Happiness Quotient in Guadeloupe

Months back, I received a message from someone who was reading my blog (!) and was also in the process of moving to Guadeloupe. Who knew anyone was reading this besides you? Furthermore, who knew anyone was choosing to move to Guadeloupe if they weren't being taken by a Pirate? At that time, we began exchanging emails and one half of Couple Moving To Gwada asked me a fantastic question:
What would you say is the happiness quotient of the people of Guadeloupe?

Here were my choices:

happy?
miserable?
welcoming?
stand-offish?

Now as I said this was months ago, and I thought about this for weeks. I wanted to give a fair answer, so I could not write about this on a day when the internet needed resetting three times and there was no wind at all and it was a million degrees and I had mosquito bites in places I couldn't believe they could get to. Not a good idea. I also didn't want to write while I was having my best moment here, after a fantastic day full of friends, because although that's positive, it's still not like that all the time. (It is more and more, but it's still quite lonely.) I wrote a bit. I saved the draft. Now I go back and look and it's interesting to see what I thought. Here it is, two months old view of the happiness quotient of the people in Guadeloupe:

"...happy, not miserable, and stand-offish, not welcoming. It's a blanket statement. I know...But at the moment it's my experience. I want to be clear though. To say that I find a culture not welcoming is not the same thing as saying I don't like it, or that I find the entire culture to be not nice. This is not the case at all.
The thing with living Someplace Else is that to a certain extent I think we expect that being from Someplace Else will aid us in making friends. Yeah, I've pretty much realized that this is princessy of me, because frankly, who cares? Does it make me a better or cool person because I'm from Someplace Else? No. BUT, It's a talking point, the similarity in that we're both here, but the interesting differences in our paths to get here. Right? As I'm finding, not so much. Or at least, not enough to break down the wall I find in the culture here. That is why I arrived at not welcoming."

So there it is. I wrote it. Each person I met didn't throw a parade for me to say "Congratulations American suburbanite for coming to reside on our island. Have a coconut!" Apparently this was disappointing a few months ago. Well, even a little time can change things I guess. I don't really think people are unwelcoming anymore. Why? I guess I realized that I don't organize a parade for every person I meet who is from somewhere else. Sure, I may be more interested in their story than the next guy, but that's my style. I've always been nosy. It's a gift until it ruins your own surprise party. This is a good example of growth in the first few years of living Someplace Else. Never get too set in your head about something because it - your view of things - may very well change.

Rasta Bug

Yeah, we're in the islands. Even the evil chenille caterpillar bugs who eat entire yards in one night are cool looking. Ten of these guys will seriously kill a yard in. one. night. What's fun though is knocking them out of the trees and vines with a broomstick and throwing them all in a plastic bag from the local toy store, and theeeeeeeen telling one of the kids to 'look what I got at the store!' and watch their face as they realize it's a bag full of angry writhing caterpillars with creepy shaped heads and big sucker feet, each one bigger than my biggest finger. HA!
A little cruel? Maybe, but quite harmless.

Oh, just ignore me. Right, you already did that.

Yeah, my blog is about the mostly funny side of starting a new life, in a new country, with a new language, and a new family. I also like to talk about food. This morning however I must focus on one particular topic that is ever-present: my new quasi stepmother status.

To be blunt, it's quite shocking even still to wake up some days and realize that I have responsibilities involving children. Two of them. Under the age of 8. I confess to daydreams of an apartment that had been listed as 'great for one person or a couple without children'. I confess also to longing for a sofa that is free of cookie crumbs, a toilet seat that is always down when I get to it, and just. plain. silence.

Now, there is no way that I'd rather be anyplace else - in general. But at times, yes, I would like to be teleported away. I'm sure The Pirate feels the same way as he's got a lot on his plate as well. But, I do protest that he's had a few years to practice getting used to this. Pas moi. I've been feeling ...well...it's hard to say really as I've been feeling many things, but mostly frustrated, so I turned to the all knowing interweb to see if I could find anything interesting to read about being a stepmom who hasn't had any previous experience with children. I did find LOTS of information. There seem to be a few general types of sites offering information about stepmother-hood. I find them to be in one of the following creepy categories:

a. Way too positive and chirpy and hopeful for me to even begin to relate to. I think these people are not really stepmoms, but rather friends of stepmoms giving the kind of advice only non stepmoms can give, ala 'oooohhhh, it's not so bad..be happy and set a great example!. Okay lady. Spend an afternoon trying to convince a five year old that you don't have the snacks he wants in the house - in French - which you don't speak very well, while he cries on the floor for his mother, and then tell me that again.

b. Just a plain bitch session, and mostly about the mother of the child or children. I just can't get into that. My stress points are my own and they have nothing to do with the mother of my stepkids. Thankfully the relationship with her is good. I really don't believe bitching about the mother makes anything easier for anyone, and really believe it's a harmful thing to do to the children and the ex husband.

The one thing I haven't found yet - and I'm hopeful - is information about how to deal with the normal stresses of being a new stepmom while you are also learning the kids language. Because for me, it comes down to being ignored and I detest that.

In general, it's easier for a lot of people to keep limited conversation with me, or to not try to talk with me. I understand this: I can only get so far in conversation in French, and if you can only get so far in English, well, there you have it. Entirely understandable. The same goes for the kids. Pile on top of that the fact that I'm still a relatively new arrival on the scene that is their everyday life, the fact that I'm not their mom, and the fact that they are human and just simply don't want another adult around who has the authority to tell them what to do, and well....yeah...the amount of ignoring that happens is large. I mean really, they literally just....watch me talk, and then walk away. Or don't even turn their heads when I speak, or act as if The Pirate is the only one in the room.

