by
Mykel Board
ENTRY
SEVENTEEN
Nov,
2013
[Recap:
From the start, it doesn't look good for this trip. Everything goes
right... always a bad sign. Nothing portends disaster like
everything going right.
Easy
subletter in New York... smooth flight to Miami... promises of “meet
you at the airport/seaport”... $10 a night accommodations in
Guyana, the rest free.
Uh
oh! Too good. The better the news before, the bigger the fall later.
And things get worse. (Better) Miami goes so smoothly you could cry.
The only problem is a lot of rain-- heavy rain. The streets are
rivers... waves in the pool. I get wet. Very wet.
Then
on to North Trinidad, where my friends pick me up at the airport and
take me drinkin'-- and more drinking. Then, to South Trinidad... some
fun adventures... meet a Goddess... er... Empress... of a girl. It
doesn't rain so much in Trinidad.
Then
off to Guyana.
In
Guyana, my facebook friends from KEEP
YOUR DAY JOB!
meet me at the airport. From there, we go to Jamal's. This is the
only time I have to pay for a place to sleep: 15 days for $150. Not
bad. No, it doesn't go perfectly. But it goes, and I meet some great
people in the country-- including Jamal. My trip to Kaiteur
Falls
in the jungle is-- at 741 feet-- a high point.
The
two weeks of my stay in Guyana are adventure-filled, and beer-dulled.
Most days, it rains. Sometimes for just an hour or two in the
afternoon. Sometimes all day.
“I
don't get it Mykel,” Jamal tells me. “This isn't the rainy
season.”
“Rainman,”
I say.
He
doesn't get it.
The
plan is to travel to Suriname with Keep Your Day Job! But, uh
oh... a drummer problem. Two drummers agreed to tour with us. One, a
close friend, the other, more PUNKROCK. They ditch the friend for the
punkrocker. He bails at the last minute. The now former-friend
doesn't answer emails. This cannot work out. We go to Suriname
anyway-- drummerless. It works out.
In
Suriname, I stay with Jose, a punkrock student and his super-generous
parents. They cook for me every day. I mention a local synagogue;
they arrange a tour. I mention a trip to “the interior,” bang,
we're there... surveying monkey meat. When dad can't do it, they get
Jose, to chauffeur me; as if he doesn't have enough with schoolwork
and his own band, ADHD
He hopes for rain... It's an excuse to stay home. Often, there's
rain.
Then
it's on to French Guyana, where the brother of one of my top ten
pals, Simon,
lives with his
girlfriend Marie. His name is Florian.
I
take a small boat across the river that separates French Guiana from
Suriname. The captain lets me choose my port of entry: “legal or
backtrack?” I choose legal. At customs, I annoy the white
immigration officers by asking for a passport stamp. They give it to
me and hustle me away. I'm hungry as shit and don't know where I am.
It's raining.
What
happens? Marie meets me on the road, helps me negotiate a ride with a
French Guianan truck driver, and gets me to her place. Smooth as a
baby's ass. The first morning is a crepe breakfast. Then a dip in the
pool. Then, I donno. Everything is spot on... except for the rain.
My
first days in French Guyana are distress free... unless you count the
bottom paddling I get from my friends' spare bicycle. I have one of
the best days of the entire trip: canoeing through the Amazon with
Florian as my French guide. Chased by dogs, paddle-blistered hands,
bitten by mosquitoes, stuck in the roots of swamp trees... it's
wonderful.
The
only thing better, I'm told, will be THE CARNIVAL... an all night
festival my hosts and their friends have been working on for months.
Before
that, I take an afternoon trip to a former French work camp, a type
of holding prison for workers sent to French Guiana when it was a
penal colony. Papillon scratched his name into the floor of a cell
there.
After
that, it's meet the friends and experience a day in Nenge Tongo...
the people and language of escaped slaves. I only have one night left
here.]
============
It's
the BIG NIGHT®... the night of the circus, carnival,
benefit. The night my hosts have been working all year on. The night
of clowns, food, athletics, aliens on stilts. The most important
night of the French Guianese year.
Before
we textomaticly transport ourselves to these final festivities, let's
go on a last trip... to a Hmong village near St. Lauren du Maroni.
According
to Wikipedia: During the first and second Indochina Wars, France
and the United States governments recruited thousands of Hmong people
in Laos to fight against invading military forces from North Vietnam
and communist Pathet Lao insurgents, known as the Secret War, during
the Vietnam War and the Laotian Civil War. Hundreds of thousands of
Hmong refugees fled to Thailand seeking political asylum. Thousands
of these refugees have resettled in Western countries since the late
1970s, mostly in the United States, but also in Australia, France,
French Guiana,
Canada, and South America. Others have returned to Laos under United
Nations-sponsored repatriation programs.
Though there are plenty in the US, before this trip, my only contact with the Hmong was my French-Hmong pal Luc, who used to come to Drink Club when he was in New York. Here he is with the dogs at his farewell party in NYC.
 |
| Luc, at his farewell party in NYC |
The
Hmong Village in French Guiana has both a craft market and a food
market. The craft market has everything from used axes to Hmong-made
clothes. The fabrics are very different-- more muted and patchworky--
than the Nenge Tongo ones I saw earlier. But they're equally
interesting.
 |
| Hmong Fabrics |
The
fruits and vegitables are similar to others in the Guyanas... and
that means weird.
