Vive La France

St. Barth’s, French West Indies

I arrived here yesterday to stay in a bungalow I selected over the internet. Which is to say. I had little idea about the place really. You can see from the picture above that the view is good., and, as it turns out, so is the bungalow.

I am perched on the top of Mont Jean. When I arrived, Annie and Pierre, the caretakers of the villa met me at the airport and I followed them home. Suffice it to say, that one of the challenges of St. Barth’s is finding your villa after you arrive. The roads are hilly, narrow and full of switchbacks and there are not street signs ( of course, how French to keep locale full of intrigue. )

Annie and Pierre speak little English, so I used my high school French. Amazingly, we understood one another. “I need an iron”, I gestured. Pierre scurried off and in moments came back with one in hand. “The CD player doesn’t work”, I gestured. After many minutes of French that I didn’t understand and some that I did: Ah, mon dieu, mon dieu, Pierre inserted Ella Fitzgerald and Louie Armstrong. It blasted through the large, cathedral ceiling living room. It sounded good—it’s a very good sound system—a big plus in my world. Since my French is so rusty, I compensate with my accent ( not bad ) and my passionate responses. Pierre and Annie probably go down to their cottage after these chats and laugh at my very effusive Merci. MERCI, or very basic attempts like: " Ou est la towel pour la plage?".

But enough about the place. What about the people? Well, St. Barth’s is an interesting mix of French, some Brits, some Dutch and many Americans. It is, after all, a French island, so the food is terrific ( tuna tartare at a bistro next to Saline Beach ), the grocery stores carry French products flown in weekly, the produce is grown on Guadeloupe and ferried in during the week, so you can’t beat the papaya, or a real tomato in the middle of winter at home.

The most striking thing for me, though, is that when I get here, I start to want to be French. Why? They drink at lunch and don't slur their speech afterward, they look great in a bathing suit ( bikin at 50+ ), and they wear far less clothing than we do. I’ve been here 24 hours, and I keep taking off clothes, remembering that I have a décolletage, going barefoot, wrapping my sarong a little farther above my knee. And, since I have a dipping pool all to myself, I can skinny dip. Now, the French are out on Saline Beach skinny dipping, but that’s just not in the cards for Mary Catherine although I envy them their lack of reserve.

I may disagree philosophically with the French on all manner of things. But of this I’m sure—they understand beauty, they really know how to create exquisite cuisine from the simplest elements, and they are absolutely the poster children for carpe diem.
M.C.