from party to international foray to work unprepared to night at the airport. On the other, it's easy to get sucked into a routine and never get around to all that stuff that seemed so cool the first week once you're neck-deep into work. Everybody's process will be different, but I suggest two simultaneous routes. One, set yourself small, weekly goals. Go check something new out that's easily accessible, be it a party, an attraction, or even a cafe. Two, work your way out. See all the shit in your town while it's new and exciting. Then, once you have your gills, check out the region on day trips. Next, try a weekend in Paris or another big city. This gives you air out of your little town as you get tired of it, and gives you a chance to look forward to and save up for bigger trips.
• Rather than giving your opinion about French / local politics, instigate a local to talk about it. You'll learn a lot more that way.
• Once you've packed your bag, unpack it and throw out everything that you're not 100% positive you need (unless it's paperwork - see below). This applies both coming and going.

Getting Here and Handling the Bureaucracy

• No matter what it is, when you think, Oh, but it'll never come to that, it can't be that complicated: it will be. The bureaucracy is a nightmare. After all, miss, this is France. Check and double check that you have a physical and digital copy of every document you've ever owned concerning your visa, your bank account, your job offer, all that shit.
• Write shit down. When your phone dies or there's no Wi-Fi, you're gonna be fucked.
• This is a carry over from literally my entire undergraduate career: THE SQUEAKY WHEEL GETS OILED. I'm not saying you should be a jackass, but I'm saying a) it doesn't hurt to ask, especially if they're your contact person / there to help, b) remind people about their obligations to you, responding to emails / references phone calls as necessary - obeying the bureaucratic process is taken very seriously here, and c) ask for clarification until you understand. I can't tell you how many opportunities I missed because I didn't want to be a bother. There won't always be an exception for you, but sometimes they'll make one.
• If you apply to the CAF, fill out all the paperwork to the best of your ability, then check your account every day for notifications. They won't email or call. If nothing is moving after a couple weeks, call. If you can't get it sorted out, gather up your paperwork and go to the office. Get this sorted out ASAP. It can be worth hundreds of euros a month, so it's worth getting it settled that first month.

What the Heck am I Doing?

Today I'm 23, and, besides learning all kids of neat stuff about Martin Luther King, Jr (whose fest day is on my birthday), I'm spending a lot of time, alone at home, reflecting morbidly on how I'm wasting my youth.
My year here in Martinique has proven to be the loneliest and most boring of my life, though I acknowledge that memory isn't perfect and that my preteens were pretty bad (amiright?). I don't feel like I've grown as a teacher, but, rather, that the quality of my teaching has declined since I left my summer teaching fellowship because my teachers undermine me and haven't cooperated with my English immersion strategy. I really got hardly any training at all, and none of quality. Sure, I speak a little creole now, which is fun, but I doubt I'll ever use it again. I've picked up a little drawing and listened to some podcasts, but that's been to avoid desperation. While the women I've met here have proven exceptionally decent people, the Martinicans I've encountered have been more close-minded than I had anticipated. With the exception of Easter, which I happily spent in the company of a gracious local family, I've hardly socialized with locals. In fact, several of the other Martinique assistants and I commiserate about resisting leaving the house because of all the damn street harassment.  I don't feel that owning a car is conducive to a sustainable lifestyle - or safe, here - but without one I've hardly been able to take advantage of the beaches and hikes, and I can't even go for walks or hang out by the beach without being incessantly harassed.
In short, I'm tempted to say that I've wasted seven months of my youth here. I know that's a little dramatic. Surely I've grown as a person, I've gained soft skills, I've seen natural wonders, etc. But I've also grown really bitter and been really sad.
Luckily, Fairly Nuts Ben and Jerry's ice cream is marketed here, which it is not in the U.S., so I do have one thing to look forward to on my birthday and, hopefully, will have more fun once my friend returns with our car rental for the rest of the Easter vacation.

