Jambes de Pluie

It was bound to happen

Jambes de Pluie over Prairie des Femmes

Green Pears in Leonville

As my old student Mlle LeMelle used to say. "Nothin's happenin in Leonville. You go to church, you go home." Technically, Leonville is the closest town to the PDF, but I don't often go there lately, mostly because the bridge leading there was out for six months, and because sometimes the big stores up on the Interstate have more selection and fresh fruit. But sometimes you don't want selection or the freshest fruit. Selection is overwhelming and say you want just good old fruit, trucked back on the Teche and displayed at the Marche. On those days, I retreat back into Teche Country, not to the busy Exit 11. Yesterday, I had a sick child and a fussy baby and we were out of milk. It was almost 5 and I wanted to be back home for my afternoon coffee and world news with Diane Sawyer, which is like religion to me. So, at the end of the driveway, I decided today would be a quick trip to Leonville, to the right, through the open fields of Pointe Claire. 

On the way, there is my favorite little homestead: it is a little white house with a blue roof and red truck in the driveway. It is surrounded by the green fields along Jules LaGrange. In the ditch are a big clump of red flowering ginger and in the side yard are hand painted statues of Jesus and Mary. Their house reminds me of the cardinals that swoop across the road along the bayou:

The town of Leonville itself is a little like a 1940's ghost town.  A few hundred people live in quiet, neat houses and trailers, and otherwise, abandoned white structures line the streets. Even the brown Teche flows quietly through with none of the fanfare you would find over it in a place like Arnaudville. At the heart of Leonville is Champagne's grocery, flanked by Leonville Elementary on one side and the rounded bell tower of St. Leo's Church on the other.  Inside I recognized a few of my old students and their growing siblings. I am always greeted with a "Bonjour Madame", even though I only taught French at the high school for five years and haven't taught in three.


D'après moi, Champagnes' Marche' is the perfect local grocery store. They had home-grown cantaloupes, perfectly portioned packs of green beans, soft loaves of sausage-jalapeno-cheese bread and giant boxes of Little Debbie Snacks. I got a six-pack of glass bottle cokes. I especially enjoyed picking out four green pears, whose green color and form seemed to belong in some mystical way to the very fiber of grey Leonville. 

In the parking lot, I saw a plainclothes Father Ken Domingue walk in, red shirt, smiling. He had taught me as a teenager at Sacred Heart in Ville Platte. Other people were pumping gas. There were dark, thin men with their sons, blonde mothers with children, more of my students, and an old couple talking in French. The church bells gonged the half hour. People were going home. 


Near the silos at Mark's Bridge, Mister Simon, expert snake killer and father to les belles filles Stelly was crossing the road near his lovely oak-shaded home on the Coulee. I pulled over briefly to tell him Hey, I almost called you earlier! I had a six foot chicken snake in my cabanne! He laughed. I told him that it got away, and I wanted to use my pistol, but there was cement in the cabanne, and would it ricochet? As I saw a black truck coming up behind me from the fields, Mister Simon said, Oh no, you don't wanna do dat, it'll ricochet bad! and as I drove away, he waved and laughed, Don't do dat!!

Mista Simon, masta snake killa and awesome neighbor! Pic by M. Stelly

 Further up the road, where the new houses (!) are being built, there was my old student the PDF Gazette and another neighbor, Tante Claire, visiting in the yard. I took the chance to pull over, visit for a minute, en Francais meme! and take a couple pictures of the double (triple) Mary Statues in their yard. It was nice to get to talk to the neighbors. I even saw something at their place that I never saw before:

A cement baby Jesus- SHA!!!!!

Prairie Pietà

 Appropriate Double-Grotto Home In the Prairie of the Women

Our Lady, Reine des Guêpes (and there are many on the Prairie!)

You never know the mystical things you will see when you go to Leonville...

Samida's Voice

One of the things that I love the most about our South Louisiana culture is the observance of feast days of the saints and holy days in the Church. They are like mini-holidays that mark the mundane weeks and months. I love the lore that they hold, and the way that they connect us to our French past. I especially like to observe the feast day of Saint Medard, June 8. When I started to ask questions to my family about local history, "the Samida", as they called it, was always one of the first things to come up. They said that if it rains on this day, it will rain for forth days. If it is dry, there will be a dry spell for 40 days. I loved how my family called it le Samida (it soudned like Sammy-Da). I also especially loved observing the weather on that day, and since it falls at the beginning of the summer season of humidity and looming afternoon storms, it usually will rain, unless we are in drought. I remember years not too long ago when farmers were praying to the Saint for rain. 

