Traveling around the world, I see good-looking couples, who are perfect. But in this country some kind of mistakes happened. Cool guys flirts with women who were stone overweights. How romantic their relationships were I can not say. It was not rare for me to see them doing. I was puzzled to imagine “Beauty & the Beast”: she is a beauty, but he ugly.
On a Sunday I enjoyed the bustle of the street in Castries. Then all at once I heard a woman shouting and shouting. A ordinary man and a large woman were arguing furiously. The quarrel developed into a scuffle; passersby stopped to watch it. But, I could not see anyone stepping closer to them. “Help him!” someone yelled. She hit him. She was caught and arrested.
I was sitting on a window seat in the minibus from Castries to Gros Islet where I did a homestay. We drove past a large young woman, who was so fashionable like Naomi Watanabe and who hold a bag of chips and a Fanta Orange in her hands. The minibus suddenly swerved right in front of her; she squeezed into the seat next to me and thrust her weight against me. I could not say anything.
Having lived alone, my host at sixty five was super overweight and out of condition. “She would try to control you all the time. Like being under house arrest,” my Japanese friend, laughing, had told me. That was exactly right. The room given to you is hot and humid with no air conditioning. In addition, there are iron bars on a small window. If you entered this host house, you could never go out. The front door of the house was double with four keyholes―the way of turning the key was all different.
Each time I went out, I had to call her to open the door. “Phew, turn the key to the right. Keep pushing, push, push. No, no,” she demonstrated at least her kindness. “Phew, you understand?” I did not like the way she talked to me. But you must remember telling her what time you come home because she goes to bed early. “I’ll be home by dinner.” I would smile, hoping to end the talk. “Don’t walk alone. You don’t know anything about this country. Thugs stab you and steal your money.” That was so annoying I ignored her, but as ever, she was persistent. “So where are you going?” Shut up! Don’t undermine me.
In the homestay program, she had fixed me breakfast and dinner, the sugary food and the oily food. I preferred high protein food such as meat and fish with lots of vegetables. But she was not one of those “I hope you like it, but it’s up to you because culture is different’’ type hosts. At dinner, I tried, as respectfully as possible, not to be rude. “Everything looks very good. I’d really like to eat. But sorry, I ate too much lunch in the town. Mmm…Let me see.” “Ah, you’re going to enjoy them for breakfast tomorrow,”she said.
She got up earlier than me and made breakfast. I went running to Rodney bay while she would have a good breakfast. Oddly enough, during that homestay I had never seen her eating. I can remember large Japanese women: every time I saw them having lunch, they ate proportionally less than slender ones. What went through their mind I did not know.
“K, Enjoy.” On the table, there was plenty of food, breakfast plus last night’s dinner: bread and muffins, bananas and figs, breadfruit and fried plantain. That was a fancy dish, but all carbohydrates. “I am a cooking teacher,” she said proudly. “Yes. I know, but I suppose it’s a little too much for me.” “You are too thin,” she said loudly. “You are too big,” I said to myself.
“Phew, you left breakfast,” she was in a bad mood. “Don’t you like dishes I made? Yumi(anonymous), a Japanese, had stayed here and always ate up.” I knew her and found out why she was thick. “Yes, yes. I love the food in this country. But, I always eat very little,” I made an excuse. “What kind of food do you like?”she asked. “If I had to say, chicken or fish, or vegetables.” “Expensive,” she said soberly, but I knew, whether expensive or not, that she loved making sweets, especially pastries.
There is her way of cramming her fridge with hundreds of stuff; a place for everything and everything in its place. A puzzle that only she can understand. If even one is misplaced where it was, if something move inside when you take one, it never close. She had made some extra space for me to put a pet bottle water. “I suppose you should have room,” I said this kindly. “You know, I teach cooking too many student, don’t you?” So what? But I said nothing, needing to match her stubbornness.