Caribbean Courtesy: A Sketch

Today I waited nearly an hour for the bus. Next to me, in the canopy's shade, a group of older women chatted and complained about the wait. They were in their fifties or sixties. No more youth, no more attraction, no more fear, at that age.
A younger woman, about thirty or so, approached, her son in tow. She knew one of the older women and approached to share bisoux and pleasantries. The boy, about seven, with a round face and precocious, blooming personality, tilted his head to get bisous, too. "Bonjour bonjou," he said, making the older women laugh. They giggled, how quick, how flirtatious he was already. The mother didn't like that they laughed.
After a polite amount of conversation, she moved over to another canopy to fit into the shade no one had made for them under the first, tugging her son along. He turned back to the older woman he knew to send her a symbol with his hands, with his thumb, pointer finger and pinkie. Some experts maintain that this is a satanic sign for hexing. Others counter it has been co-opted to mean "I (L)ove U". Whatever it meant to the child, it set the older women to laughing again. Whatever it meant to the older women, it set the mother off. She yanked his arm and yelled she'd told him not to do that. The older women settled into scolding and complaining about kids these days.
"It's all gang signs with them."
"They must learn it at school."
"I never tolerated things like that with my children."
"Oh, no, never ... "
They conspicuously turned to look and gesture and the mother-son pair under the next canopy. After a few moments, the boy must have committed anther betise, because a smack and then a slow cry were heard.
"Ah, good, he's spanked him."
"Oh, thank goodness."
"Kids need it, especially these days."
"Oh, I always spanked my kids. I kept my wooden spoon in my purse at all times."
"All the time!"
"Always."
"Can you believe it, one time a woman told me, 'Oh, he's too handsome it spank', about my son! I had a mind to hit her with the spoon, too."
"Oh, unbelievable ... "
They continued on, still turning their disdainful regards towards the younger pair from time to time.
After several minutes, a driver mounted the bus they were all waiting for and began preparations to leave. He struggled for longer than usual with the controls. The older women began to complain. Words like "tébé" and even "milanez" began to be thrown around as they gathered up their shopping bags and Easter flowers and moved closer together.
Two young women, maybe in their teens or early twenties, chins held high, walked around the slowly assembling mass, toeing up to the line where the bus would pull up.
"What's this?"
"That's not how things are done, girls."
"We've been here for an hour, and you just got here ten minutes ago. You have to let us on first!"
The young women arched their brows at each other, but did not look behind them, making it clear they had no intention of allowing anyone to pass in front of them.
Once the bus pulled up and the young women jumped on, the older women resorted to calling them insults. As they each mounted they complained of the youth these days, how rude young people were, how kids had learned no respect. Surely their mothers had not kept their wooden spoons on them enough. All the while, the older women pressed each other so that, as each one stepped up into the bus, the one right behind was clipped on the chin by the first's bag. They scurried on to grab the handicapped seats, not hesitating to chide any youth that seemed hurried to get on.
Just before the bus pulled out, an old woman, a real granmoun, got onto the bus, her back bowed by her flowers, her little grocery bag, or perhaps just her age. No one spoke to her or got up. She stumbled into the back seat just as the bus pulled out of the depot.

Listening to My Leaving Playlist

One of my students' beautiful decorations for the school.

What do crabs have to do with Eater? I don't know*, but it's almost Easter!

Not only does that mean that Lent is almost over (not that I would ever complain about the fast I took on voluntarily, or anything), but it also means that my stay in Martinique is almost over.

And I can't wait.

I'm doing my best to make the most of my time here, but I doubt any regular reader (not that I have any) is surprised to know I'm pretty ready to pack my bags.

I don't really have a normative negative judgement of Martinique. The street harassment I experience here is on par with what I endured in Paris before the street harassment law. The public transit is far better than in many cities of equal size, and at least exists, which is more than I can say about where I'm from. While France may be greedily snatching up resources and treating the department like a colony, the people I've met have a sense of humor about it. I feel like as a teacher I'm not learning a lot, but plenty of people with different prior experiences might get a lot out of TAPIF. Sure, I'm bored and hot, but some people consider under-stimulation on a Caribbean island to be, you know, paradise.

But I don't. And I'm ready to leave. 

As such, it's getting harder for me to come up with insightful things to say about my time here. As such, I've decided to re-work my posting schedule. Instead of aiming to post twice a week, I have a few benchmarks set based on events that should be of interest. That way, I don't waste your time with dumb shit to read that's just more whining.

Don't worry, there's still plenty of whining to come. But I'll be ensuring that it's insightful whining.

