jungle thoughts

i just got back from a long solo jungle hike. theres a nice trail up a mountain here where you can see a good amount of wild life without being too far from civilization. immediately upon entering the jungle, i saw a snake catch a lizard and drag him into the leaves to eat him. a frightening way to begin a journey. but im much larger than (most of) the lizards here and i dont think snakes want much to do with humans. so i carried on. walking alone has always been something i really enjoy. i feel like buddha. walking thinking walking thinking walking being. so i used the time to kind of digest the past week. ive been hanging with rhasta man quite a bit and despite the fact that we were born in two different worlds and we speak two different languages, we get along quite well and ive been learning a lot a lot a lot from spending time with him.

we went one day to a tiny village towards the interior of the country. there is a huge river that flows through it and we arrived just in time to watch a local family fish for dinner. the homes were beautiful and tiny and wide open and built into the earth. the people were friendly and the fruit was plentiful. rhasta man showed me how to knock some fruit off a tree by tossing a rock or something at a branch. not rocket science obviously but something i had never needed to know how to do. so we tossed rocks at this giant tree until a softball sized, brown skinned fruit came tumbling down. he promised we would open it as soon as we got home. we drove for a while through some twisty jungle/mountain roads until we reached a look out spot high up in the hills. the sun was just fixing to set and due to the recent rains, there was a thin fog over the tree tops. in that spot, at that time i really felt like i was at the edge of the earth. so so so far from home. (and today i received an e-mail from dad with a photo of the sun setting over lake michigan. which reminds me that im not that far from home after all).

so, like i said, rhasta man lives in a hut in the jungle. but his parents live in mansion on the beach. so we went one day for lunch at his parents where his father designed the home and built everything in it, where the pool is built on a hill and looks out over the ocean and where the dogs eat coconuts by pealing the outer layer and chucking the nut against the wall to crack it open. we ate a kind of mashed potato like dish only instead of potatoes we used papaya! we talked a lot about culture and rhasta man told me all about the students in his school who take pirogues to class (little canoes) and who are the first generation to be attending school and how the concept of time does not exist in native cultures the way it exists in the modern world and the problems that it can cause in the classroom.

he taught me that kay'la means home in creol. which is really cool. because before i left i was so stressed about my home or the lack there of. and not that i should need such a literal connection but it is a reminder that our home is what we make it and while were traveling, we often cant make much. so we are our own home. and thats comforting.

and we talked a lot about music because he is a musician and i am in love with a musician. i think, and this is just an idea, that there is like...a sound that is intrinsic to certain locations. you know like...the way that the earth would speak if it could. here that sound is like steel drum-reggae-celebratory-tribal chant. and its interesting to know someone who was born and raised here and to hear the music that they make its like a language on its own. i have been listening to haitian music a lot and its funny because before i came here i dont know that i even thought of music coming from haiti i just thought of the hurricanes. and truthfully, i didnt know a single person from haiti and because of the way it is portrayed in the news, i didnt really want to. but two people i have met here-bass and milo-came from haiti and are professors here and are two of the friendliest, and most sincere people know. not to mention they are incredible dancers! if anyone wants me to send them some haitian tunes send me your e-mail. i would be happy to attach a few songs! although...part of the music being intrinsic to the location is that in michigan...durring the fall/winter...i dont know what this music will do for you. but here is hot! and its perfect. it sounds just right playing at a party in the night time and it goes so well with rum.

this is a messy post. but there is a lot to say, as always. and not nearly enough time to sit and correct the errors or attempt to write poetically.
so happy halloween everyone! eat some candy corn for me!!
a plus tard

photos!

