I find Cayenne very charming

Cayenne, 2pm, mid august. I’m leaving the appartment a colleague from Collège last year has (very generously) lent me whilst he is in mainland France over the long summer holidays.

The streets of Cayenne are empty this time of day. Cars, and scooters buzz past occasionally. I’m walking up one of the big roads to Place des Palmistes. Tradional Creole houses and more modern buildings on each side.

Recently restored two or three story creole townhouses, colorful and charming, sounds of meals being prepared slip through slatted wooden shutters. Brick and wood are painted two tones, often pastel and a darker hue for highlights. More delapidated buildings have rusted corrigated iron roofs and drooping woodwork, the building hunched; faded and dirty walls blend with swelled, rotten frames; an overwhelming dull grey-brownness that suggests a structure nearing the end of its inhabitability.

These houses have balconies which, towards the evening, will be occupied by isolated old people surveying the street below, and steps up from the street to door-windows where people will cluster to drink and talk and sit at night.

The heat is oppresive and heavy. 

The three or four story skyline of the towncentre is dwarfed by the enormity of the vividly blue sky and its cloud-mountains, white and towering at this time of year. The more modern buildings of the town are dull and utilitarian; built in some period between now and when they discovered that concrete and breezeblock were great materials for building uninspiring functional buildings. Commercial buildings and domestic appartment blocks,they vary from brilliant white to ugly, patchy, tawny colour, presumably a variable of how recently they were built and the degree of climactic prescience of the architect. The embodiment of this is the obstinately un-majestic Majestic Centre, a building that certainly does have some Features but so uninteresting that I can’t remeber anything about it except that it is a mottled grey clour, very ugly.

The pavement is cracked and uneven. When I cross a road I step down heavily, the pavement is high and gaping drains open to rush away the water during the rainy season. In August, they just smell bad. Bad smells developing quickly under tropical heat is something the municipality has catered for in offering rubbish collectins three times a week, but there’s nothing to stop the stink of Cayenne’s drains in the dry season. It's not the overwhelming impression of the town though, just a detail of which you are occasionally and unpleasantly reminded of.

The street is not uniformly filled with buildings. Often there is an empty lot.

On the road between the apartment and Palmistes one of these has the skeleton of a small house, overgrown. The rest of the lot has long grass and detritus : a corroding air-con unit; empty Heineken bottles ; inexplicably, a dis-jointed red tractor, furry with rust.

Between houses, an ally held in by a wooden door or a corrugated iron fence leads to small, overcrowded one storey buildings or to yards rammed with mango trees and drying laundry.

In (Suriname capital) Paramaribo, the collonial buildings look fresh and maintained and pavements are either uniformly flat or quaintly cobbled. In Cayenne though, there is an air of past-its-bestness, yellow grey blurry, and vivid patches of green under the intense equatiorial sun. I find Cayenne very charming.

Place des Palmiste is a large, unevenly grassed square in one of the top corners of what makes the centre of Cayenne. At one point it had some collonial role, probably to do with slaves or prisonners. It used to have shitloads of royal palm trees, now it just has quite a few. At night lots of vans come and sell sandwiches and burgers, people meet and drink and eat and play music out of their cars. There are several metal gradins, that is, scaffold seats that people watch the processions from during carnaval and the rest of the year sit in the evening in groups to talk and watch children play on the go-carts that can be rented from the go-cart man.

In the daytime, however, the scene is of a banal urban park on the border of the administrative and commercial distrincts of town : sparse pairs of people in suits carrying files, a mother with a young child, civil servants’ cars bordering all tarmac. Cayenne touches- an addict gesticulating abstractly, sat in the shade of a palm.

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.

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.

Rainy Season

Christmas to easter, petit été de Mars, then back from April to June.. Rainy season is long. Weather isn't just some changing background in your week.. It can decide days.

I'm sitting on the terrace. The air is heavy, the clouds huge and gray. The cloud breaks. I hear the rain begin proper as it hits one end of the roof. TATATAAATA above my head. TATATAATAA as it runs up one end of the corrigated plastic to the other end of the house. The rain surrounds everything. You can't talk. You can't hear music. Tatatatatatattatatatattatatatatttatatata. Heavy drops. 
When I'm riding, the rain hits me with such force; like a thousand needles being thrown. Soaked in seconds, even through my coat. I carry a change of clothes under my seat. 

You can't just ignore it. I've spent hours and hours waiting for the rain to stop some days. Sometimes it only lasts minutes. It can shape your day- you make arrangements; rain hits; plans fall through. Sometimes you wait for the rain to stop, delay, resign yourself to getting wet. So soaked. To the bones. After, that fresh smell of damp tarmac and earth. The roads dry. Puddles reflect the blue sky. The clouds here are beautiful; enormous. White, grey, deep blue purple. Towering, sky montains. They move quickly; you can watch them for hours without getting bored (I always tell them how beautiful the clouds are but I think my friends are not as enthusiastic).