Look forward to what I've got in drafts for you, and be well. Seriously, go walk or something, eat a coconut. I have, and look at all this weight I've lost ... **

*That's a lie. I was informed upon asking that Martinicans traditionally eats crabs at Easter, not unlike the way many Europeans / Americans cook an Easter ham.
**That's a bad joke, about how people, especially women, reared in this fat-hating, patriarchical world always assume losing weight is a good in and of itself. I'm losing weight, and I shouldn't be. I think I've walked home too many times.
***Yes, I really do have a Leaving Playlist. I've been playing it since November.

The Kids are Chloridconé: What the Hell is Wrong with the Place, According to Locals

Over the course of my time here in Martinique, I've had the opportunity to bavarder with a pretty wide variety of locals, from young teachers and students to quite elderly students of creole. All of them had one thing in common: they know something is fucked up here. However, they differ quite dramatically in terms of their opinons of the source du mal in Martinique. Today, I present a list of my favorite explanations for all of the problems on this island.

• People don't understand that the country isn't as rich as it used to be (?)
• Parents don't hit their kids anymore*
• Teachers don't hit their students anymore*
• Parents expect the teachers to hit their kids for them*
• Teachers expect parents to hit their students for them*
• There are too many outsiders
• Too many Martinicans have lived for a time in the mainland
• Martinicans are too closed-minded
• People don't respect boundaries and distance between each other anymore
• People don't treat each other like family and neighbors anymore
• There are too many people
• The island is too rural
• Too many people believe in local fairies and myths
• Too many people disrespect the local fairies and powers
• The mainland doesn't invest enough in Martinique
• Martinicans expect too much from the Mainland
• Martinicans didn't run of the békés with machetes when they had the chance
• People use online dictionaries
• Too many artist types are running around inadequately clothed
• Too few young people speak creole
• People don't speak French correctly
• Young people make up their own mix of French and English and use that instead of just one language
• The algae blooming because of fertilizer runoff from Brazil are giving off a gas that's going to people's heads
• Unemployment benefits are too generous
• Unemployment benefits are too sparse
• When feminism hit the Caribbean, French Caribbean men murdered their wives and / or became homeless
• Men here are generally too unemployed
• Young people here have access to higher education too easily (?)

And today's addition:

• The kids act wild because they've been chloridconés**

*Corporal punishment for children has been illegal here for some time. Everyone still proudly claims they do it, though
**The runoff of chlodicone into non-banana fields and into the food and soil is a serious problem which you can read about in English here. While the pesticide does appear to have very serious deleterious health effects, I wouldn't go so far as to pin every instance of primary schoolboys misbehaving to it.

Fare Frights

This photo has nothing to do with
this post, I just liked the art
commissioned by the board game
store too much to not share.

A word to the wise: when it comes to flights, you get what you pay for.
Don't get me wrong, I fly as cheaply as possible. I am a member of countless airline rewards programs, but I never receive any rewards, because I'm completely un-loyal. Money is a tool, not a good in and of itself., but I just don't think that paying for access to a lounge or to three more inches of legroom for three hours is a sensible way to spend it.
As I have recounted here before, my flight from NYC to Martinique was a nightmare. Fortunately, since the cheapest flight in this case was serviced by Norwegian Air, it fell under European consumer protection law. Unfortunately, even Norwegians have the gall to argue that snow at JFK in January constitutes an "unpredictable" disaster, meaning that, despite my hours-long trials, I did not get a refund. The airline did nevertheless agree to pay me back for my travel costs to the airport and even for my $163 phone bill that I racked up when I called the Norway-based helpline they texted to me at my U.S. number.
Here's the thing though: my mysterious hair loss has responded faster to my complaints.
I finalized my complaint on February 11th for both costs. They responded to my complaint about the travel costs on February 2nd, twenty-two days after, and to my complaint about the phone bill (which I understand is probably stranger) on February 21st, 41 days after. Both emails assured me that my money would be wired to me "in a reasonable amount of time". But the money has yet to appear in my account.
Then, this morning, I received an email saying the travel costs will be reimbursed in fourteen days, 68 days after I filed the complaint. No word yet on the phone bill costs.
Is this normal for corporate business? Does everything European work at a French escargot's pace? Does all of being grown up require this much patience?

