See you soon!

Life changes.

Macumba!

Last Thursday I went to the Champion for groceries. I was looking in one of the aisles when I saw a very petite woman trying to reach a container of saffron on the very top shelf. She turned to me and asked, in French, if I could reach it for her. I never felt so tall… tip-toed and zap, there it was, the jar with specs of the precious spice in my hands. She then complained that it was hard for her to reach to the tallest shelves (and I thought, observing, yes, they build these for tall people, probably a tall man’s perspective.) I recognized her accent and asked, “Ête-vous brésilienne?” And she answered yes, and I said “moi aussi” – me too, sou brasileira, switching immediately into Portuguese.

She explained she was cooking manioc she got from the African vendor at the Saturday street market and she liked to give it some color. Her husband knew which spice to get and she thought this one would do the job. I told her it probably wouldn’t, but by then we moved on to how had she--Denise--ended up in Ferney-Voltaire with two daughters now teenagers, Simone and Nathalia. We exchanged phone numbers.

The next day we met at the Gare Cornavin in Geneva and went to the Brasseur, a bar across the busy train station. I had the best beer I had ever tasted there, I am not kidding, something with agave and lemon, light, with a delicious flavor. Denise connected with the young Englishman across the table and the three of us moved later to Mr. Picwick, an English bar along Lausanne Street, at her invitation, “They always have music there!”

That’s how I indulged my new frequent activity--bar hoping with an English accountant on assignment and a bubbly Brazilian woman. “My husband and I are taking some time off and I need to go out so I do not get depressed,” she explained. She wanted to stay longer at the Pickwick. I wanted to come home on the 11 p.m. bus and have time to call my brother in Brazil for news about my father. But I had had a good time. The Swiss blues band was quite good. Even if the players were a bit stiff, they did a good American impersonation. I also got to dance.

The next day, Saturday, I met Denise at the street market. It was a beautiful sunny day, many vendors came out, I loved walking and seeing everything and bought some hot olives in a stall where they had all manner of olives from around Europe and Africa. Diversity is really, really a blessing… it is taking us human to long to really accept and enjoy that. Long live olives of all colors and shapes!

Denise invited me to meet her daughter Nathalia (Simone lives with her boyfriend and was not home). She got manioc and cooked for us. Nathalia of course was lovely, with an impeccable French and French demeanor on her beautiful petite Brazilian self. I asked her many questions about school and encouraged her to keep on studying because she would have so many opportunities to work internationally in this region.

I left after lunch to write but I took another break later and went for a great swim. I worked some more and at 9:30 p.m. I was picked up by Denise and her Italian friend, Angelo, whose wife does not go out, to go to another part of France on the other side of Geneva. After the border, we passed a Cassino and then we arrived to Macumba.

Macumba is a popular name for Umbanda, one of the branches of Brazilian African religion people know as Voodoo. So, technically, this nightclub was named Voodoo in Brazilian Portuguese. This was not your run of the mill nightclub (I speak as I have known many, far from the truth—I have never been a “clubber”, though it looks like from these two days that I might soon…) Well, let’s put it this way, I do not think Macumba is a run of the mill because it was a club “plex”. I certainly had never been in one!

It is a huge building like a casino. There are all manner of bar, restaurants nightclubs inside. You pay a couvert fee on regular days (10 euros, ay!) The price of drinks and food let’s put it mildly… exorbitant (15 euros for a small beer and a coke!!!!) But the fun… worth it.

We visited all of the rooms first; we were early by being there before midnight, so the place was empty. We settled in the rock-&-roll room, a dancing room where they played classic rock, oldies. There were quite a few couples on the floor. They were excellent. My dorky self complimented each of my favorites, telling how beautifully they danced. My dorky self also danced by herself after observing a man doing the same. It was a weird feeling, something like autistic dancers… more women joined later… Fun, fun.

We got tired and went next door, the Karaoke English pub, manned by gay boys! (Cyn, I thought of you! You would be in heaven! The equipment was excellent! When they ran out of romantic French tunes they play Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean or “I will survive!”)

Meanwhile, downstairs the techno room started filling with thousands of youth dressed to the T, both girls and boys, a diversity of hairstyles and outrageous outfits, expensive sneakers, high boots and high heels, lots of sparkling jewelry. The room was smoky—not cigarettes, some machine pumped smoke so that besides not being able to hear but the beats and the sounds-gone-mad of electronic music, they could not see anything or at the very least think they were in a fire. On second thought, they were on fire, jumping and moving, moving against each other. On one side of the dance floor there was a bird jail with a lot of young people inside moving orgiastically. On the opposite side there was a boxing ring but nobody was in it. Aggression, control and surveillance all over the place, one of my images of hell… We were out of there to go back to old rock…

By 12:30 Angelo was pooped out, afraid of going home too late, so Denise told me. Denise told me she had put the wrong pair of boots on, this one hurt her feet. I could have waited for the salsa that was about to start, and perhaps gone home at 5 a.m. when Macumba closes. Oh, well, back to Ferney we went.