Mangoes and watermelons are out of season, avocadoes are in. I've moved house, the mango tree next door is growing lots of new leaves and looks gorgeous. The new shoots are tinted a kind of aubergine red colour. Grass and whatever other things grow in the ditches get big so fast and surround with deep intense dripping green. At night, cars, frogs; crickets, the boom of the bass from neighbours' parties. In the day, the school bell ringing regularly from the playground next door, reprimands as la maitresse scolds and ridicules her pupils.
Cité Mortin; my new neighbourhood; is on the fringe of Cayenne, next to a swampy area. Clouds of mosquitoes. Mosquitoes that zip so fast you can't see them, mosquitoes that bite through your jeans, mosquitoes that you have to squish twice for them to die. The first night in my room I stayed up with the lights on watching them buzz along my mosquito net. There are three cats who appear at the door everytime I unlock the house to demand food, and neighbourhood boys come round to ask us for cigarettes.


Sista Sony, guyanaise musician

Life's getting sorted

 

I have a house with 2 other assistants. We live in Remire Montjoly, a kinda fancy town in the Cayenne agglomeration.. basically we’re living in the ‘burbs, tropical style. (I never pictured I would ever be doing that). Everyone in our neighbourhood has pools and gates that open electrically with flashing lights and dogs that bark when you come home late or leave early..and we’re pretty much the only people in the neighbourhood to ever go anywhere on foot.

We got a pretty sweet set up; a room each with ensweet bathrooms, a kitchen, a lounge we hardly never use and a terrace out back and front, all for 900 euros between us including bills. I got the middle room, it’s smaller and has a single bed (the boys got doubles), I wanted it like that. Our house is in the backyard of our landlady's, originally her dad built it for his three daughters when they were growing up.

Liam is American. He spent 2 years in Senegal and 6 months in New Orleans before coming here. I don’t know which of us is more into MIA, he’s also pretty big on Bob Dylan and New Orleans music – but he hadn’t heard The Meters.  He’s awesome.

Marcus is from Brazil. He likes beer and zoo, and loves burgers with garlic. He’s good company and always up for partying.

Kayla is another assistant who lives across the road from us. She’s the kinda girl you dream about when you think of America. She’s from Michigan, studied art history, spent a bunch of months in Paris before, has a scooter. She easily fills top gal pal position out here, and she’s veggie. Co-mealing=cool mealing!

We all hang out on the beach together in the afternoons (you can hear the waves from the terrace, it’s at the end of the road), and evening we cook good food, drink rum, listen to music and complain about the mosquitos.

So, life is getting sorted. I got wheels now - I bought a cute red scooter that I can't ride around yet cos I don't have insurance. I have a hammock to siesta in when the afternoon heat is hitting hard and the early starts got me tired, and we've been cooking some really nice meals. We've met a bunch of our neighbours, who are pretty nice, and I've fairly decided I'm going to stay here next year.

Pile of picutures of my new life:

 

 

Colorful Cumin Salad

It's really nice to eat light, cool, zesty meals here. I like to have a couple of salads in the fridge that I can eat together or on their own for a big lunch. Here's one that's great as an accompaniment for roasted or stewed veg or on it's own for a simple meal. 

1 onion

3 spring onions

Couscous

1 tomato

1 carrot

1 stock cube

cumin seeds

curry powder

some pine nuts

chunk of cucumber

half a lime

cut the onion into fairly big chunks, fry. When it’s starting to get soft, chuck a tablespoon or two of cumin seeds in and keep frying for a couple of minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the couscous with a stock cube and a decent amount of curry powder.

Cut up the tomato, spring onions and add to the couscous.

Mix in the onions and cumin seeds. Squeeze the lime juice in.

Grate the carrot and cut up the cucumber. 

I serve this by dishing out as much couscous as I’m hungry for, then adding the grated carrot and cubed cucumber on top. Then I add the pine nuts, which I’ve dry fried. 

I keep the carrot and cucumber separate because I leave a bunch of couscous in a thupperwarez for another meal and I don’t think they keep as well. 

Totally delicious on its own..loads of variations, you can pretty much chuck in anything you’ve got laying around. Peppers, beet, mango, would all be awesome in this, you could sub the pinenuts for peanuts or walnuts. You could use couac (like couscous but made of cassava), or bulgur wheat (which has a higher protein content than couscous).

It’s not got much protein, so you could have some lentils on the side, or yogurt, some cheese (goats or feta) or a couple of boiled eggs.