The Dangers of Misreading Dates (and Dairy)

What can I say, I'm a living white-American stereotype, and in more than one way. Currently, I'm living in the intersection of three of those ways.
First of all, I drink a lot of milk. A lot of milk. On days that I stay home (which are often on this damn island), I can easily down a liter a day. One good think about living in Martinique is boxed milk, U.H.T. pasteurized milk that's shelf-stable for a long-ass time. One bad thing about it (among a litany) is that I have to carry any milk I buy with my own arms out of the store, onto the bus, along the bus ride if the bus is as full as it usually is, and the short trek into the house from the bus stop. When you drink as much milk as I do, that can lead to a non-negligible strain on your shoulders.
Second of all, I LOVE buying shit in bulk. Entering a thrift store with used clothes in my size, cowboy outlet stores that sell jeans in my size, and discount groceries stores gives me a pure high. So, naturally, when a couple other assistants and I rented a car during the Carnaval break, I took advantage of the horsepower to buy milk. A lot of milk. Enough milk to last me until my departure in May. Fort-eight liters of milk.

Third of all, no matter how long I live an work outside of the U.S., I still instinctively read dates as month/day/year. It's caused a few problems in my life previously, to say the least. Most recently, I read the expiration date on all that boxed milk, which usually lasts several months, as December 3, 2018, when, in fact, it is 12 March 2018. So, all 48 liters of my milk are set to expire over a month before I leave, less than two months after I bought all of it.
Luckily, according to the internet, boxed milk is good for up to a month after the expiration date as long as it is cool and dry, which will buy me nearly enough time to be ready to leave. Otherwise, I'm currently filling the refrigerator and freezer with liter bricks of milk and trying to maximize my calcium-rich consumption.
Wish me luck. And that my flatmate doesn't actually intend on keeping food in the fridge for the next couple weeks.

A Few Miles, A Few Years, or Some Intangible Separation

Excuse the dramatic title. I've been feeling a little gloomy. There are many reasons for this, but one of the main ones revolves around the latest school mass shooting in the U.S. You may be thinking, that has nothing to do with Martinique. However, I really feel it does. As a young person, I left home at a to go to public boarding school, which, while it was still small and in Alabama, was much more diverse in a lot of ways and was where I first started to confront ways of thinking substantially different from those of my parents. From there I moved to New York City, which may very well be the single place on Earth with the most variety of origins, without even mentioning my time at Columbia, which was basically spent learning stuff, forming ideas about it, having those ideas ripped to shreds by my liberal arts-savvy colleagues, being bombarded with their own ideas, and then repeating. More or less immediately I found a way to study abroad, which I did twice before graduating and coming to Martinique. These experiences have given me a chance to learn from a lot of different people's perspectives, but also to see that another way of life is possible. There are many people in the world who do not fear getting shot, neither at home, nor in the street, nor at school. There are many people who never fear that a property line argument will result in a violent death. There are many places on Earth where violent death is a widely-condemned anomaly, universally considered unacceptable and the job of the government to prevent. I have studied and, now, worked in school in such places, and I think those people have gotten something right that we in the U.S. have by and large gotten wrong.
But when I call home, my parents just drum on about loading bullets, buying and trading guns without background checks, and about neighbors getting shot. It's the way they live, and they, like so many others in the U.S., have been fooled into disbelieving that another way of life is possible. That all talk of change is just liberal nonsense.
I don't know how to make them understand that's not true. I don't know how, in the stagnation that is U.S. politics, a change in gun policies might happen.
Realizing that I can't make them understand what I've learned really makes me worry that I'm not fit to help anybody learn.

Carnaval: The Cynical, The Crusty, The Curious

After a few naps and a nice, brutal sugar detox, I am proud to report that I have survived my first ever Caribbean Carnival season, unscathed enough to tell the tale.

If you have experienced Carnival where you live, or maybe have just watched The Hunchback of Notre Dame, you probably know that the Mardi Gras season is traditionally a time to not only cut loose, but to reverse social hierarchies, mock those in power, and defy cultural taboos. I looked forward to witnessing the myriad of ways Martinicans would protest their conditions, which, in case you are a new reader, I complain about a lot.

This year's biggest theme, both in songs at private soirées and on bradjacks, junker cars with special permits to be painted for parades, was the TCSP, the long-promised but still not existent bus line. (Seriously, the roads and bus stops are built, they just can't settle on financial questions long enough to actually get the thing going.)

