St Barthélemy

I'm on vacation, which you may notice is the time when I kick back, post too much on Facebook, and write long missives after hard days soaking in the sun/culture/what-have-you. I am spoiled. And currently suffering the accompanying sunburn--serves me right.

The first family vacation with Hannah Phoebe (my lovely niece of 15 months) is under way! She has charmed much of the island of St Barthélemy, the language barrier being a non-issue for the pre-linguistic little darling.

For those who are not familiar, the island is French, Caribbean, mountainous, and filled with the extremely wealthy, the extremely beautiful, and the extremely reclusive. It has been remarked that the construction workers may have part time modeling gigs.

While most of the family vacation has been spent zipping about in our rented cars from beach to beach, hitting up French bakeries, and figuring out which days the butcher roasts chickens, the good stuff to report is always when things go awry. Here's a snippet.

Typical tourist behavior

Quick cast of characters, for those who don't know the family:

Mom: my mother
Dad: my father
Uncle Tony: my parents' dearest friend; part of the family since Peace Corps days
Larry: my brother
Debby: my sister-in-law
Hannah: my aforementioned nièce, who is also known as Banana, The Banana, T. Banana, and, of late, Banane

It's after the first hard day at the beach. Mom and Dad and Uncle Tony have been sent to pick up groceries at the Marché U, get some bread from the bakery, and see if the butcher is roasting chickens. Debby, Larry, Hannah, and I go home to rinse the sea out of our hair and feed the Banana before her fast approaching bedtime. We had, earlier in the day, been lounging on the deck, reading, sunning, trying to remember how to relax (except the Banana, who is very good at relaxing, and at making sure those in her immediate surroundings cannot--but in the most endearing of ways!) when suddenly my brother felt something brush against his leg, and, realizing that his daughter was in plain view, and therefore not brushing against his leg, let out an obscene yelp that brought the whole family to attention. Fearing the worst (and the worst when there's a baby on deck is pretty terrifying), we leapt from our reading materials to investigate, but Hannah had been calmly eating a pretzel and banging her favorite rock on the deck, which activities ceased when we all realized that the brushing-up-against had been done by none other than a watermelon-sized turtle who had joined us without our noticing. Hannah, for whom the turtle was neither more or less exciting than, say, the sliding screen door (also a novelty, if you're 1 going on 2), noticed that all attention was fixed on it, and that she was being pulled away from it. This was fine with her, until the turtle started eating her abandoned pretzel, at which point she burst into tears at the injustice.

Âllo oui?

All this back story in order to introduce an important 8th character to the cast. Snapper (not named by us--in fact I don't care for this name. I am going to call him Turtle) is a frequent visitor to 'La Petrel,' the house we are renting. He was in fact mentioned in the house instructions. Namely that checking behind car tires before leaving the driveway is important to his continued existence.

So we're coming back from the beach, excited about the prospect of poulet rôti and whatever accoutrements Uncle Tony will be whipping up for dinner. Larry and I hit the showers while Debby attends to Hannah. After a few minutes, Larry and I come streaking out of our respective showers, soaking and soapy and prematurely wrapped in towels for some semblance of modesty, because we have each realized that neither of the shower drains is functioning, and as a result there are two puddles, one from each bathroom, that are joining forces to flood our two bedrooms and part of the living room. Orders fly fast and furious, and Debby, who has been diapering the baby, now begins frantically herding all our belongings above the flood line while Hannah sits her dry diaper down in the growing puddle. We lay towels down like sandbags as Larry searches for a mop or other useful flood-deterring implement, then Debby looks out the window and, with intense calm that is evidence of experience with crisis counseling, speaks. 

"I think the turtle is dead and the cats are eating it." 

Larry, still in a towel, comes running, brandishing a squeegy. Turtle has indeed seen better days. He is outside the window, on his back, cocked awkwardly to one side, and there are two wiry cats with feathered collars circling around and nipping at him. There is cat feces nearby, which is ominous, besides being disgusting. Turtle waves his stubby little legs. Not dead. Hannah puts her hands up against the screen door and gurgles. A screen door! Larry yells at the cats, who scamper away in that reproachful, feline way, then he sets Turtle upright. Turtle blinks, perhaps to clear his head, and walks off into the underbrush as we all watch. 

"Did I save him, or is that just part of being a turtle?" muses Larry. 

Wetness creeping against our feet is a reminder that there is still a flood watch in effect, and we scurry about unclogging drains and squeegying the waters out the various screen doors as Hannah runs around us. We manage to shower and tidy up, and by the time the parents arrive at La Petrel, we are a scene of perfect tranquility, sipping dark-and-stormies while Hannah eats a pretzel and bangs her favorite rock onto the deck.

"You might want to check the drain in your shower," I say to my parents, waving my drink in the direction of the house.

"Yes," says Dad, who has stayed at this house before, "You have to take the drains apart or the showers flood."

FIN