Guethary, France September 2001

Before I came to France, I thought it would be very restful not to learn the language. Due to a bad case of vocational burnout, I was looking forward to a time where it would be impossible to either speak or understand the spoken words of others. In France if I found a conversation or situation going south I could simply smile without incurring any social stigmas. I liked that idea. It brought back memories of being a small child free of the requirements of manners.

The je ne parle pas francaise party line was not as easy to implement as I hoped. Take yes for instance. Going on the assumption that the French for yes (oui) is pronounced like the English “we” seemed easy enough but the longer I heard it the more apparent it became that there are many more ways than you think to “just say yes”.

First of all oui is never said singly. It seems to require a dual or triple emphasis. Conversations, which are plentiful, (what could they be saying to one another all the time?) appear to need agreements at certain moments in order to progress.

The most frequent pronunciation reminds me of the ending line of the nursery rhyme, This Little Piggy Went to Market. When the last little piggy goes whee, whee, whee, all the way home the emphasis is on the “h” sound and has a considerably different tone; we-we becomes whee-whee.

Another variation is oui as way as in Little Miss Muffet’s curds and whey. This anomaly seems to occur when someone is agreeing very forcefully with his or her conversation partner. It seems to mean something like, yes that’s really true!

Then there’s the intake of breath before the oui, which comes out like ah-wah (rhymes with bah as in Baa Baa Black Sheep) which seems to be the strongest sense of agreement or perhaps belongs to the heaviest dialect. My main problem was figuring out when to say which one.

Sometimes ignorance can be a backdoor to knowledge. Being in the talking and listening business in the States actually prepared me for living in a place where I didn’t speak the language. At home when interviewing clients I learned to read between the lines. Already adept at inferring the truth behind the lies I discerned meaning from their inflection not their vocabulary. In the same way here in France, not understanding vocabulary freed me to pay attention to the meaning behind the words.

If you don’t like this method and still want to learn the native tongue, you can try my newest technique called Learning a Foreign Language through Context. It’s simple. Let’s say a native is answering a question you somehow managed to ask. You already know the answer is going to be a yes or a no. If you don’t hear some variation (piggies, lambs or curds) of oui, you can safely assume it’s a no-go. But if you hear a keyword, you can usually figure out the answer from the emotions in the context. The other day I walked to La Poste to buy a stamp to mail a letter to the US. The postmistress said many things in very rapid, completely unintelligible (to me) French. Since she accompanied this communiqué by pushing the envelope back to me, I quickly understood a definite no. Seeing my blank expression she repeated it again more slowly and I caught the keywords France, avion (airplane) and Estas Unis (US). In light of the recent terrorist attack on NY and the closing of US airports it came to me that letters in France were not being accepted for the US. Voila! All in all, it seems much easier to just learn the native tongue. But now that I want to parle francais, I can’t decide whether to say “whee-whee, way-way or ah-wah”.

UR-ONEA CAMPGROUND

Bidart, France September 2001

By sheer luck, or karma, here in the heart of Pays Basque, we stumbled across a campground that is out of this world. At least the world I have inhabited for the past month, which includes camping and washing on the side of the road and having to use unspeakable toilets.

Located about a ten minute walk from la plague which offers a great wave for le surfers and a daily chance to brown your belly or your breasts, Ur Onea is also a five-minute ride by car north to the famous town of Biarritz. Spain lies thirty minutes to the south.

Ur-Onea is a Basque word which means ‘good water’ which is appropriate because this campground is so clean that the manager washes out the garbage containers after the daily pick-up. And that’s not all, to my delight I found that there is good water everywhere. There are individual good hot water shower stalls with doors that lock complete with private sinks and electrical hook-ups for those devoted to hair dryers or electric razors. The staff also uses good water to scrub the sparkling tiled floors daily.

And then there are the sinks at Good Water campground. Sinks for washing dishes, sinks for washing clothes, a special sink for washing your barbecue (for the severely anal) and even a sink for washing le chien. In France the dogs love to go les campings. Ah oui, everything has the opportunity to be washed in good water at Camp Ur Onea.

