After Maxime had put in the light and sorted out the DVD and surround-sound system for me, he said a pleasant goodbye and went on his way. I gave Anna a call who suggested going and having lunch in the sun at the "Vieux Port" (Old harbour). I gave her a knock and we began a search for the perfect table in the sun with a nice lunch on it. Clearly the whole city had the same idea and the best cafe was overloaded, so we headed to Place St Nicolas instead. There was the same ambience there and we found a place and had some lunch. Anna had been thinking about my project and already had a few interesting women in mind to photograph. She also spoke of her observations of "les bastiaises". They all wear black. They all have designer sunglasses. They all have dark groomed hair with a fringe. She's actually quite right! There are exceptions obviously, but on the whole everyone wears black. She attributed this in part to the south mediterranean style - being greek she noted the tendency in her own culture to follow this tradition. Its something I will definitely think about. The women she knows are diverse - which is unusual for an outsider, but I can imagine her personality enables her to traverse the rigid social boundaries. Next week she will begin to introduce me to different women who I can photograph. After our lunch we pottered along in the sun and couldn't resist a coffee to continue soaking it up some more. We sat in a place which had the most ridiculous looking desert platter I have ever seen, so we ordered two. It was an espresso, a shot glass full of tiramisu, a shot glass full of chocolate mousse and a small anise scented mousse thing with chocolate on top. Bloody gorgeous it was! The sun must have been over 20 degrees and there were plenty of people to watch for the hour that we stayed there.
After digesting all the sugar I said bye to Anna and headed to "Lupino" the district in the south
where the CIDFF (An organisation fighting for the rights of victims of domestic violence) office is. After a 45 minute walk up some huge hills I arrived as they were all leaving. It must have been a misunderstanding of mine caused by me acting like I actually knew what was going on when I didn't. Never mind. I was quickly put in a car with a Syrian poetess and a french lady and driven to the Municipal library where there was a poetry recital by 4 women. The syrian lady read her poems in arabic - which sounds beautiful and it was nice to think that no one else understood either! They were then translated into French and occasionally Corsican, which sounds like a mix of Catalan and Italian to me. The Coriscan poets were mostly reading in French and from what I understood were talking about Corsica not being French. As they were reading slowly and with alot of accentuation I actually understood about half. It was a good hour and a half of French lesson for me. (I am now listening to an internet radio station called "French songs since 1890 of the dead artists" in the hope that by overloading my brain with all things French I will one day wake up and suddenly spout a stream of long repressed perfect French. Its chanteurs.org if you are interested in hearing it yourself)
Anyway, whilst waiting for the Syrian lady to acknowledge the fact that I was standing in front of her waiting to ask a question I was poked by the boob of a very large lady who asked me something in very rapide French. I explained that I am English and don't speak much French so she spoke to me in English instead. I explained my project and asked her what she did and she told me she sings Stevie Wonder covers aswell as French stuff. I think she is actually a bit bonkers, she kept lurching at people and half talking to me. She beckoned me to the bar where I was given a Muscat and she continued to lurch. Then in a room full of people talking about women's rights in the arab world amongst other things, she burst into a hearty french song. Some people seemed to look interested, others looked embarrassed, two men shook their heads. It was quite weird, especially as she kept looking at me. I made a dart for the door and bumped into the lady who had driven me and the syrian lady there. She was very friendly and she quickly went into my "list of people I enjoy practicing my French with". She asked about my project and gave me her card - she is the head of the women's rights department in the local government and is very interested in my project. She wants to spend time chatting and looking at my Mongolia book after the busy week of activities for International Women's Day.
Great. C'est bon, et apres ca, je suis allee a la maison.
Bon Nuit,
Good night.
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