so i was cruising through the night with my new friends from the market with the windows down and the radio up...the homes began to change from houses to huts and the roads went from paved to dirt and for a moment i thought of my mother and her message to me regarding my plans to join these new people for dinner. she said something along the lines of "use the buddy system". mother you will not be happy to know that i had not taken your advice and that i was on this adventure alone. for just a second i had the same kind of fear that i had while hitchhiking in greece with molly when that guy took a different route than the one i knew. its, i think, a kind of survival instinct. i found myself searching for a quick escape. but before i could get too worked up we had arrived. i got out of the car and was met by the most wonderful smell of jasmine. the plant grew up over his porch and met his guests at the entrance. the guys had well prepared for dinner and went to work right away in the kitchen. i was offered some of the best rum ive ever tasted in typical ti-punch fashion (brown sugar and lime and rum) while i waited and while the guys cooked. when we were at the fish market earlier in the day, greg (the native french guyanese-rhasta man) had bought something and i asked what it was but didnt think too much about it when i didnt understand the name. i am still learning french and i am quite often not 100% sure what things mean. so i was surprised to find out that we would be eating shark. of course...by now i am embracing the pescatarian lifestyle. we had vegetable bananas which are thrown on the grill in their skin and then peeled after they are cooked, a cucumber and funny green vegetable vegetable salad, rice and shark! we drank rum and listened to reggae music and then head out for the full moon party.

the party was at this huge house on the beach and there were easily 200 people there. they had a dj and a dance floor and a cooler the size of a car filled with drinks for everybody. i saw some friends there which is funny because i only have a handful of friends in this whole country. so we stayed up late celebrating the full moon and when i finally made it to bed at half past three i was more than ready. im going to post a few photos that i have taken recently. some of these new friends because im going on a trip with them tomorrow to the other side of french guiana! and some of my beach art because it is the first time ive taken to create on the beach which is my favorite canvas of all.

so here we are:

rhasta mans house

trees and moon

ella gives izzy a haircut 

sign for the dance studio by my house

sticks and shells

les vacances

in the united states, when the holidays come and it is time to take a break from work and school, i feel so relieved and so ready to take a load off. however, i just arrived (one month ago today) and its already time to take 2 weeks off. though please do not mistake this for a complaint. it just doesnt feel like i deserve it yet. most of my students have been on strike for the past week. they are protesting (i cant remember if i mentioned this already) the new retirement age. i think it is the case that you can retire in france at the age of 60 if you have worked for 40 years. now the age is 62. if you havent worked for 40 years you may retire at the age of 65...or now 67. with a pension decrease of 5% per year that you did not work. i think. the truth is...the students are not incredibly informed (this is no excuse for me to remain uninformed) but they use "la greve" (the strike) to get out of school. so anyways i have been working with 2 or 3 students per class for the past few days which is nice...very relaxed. and now i have 2 weeks off. most of the other language assistants in cayenne will travel to Kourou, a nearby city, where there will be a rocket launch on the 28th. i havent decided if i will go or not. likely i will be able to see/feel/smell/etc. the launch from the beach here and it will not be necessary to travel. anyways i have much exploring to do still in cayenne.

so last night i had a long jog on the beach and witnessed the most incredible moon rise i have ever seen. it was full and orange and came up just next to the mother island on the horizon. it appeared transparent for a while and the sky behind it changed the color back and forth from purple to pink to blue. it was far more impressive than your average sunrise. when i came home from my jog i made, what i think i am going to coin as, a green quiche (like green peace?). tons of vegis, all green, which cost a fortune here but were totally worth it. the quiche was pretty good! tom and i had a slice and then we head off on our scoots into the night. we met up with the brasilians (other assistants and our boss of sorts) for a drink or two before heading into town. we had a great night dancing at the Jungle Pub, chatting in our melange of accents, celebrating vacation!