Speaking of water, the use of toilets in Europe is another thing altogether. At first I was horrified to learn that les toilettes (12 or more stalls share one huge, communal roll of pink papier) are co-ed. It was only afterwards when I became very careful NOT to look to see if a guy was using the pissoir that I was able to go to le toilette alone. Tearing off the correct desired length of pink paper takes some practice. After coming up short a couple of times and having to run outside the stall in mid-stream, I learned to always take more than I thought I would need.

You do have your selection of booths; all are spotless of course. I think that in the middle of the night the fairies come in to clean-- no, fairies are far too spacey, it must be some middle earth group like brownies or gnomes. Anyway, your choice is between a spotless squatter and a toilet without a seat so you learn to squat either way. As far as I’m concerned the most important travel item if you are going to be camping through France is a pair of rubber flip-flops to wear in la bain, la douche et la toilette.

You can use the good water to wash your clothes on site at Ur Onea laundry room or iron a dress if you have a European adapter (very cheap at Wal-Mart). Another must on the travel list. Hint: buy two. If you don’t want to use the dryer, clotheslines are provided complete with hangers for every campsite. Most of the campsites are shaded by individual poplar trees and separated by 8’ high hedges, which provide visual if not sound barriers.

For entertainment at Good Water there is of course, the pool. Or you can rent a TV for your tent or frequent the public room that houses a color TV. For the wired there is Internet access (very rare in France mais tres cher) and a pay phone (pre-paid cards only, cash is not acceptable anywhere by France Telecom). A ping-pong table and boule sandpit are located opposite the restaurant which offers fresh baguettes every morning at $.50 and le petit store which will sell you most items from camping fuel to eggs (which are not refrigerated in France).

The French seem to love to camp judging by the number of our neighbors speaking the native language. Their attitude towards the experience is just as sophisticated as everything else they do. They arrive in tiny cars and set up huge tents complete with porches. There is the obligatory outside and chairs complete with a Provenance-patterned tablecloth at which they can be seen eating delicious looking les dejuners complete with the obligatory bottle of red wine.

Voila! For the price of $12 a day minus, of course, air fare, car rental and the tent you can join me in one of the most unique and enjoyable travel experiences, le camping at Ur Onea in Pays Basque, France.

IT’S A DOG’S LIFE

Guethary, France September 2001

In Bali all the dogs look the same. Thin, brown and mangy. They roamed the streets in every town we traveled through on that small island. We had a joke that it was really the same dog. The dogs (or dog) were always scrounging for food or dodging the overly congested and polluted traffic. You’d see them everywhere. You could be fooled into thinking that, like the gods to whom the Balinese make daily offerings, there are many dogs. But you know in your heart there is really only one.

There is no possessive tense in Bali. This is a revealing feature of the curious “no ownership” policy that the culture adheres to as a whole. It is impossible to say “that is John’s dog” in Balinese. Of course you wouldn’t even want to say it if you were a native. But if a foreigner asked such a silly question as “whose dog is that?” the grammatical answer would be “ that is John dog”. The real answer is that in Bali a dog, like everything else, belongs to no one.

However here in France, dog possession takes on a whole different meaning. It is on the point of dog food that they may come to some agreement with the Balinese. The concept of food made especially for dogs would strike the people of that Indonesian island as a huge joke. In France, too, but with a very different result.

In Bali the dogs look perpetually hungry but here on the southwest coast of France le chien is welcomed at mealtimes as an addition to the family. Taken along in a basket or carried by hand, the French dog is often seen at lunch or at dinner in the best restaurants. Once you get over the fact that the dog is not only welcome in a restaurant but is actually eating from the table (standing two legged on the floor, on his owners lap or seated in his own chair and drinking water from an appropriately placed bowl) it all begins to make sense, sort of. So far I have never seen les chien drinking wine but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least. I am sure they are consulted about the choice of menu.