Point of Obama reference unclear

Paper-maché minister who won't
fund bus line completion

The political is always my favorite.

A Purge-themed bradjack, featured a castrated Trump.

However, plenty of appearances were simply dedicated to doing what is normally taboo, be it dressing sluttily, in the case of almost everyone of any age there, or doing drag, was were the majority of the men there each day (not just Monday, Mariage burlesque).

While I absolutely encourage defying social standards and questioning oppressive social constraints, by all means festively, I will say that some of the demonstrations were a little lost on me. I get it, dressing up skinny women like the fake "traditional" creole woman on the label of the rum brand who sponsored your float is a part of the deal, and maybe even dancing in skirts made of McDonald's cups, if that's who sponsored you. But some of it was just ... gross. If this were a society where men had to walk about in suits all day, I'd get why men would want to come to Carnival half-naked with nasty, sexual jokes written on their bodies. But they don't. They walk around half naked here all the time, sexual harassing women every day of the year, then show up at Carnival to make us look at junk we don't want to see. If this was a Puritanical society that repressed all sex, I'd get wanting to be gaudy with representations of it. Instead, the media is drenched in hyper-sexualized images of women, and people just painted more of them on their bradjacks. And made a Peppa Pig-themed bradjack with a pig eating out a blond sex doll. I don't know, I just don't get it.

A final intriguing thought: this experience really made me appreciate how U.S.-centric the idea of cultural appropriation is. When some of my students came to the school carnival party dressed as Indian and Egyptian princesses, I cringed. And plenty of paraders wore what I would call Native-American-esque headresses. But this is a creole society, where almost everyone lays claim, both biologically and culturally, to both Indian and indigenous roots, inside of a larger anti-black global culture in which in the past black people have hailed back to African Egyptian history as a way of reclaiming their identity. For them, all of those symbols are a part of who they are, regardless of how indigenous peoples, Indians in diaspora, and present-day Egyptians and other Arabs may face discrimination, inside and outside of Martinique.

Tricky, hairy, uncomfortable, but true. Just like most of the Carnival get-ups I saw.

Crime and Fessing Up: A Small-Town Saga

A few short days out, my recent post about how much more rare and scandalous murder is here compared to in the U.S. has taken on a new, naive light. This Wednesday, while waiting at a bus stop on the main street in town, with plenty of people around, at around 4 pm (full sun, here), my text to a tutee saying I'd be late was cut short. A skinny kid, maybe about 14 or 16 years old, snatched my cell phone out of my two hands while I was texting, there in front of God and everybody. I ran after him, yelling, but, lagging behind in my sandals and watching him disappear up a tall staircase to an unfamiliar, sprawling housing project, I decided I should go back and pick up my grocery bags that had been between my feet before another teenager decided to pilfer through those.
Though I figured the phone was gone for good, the day was saved by a nearby (and nearly crazy) good Samaritan. A local woman witnessed the whole thing and told me she wasn't going to stand for it. She called her cousins who lived in that housing project to tell them what had happened and that she was coming to investigate. After politely dropping me off at the police station to file a report, she drove up to the complex and basically yelled at every teenager she saw until one of them, too large to have been the thief, sheepishly handed her my phone, saying he'd found it somewhere. I was thrilled, obviously, to have my phone back before I could even get through the line to file a report. However, the innocence of the whole affair - a teenager stupidly snatching a worthless, old Android phone in broad daylight only to hand it over freely once he had been yelled at - is almost annoying. Even in cases of criminal activity, this place operates on a completely small-town basis. So-and-so's cousin saw you do it and she's coming up here to chew you out so you better fess up or she'll tell your mom. It could be in a sitcom, if U.S. television didn't equate black, teenage boys with unsympathetic violence.
After thanking the almost stupidly brave, nice lady who recovered my phone for me (I think I might have even gotten a new tutoring student out of the ordeal), I had to preoccupy myself with the thousand little worries of getting my phone-tethered life back to normal. Of course the kid had the sense to dump the SIM card, so I had to get a new one. He'd also locked the screen, so I had to pay (39 € !) to get it unlocked. Then I've had the fun of wading through the app store and phone settings to return to normal usage. Worst of all, I had to tell my parents what had happened.
Of course, most parents are lovingly protective of their children and would be worried if something like this happened to their kid. My parents hold the particular distinction of being classic, middle-American conservatives who think that every place outside the U.S. - especially commie countries like France and places where black people live - is too dangerous and too unfree to be worth seeing. As I am their only daughter and youngest child, they also just generally oppose me going anywhere away from them, but we've been working through that since I headed off to boarding school at age 15. For them, this incident was just the icing on the cake, and if I had any reason at all, I'd book the next flight back to Alabama (where I have, by the way, no job prospects, no health insurance, and no mode of transportation). When I dismissed the proposition of an immediate return, they became quite cross, to say the least. But we'll work through that.
Though such conversations with my parents are both painful and annoying, this one did inspire me to do a little bit of fact-checking. Other than learning that just about every website has a different method of reporting crime rates, and that the CIA World Factbook, unlike many other sites, does not consider Martinique to be a country, I actually did not learn much. For someone who came of age in the age of the Internet, this is quite frustrating.
But that, like accidentally winding up marooned in a small-town society and Martinican teenagers acting out during Carnaval, is life.

Avoir le cafard : an Idiom, an Experience

When I first went to select a photo to include in this post, I
thought my Google Photos had an error, since this was the only
photo in my Martinique album since Christmas. In fact, this is
the only photo I've taken in the last week.
In case you're wondering: when the morning after my return, I
had one deep, inexplicable bruise on my leg. The next day, I
found another just like it. I took this photo in case it kept
coming up. No, I haven't WebMDed it to find out that I have
cancer. I'll let you know if that changes.

Well, friends, I am back. Back to the Caribbean, back to Martinique, back to work, back to the grindstone, back to this blog. And let me tell you, it has sucked.

For full disclosure, I have been sick for the last week, and only today have I had time to really rest and try to recover, so all of the events I am about to relate to you have been colored by extra exhaustion.

First, my flight back was a disaster. Norwegian canceled my flight. I accidentally called the Norwegian help line and racked up a $163 phone bill while waiting on hold. My flight was un-canceled and moved 50 miles upstate to bum-fuck Stuart Airport. Then it was delayed. A bunch. I landed in Martinique at nearly 2 am. There were no taxis (and of course there's no public transit out there - don't make me laugh). I hitched a ride with a rando, thankfully not getting murdered (so far) and got to bed at 3 am, only to have to wake at a later-than-usual 6:30 am to get to work.

Being as tired as I was, I didn't remember that two of my classes had swapped slots and missed one as a result. 

I got a survey request that told me that we're going to have another meeting in two weeks, hopefully not led by the same orientation people that insisted that street harassment "wasn't rape", just that "Martinican men appreciate beautiful women and want to tell you about it."

I've already spent nearly an hour in the discount grocery store, mostly standing in line, only to find out they didn't have any damn avocados.

My flatmate, who couldn't take it anymore and quit the assistantship in December, moved out Thursday. She not only left me alone on the weekends, when our other, local flatmate is gone home, but also left the apartment as a Roach Hotel. Apparently over the holidays, she was feeling too down to clean, so, as we do live on a tropical island, the pests followed. What she didn't tell me until after a few days - and a few meals - was that she'd just been spraying roach poison directly onto the dishes when she saw a bug in the drawer. So, Friday, after falling asleep in the meeting room at school, I drug myself home, washed every dish in the house, moved them into the fridge or outside, sprayed roach spray in the kitchen, closed it up then aired it out, chased down and killed all the crazy roaches, cleaned all the horizontal surfaces, then left the cabinets and drawers open to air out.

I suspect that eating roach spray has contributed to my stubborn cough, which has improved today after I slept for approximately fourteen hours in a much-cleaned house.

While there is no such thing as making up lost sleep according to neuroscientists, I am hoping that moving forward I feel better, and I mean that in many ways. As of this week, I am completely overwhelmed by the idea of staying here for another 3-4 months. I'm trying to keep my options to return open. In December when I found out that my flatmate was leaving, I made the decision to stay with a lot of other events on the horizon: my trip home, visits with my friends in New York, and other adventures. Now there's nothing between me and April 30th. I've decided to not decide right now, while I'm sick, whether to stay or to go. However, I'll admit that, at the moment, I'm just looking for an excuse to pack my suitcase right back up, which I more or less fantasize about every day.