It's easier for them. I get it. But you know what? It really sucks.
What I realized just recently in an 'aha' moment that left me pretty bummed for the remainder of the afternoon is this: No matter what I do, no matter how fluent in French I become, no matter how much time, energy, and emotion I put into this situation, I will never reap the benefits of being the person these kids turn to for much of anything except a snack. No. It will always be a parent. I will never be the first person they think of when they panic, I won't be an automatic consideration for parent teacher day or anything like that. I'll always be just one step outside.
It's normal. It's par for the course. They have parents. I have no desire to replace or better any parent. It's strictly a matter of realizing, wow, I'm doing all the things parents do, the shopping, the driving to sports, the feeding, the coddling, the book reading, I'll do it all, because any other way just isn't natural to me, I'm not going to hold back...but in spite of these clearly parental actions, I'll always be, as they say in baseball, juuuuuust a bit outside.

I must confess, it's ...well...it's a bummer. Like I said, it won't change what I do, but it sure changes how I feel. I have moments of spitefulness: 'I'm just a babysitter, and for what?'.
So, the question to ask is, what am I going to do about it? Well, I'm enrolling in French school for non French speakers for one thing. Learning on my own simply isn't cutting it. I look forward to being able to understand more and talk back more, both in good situations and bad. That should help tremendously, but it will take time. I'm going to read more from other stepmoms so I don't feel so isolated and/or crazy in this situation. I'm going to ask my cousins who have raised amazing boys what I should expect, because I realize that a lot of behavior is simply 'kids' and not necessarily 'step kids', but how would I know the difference?
Lastly, The Pirate. The coolest guy I know. What to do with him when it comes to all this? To be honest I'm not sure. I think two kids, and having to help me with many things since I'm French deficient, well it's already a lot. That being said, there may be some things we can go over, things that may need to be adjusted now that he has a slightly different type of family. For me it's scary ground to walk on. I mean, if I know nothing, who am I to tell him how things should go?

I'm just going to put on some Bob Marley now, 'Please, don't you rock ....my boat...." Hahahaa...

Birth of a sterotype

Once you begin life Someplace Else, you begin to adjust. Someplace Else could be five miles away or five thousand. It matters not. In the same city I have adjusted to new neighborhoods, noticed the many little differences in many little things, such as the quality and quantity of coffee houses with free wi-fi, the presence of a natural food store, the cleanliness of the bus lines that stop there, the murals or graffiti, a difference in the cost of car insurance.

Now that I've been living Someplace Else for about half a year, it was on a recent trip with my new family to Disney World in Orlando that I felt a touch of what Orlando must look like people who have never been there before, people who (gasp) may have never seen a supersized anything.

Suddenly the average size of a person was quite noticeably different. We're not talking height, or basic body type per se, but rather that on average, people in and around the Disney Parks were in what seemed to me, a rather unhealthy state of obesity. Orlando itself, the land of never ending competition between chain restaurants and strip malls and outlet centers forced me into a big 'aha'.

I realized that had I been from say, a small town outside the States, and travelled for my first time to the States, to see Orlando in all it's glory, this would be my impression of America and her people. Some of the words I would use to describe the area surrounding Disney's parks are: big, repetetive, too much, loud, turkey leg fast food, and really white sneakers.

Et, voila, a stereotype is born. Got it.

How did I get here and where is the mall.

I'm not serious about the mall. Well, okay a little. Here I am, on the island of Guadeloupe in the french west indies. It's a laid back place filled with exciting little events, like coconuts falling from trees or having to kill an enormous cockroach with your flip flop. Yeah, it's not always roses, especially when you become convinced that the roaches know who you are and are running at you, ensemble, in some form of attack. Despite my war with the roaches, life is pretty sweet.

Now in my mid thirties, (when do I say late thirties? I refuse to do so until I've hit at least 38) I have this amazing opportunity to learn a new language, a new culture, and how to live in a family that consists of more than just myself. I'm learning a lot more than that but those are the majors. All of this learning makes for what I think are some pretty funny/cool/touching/interesting moments. I had the urge to share the ones that gave me the biggest belly laugh, a tear in my eye, a devilish grin, or that left me looking like a dork, the latter probably being the most common.

I grew up in the northeast of United States. I spent the last ten years in California. How did I get to Guadeloupe? Let's chalk it up to love. You just never know when it can hit, and all the major facets of your life seem to coordinate in a perfect performance, with you out in front, being pushed ahead in a way you never could have conceived of, until you are finally there, center stage. It's a little stressful, admitedly. Love can bring you places, but you still have to make your own way when you get there.

Life is different here as compared to where I have lived before: a bit slower. In a new place, without your close friends, it's easy to feel lonely even surrounded by people. I found myself thinking of walking around the mall here for many reasons, the first of which being that the mall is air conditioned. Heaven. The second reason is that well, sadly, I feel at ease there. I can just walk, look, listen, and if I so desire, pay for some goods. Easy. Easier than trying to keep up with french conversation moving at 100 miles an hour when you're stuck on the first sentence that ended five minutes ago. Someday......at least the book I bought said I'd be speaking French in 'just three months'!

...and so, this is the world of a suburban-raised, city loving, now island living girl who doesn't surf.