I went walking in the rainforest with some of the teachers from school. I only slipped over on my bum once, which wasn’t bad going for me. I found a cute bloke to help me across the river. His name was Germain and he was a classroom assistant at Caraïbes. After that we went [...]]]> Previous chapter

I went walking in the rainforest with some of the teachers from school. I only slipped over on my bum once, which wasn’t bad going for me. I found a cute bloke to help me across the river. His name was Germain and he was a classroom assistant at Caraïbes. After that we went for a picnic on the beach at Deshais. The waves there were huge, and we went surfing. It was great getting to know people. After the negative week I’d had, it was sorely needed.

Over the holidays I made several discoveries which helped the settling in process. I discovered the CIJ, from where I could access the internet. Guadeloupe was just starting to catch on to the net in the year 2000. I also found a shop which sold incense and joined a yoga class. Maybe Tim was right, I was just a hippy after all. I experimented making yummy food with mangoes, green bananas and plantain.

England was on the television hit by floods, storms and snow. I felt a bit guilty as I lay out on the beach one afternoon. but not for very long! Abigail had taken Amy and myself down to Sainte-Anne. It was lovely getting out of town and relaxing, although every time I looked out to sea all I could think about was all those miles between Jim and me. I still thought about him every single day.

As we were packing the picnic stuff back into the car, Amy told me something which had me kind of concerned. She’d been over to Providence to visit Mike, and on the way back home she mentioned that someone had given her a lift.

“A car stopped and these two guys asked if I wanted a lift.”

“Did you know them?” I felt worried. Things which would make me uncomfortable didn’t seem to bother Amy. The time we’d been at Tim’s it had been me who’d wanted to leave.

“No, but they were really nice.”

Abigail agreed with me. It was just too dangerous, she said. I’d rather get a bike and take my chances with the traffic. I may sound paranoid, but rather than try and get out of trouble I try not to put my person in that position in the first place. That’s not to say I didn’t have a couple of near misses myself that year, but Amy pushed her luck too far sometimes.

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It was a clear night, the moon settled into a Cheshire cat grin in the darkening sky. Abigail took us back via the cemetery at Morne-à-l’eau. It may sound bizarre, but Toussaint is one of the biggest events on the Gwada calendar. In a fusion of Catholic tradition and local superstition, whole families spend the day up at the cemeteries visiting the graves of their ancestors. They tidy the place up, put flowers out, get out the deck chairs and make a day of it. They’ll tell stories, sing songs, have a picnic on the tomb. When it starts to get dark, the families light candles and party into the night. It really is a massive social occasion. As we drove past the cemetery, there was something of a carnival atmosphere, with hotdog vans and candy-floss stalls lining the pavement where children played.

Death is a very important part of Caribbean culture. Every morning on the radio, there is an announcement of who is having their funeral that day, along with family wishes. They do this on most of the islands, regardless of the language spoken there. People listen to these announcements and sometimes even if they have the most tenuous links with the person will turn up to wish them well in the next life. So the text books say. Marie said it was more of an excuse to catch up on the gossip.

Marie would have got on very well with Jim. We were discussing politics after yet another news bulletin showing Mr Gore and Mr Bush waving around plastic swords. We came to the conclusion that there should be a party somewhere between the Greens and the Communists, and that we’d really like an interview with Fidel Castro. Now you can criticise the guy for a great many things, but I thought it was good on him that Cuba didn’t have any McDonald’s.

On the Friday before the Toussaint holidays came to an end, I had been invited to the Histoire-géo society’s annual dinner dance. I had a wonderful time and didn’t get home until three in the morning. Alex, one of the teachers from school and his wife came to pick me up and took me home, which was very good of them since they lived over in Petit-Bourg. They also brought their son Michel over with them. Michel was the same sort of age as I was and was studying for his maîtrise in applied mathematics. The very nice Germain was also there and asked me to dance, and asked me for my number.

On Sunday, I went over to Alex’s yacht at Bas-du-Fort. Afterwards, I went for a “petit tour” with Germain in his car. I suppose it was a bit rich after what I’d said to Amy about getting into cars with guys. But I’d met Germain a couple of times and he worked at the same school, so that was OK, wasn’t it? We ended up at his place (big surprise there). And then he tried it on (even bigger surprise). Now, I liked the guy, but I just didn’t want to get into this kind of scene when we’d only just met. I asked him to take me home, which he did. I was lucky, because he could have turned out to be a real creep and not taken no for an answer. I didn’t expect him to call me again. I had this mantra, “I can’t stand one night stands”. I had such high morals, back then.

However, a week or so later, he did call me. I was not completely happy that he did.

“Hi Germain, how’s it going?”

“I’m fine. I’m just outside your apartment.”

This threw me off guard. He’d called on the landline too, so I couldn’t pretend I was on the other side of the island or something. I should have said I was just on my way out or something, but I felt obliged to invite him up. Fortunately Marie was in, so there was little chance of any sort of problem developing. He left after about an hour, but wanted to take me back to his house. I said no, I had other plans. I made that up, but the guy had made it blatantly obvious what he was after and I wasn’t interested.

If we were to have any sort of relationship, I didn’t want him just popping up like that. Apart from anything else, it was just plain bad manners.

“Don’t be naïve, Kate,” warned Abigail when I told her about this incident, “He had no business just dropping round like that. He should have called first.”

“I’m glad you said that. I was starting to think that it was me who had a problem.”

“If you want to go out with him, fine. But he has to respect your boundaries. Go to the cinema or the beach, not each other’s apartments. Don‘t be too available. If he‘s genuine, he‘ll want to make plans with you in advance, and if he‘s a jerk he‘ll disappear.”

As it turns out, Germain was a jerk, and as Abigail predicted, he and his booty calls simply disappeared without trace. I didn’t see him again until several months later as I was coming out of the reprographics room. He’d put on a bit of weight, and I didn’t think he was that good looking anymore. Case closed.