July 2006

I moved to the Prairie des Femmes on July 14, 2006. On the 30th I went to the first Table Francaise at Nunu's in Arnaudville when it was on the bayou.

Cajun French Homecoming T-shirts

At the local high school where I taught, homecoming week is passed in good cheer with theme days: pajama day, crazy day, camouflage day, nerd day, 80's day, etc. For our school, they even had Cajun day where, I saw students dressing up as the stereotype of a Cajun character they had seen portrayed on television: no teeth, barefoot, straw hat, big smile, cut offs, with a pirouge paddle, nutria rat pelt. I even found myself getting into the spirit on that day, wearing my husband's Dickies pants and boots and carrying a large wooden roux spoon. So I took the day to talk to my students about these swamp stereotypes and in response, we came up with "Cajun French" t-shirt slogans to make white t-shirts to wear our Cajun French on Cajun Day like a read Cajun would. The principal, a fellow Ville Plattian and bon vivant, agreed, so I let my students choose what they wanted to put on their shirts. Here is the list of the most crazy/nonsensical/pop-culture/Cajun French/rap/cowboy amalgam of words I have ever seen. Was I ever proud!!

(D)Wayne Ecards

When I taught at the local high school, I had a love/hate relationship with the old school janitor, Dwayne Wayne. He taught me a lot of dirty French, because that's just how he talked. Here are a few of the insults/expressions he hurled at me daily, which I then scribbled down and collected in my "Livre de (D)Wayne"

You need a good slap salad!

I don't want to hear you screaming in the woods, no!

Force your nose in my ass and then fight for air.

Well look at Miss Smith with that little nest of hair on her head! She-devil!

Your brain is just like a little marble.

Here Daddy, It's a little new nothing in a bottomless box! Just like you always wanted.

You can just put your head in the toilet and do like you're swimmin' in the bayou.

Manglier Tea, it's Nasty!

When I taught at Beau Chene High School, I asked the students to tell me about home remedies that their families used. The students all told of the "nasty tastin'" mongreae tea. I hadn't heard of it, but the students all nodded their heads. One boy, Chwayne Esprit said, "ma grandmother makes dat mongreae tea! She try to put some peppermint or honey in there or something, but it don't work! it still tase naaaaasty!! the tea works, though."

I offered extra credit for this mysterious mongrea plant, and the very next morning, Kelly Carmouche showed up with a branch wrapped in a plastic grocery bag and hung it on my doorknob before school. I immediately recognized it as a "trash" scrub plant that grew in utter abundance in our fallow field and along every ditch and coulee in Saint Landry Parish. I have since learned that manglier means mangrove (and come to think of it, the bushes do resemble a mangrove, but they grow in the prairie, not the water).

According to Wikipedia, Baccharis halimifolia is unusually salt-tolerant, and often found along salty or brackish shores of marshes and estuaries, and the inland shores of coastal barrier islands on the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains of the eastern United States.
 

How I do it: Boil two or so cups of water with a handful or two of manglier leaves. Boil the leaves, strain. Sweeten the tisane with a peppermint, cough drop, honey, lemon, whiskey, or any combination of each. Drink a cup three times a day, and even to ward off a cold or sore throat.

Information from:

Groundsel Bush, Manglier
Baccharis halimifolia
Asteraceae
Respiratory, Flu
Leaves, Stem, Root; Tea
Perennial, Tree, Shrub

Groundsel Bush
“When someone gets a fever, give him some tea made with manglier. Serve it in a coffee cup three time per day.”
Manglier is the hidden jewel of the medicinal plant collection. Little seems to be known about it outside of Louisiana, but it is well known by our Native American, Cajun and Creole communities as an excellent remedy for fevers, chills, congestion, and other cold or pneumonia type symptoms. The leaves of the plant are boiled to make an aromatic yellow/green brew. Because of its strong, bitter taste, it is usually served with honey and lemon, a cough drop, or some whiskey to cut the flavor. Whole branches can be dried and stored for later use. The tea can be made several times using the same leaves.

Manglier
“Quand quékin gain la fiève, donne li di thé fait avéc menguilié. Donne li ein ti tasse à café trois fois par jour.”
Le manglier est le bijou caché de la collection des plantes médicinales. On le connaît peu ailleurs au monde, mais il est bien connu des communautés amérindiennes, cadiennes et créoles comme remède excellent contre la fièvre, les frissons, la congestion et d’autres symptômes associés avec un rhume
ou la grippe. On fait bouillir les feuilles pour en faire une tisane aromatique. À cause de son goût fort et amer, on la sert d’habitude avec du miel et du citron, une pastille ou du whisky pour la rendre buvable. On peut faire sécher des branches entières et les garder pour plus tard. On peut réutiliser les memes feuilles plusieurs fois.

Your First Cajun French Lesson

If like most young people in Louisiana, you took years of "Perisian" French in high school and felt the disconnect between the class French and the one you heard your parents and grandparents speak at home, this lesson is for you.

I am not an expert in Louisiana French, or a native speaker, but I taught it and have lived among it my whole life. More importantly, I understand the perspective of young Louisianians who would like to learn the "Cajun French" of their grandparents, so that this thing isn't lost.