this morning i had my first private english lesson with a girl named alice. she is 13 and will travel later this year to ireland with her class. her english is impressive and she was able to help me a bit with my french as well. we chatted about french guiana and the usa and r&b (everyone here is really into Beyonce, Rhianna, Shakira...etc.) after, i had some coffee and a head into town for the saturday market! the fruit is all local and i am constantly discovering new kinds. while i was walking through the different vendors booths i passed a handsome, dread bearing man at the reunion booth. he let me know, in french, that there were lots of good vegetarian choices there. i asked how he knew i was a vegetarian. he laughed and touched my wrist, which...i only kind of understand. anyways he invited me to have a smoothie with him and his friends. we had pineapple-orange-ginger smoothies and learned about each other. my friend with the dreadlocks is from a village in the interior of french guiana where he teaches math to middle school students. his friends were from martinique (he met them while he was studying there). one owns an organic rum distillery and the other is a physical therapist.

so we talked a while then we went to the fish market, a first for me, and while i was tempted to buy something, i opted against it because i am not quite ready to cook my own yet. anyways the guys invited me over for dinner tonight which i happily agreed to. hopefully they will cook some fish and i will get to taste it! after dinner there is a party on the beach to celebrate the full moon!

so vacation is off to a good start! thanks for reading-hopefully im not boring anyone. thanks for the comments, too! a plus tard.

bisous xx

hello again

the last few times i tried to post i was unsuccessful for one reason or another so its been a while. everyone doing alright? i hear the temperature has dropped a bit but that you are having a fall to remember. i feel a little disoriented because im missing it. anyone who has lived on a college campus knows that the pre-halloween buzz and the pumpkin carving and the rum and cider is what gets us through. its what sustains us as the weather drops. id become used to the changing of the seasons and the compulsory changes in outfits-lifestyle-attitude. but here the only change will be rain. although i think the temperature has dropped a little bit in the past few days from 100 to 95 or so. its nearly pleasant in the evenings!!

ahh its been a while and i have a lot to say. but the past week of events already seems less important than yesterday and this morning and right now. so i wont reminisce too much. yesterday evening i went with my roomie tom to play beach volleyball with some friends! so fun! we scooted there (tom bought a scooter too) and met up with elodie, her friend franck who are french. their friend carlos who is argentinian, sagi who is american, a woman who they called la matadora who was spanish (and feisty with a volleyball), and a handful of other people from brasil, portugal, england, french guiana etc. very fun. multicultural volleyball. multilingual volleyball!! so we played a while got good and sandy then went for a swim. the sun set was beautiful again! i think with rainy season coming on, the clouds are different and they lend themselves really well to the artistic desires of the sun. pink, purple, green, gray, orange, yellow, gold and the mountains become silhouettes while the sun ducks below them. its really something.

for the scoot home, i just wrapped a towel around my and put my helmet and sandals on and i felt like a real beach bum! this morning i woke up again for a morning dip. i had a cup of coffee and made my way to the waters edge. unfortunately the waves were too big this morning for my liking and i sat as an observer instead. i had a letter from gram and grampa this morning!!! so i wrote them back on the beach. its so different to have a tangible part of home here. a really sweet letter on a card with a tiffany design on the front with three photos inside. thank you g&g. you will be getting one back soon :)

i tried to post photos last time but my computer is slow and the internet isnt perfect so it took forever. but i managed to get them on facebook. take a look if you havent already! i had a trek through the jungle with Marielle, a woman i work with at the high school. we came acorss a few sloths, a bunch of monkeys, tons of butterflies and the biggest lightening bugs i have ever seen! we had a swim at her house in the shade of the palm trees, listened to some tunes, and cooked a big lunch (in our swimsuits!) we (mostly she) made a kind of thai-curry-salmon dish that was delicious and shrimp for an appetizer and i made an apple tart for dessert. so fun! today im going into work for a few hours and then im off to a dance class with another colleague! im really lucky to work at a school with people who are into hanging out with me. it means lots of practice with my french and some insight into life in the jungle.

im off now to the market to pick up a papaya (ive already had an orange and a star fruit today) and the newspaper. hope you are all doing well. staying healthy. stretching. reading. eating three times a day. (graham).

