Island Specialty

Some things are just different on the island.

One of the things I started to notice right away was that the local people here like to express themselves by plastering words on the front or back windshields of their cars. This is somewhat akin to bumper stickers in the US, some of which can be quite hilarious, puzzling or rather ridiculous themselves (I've seen lots of "My Kid is an Honor Student!" of late). Here, people with religious bends cite biblical quotes. For some people it seems to be a way to self-proclaim or self-affirm (cars that say, for example, "Landlord", "Dread Man" or "Spice Girl"). Some seem downright poetic (a simple "IMAGINE"), while some appear to lay down bossy, albeit seemingly random commands ("Do Not Slide"). Some people just seem to take a pi** or are just mad at the world ("The Middle Finger"). They can be found in English, French, and Creole. One thing you won't find, however, is a non-local person at the wheel of such cars (i.e., people from the mainland France, US, Holland). This seems to be, at least to my eagle-eye observations to this point, a uniquely "island" phenomenon.

I've been taking pictures whenever I can. Here are some to start you off. I suspect I will have quite a gallery of such pictures in the coming months, as cars like these are quite common! Sometimes I find myself without a camera and I bemoan the lost opportunity to capture this part of the island culture...

Here is one that seems to capture some happy-go-lucky driver:


Here is one that seems to embody a rather grumpy driver:


Sometimes just a short indication of the driver's (or a loved one of the car owner, I guess) astrological sign:


Sometimes it can get rather verbose (we will have to come back to this car on a later post):


Stay tuned for more!

6 Months in Pictures

So here goes, a quick summary of the past 6 months in pictures:

August:
We arrived on Friday the 27th of August. We hit the Maho beach pretty much straight away, the girls finding the heat a bit much upon exiting the airport (even though we were arriving from hot NYC!). Saturday 28th we spent at the beach as well. Sunday the 29th was full hurricane preparation! -Hurricane Earl was about to hit the island. Originally thought to be a wimpy category 1, by Sunday morning it was forecasted to be a pretty fierce category 3. The forecast was eerily correct - rain and winds really picking up by 8am Monday and continuing all day long until about 6pm. The girls got quite spooked by this, and kept on saying, "Mama, you said in St Martin it's sunny every day!" - I realized then, belatedly, that I never spoke to them about the hurricane season! The winds were impressive and unrelenting - I never heard howling windy sounds like that, even during the couple of hurricanes that we experienced in La Reunion.

By Tuesday morning, the sun was back - but there were lots of trees and debris on the ground and I took this picture of the view from our flat:


September:
The beginning of the new school year for the girls. They were split this year since the elementary school did not have a kindergarten section. This was a big shock for Manolee, who was used to seeing her big sister from time to time in the hallways or the cafeteria or the courtyard. The girls were not enchanted with their respective schools, much to my chagrin. So September was a trying month for us all, as I tried to make the best of having three less-than-happy campers in the family - we hit the pool almost everyday after school, we tried exploring different beaches, we tried dealing with stuff that we had largely been sheltered from up to this point: things like lizards, iguanas, flying cockroaches, weavils, ants.... and here is the majestic iguana that lounges around the pool:


October:
The girls were getting used to school life, though I would not go as far as saying that they were starting to like it. They were bummed when I announced that we wouldn't be going to NY for Halloween (for the first time since 2004) - but with our friends we hit the Princess Country Club for its Halloween party. Hanaya won third prize in the kids costume and strut contest, much to Manolee's unhappiness and jealousy fits that lasted about 45 minutes thereafter:


November:
We had two of my best friends from the US visit - a bit of drama at first since one of them missed the outbound plane and had to rejig all the vacation dates by one week, but all went well in the end. We discovered much of the island with them and it was super fun to be surrounded by good friends ALL THE TIME. Our friends had a good time too, as they promised to come down as much as they can! November also marked a turning point for Manolee, as she started to really enjoy her school. Instead of crying at pick-up time and giving me much angst (she used to feel anxious that I wouldn't come pick her up on time), now she was starting to hide from me when I showed up and complaining that she wanted to stay longer at school.


Picture on Left: Kids fascinated with iguanas on Pinel Island
Picture on Right: Kids and adults fascinated with landing planes on Maho Beach

Pictures above: Kids on Orient Bay

December:
The visit from my mother-in-law and preparing for Xmas took up much of the time. It began to feel much cooler, and I stopped going in the water (too cold when getting out). We met a few tropical Santas, all of whom I felt really bad for, having to dress up the traditional way in the heat. We spent New Year's Eve at first with our good friends C. & C., but then went to one of the grand villas in Terres Basses where they had giant TV screens showing NYE celebrations around the world, fire eaters and cha cha dancers. We then came back to our friends' house where we stood on their roof and watched the fireworks from around the island.

Picture on Left: Santa on Pinel island
Picture on Right: The girls at the Maison de Pere Noel, a major Xmas attraction on St Martin

January:
Last month went by really fast. My dad came for a week - he really enjoyed being here, especially since NY was undergoing a major cold spell. The girls loved having him here and were a bit deflated after he left. The weather was just gorgeous while he was here.


There you have it, our 6 months in pictures!

Why so quiet?

Moving to a new place normally should mean plenty of material for blogs. Moving to an Caribbean island normally should mean bucketful of material. Despite the abundance of blog-worthy topics that I've encountered, I have however been very reticent of late, and here is why.

A certain member of my family has been miserable since his (ok so you know who it is now, the sole male member of my immediate family) arrival here. He got here a month before I did, so he had to deal with a lot of stuff by himself - finding a place to live, fixing up his office, dealing with French bureaucrats (not only French, but French Island bureaucrats). By the time I arrived, he was frankly ready to leave.