If you've soldiered this far into the post, I'll reveal that avoir le cafard or to have the cockroach is a French idiom for feeling blue. And, boy, have I got it.

The Pace of Paperwork

Even if I take the bus, I have to
walk up and down this to get to
one of my schools.

When the bus does arrive, eventually, sometimes, on occasion, when the gods of this island, descended from Mont Pélée to direct our miniscule and insignificant lives, decide they're done smoking and drive out to get their passengers, I always try to stay focused on the road. Traffic here goes from 0 to 60, literally, unpredictably, so it's easy to miss your stop. That being said, I do still read the signs in the bus, just in case they're not from 2012 and actually do contain some pertinent info that I don't know.
I noticed almost immediately that, instead of buying a one-way ticket without transfers for 1,80 €, one-ways with transfers are available in stands for 1,25 €. Plus, those are sold are cards that can be charged with multiple trips, so I can save myself some trouble by buying several at a time. (For reference, the price of one trip on the Parisian transit system, when I was there was 1,10 € if you bought multiple tickets from the booth, which was in almost every station, and that system actually functioned properly.)
I also read that you could get a weekly pass for 10 €, which is pretty affordable. I spend almost that much on bus tickets each week, and I figured my trouble is worth some money, too. So, I be-bopped my happy ass down to the booth to buy one from the machine. No can do. So I go to the window and, after waiting in line, ask for one. The lady looks at me like I'm crazy. I point to the sign. "Oh, noooo, that's not possible!" exclaimed the lady, shaking her head. I insisted, pointing at the picture on the sign of the pass which very much should be available for purchase. She starting saying that just waaaasn't possible, listing off all the steps and procedures I'd have to complete to get one. Having played this game a few times with customer service representatives in other establishments on this island, and quite frankly being sick of it, I asked for a list of documents I needed, which she forked over. Copy of your I.D., copy of your electricity bill (which proves where you live - if you rent, like me, you need a letter from your landlord with their electricity bill and a copy of their I.D., which my landlord has previously refused to fork over), other nonsensical requirements. Now, mind you, I'm not trying to sign up for insurance (which took days), or a bank account (which took weeks), or sign a lease (which took weeks), or get my paperwork to start work (which took multiple trips to various school district offices). I just want a 10 € (= approx. $11.85) bus pass, which I'll have to glue my own damn photo to. You'd think I was asking to open a multinational.

On the plus side, when you walk
about town you see gems like this,
a contemporary, and somewhat
salty, mural about local claim to
fame Aimé Césaire, on the side of
the middle school named after him.

I took the list home and tried to figure out how I'd get another official passport photo made - that's harder to come by, here. Then I finally read the fine print on the back of the list. The weekly card doesn't refill itself. After all that, the form, the paperwork, the photo, the bus company doesn't even automatically refill your card. You still have to go, once a week, down to a booth, which are only in town, to refill the card manually. So, each Monday morning, you still have to buy a bus ticket or walk all the way into town.
I'm not getting a bus ticket right now. I can't deal with this crap.
Meanwhile, I still am not signed up for social security because the department of education did my application wrong, and the French government won't give me a rent subsidy, not because I make too much money, and not because my rent is too cheap, but because my apartment is too small. Too small. According to their estimator online, I'm otherwise eligible for 250 €  (= approx. $296.21) a month, but I can't have it because my apartment is too small.
Vive la France carribbéenne, y'all.

The Secular Spectacular

The French, at least theoretically, really pride themselves on being a secular society. The rantings of snobbish mainland philosophers aside, this has a lot of concrete manifestations, even out here in the DOMs. On the wall of every education department office I've visited and in many other locations, the French charter of laïcité in education is proudly unfurled, a product of an early-19th century, rather avant-garde at the time policy making public education (again, at least theoretically) free, secular, integrated, and obligatory. At our official training, language assistants were reminded to include no religious inclinations in our lessons (nor to divide our classes by sex, a rule which I've seen at least a few teachers break so far). And, of course, all "ostensibly religious symbols" are banished from schools - which is far less polemic out here than in the mainland, where the islamaphobic implications are more evident.