sending you the sun
kayla

le week end

working as a teacher (even just 12 hours a week) has made me so anxious for the weekend. not that my work is hard by any means. as an assistant i only ever rarely have a whole class to myself and when i do they are usually so pumped that their teacher isnt there that they are pretty easy to deal with. although i had a class this week of 37 eleven year olds that spoke almost no english and were not interested in the least. we have been instructed to claim to speak only english and deny that we speak any french. which makes for an interesting class because there are always the wise guys who crack jokes in french and then look at me like they just got away with something. but during this particular class i had to compromise a bit and holler a few things at them in french. they tend to surrender a bit of their pride when they know theyve been had. not that that was my intention. but i was flailing. you know? certainly...if i could go back in time i would be a much better student. i would study hard and i would listen all the time and i would never goof off. because i can see myself, or the student that i was in many of these kids.

so last night there was another beach party. the funny thing about parties here is they get started really early because it's dark really early (side note here...i dont use punctuation or capitalization properly or even consistently. and i know that. and i apologize for any frustration that may cause). so where was i...we (my roomie tom and friend ella) walked along the beach to this party and it was super dark even though it was only somewhere like 7:30pm. and the stars were all out and the beach was totally empty. it was about a half an hour walk so we had a beer along the way. sounds good hey? the party was at the house of a girl named elodie who is french and is 26 years old and who is putting in her time in the "outre mer" of French Guiana in order to gain points as a teacher. (in the french system you have to accumulate points in order to have options. french guiana earns you lots of points). so we had some drinks there but i was too tuckered out from having spent the whole day in the water/sun/sand so i had to walk home pretty early. the walk home was even better...not only because of the rum. but the waves seem louder at night. and our senses are heightened when we are alone (i think). and i like to have some time to myself here because it is kind of rare at the moment. though yesterday i had to say goodbye to my first real french friend. its not that i dont have friends here but most of them are other assistants or teachers in the same school, not that it makes them any less valid, but they are people who are in the same situation as myself and so we have a kind of camaraderie already. my friend that left was sam hes back to france to take some medical exams and to become a real live doctor (i think doctors in france earn points like teachers do). anyways i only knew him a little while but he made this place feel a bit more like home and i was pretty sad to see him go.

so im going now to the saturday market with sebastien and sebastien. and we will have lunch there and buy lots of exotic fruits and they will tell me how much they hate it here (they are divas...) and then ill come back for the sea...or maybe a scooter ride!



okay!
bonne continuation

la fete!

you know that feeling you get when you've been on a boat all day? like your body is still in motion...rocking with the waves? i have that all the time here. i swim in the ocean every single day usually twice a day. i went for a midnight swim last night and there was no moon so the stars were incredible! there were these little flecks of light on the water when i swished through it which i think are reflections of the stars? tell me if im wrong. anyways...its beautiful. and so calm. its the most calm in the morning and late at night.

the best advice i have received since i have been here is to listen to the water. the advice was delivered in french (ecoutez a l'eau) and was intended to help me during my very first attempt at wake boarding! it was very helpful and the moment i quit fighting the water and actually listened to the water i was able to get up and swish around. it was really scary and really fun and my body was totally sore for the next week (i am finally recovering). but the advice, listen to the water, has made much more of an impact than i think Sam (a young french guy living here and working as a doctor on a kind of internship semester) had planned. its truly therapeutic to sit by the sea and hear the waves. so calming. i have never lived by the water before and so i have never felt the affect of the ocean on an entire community. but it is incredible. in the evening the locals take their fishing poles and cast out into the sea and sit on the shore waiting for dinner to arrive. in the afternoon the students at the middle school i work at walk along the water to class, carrying their shoes in hand. even as im typing this i can feel the sea breeze and hear the waves. my skin has never felt so soft! i only feel okay saying all of this because i heard it was a beautiful day in michigan yesterday. somewhere in the 70's or 80's and plenty of sun! with orange and red and yellow leaves!!! it feels so far from here. even after the skype with mom and dad yesterday, i feel like im in a different world. which is both incredibly liberating and a bit lonesome. though the transition has been pretty easy so far. while i was chatting over the internet with mom and dad my neighbor Sigrid (pronounced zeegrid-shes german) and her son came over with a bowl of mangos a bowl of walnuts and a bowl of star fruit (carambol in french..i think) that came from their yard. today i am going with a man who works at the bank to help me arrange the scooter business. everyone is anxious to help us because we are foreign and unlike in france, they actually like americans here! or as one man joked, united states-ians. because they are americans here too!

