Earlier this evening I popped over to JQ’s Supermarket in the Rodney Bay Mall and was standing in the checkout line when a woman in front of me nodded in the direction of the point-of-sale rack to my right and said something to the woman in front of her. They were speaking in Kweyol, so I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but I looked down at the rack and saw what had caught the woman’s attention: hanging on the lower section of the rack, among the chewing gum and batteries and magazines, were several rows of Durex condoms. I moved aside as the first woman bent down and took a packet of condoms off the rack (Durex “Comfort”, in case you’re interested). She and her friend examined and discussed it for few seconds, then she handed the packet to the cashier. The cashier said something to the woman, after which the woman took the packet of condoms back from the cashier and put it back on the rack. (I guess the price wasn’t right.)

Two aspects of this scenario struck me: the utterly matter-of-fact manner in which these two women (whom I’d guess were in their late thirties or early forties) discussed condoms in a line at the supermarket; and the fact that, in St. Lucia, condoms are actually sold in the supermarket. They aren’t in Trinidad. In fact, I can think of few places in my native land–which is generally considered more “sophisticated” or more “developed”, than St. Lucia–where condoms are displayed on an open rack like that. In most cases, they’re on a wall behind the cashier’s head, and you have to ask for them. And when you request ribbed, or studded, or kiwi-flavoured, or extra large, the cashier smirks, sighs, then moves her arm in an exaggerated slow-motion arc toward the rack. (I’m making this up, of course, but I’m sure it happens.)

So what is St. Lucia doing that Trinidad and Tobago isn’t?

Driving around Castries (St. Lucia‘s capital city) today looking for a parking spot (a normally futile exercise) we finally found a semi-legal one in front of the old craft market. Not surprisingly, most of the vendors there are women, and on this low-season, low-traffic day they had mostly each other for company. Among themselves they speak Kweyol, of course, as many (most?) St. Lucians do, and the sprightly vendor who decided to appoint herself our broker and recruit people we could interview, perhaps taking me for a St. Lucian, spoke to me in a mixture of Kweyol and English.

I know about ten phrases in Kweyol, and for some stupid reason, when I meet Kweyol speakers I tend to try these phrases out, misleading my interlocutors into thinking I actually speak the language and causing them to reply to me in the rapid-fire version of the language people use with their linguistic peers. Which I then have to admit, sheepishly, that I don’t understand.

I was determined for this not to happen today, so I made it clear up front that my Kweyol was pretty non-existent, though somehow I ended up saying this in Kweyol-: Mwen pa ka palay Kweyol” (“I don’t speak Kweyol”–which this site says could have been more elegantly expressed as “Mwen konnet an ti miyet Kweyol“, “I know a tiny bit of Kweyol“).

The woman very quickly figured out I was bogus, however, and I ended up having a good time talking with her and her opposite neighbour. As we were about to leave I asked her how to say good-bye in Kweyol. “Ovwa,” she said. “No, not ovwa,” said the opposite neighbour, who was clearly a purist, “Too French. Say Mwen ka alé.” (Which means, literally, “I’m going”).

“Mwen ka alé,” I said. “Mesi anpil.”