To my surprise most of the dogs in France are small poodles which is obviously why they are called French poodles. If they happen to be of another breed they are still small, easier to carry in a basket I suppose.

But why aren’t there any French doggy police? Back in southern California, as in most US cities, dogs are very popular pets. But they are not welcome in restaurants, on the beach, or most anywhere. Oh yes there are those designated doggy parks where dog owners are forced to obey pooper-scooper laws under fear of fines. Following around their pets wearing plastic bags around their necks (the dogs not the owners) they can be seen waiting patiently to pick up their respective ‘boom-boom’. In Bail I don’t think the dogs get enough food to need to defecate but in southwest France the sidewalks are liberally laced boom-boom Disaster Zones. French owners of les chiens apparently feel no ownership in that department.

In the rare instance as in nearby Anglet where dogs are prohibited from the beach, a charming doggy house named Le Relais du Chien is provided for them while you surf or sunbathe sans top. Resembling an American playhouse, the blue and white petite maison sports all the comforts of home including screen doors and canopies over each of the eight windows.

In Bali, a dogs life, and life in general, is viewed as predominantly spiritual. The Bali dog roams the streets, underfed and uncared for living out its destiny regardless of mundane cares and woes. In stark contrast to southern California where dogs and a high standard of living are highly prized possessions. Consequently the dogs are well-tended, well-groomed and well-fed (canned Alpo but oh well). But the No Dogs Allowed attitude restricts dogs in southern California to a certain place in the scheme of things. Although comfortable and secure they are not free to either pursue the uncertain spiritual life of the Bali dog or to enjoy le bon vie of the French table.

Our next stop is Spain. I wonder if Spanish dogs stay up late and go to tapas bars?

GOING BANANAS, DRAGON’S BLOOD AND CANARIES

February 1, 2002

Hello from Tenerife, a beautiful Spanish island off the western coast of Africa! We arrived here with Brownie-our camper- about two weeks ago via ferry from Spain. After being road weary for the last two months in Spain and Portugal looking for our new stopping place (back to the US for the holidays too) it feels as if we’ve finally found it here on the largest of the seven islands that make up the Canary Islands.

The native’s -who we know as Canarios - refer to themselves as platanos, which means bananas. Could this be because bananas are the main export cash crop of the island? The real explanation, like life on this sub-tropical paradise, is much easier than that. Since here on the islands the banana is considered to be a noble plant that grows freely and happily and is popular with almost everybody, the people have naturally adopted its name.

Did you know that the banana tree is really an enormous herb that takes up to 15 months to mature one bunch of bananas? Often passed by because of its high carbohydrate and calorie content, the yummy banana contains vitamins A and C and potassium (good for calming the nerves).

What do bananas have in common with dragons? They both grow in the Canary Islands. The drago or the Dragon Tree is a survivor of the ice age and has lived on the islands for centuries. The drago looks like a palm tree drawn by Dr. Suess with its long trunk and spiky head of spear leaves shooting upwards. Its sap is red and is known as ‘dragon’s blood’. This same resin is used to make a red oil also called Dragon’s Blood. Dragon’s Blood is commonly used in metaphysics for protection for all that move in different realms of reality**. Imagine my surprise and happiness in finding the source here at the other end of the world! We seem to have an internal compass and follow it to the same destination no matter where we go.

There is a saying in Spanish - the world is a pocket. Why this little part of the pocket is called the Canary Islands is anyone’s guess. Yes, there are canary birds here but they are outnumbered by parrots. In ancient times Plato postulated that it was part of the continent of Atlantis, in legend Hercules was reported to have traveled to the Canaries when he labored to retrieve the golden apples, historically, the Romans called it the Fortunate Isles because of the mild year round climate. Whatever the origins of its name, we’re happy and very grateful to the gods to call Islas Canaries home for now.

In the Light with Love,
Pam

**Dragon’s Blood Oil can be purchased from my good buddy and fellow reader, Rev. Travis Tidwell at OSDdragon@aol.com

<< return to index of articles