i had intended to write about the parties this weekend and the concert i went to last night but ive written too much already and i have to get to the beach and start my trek to class. will write more later!

bisous xxxxx

more photos!

view of the sea through the trees

graffiti! anyone able to identify the toothless woman to the right of tupac?

downtown Cayenne

new friends! Stacy-Liam-Ella-Katy

at the house where i babysit (that's a mango tree)

afternoon siesta 

my backyard

home

this is the first time i have had my own place since i moved out of my tiny apartment in july. it really changes how i feel about this city. the reality of the length of my stay here has settled in. now this trip has become more of a move than a vacation. my house is the last on the street before the beach. there are palm trees in the back yard and jungle everywhere else...including my bedroom. i have seen the biggest frog-the biggest lizard-the biggest moth-and the biggest bug-that i have ever seen in my life! not all in my bedroom but just outside of it. 

school has started!
what i am discovering is that my english is awful. my french is awful. and im trying to teach english to high school students who are already at the very least bi-lingual, more commonly tri-lingual, and for some-learning their 4th language. i met with three different classes today and they all asked a million questions about america and about michigan and about michael jackson and eminem and my family and my job and my likes and my dislikes and my boyfriend and my friends. i am only still processing everything and cant even comment just yet about it all. it was totally overwhelming.

im going to nap now, because that is what we do in the middle of the day. then im going to the scooter store to spend all of my money on a moped so that i can get to and from my school with a bit more ease.

i have an address and i would love to get some mail. postcards and photos would be great! i would love to share them with my class.

here we are:
Kayla Powers/Camille Desflots
Lot Stanislas
58 Lot Les Becassines
Remire-Montjoly
97354 Remire
French Guiana

hope to hear from you soon!

un rêve

its hard to imagine what i was afraid of now that i am here and all is so well.

i had a long ocean swim yesterday with my new friend Liam (from NY lived in New Orleans and before that senegal) and while we were bobbing around in the salty sea with the jungle wrapped all around we tried to remember what it was that people told us about this place before we came. what was it that we were supposed to be afraid of? the wildlife? in the town there really isnt much. the mosquitos are stealth but their bite is not as painful/itchy as the ones that i encountered this summer. outside of the jungle i havent seen a spider yet. just butterflies. and flowers. and handsome french men and beautiful french women who, like ourselves have fled the conventional life for a taste of the tropics. granted-we have only been here a bit more than a week-but it feels like home.

in fact, im moving into my new home tomorrow! the place on the sea with the architect and the musician. i will post pictures of that soon. today i will go to the market and buy some fruit and a bowl made from a coconut and probably a scarf to put over my poor toasted shoulders. and then i will ride my bike to the beach where some friends are meeting for an afternoon dip. then i will prendre une sieste (one of my favorite parts of the day). we will go to a concert tonight in the center of town with the men we met the other night who are here as doctors for 6 months who come from france.

flights are cheap in january. the yellow fever shot is the only one required to visit. will someone come down here and share this with me? you can rent cabanas by the week and i will have a moped to scoot us around town! it will be carnival in february and for three months there will be costumes and feathers and sequins galore! have i convinced anyone?

i hope this post finds everyone enjoying the red and orange and yellow leaves that have surely begun to decorate the trees. as much as i will miss a cozy sweater and some warm tea this fall-i am happy to have the sun and the sea on my skin for now.

a tout a l'heure
kayla