One thing I noticed is that Louisiana people, myself included, don't like to deal with VERB CONJUGATIONS. I found an easy way to get around that (mostly) and speak Louisiana French more easily.

Using the word APRÈS + VERB INFINITIVE to express action in the process, "-ING" form

How to say things like:

I am doing something.

She is making boudin.

They are acting like the donkey.

What are you doing?

1. First, you have to learn ONE conjugation, just one. In Cajun French.

Etre - To be

j'suis                    I am

t'es                 you are

il/elle est        he/she is

on est                we are

vous-autres est  yall are

ils est                they are

2. Now a list of a few verb infinitives. These are the "to forms" of the verb, the simplest form. These are the things that you have to conjugate, but here, just learn what they mean. You probably already know them.

manger- to eat

boire- to drink

danser- to dance

faire- to make/do

bouder- to make boudin

faire le bourriquet- to act the donkey

dormir- to sleep

marcher- to walk

charrer- to chat

passer- to pass

3. Now, put it all together: This is the equation:

SUBJECT + ÊTRE* + APRÈS + INFINITIVE = sentence

*conjugate, as above in #1

 J' + SUIS + APRÈS + MANGER = I am eating.

T' ES APRÈS BOIRE. = You are drinking.

Il EST APRÈS CHANTER = He is singing.

ON EST APRÈS FAIRE le bourriquet. = We are acting the donkey.

Variations you can read:


Quoi t'après faire? = What are you doing?

QUI t'après faire? = What are you doing? (quoi/qui can mean both mean "what")

J'après faire le bourriquet. I am acting the donkey.  
(sometimes, the "etre" is not pronounced much, so "j'après" sounds like "shha pray")

J'suis après manger. I am eating.

J'suis après manger du boudin. I am eating boudin.

C'après mouiller. It is raining.

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When I figured this out the language opened up to me a lot.

In French class, you learn that "après" is a preposition meaning "after". That is right.

So, being a good French student, you would read this sentence: 

Moi, J'suis après manger.

as

Me, I am after eating.

And you would be right. In Louisiana, we say we are 'after' doing something. As in, we are in the process of perusing it.

La Vie d'une Maîtress d'École

bulletin board in class- French in Acadiana

After marrying and moving to the prairie, I found myself teaching at the parish high school at the mouth of the chemin gravaille. Every morning I drove up the dirt road, over the bayou, across the little highway and into the driveway of the school. It was a rural school. Many of my coworkers spoke French with me, the janitor, to coach, all the ladies in the cafeteria, many teachers, the principal... They spoke a beautiful French and taught me a lot. 

My students came from Creole and Cajun families who still spoke French. Heberts, Quebedeaux, Arnaud, Stelly, Marks, Richards, Gautraux, Babineaux, Angelle, Mistrot, Malveaux, McGee. My first week a girl raised her hand and asked me if I knew of her great grandfather, Dennis McGee, one of Cajun music's most beloved and colorful fiddle players. I taught a bunch of Clifton Chenier, the King of Zydeco's cousins, nieces and nephews. They were all related to the great musicians. Too many to tell here, but they all had stories.

They had words, too. My big loveable football players once came into class, hand over their hearts singing "Madame! Quelle éspoir..."(what are my chances/hope?) I made these same boys translate "La Porte en Arierre"(The Back Door) by D.L. Menard as their senior final and they did it without error. That was too easy.

When I taught the verb laisser (to leave, let) they waited for me to explain the conjugation before Paul Broussard raised his hand. "Madame," he said, "what's "laisse-les" mean?...because when me and my brother fight, my mom says, "Stop! stop!" and my dad says "laisse-les!!!"(let them!) That conjugation business was a waste of time, it seemed.

That class was memorable; full of good kids who were close to French at home. When they'd get fired up they'd start saying, "va la merde! va la merde!"(go to h***) or when Olivia got mad at Paul she'd hiss, "'bec mon tchu, Paul!"(kiss my a**!) I fussed at them a lot, but my rule was that they had to speak French in class, and they were using the French they knew. Plus, their pronunciation and accents were flawless. On a costume day of homecoming week, a shy creole girl who pretty much spoke French because she was raised with her grandmother (there were many like this) told me "Madame, ton linge semble drôle."(Madame, your clothes look funny.) Another time she managed to stammer out, "On est contents de l'auoir toi pour notre maitress" (We are happy that you are our teacher.)

They taught me about the insect called the "t-doigt"(little finger). They said that when a little tiny black and yellow striped fly (hover fly) started flying around your head, raise and wiggle your little finger and say "t-doigt, t-doigt, t-doigt" and it'll land on your finger. It's true. I have since seen the t-doigt, called the t-doigt, and it has landed on my t-doigt.

They brought me things. One morning Amy Martin was waiting at my door with an electric blue crawfish her daddy found in his traps. They brought cartons of homegrown muscadines, boxes of yams, limbs off shrubs like the manglier that had medicinal properties. They brought me handwritten french song lyrics, cookbooks,  CDs of all kinds of French music, family stories and pictures.

In the halls when they changed classes they'd  show off their French, even the students who did not take French with me. They'd ask me politely, "Comment ça va, Madame?" like pros, but more often I would hear all the Cajun curse words strung together in every combination possible echoing off the cinder block walls.

"May the Force be with you"