Two last details: the women’s (girls’?) restroom—many real Barbie dolls and similar European doll models on the pink walls in plastic boxes. See the first picture above. Smoking is no longer allowed inside the nightclub. Tent like rooms were provided outside of the downstairs rooms where people would go to smoke but still be protected from the cold.

In your next trip to Geneva, 10 km away, or perhaps even to Paris, only 530 km from Macumba, stop by!

Spring/Printemps

Spring seems to come slowly
to Ferney-Voltaire where
there is still snow on Mount Jura.
The rains were plentiful this week
and cold.

Still, flowers have poked the ground
They shiver but stay put
growing a bit brighter
when the sun comes
out of hiding in the clouds.

Aspargus and strawberries
are in the street market.

Spring in
Ferney-Voltaire:
Are the birds
singing in French also,
delicately announcing
‘amour’ around the corner?
Clouds are
more elegant—can this be?
Passing over my head...
Au revoir!

I have so enjoyed
My journée en France
in the Pays de Gex.
I will never forget
this Spring
ce Printemps
d’espérance.



P.S. I took this photo in Teresinha Rey's beautiful old garden. Primroses are everywhere in the fields in this Swiss/French region.

"I hope I am wrong"

The writer of this blog was out of commission due to an earthquake in her life. She has survived the tsunami.

It was a beautiful morning today so I worked a bit and then went to the health food store beside the Champion in front of my apartment building but on the other street. (There is a parking lot, a green area, and a small stream in the area right in front of the building, which I cross to go to the other street. Big enough for the circus… gives us space to see the Alps at a distance.)

I needed oatmeal and soy milk. I came home with these plus a stash of raw almond butter which is not available in London… organic fat free yogurt, organic Chiapas coffee, and some kind of “bio” red wine made by priests…( It sounded good, I trust priests making wine. Usually communion wine, when served as it is at least during the Anglican masses I have attended, is quite good.) There were also the most beautiful whole wheat breads at the check out. The check out lady was serving morsels of the enormous whole compacted wheat with nuts and raisins bread (at least half a meter by 30 centimeters in size). She offered me a thin slice and that was my breakfast for the morning. (Here I am talking about food again!)

Had some coffee and worked a bit more until 11:30 when I went swimming at the local public pool. The building is simple, attractive and all of the materials carefully chosen to last. I take the card to the desk; the attendant gives me a magnetic key and a card. I use one Euro for the locker and close it with the card and take out the key. I take a shower and go into the seven lane pool, two of which are reserved for school kids who come all throughout the day to swim or for classes. I am up to 21 laps, not bad for someone who sort of learned to (inefficiently) how to swim at age 50 and has not swam regularly for a couple of years. My next project is skiing. I WILL conquer that one…

After swimming I went into the hammas. That is the steam room. I absolutely love being in a steamy room. The more steam the better. I smuggled eucalyptus oil in and was in total heaven, sweating and smelling the scent of Australian forests. After 5 minutes I leave, shower and rest outside on wooden beds, using the time for yoga positions. After some of that, another shower and more steam.

During the second time around I met a Frenchman who I had talked with in the hammas before. He speaks fluent English and as a young man taught swimming at Jewish summer camps in the Catskills. The conversation first started when he was doing yoga positions in the hammas. I asked if he practiced yoga and observed that his twists and back relaxation poses were excellent. He said he had an inflammation on his side, so he used the steam and the poses to help the condition. Of course I found out that his 18 year old daughter was coming to NYC to study and we became best friends.

This time around I asked how his pain was, and then used the opportunity to ask about the medical insurance issue. He said that (horrors!) with the new changes he only can go to one GP, not to as many as he could go before. Some people have to pay a small co-pay to go to the doctor. The whole French social security is being overhauled. He thinks it needs to be but it needs to be done correctly (I almost wrote right instead of correctly, but I fear the Right handling SS.)

Two more people entered the hammas and got involved in the conversation. One very nice older woman, retired from UN peace keeping missions, doesn’t trust the SS changes. She thinks that now many people cannot see doctors who say they are full, or have the lower paying patients wait for months. She blames the infiltration of insurance companies for the medical insurance issues and of American TV into France for idiocy among youth.

Like every person I have talked to, this woman is hopeful that the US will change with the election of Obama or Hillary. To everyone who says that, I reply, “Do not bet on it! I hope I am totally wrong, but I do not think that either is electable due to racism and sexism rampant in US society, not to mention election corruption... It is going to be the “good o’l White soldier boy” again…” The answer is usually a gasp and “Oh, No!” And I nod my head, upset at myself for being so cynical, and say, “I could be wrong…”

Politics in the hammas is steamy too.