The Other France

As a young girl, I was obsessed with everything French. I believed that I must really be une fillefille française trapped in the body of a German-American. It was the language that caught my attention first- oh la belle langue française! With her ooohs and euxs and so many unpronounced letters creating that melodic sing-song conversation that sounded like the promise of adventure and beauty in a far away land. As my studies of the French language and culture deepened, the vocabulary became more tangible and filled my head with stories and images of people riding bicyclettes with baguettes, hunting for the most rotund wheel of camembert in a crowded outdoor market, and finding an idyllic little spot in some pristine public garden to share a simple meal with les amis. This fantasy couldn’t have been any more romantic if Nora Ephron had written the scenes herself! The only problem, was that my vision of France was limited to its borders on the European continent and not beyond.

My story is not unique. Many of us francophiles think of Europe first when we dream of la belle France. But, there is another France- a vibrant and colorful sister to la metropole, whose inhabitants hunt for the most pristine snapper right off of the baby blue boats lined-up in the marina. Who enjoy a quiche lorraine on sandy beaches lapped by azure waves from the Caribbean Ocean. Who play pétanques amongst coconut and banana trees with ti punches in hand and zouk on the radio. This is not the France of my childhood dreams and yet, it is. The scene is familiar, but the players look different.

From the moment I stepped off onto the tarmac, with the intense humidity bathing my pale skin in the midday Caribbean sun, I felt at home. Strange, as I’d never been there before and suddenly found myself a minority on an island of Black and Indian inhabitants. But I thought nothing of it. This was France! And also, it was Guadeloupe. An alluring island in the West Indies with no bus schedules, zouk blasting from every shop window, boulangeries producing heavenly aromas of freshly baked bread, endless beaches stretching for miles, creole gardens bursting with perfumed tropical fruit, lightning storms illuminating the evening skies, and that familiar sing-song French harmoniously punctuated with local creole.

Through the course of her life, France, like many of her contemporaries, have laid claim to lands far away from those of origin. She was ruthless, violent, greedy. A criminal. Stealing people away from their West African homeland to be enslaved on new shores. Promising freedom and prosperity to downtrodden Indians who found themselves locked in an indentured servitude upon arrival. She reveled in the most vile and abhorrent human characteristics that were on parade throughout this “new land”. There were resistances. There were battles. Some even gained their independence. But the scars remain. They ripped through the soul of a nation revealing an abyss that can never be closed. Never be healed. We know something about that in our own country- for it is the same wound.

Today, France celebrates its Independence Day- independence from tyranny, from greed, from the disproportionate distribution of wealth. A revolution founded in the philosophy that every person has the right to a life well-lived, to survive. A philosophy not unlike the one that founded our own United States and not often enough reflected in the actions of our nations. Today, our collective history has brought us to a place not too dissimilar from the one of those facing the Bastille, pitch forks in tow, burdened by the weight of insufferable heartache and hungry for change.

So in honor of this history, of the France that we don’t see in films, of the France that has endured the most repugnant crimes against humanity, of the France that is draped in madras and whose air carries the heady perfume of spices on its breeze, of the France who grows creole gardens and speaks creole French and is creole in its soul. That is the France that I choose to celebrate today. The one that has grown a world of flourishing life out of the seeds of rot and destruction.

Ti Punch Recipe
In a 4 oz glass with straight sides (if you can find one), add:
1-2 tsp cane sugar
1-2 oz Rhum Agricole (Damoiseau, if you can find it)
The juice of 1/2- 3/4 of a lime
Stir it all together with your little teaspoon, Santé to your amis, and sip slowly over good conversation, a game of pétanques, and the beauty of the outdoors