I didn't want to broadcast to the world (or rather, my blog readership of maybe 3, including self) what the situation was like. Even though things have improved slightly now, I don't want to go into details. Bygones be bygones, right.

Anyway, we've now been here for 5 months, and methinks I'm ready to start posting every once in a while. There are just too much good material, it would be a shame not to share.

To start you off, here is a funeral procession that I witnessed today, truly island style:

Till next post!

Reigning Confusion

One of the things involved with moving house is buying new household products since, I for one, will not schlep half-empty bottles of detergents and dishwashing liquids across the ocean.

I have a friend who raved, as one does, about the new Dawn foaming dishwashing liquid. I took this opportunity to try it myself.

After a couple of uses, I thought to myself that my pots still kinda feel greasy. I took a closer look at the bottle. Here it is (I must admit, the bottle does look rather snazzy compared to its peers):



Wait, a closer look:


"Antibacterial HANDSOAP" followed by "Citrus Kick Dishwashing Foam"

I got confused. Is this handsoap or is this dishwashing liquid?

I thought, surely, there's gotta be more info on the back of the bottle. What I found, however, confused me even more:


Now, I clearly remember picking up this bottle in the aisle with other dishwashing liquids in the supermarket. How could it be, that on the back of the bottle, all it mentions is the use and directions for washing hands? No mention of dishes, pots and pans?

So which is it, is this a handsoap or is it a dishwashing liquid? Is it interchangeable? If so, why does the bottle not mention anything about dishwashing on the back?

I thought it was just a fluke from the Dawn brand. Imagine my astonishment when I found the exact same on a bottle of Joy!?





I feel like I'm totally pulling a Jessica Simpson (is it chicken or is it tuna?) - but honestly, is it handsoap or is it dishwash?

Googles Searches Tell Lots!

Here are some sample google searches I have had to do in the past couple of weeks since arriving in St Martin - most are self-explanatory and will give you a gist of our new living situation/challenges/preoccupations:

> capturing lizards in house

> mosquito repellent effective for kids

> mosquito netting

> installing window screens

> difference riptides and undertow

> hurricane categories

> plywood window boarding hurricane

> hurricane readiness supplies

> no leak swim goggles for kids

> Storing rice hot climate

> Ciguatera fish poisoning

French Titles

OK August was a bust, no postings at all - shame on me. Will have to fill in the details about our move and all that at some point. For now, a much more pressing matter to report:

I read a few books this summer and I especially enjoyed the Stieg Larson books, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire.

I was a bit taken aback when I discovered these books on sale locally:


Les Hommes qui N'aiment pas Les Femmes

Translation: Men Who Do Not Like Women

Now how is that a justifiable title for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Of course I get it, the book is about men who abuse women, fine. But why not La Fille Tattooee or La Fille a Tattoo de Dragon? Why do the French have a tendency to make everything so obvious? Similar to the question I had on Movie Title translations, who gets to make these executive decisions?

Should we take a look at the second book, The Girl Who Played with Fire?


In French it's called La Fille qui Revait d'un Bidon d'Essence et d'une Allumette.

Huh? The Girl who Dreamt of a Gas Container and a Match?

Do the French not play with fire? Cannot fathom such a notion?

OK so for the third book, which I have not yet read, which in English is: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

In French:



La Reine dans le Palais des Courants d'Air

Hmmm. The Queen in the Palace of Moving Air, or in the Palace of Air Currents. Maybe I am translating too literally myself, maybe the palais of courants d'airs means something symbolic in French that I am unaware of, or seeing how the French love to state the obvious, maybe there is really an airy palace of some sorts in the book. Nonetheless I am surprised at how the French title is so far from the English title. Do they not get the risk implied with kicking the hornet's nest? Do they not have hornets in France? Could they have replaced it with Bee's Nest?

That makes me wonder, what are these titles in its original language, Swedish? Are we the ones butchering it? I suspect not, but I have been wrong before....

French Originals

A good friend told me the other day that she went to the premiere of a movie called "Dinner with Schmucks". The title sounded vaguely familiar to me, so I asked her what it was about. She uttered maybe 5 words before it hit me - it was a remake of a French movie that I absolutely love, called "Diner de Cons".

This made me think of the countless times when the French were quick to point out to me that a lot of things that, to me, are American are actually French in origin.

I was once flabbergasted and incredulous when we heard Frank Sinatra belt out "My Way" one day, and one of PeeWee's friends turned to me with what resembled panic in his eyes, and asked me, you do know that this song is actually a French song? I of course went, "no way". He was insistent and accused the Old Blue Eyes of stealing a very well known French song called "Comme d'habitude" by a hugely popular (and dead) singer called Claude Francois - huh? I thought this to be evidence that everyday Frenchmen still suffer from illusions of grandeur from the country once being a World Power.

Then came a series of American movies that I actually knew to have been French originally, because I had actually seen them in French a few years before they were adapted by US studios: "Three Men and a Baby", "La Femme Nikita", "Cousins", etc.

Then a month or so ago, I came across an old article in Vanity Fair about the heydays of Disco, and it says that two of the founding members of the Village People were French!! Wow! I sure was impressed!

Give them credit where it's due, I guess. Now I am dying to see Dinner with Schmucks. The Schmuck is played by Steve Carell, and I think he will have a lot to live up to - the original character is played by Jacques Villeret, a very famous (and now dead) actor. Compare the two:

The French one:

The American one: