Marie-Galante: Beautiful Things

Bethany had visited the island of Marie-Galante with friends last year and she fell in love with the beauty and slower pace of life there.  So she really wanted to show me her special getaway spot.  We took the boat over and spent a couple days there.  We rented a little villa, a studio apartment set on the hillside overlooking the sea.

The really crazy thing is that this gorgeous villa with this breathtaking view costs as much as the Ankeny Ramada where I stayed three weeks ago.  Of course, getting here is a bit more expensive.

We ate some wonderful meals here, nearly all of them in restaurants on the beach and most of them included fresh fish.

We also bought some street food prepared by local women.  The pastries we bought from them were some of the best I've ever tasted.  Bethany encouraged me to try the local delicacy - caca boeuf  (cow poop).  You can see how it got that name.  But it's actually a sweet molasses bread filled with a coconut or pineapple filling.

We had a little bird friend who tried to join us for breakfast because he also loved caca boeuf.


Marie-Galante has a history of rum and sugar production (which I posted about yesterday) but it is still a large sugar producer and has three well-known distillires.  We toured two of them, including Pere Labat - considered by many to be the best rum.  What was interesting to me is how rustic rum production is here.  The sugar cane is grown on the island so it's harvested and brought over by truck or even ox-drawn cart!  It's pulverized and the juice is extracted.  Then it's boiled in big open vats.  Nothing about the production of the rum looks modern and shiny, but I can't complain about the finished product.  They offer free tastings and they make some very fine rum here.

Lastly, two random beautiful photos.  One is of a natural cave on the north side of the island.

And this last one is of me swimming in the Caribbean sea.  In my younger years, I would have searched for a cute swimsuit and laid out in the sun - baby oil on my skin and lemon juice in my hair.  I would have been horrified to appear in public looking like an old lady or - gasp! - a tourist.  What is beautiful to me about this photo is that I am out in public - factor 45 sunscreen slathered on, a rashguard swim shirt to fully protect me from the sun, an oversized hat to fully cover my face and neck and even clip-on sunglasses to protect my eyes.  I am the living stereotype of a tourist.  And even though I undoubtedly embarrassed my daughter, she was kind enough to not say anything and she let me swim and play in the ocean, enjoying all the beauty around me without sacrificing anything to vanity.  And that is truly a beautiful thing.

Marie-Galante: Reminders of Slavery

Bethany and I spent some time on the island of Marie-Galante, an island that is part of the Guadeloupe archipelago - as is colorfully portrayed on this trivet.

But unlike the main island, Marie-Galante never developed urban centers.  It is still very pastoral, with small Creole-style towns.  Like most islands in the Caribbean, Marie-Galante was once a big rum producer, and slaves were brought in from Africa to produce the rum.  Of course, the U.S. has our own shameful history of slavery, but what is different on Marie-Galante is that there are remnants of that history all over the countryside, literally towering over the people as they go about their daily lives.

These abandoned sugar mills from the days of slave plantations are all over the island. According to Wikipedia there are 72 of them on the island.  72 reminders to the current citizens that their ancestors were brought here against their will and forced to work as slaves or that their ancestors had owned those slaves.  I grew up in Iowa and now live in Kansas.  I have toured a former plantation or two while on vacation.  But it was such a strange experience to drive around this beautiful island (I'll show you those photos in my next post) and see constant reminders of the history of slavery.  They cannot run from it or pretend it didn't happen.  In fact, the windmill/sugar mill is the symbol of the island (see it on the trivet above?)!

We toured one of those former sugar/rum plantations where once over 300 slaves labored.  It is called Habitation Murat, and the director of this museum happened to be the same Hubert we met the previous day (I posted about Sunday dinner with his family.)  He took us up to the second floor of the museum, the former master's house, so that we could get a view of the grounds and the ocean in the distance.

 It is a great museum, small but interesting.

Near the remains of the old factory, there were a few signs in English, explaining the history and the importance of remembering that the history of the island was built on the backs of slaves.

The final paragraph on the top sign says: "May the sites on this slave route enable us to surpass this crime against humanity, to finally live with our history and no longer be haunted by it."

It seems to me that this is a much more honest approach to facing the sins of our past.  Maybe driving by the reminders every day helps everyone confront the past and build a new future.  My time on Marie-Galante indicated to me that the descendants of former slaves and former slave-owners are making a way forward together.

Oh, the People You Meet!

My hosts, Katy and Hubert, invited us to Sunday dinner after church.  They also invited a family from church who had come over for the day from Marie Galante.  So there we were, all seated around the table, sharing goat columbo  (a local curry dish).  Katy and Hubert are French.  The family who came was also French, except for the grandmother who was visiting from Duesseldorf.  The grandmother did not speak much French, but she did speak English.  Her grandchildren - like most European teens I've met - spoke fluent French, German, and English and were learning other languages, too.

So, there we were, three generations from three countries, speaking haltingly in three languages and translating back and forth so that everyone at the table could be included in the conversation.  We sat at the table together and shared a common dish.

I love these kinds of moments, when the big world suddenly seems small and people are willing to speak slowly and translate so that all are included.  It was such a great day meeting the Godefroy family - father Hubert and children Fllosselle, Couloumbe and Ysaumbert - as well as their friend Kaïsha Jerpan and grandmother Christina Greeven Bierkämper (who, unfortunately is not in any of these photos but is in photos from my previous post from the church service). There truly is a holiness in breaking bread together.

Sunday

Sunday I worshipped with the Reformed Church of France congregation in Guadeloupe. The pastor's wife, Liza, is from South Africa so she volunteered to translate the service for me.

 There were many things that were different in this Caribbean church.  There was no air conditioning - just loud oscillating fans.  I can barely make it through a Sunday morning with air conditioning AND a fan so I was very impressed with Pastor Jean-Pierre's stamina.  The musicial instruments were a recorder (yes, like the one you played in fourth grade), a small electronic keyboard and two guitars.  There wasn't a sound system and all the songs were from the hymnal.  The musicians remained seated as they played.

But there was much that was familiar, too.  Warm greetings (even if I still don't have the hang of the kissing-the-cheek greeting), the Lord's Prayer, scripture and singing, lots of singing (including one song with English options).

And although I'm really proud of the extravagant hospitality at Living Water - with a continental breakfast available during worship - I must say that this church put on quite a spread for the fellowship time after worship (although the photo only shows half the table of food).

 The focus of the day was "mission" so they talked a lot about the Fete Des Familles from the day before and Bethany shared a bit (in French!) about her life as a missionary.  At the end of the service they introduced their guests so they asked me if I wanted to say something.  I figured this might be my only chance to speak to all the people who have helped Bethany and cared for her, so I said thank you.  "You have not only been her church; you have been her family."

There are many churches that have played an important role in her life, but this church will always have a special place in her heart and therefore in mine as well.

C'est Pour Vous!

Today was the Fete Des Familles - a party for the families of prisoners - hosted by the Global Ministries mission partner here in Guadeloupe. My daughter Bethany has been serving here as a missionary  for two years and she came up with the idea for this party.  Many people worked very hard to make this day a success, to create a day of joy for these families who live with a lot of stress.  And it was a huge success!  Over 120 people came and enjoyed food, drinks, music, games, a bounce house and a clown.  So many people expressed profound appreciation for this event.  Some of them were even tearful.  The title for this post came from my favorite moment of the day.  A woman who had come to the prison to visit her son looked around at the festivities - balloons, food, games - and she timidly asked one of the volunteers, "What is happening here today?  Who is this for?"  The volunteer, Katy, smiled and threw her arms open wide. "C'est pour vous!" (It's for you!)

I'll post some of my favorite photos with descriptions.  However, to protect the privacy of the families, I wasn't able to take photos of all the smiles and all the beautiful faces we saw today.  The faces you see in the photos belong mainly to volunteers and their families. 

The day began at 8 am when the volunteers arrived to set up tents, the bounce house, the DJ table and the food and drinks table.  I was in charge of blowing up balloons so please take a moment to admire them.  Saturday is a busy day with many families coming to the prison to visit loved ones so we set up the event in the space behind the family visitor center.

Men a Lespwa is the organization that sponsored this event.  They are somehow connected with and not connected at all with the Reformed Church in France (The Global Ministries partner).  It's too complicated for me to figure out how they're separate so I'll just say this: except for Bethany's two friends, this event was staffed with volunteers from her local congregation.  Above is the schedule for the day.

The food! The drinks!  So good and so French!  There were pastries and quiches and a cake (with no frosting).  They also served candy and cookies and sausage (yep, sausage).  And olives. And pickles. And peanuts. And watermelon.  It was the strangest party assortment I've ever seen but people loved it.  The drinks were all donated by a local business so I got to try licorice-flavored pop.  It tastes exactly as you imagine.

In Guadeloupe, clowns are a serious business.  I mean, they make good money.  Better-than-ministry money.  So they're very good.  This clown performed inside the family center.  Notice the beautiful mural painted on the wall featuring scenes from historic Guadeloupe.  (I discovered today that a fear of clowns is apparently universal because one crying child refused to go in and watch the show.)

There were silly outdoor games like velcro tag and two games involving silly dancing.  In the first one, the partners had to dance with an orange between them (that's a mother-son team in the photo).  In the other game, teams danced on an open newspaper but each time the music stopped,  they had to fold the paper in half and have one less foot touching down.  The photo above shows how they got creative after two folds and losing two feet per team.  The last photo is just regular old dancing - you know, the Whip and Nae Nae and the other dances the young people are doing these days.

This is what the day was all about.  Families had an opportunity to write messages to their loved ones in prison.  Children drew pictures of themselves.  Grandmothers told their grandchildren that they are praying for them.  The messages were written to parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers, children and grandchildren.

We have families like these living all around us, too.  Their suffering is invisible but just as real.  How wonderful to spend a day telling them, "We see you.  We know your struggle.  Let us treat you to a special day."  It was a tough, sweaty day of ministry but the Church was here doing what the Church does best - loving people with the outrageous, abundant, inclusive love of Jesus.  So glad I got to be a part of it!