Tuesday 28 June 2011

Le Fleuve

"Do you know where Emily lives?"
A bunch of kids are playing football in the road. "The third house along, in that road, you can see it from here, she has a dog called Dixie.''
We drive to the other road and the kids have run across the field to meet us. Looks like no-one's in, but the kennel has Dixie written on- this is the house the kids were talking about.
"Why do you want to see Emily?" ..We're going to stay with her and her boyfriend". Confused faces from the kids "There must be two Emilies..this one is 9 years old''. So, wrong Emily...


We're in Apatou, and unfortunately I forgot to ask Emily for her address before leaving. Luckily Apatou is pretty small.
The first people we asked were hanging round a car on the Maroni. We ask a guy with a monkey on his shoulder for help "I don't speak French" he replies in English. The bonnet is open and a guy is under the car.."does your car have a problem?" "No, I'm just looking under the car."

Apatou is on the Maroni river. The population is mostly Boni- they're a Bushiningue people descended from escaped slaves in Suriname (wiki tells me) . Until recently it took 2 hours of pirogue to get to Apatou from St Laurent, the nearest town, but last year they opened a road that gets you there in half and hour or so. Apatou's roads are tiny, so are a lot of the houses - and there's still a sign on the riverbank saying 'Welcome to Apatou'. The village is surrounded by rainforest and crowded onto the bank of the wide, fast flowing river (it's still the big rainy season so lots of rivers are more wide and faster flowing than at some times of the year). On the other side, Suriname - there are a couple of shops that can be reached by boat over there and you can hear the constant drone of the orpailleur's (goldpanners) barge that's anchored where the French police can do nothing, on the Suri side. All around, just the rainforest.

People in Cayenne often talk about St Laurent, Apatou, Maripasoula, and the other towns and villages along the Maroni as ''Le Fleuve'' (the river). The vibe is very different to Cayenne. For starters, there's a different language- in Cayenne, it seems like most everyone can speak French, or a loose Guyanese Creole. On the fleuve, people are more likely to speak Sranan Tongo or English. School is in French, but school is fairly recent in Apatou.

Cayenne is a creole town, from the architechture to the language to the food- Apatou is very different. The older houses are small and wooden, with thatch roofs, and sometimes you see painted or carved motifs of Boni art. People only spoke French when they were speaking to us, otherwise it was Sranan. Someone died recently, apparently that's why there was music all night long in a carbet in the centre of the village. The river has a stream of pirogues travelling up and down transporting goods to settlements further upstream; in the early evening cars were parked along the bank so they could be washed and earlier in the day the banks were where people washed their dishes, themselves, caught fish, where kids played.

We walked around the streets followed by lots of tiny children (they were wierded out by my mohawk) and settled by the river in the evening, drawing in a cahier and just eating the scenery. The other side is relatively flat- Guyane is mostly quite hilly- and the sunset was beautiful over the forest and the river and the cloud mountains.

Sunday 19 June 2011

Hot summer tracks

My top 5 tracks.. guaranteed heatwave! Some of these are tracks that get played here; some of them are just tracks that rock.

1. Buraka Som Sistema- Hangover (Bababa). This IS the best track you'll hear all year, turn your bass up.
2. Flavour - Nwa baby
This track from Nigerian Flavour Nabania is big here in French Guiana at the moment as a faster, more bootyshake-friendly remix. Here's the original:
3. Tonymix - pwent pye
A buddy showed me this. This is Rap Kreyol- Haitian rap. banger! Pwent pye means point your foot. I don't know what point your foot means.
4. Basic One & Jeon - Wak Su Bumper
It's not clever but it does make me dance! This track gets played lots on the music channels here, it's from a Dutch Carribean island I think.
5. Wayne Smith - Under me Sleng Teng
Not new or fresh but always a track I love to hear.