Rocket launches and tropical islands

(part two of my toussaint holiday)

The day after Bianca and I got back from St.Laurent, (Wednesday week before last) we spent a day in cayenne, looking at the market, shops, eating soup in one of the Chinese restaurents. Chinese restaurants at the market is a ritual: go to the market, buy loads of fresh fruit, then go to a Chinese restaurant for a huge bowl of cheap and delicious noodle soup and a glass of local passion fruit juice. We went to the beach, caught up with each others news and just had a good gal pal kinda time.

Next morning we got up at a pretty leasurely pace, had a generous breakfast and then went on to the Route de Montabo to hitch a lift. Our final destination was Kourou, home of several assistants and the town near the space centre – but for now we needed to get to the Balata roundabout to hitch get a good lift between the towns. Our first ride was with a florist who dropped us further down the road by another round about. Our next ride came along almost immediately -  a guy who works as a maths teacher at one of the other assistant’s  schools – he went out of his way to take us to the point that joins the Cayenne area to the road that goes the length of the country.

Standing just past a junction on the outskirts of the city, we were glad today was a rare overcast day- not hot at all for early afternoon. After 5 minutes we remained optimistic – there’s only one road, everyone here must be going in our direction. After 8 minutes our arms were aching and still no lift. Then around ten minutes two rides showed up at once- we ended up getting a lift with a delivery driver. Haitian by origin, he’d been living in Guyane since he was small – but still felt he was 90% Haitian. The journey to Kourou is not long and the roads here are so incredible, forest and savannah on each side, lush greens and deep grey clouds on a day like Thursday was. We chatted about work, the road networks, how Guyane has changed in the time he’d lived here- he felt, for the better. 

A lot of people I’ve talked to since I’ve been here tell me they think that a lot of things are corrupt- as our ride told us ..Someone gets money to build a road – but before he builds the road, he builds himself a nice house, he sorts his family out, he gets comfortable. Then he pays his friends to build the road...but it’s not correct, they say it costs this much, but that’s the house, and the lifestyle, and paying the friends.

In Kourou we met the other assistants. Hannah and Kate welcomed us into their house, where lots of other assistants had already arrived and set hammocks up under the terrace.  After sunset we made our way to the beach to watch the rocket launch. Rockets launch every couple of months, but apparently it quite often goes wrong or gets delayed, so we’d not got our hopes up too much. In the end it left pretty much on time. The night sky was suddenly lit, bright as day, as the rocket ignited. Then it was in the sky, a bright stick of light, rising quickly until it was obscured by the still overcast sky. Then came the sound.. Like a helicopter, but louder, a mechanical, vibrating noise that eclipsed every other sound you could here, even the sea as we stood on the beach.
Then it was over, and everyone went back to Hannah and Kate’s house for a party.

Staying in Kourou til Saturday morning, we met our friends Bass and Milot, Philip and two more, at 7am to go to the Iles de Salut. These islands, visible from the coast of Kourou, were a prison until the 50s. They were part of the inspiration for Papillon, and notorious for their horrible conditions, the death rate of the inmates, and the sharks that swum hungry for the bodies of deceased prisoners that were thrown to sea. Now they are lush tropical islands, a lot of the old prisons consumed by vegetation – and, in Guyane, where all coast is heavy with Amazonian soil, famed (locally) for their blue seas.

A catamaran took us first to Isle Joseph. We had breakfast on a beach, which was made of tiny crushed up shells, and swum in the sea. On the continent, the sea is always warm, but here, the sea was cold and refreshing. We spent ages swimming in one of the few areas where the strong currents won’t drag you away, and having “chicken fights”**. Around midday, after a walk round the islands, we got ferried to the larger Isle Royale, which used to be the administrative island. L’isle du diable, the third island, used to be where political prisoners were put – now, no one lands there.  We walked across the island to reach the old port, where we swam. Laying on my back (the water was very salty so you float easily), eyes closed, gently rocking under the subdued waves of the old port, sun beating on my face.  Tinkly, splooshy noises in the water make me feel as if im’re lying in the bath, not the  Atlantic Ocean.

The catamaran carried us back in the afternoon, and we drove back to Cayenne feeling completely exhausted but mentally refressed. It was like the definition of holiday! When we arrived home we cooked the delicious recipe I blogged a couple weeks ago. The forest on either side of the road looked incredible, silhouetted against the dusk on the ride home.

Hammock land in Kourou

Being pretty cool on the island boat

On Ile Royale, with Ile du diable in the background (I think) Bass, Milot, Me

That beach is made of shells!!!

 Photo credit goes to Isabelle for the first one and Bianca for the second to fourth.

** Chicken Fight is a part of my vocabulary introduced to me by another assistant, Liam. It involves riding on someone’s shoulders and then jousting with a similarly mounted enemy to see who gets slewed of their steed first.