That being said, anyone coming to work in French schools may note, in there joy of discovering a two-week vacation every six weeks or so, that their extended holidays revolve around Christian, and specifically Catholic, holidays: All-Saints, Christmas, Mardi Gras / Carnival, Easter, etc. Of course, Catholicism is a strong cultural marker here in France, as well, and it's perfectly understandable that the rhythms of vacations would carry over from an earlier time.

However, one's pace in life is determined by the Church in other ways, too, here. I was just reminded of such this morning, when a craving for a chocolate bar set in at about 11:54 am, which is about 6 minutes before all the grocery stores, all of which I know about are at least 15 minutes away from my home, close for the day. That's right, almost all businesses are closed on Sunday afternoon. In fact, except for grocery stores, which are allowed to open in the morning, tourist-oriented businesses (after all, gotta eat), and pharmacies, one of each per community is open each Sunday, all businesses are obliged to be closed on the Lord's Day throughout France, though evidently a few loopholes around this rule persist. This regulation is ostensibly oriented towards the rights and dignity of workers, who need a day of rest - which is of course only coincidentally an opinion found in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. I have also recently read it reclaimed in a Parisian publication as a necessary break from consumerist culture - as soon as we all get out of the traffic jam outside the grocery store, of course.

All of life is about the search for the middle path, amirite?

Every society is fraught with contradictions, I suppose, and France, this proudly secular, socialist society, is no exception. Everyone just has to find their own ways of navigating it. Here in Martinique, where most of the population is more or less directly descended from slaves forcibly converted to Catholicism upon importation, religion seems to figure more visibly in the day-to-day life of the society.

Take, for instance, a certain primary school teacher who works with my flatmate, another teaching assistant. She offered, after having met the new assistant only once, to include her on a family beach excursion this weekend. They exchanged WhatsApp numbers to facilitate the planning. Immediately after school, my flatmate was included what is an apparently regular round of evangelical messages declaring Jesus to be the solution to a number of life's problems. Once we arrived at the beach, the first thing the teacher asked each of us, individually, is whether we were Christian. I didn't feel threatened by the question and in fact had a somewhat long conversation about being raised as a kind of baptist then becoming Episcopalian, a church that is not represented anywhere on this damn island. She then asked each of us to join her for church on Sunday, once on the beach and once immediately after buying us tropical-fruit flavored pastries, which I'm ~sure~ weren't intended as bribes.

As what I will cheekily call a recovering evangelical, such behavior is pretty ostentatious, and I'm sure my non-religious flatmate felt it even more so. But all of this flies, and is in fact quite normal, in this particular corner, adorned with large crucifixes at the frontier of most communes, of the ostentatiously secular French society. 

Meanwhile, I'm still craving chocolate.

Exploding Bananas

Today's Fun Fact: Bananas can explode.
My new flatmate, in my apartment that I just moved into yesterday, warned me not to leave any food on the counter, because the ants would get it. Seeing no ants around, I thought it would be perfectly fine to leave my undamaged produce (a couple of tomatoes and a few bananas that were a little more ripe than I like them but, hey, not great selection here) out. She insisted and picked them up to place them in a microwave cover.
This morning I walked in to find banana and ants all over everything, the backsplash, the counter, the floor, and one banana missing some mass. Apparently, be it do to the heat or just their sheer number, ants can break into undamaged produce here, and somehow they explode.
Today's Useful Fact: Bananas, so long as they are already as ripe as you want them, can be stored in the refrigerator.

Don't you pity me right now?
(This is where I went to swim today,
just up the road.)

Now, I could go on and on in a sob story about my four-twenty-ten-nine problems with bureaucracy (just imagine it, French bureacracy*small town pace*island isolation) and all the hours I've wasted looking for housing, dealing with talkative landlords that didn't actually have to offer what they put online, and trying to get a phone that requires a banking account that requires an address for a lodging you can't rent until you can call the owner on the phone. Instead, suffice it to say that what actually got me in my actual apartment was not filling out my paperwork on time, nor going to my meetings early, nor diligently searching online using all my resources, but through good, old-fashioned, small-town gossip. My supervisor talked to her coworker who is also supervising an assistant and ... Ben, bref, I landed a decent, clean place to sublet, a little far from my work and town but within my price range and totally liveable.
I thought I'd left the world of small-town talk and everybody knowing my business back in Alabama.
Let's just hope that the bus system here works better than the one there (or else I'll never make it to work tomorrow ... )