With the storms that blow out here on the prairie come the occasion to see les jambes de pluie, the legs of the rain, the local appellation for the streaks that form when falling rain is visible from a distance. I imagine that they were the legs of the Saint, walking across the land, bringing rain with his steps. Today, true to form and seemingly out of the blue, he appeared from the west. I saw les jambes de pluie approach, and, when the storm was upon us, that his legs were actually made of twin lightning strikes. I even heard his voice: 

Samida in the west coming across the Prairie des Femmes

Rain arrives from the West in Acadiana on the Feast of Saint Medard

By the time the storm was hot pink and grey on the Prairie des Femmes, the lights had gone out and it was high time for our afternoon coffee. There was gas for a fire but no water pressure. Lucky I had collected rainwater in a basin on the porch, and so I was forced to drink some Saint Medard rainwater coffee milk. Right after that, the rain stopped and in the east appeared a rainbow. I even think I saw Samida smile.

Samida's upside down smile

Buffy on Saint Medard

From Wikimedia Commons

Alright bonjour qui c'est qui parle?

Hey This here's Buffy.

Yay! Steve Buffy! Go right ahead-

When does the Simeda start? Da eighth or da tenth of June? 

I think it's the eighth of June, huh? 

...I'm not sure no mo...

...j'crois...comme si il serait le huit de juin qu'est la la fête de Saint Medard. (I think that it'll be the eighth of June that is the feast day of St. Médard)

-Ouais (yeah)

Et là, si ça mouille ce jour là, ça va mouiller pour quarante jours et si ça mouille pas, ça va être sec pour quarante jours, ein? (And if it rains that day, it will rain for forty days and if it doesn't rain, it will be dry for forty days, huh?)

Yep, that's how it goes...

That's how it goes...

From KATC TV3 -Acadiana's News Channel

The Mistic Marie of Pointe Claire

Monsieur Mistic's Mary in Pointe Claire used to be lit up by a blue light at night. Their neighbor still lights theirs up like THIS. Here is what he said happened to his statue after his "old mama" passed away:

Summer of Storms

The summer of 2012 was full of storms. It rained nearly every day for three months. There were storms of all kinds, from every direction, even out of nowhere.

Around here they say that if it rains on the feast day of Saint Medard, the 8th of June, that it will rain for forty days afterwards. This year, it rained a few days before the 8th, on it, and after it for two weeks. Then there was a little two week break, then July came. It rained every day in July except the 31st. There were long rains, afternoon rains that diminished the heat but made the night heavier than ever. In August there were daily downpours and a hurricane. There were other storms, too. All summer, there were navy blue clouds walking on jambes de pluie, fog, and flood across the Prairie. There were were black snakes in the tall grass that never got cut because of the rain and the broken tractor sitting in the rain. So we stayed inside, shut out from the heat and humidity, bugs and snakes. It was so mild last winter that the insects swarmed in the spring and everyone got fleas.

Between the storms and serpents and plagues many gifts fell on the Prairie, comme les bras de soleil. There were lots of birds. A few times on the dirt road I saw the fanned cream and white tail feathers of a marsh hawk swoop next to my car, close enough to touch. There were owls who stood on the road and flew up to a low branch to let me pass, eyes round. There was a big ole great white heron flying in the crepescule of the evening. Many cardinals zipping around the bamboo. One evening, while I was sitting on the porch, a rainbow painted bunting landed next to me and stayed for a minute.

Les Jambes de Pluie

It was the rainiest summer in a long time, it seems, at least out here in Prairie. It rained before and after (and on in most areas) St. Medard, the 8th of June, and then it rained for more than forty days total afterward, with maybe a two week break in there. There were lots of chances to photograph les jambes de pluie, the legs of the rain.

les jambes de pluie marching across the millet fields of the PDF on the eve of St. Médard

jambes on the Opelousas Road

jambes to the southwest

les jambes de pluie sur la plairie

jambes a Whiteville

Jambes à Lanse de Tate