Take
an ugly tubor with the unfortunate name of MANIAC... Please!
 |
| Manioc! |
It's
a nice day. Only a few scattered clouds... like cotton balls... in
the bright blue sky. We eat at a Hmong outdoor cafe... have fish
with... er... fish sauce, waja think?
After
lunch, we stop for a Hmong ice cream before heading back into town
for the party to end all parties... the event of the century... the
massive culmination of weeks of work... rehearsals... planning...
jugglers... magicians... acrobats... everything. The sky is a bit
darker now, cloudier with a few marshmallow-looking Stratocumuli.
We're
off in the Hebdig jalopy. To the fairgrounds... somewhere out of
town... a large open field with nothing but a long dirt road going to
it... cars parked on either side. We park... get out of the car...
head to the grounds... walking along the dirt road. A few drops of
rain bounce off my fedora.
In
a few minutes, we come to the entrance gate: a large lean-to with a
table manned by a few attractive natives. Florian pays the entrance
fee for all of us. A native hands us each a beer token.
When
we enter, we pass a strange pile of wood. Just lumber, thin with
several large cross sticks... not sticks, but beams... something to
support a heavy structure. It's as if someone had planned to build
something... gathered the material... then had a change of heart.
We
pass what looks like a circus sideshow car. On the side, written in
overly designed font is BLANK
BE A PUNK. Huh? What does that mean? It'll take me this whole
blog entry to figure it out.
Right
now, I don't know, but it's fun to see some punkrock here.
First
stop: the trapeze... a fancy high thing... watched over by several
experts. While waiting for audience volunteers, they hang by their
legs and throw each other through the air.
“Mykel,”
says Florian, “why don't you swing on it. You're fit.”
“It's
not my style,” I tell him. “I was a swinger in the 80s, but that
was a long time ago.”
He
doesn't get it.
“Why
don't YOU go?” I suggest.
“Um...”
he says.
“You're
such poules mouillées,” says Marie... and she climbs on to
platform to prepare for the trapeze.
 |
| From Carnival of Rain |
You
know those spring showers? Those heavy rains that stop as quickly as
they begin? Those cool-off everything cloudbursts that are welcomed
in retrospect? This is NOT one of those. There is no end. No
stopping. No retrospect. This is a rain that keeps on raining. It is
a rain of the entire ocean dumping itself on this poor bit of land.
Mud,
rain, more mud, more rain.
 |
| Mud... rain... Mud... |
That
wood pile I saw when I came into this place? Now I get it! It's for
the ark! Two acrobats, two jugglers, two magicians, two trapeze
artists... the only ones to make it out alive. 40 days and forty
nights... waiting for the dove with an olive branch...
The
show goes on, but I'm miserable. Soaked, frustrated from so much
spoiled by rain. I'm the bad guest, I grab a chair from a nearby
soaked field... bring it under a food tent... next to the barbecue...
smoke in my eyes... MOSTLY out of the rain. There I sit and sulk.
Florian and Marie go off. They've got obligations. The show must go
on... One leg of my chair sinks into the ground. I spill into the
mud.
 |
| Mud lake... this is only the start |
“Mykel,”
calls Florian. “Come and see this. We worked so hard to put it
together. You'll like it.”
Trying
to suppress my inner misery and outer assholitude, I wade out onto
the field in front of the stage.
There,
on stilts, is an alien.
 |
| Alien |
There
are more... green hair... white jumpsuits... mostly girls... some
“girls”... This is gonna be fun. They're wearing white. They're
on stilts. The ground is pure mud! Oh yeah.
Yes!
It happens. Again and again.... once right in front of me. PLOW!
Covered in brown... like the bottom of a toilet at a bad Mexican
restaurant. The splash covers me too... neck to knees... brownness...
thick mud clumps... serves me right for the schadenfreude.... but I
don't think so at the time. I go back... sulk under the food tent.
Every
10 mintutes or so, Florian... or Marie... comes over to try to cheer
me up. I won't be cheered. This is their BIG NIGHT, and I'm only
adding to the rain on their parade.
Somehow,
late and very wet, it's over. We slog back to the car. The road is a
calf-high river of mud. To walk we have to life a knee high...
higher...pulling our feet from the mud. THWUMP...THWUMP...THWUMP.
Finally
the car! Inside, water spills from our clothes onto the seat... the
floor. Florian turns the key.The engine spins in protest. Again...
again... Finally, it starts. The wheels kick up a mudstorm before
there's traction enough to leave our parking place.
It's
a sad way to end what was a great trip. I leave the next day to
retrace my steps and eventually end up in New York.
The
next morning, as I'm figure out how to pack my still-soaked clothes.
It's then that it hits me. That wasn't a BLANK BE A PUNK sign.
It was DON'T BE
A PUNK sign. I hope they forgive me.
-end-
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BUT
WAIT! THERE'S MORE! In an ultimately useless effort to rid myself of
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Just pay separate shipping and handling. (sorry US addresses only).
The details are here.
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