Back home on Isla Mujeres

At six in the morning I can hear the tired engine and the loud exhaust sounds of the muffler-less municipal garbage truck.  The crew operating the garbage truck are currently only two houses south of ours.  I have to hustle to get the can out on the street before they pass us by.  The guys wave and holler a greeting as the truck slowly rolls up to our curb.  One worker tosses the full can high into the air, towards his buddy who is perched atop the myriad of reeking plastic bags and cardboard boxes.  

 

Our can is emptied, and carefully placed back on the street right-side up with lid affixed.  They laugh, joke with each other.  One guy sings bits of a song that could be ribald, off-colour judging by the way it makes the others giggle. 

It's good to be back on Isla.

During May and June we traveled for six weeks through Dieppe, Vimy Ridge, Dunkirk, the Loire Valley, Paris, southern France, Cinque Terre, Tuscany and Venice before returning home via London.  We mangled several languages, speaking a combination of French, Spanish, and English with the odd word of Italian tossed in the mix for that truly continental sound.  We ate delicious food, but missed the 'heat' - the spice of Mexican foods.  Apparently our palates have adjusted to Mexican food better than we thought. 

We drank different wines and beers, enjoying Belgium beers and French wines a bit more than German beers and Italian wines.  We dealt with crowded underground transit systems, high-speed trains, city buses and commuter boats.   And the crowds.  Line-ups to see museums.  Line-ups to get on the trains.  Line-ups everywhere! 

The sights, the sounds, the smells - all different.  New.  Exciting.

Now, sitting on our street-side balcony we watch friends speed past on their motos or golf carts.  They yell hello, welcome back, and wave as they speed past.  Sue Lo, on her daily walk around the airport, stops to chat - recounting her recent adventures in Machu Picchu. 

Fashionista riding a bicycle in Paris - K Lock Photo

My sister Joann dashes up the street with her laundry bag in hand, coming for a morning coffee and to do her laundry.  She has misjudged the intensity of the scudding clouds - and is soaked with a warm deluge as she arrives at our house.
 
A motorcycle slowly putts past with two adults - the woman clutching onto a little one, so small that one tiny foot with a yellow bootie is all that is visible. 

A young girl, standing in the foot-well of a motorcycle turns to chat with her dad as he drives her somewhere special.  She is wearing a pink and white polka-dotted dress and a matching bow in her hair. 
Her happy smile is wide and loving as she looks at him. 

The contrast between the Isla motorcyclists and the Armani-suited motorcyclists or the beautiful fashionistas riding bicycles in Paris is startling to say the least. 

In the evening we sit on the east side of the house, wine glass in hand, staring at the turquoise ocean, aware that we missed this most of all.  The colours.  The sounds.  The smell of the water.

We will always be proudly Canadian, but, Mexico is now home.

                                 ___________________________

This is the last posting for this blog.  Please join us on our other weekly blog Notes From Paradise - living on an island in the Caribbean Sea on the east coast of Mexico.  

http://lynda-notesfromparadise.blogspot.mx/

 

70th Anniversary of a ill-fated invasion

70th Anniversary services.  Photo Ann MacMillan CBC

Crouching on the waves in the moon-lit darkness, the Allied invasion force waits. 

They are waiting for the signal to invade the beaches of Dieppe, hoping to begin the liberation of France. 

It is August 19^th 1942.  The service personal are waiting, muscles coiled, breathing slowed – trying to control the fear and the adrenaline.  Prayers are whispered.  Photos of wives and children are kissed for luck, and tucked into a uniform breast pocket. 

A fleeting knowing look is exchanged between infantrymen, thinking; “Will we die here?” 

Dieppe France in May of 2012

At ten minutes to six in the morning the invasion began.  Long lines of ships crowd the coastlines, disembarking men and tanks.  Tracers light the sky as enemy guns fire upon anything that moves.  

German Junkers aircraft drop heavy bombs that thud into the earth, showering stones, and mud, and body parts into the air.  Boots scrabble on the smooth, slippery stones.  Men stumble and fall. 

An Allied Spitfire plane crashes beside a tank carrier, the pilot struggles to escape as the plane sinks below the surface.  The new Canadian Calgary Tank Division desperately tries to land their vehicles. 

The smooth beach stones jam tightly into the tank tracks, rendering the machines incapable of movement.  Another bomb thuds nearby.  Dismembered bodies floated past.  The beach stones turn red with splattered gore.

Ill-fated Dieppe Raid August 19th 1942

Smoke.  Screams.  Yells.  Commands.  Gunfire.  And explosions rip through the air.  It is not pretty, or cinematic-worthy.  It is nasty, and dirty, and horrible.  The ‘secret’ invasion was expected. 

An increase in British radio signal traffic, and a French double-agent had removed any possibility of surprising and overwhelming the German forces.   Eight hours later the invasion forces scrambled to pull back, returning to England, leaving behind some of the dead and all of the captured.  Of the nearly 5,000 Canadians who participated in the raid, 913 were killed.  About 1500 Canadians were taken prisoner.


Seaside cabanas in Dieppe

When Lawrie and I recently visited Dieppe we saw a peaceful little seaside town with little beach cabanas lining the seawall.  There were people enjoying the spring sunshine while eating at outdoor restaurants.  Children were returning from a day at school.  Adults were shopping for items for the evening dinner.  Normal people doing everyday normal things. 

We stayed overnight in the centre of town near the 600-year-old St. Jacques cathedral with its scowling gargoyles and intricate stained glass windows.  On the bluff, overlooking the town and the beach is the medieval Chateau de Dieppe.  It houses a museum that currently specializes in a collection of ivory artifacts from the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Dieppe, our hotel was to the right

In the morning we wandered the landing area of the Dieppe Raid, trying in our mind’s eye to see what the invasion would have looked like. 

I picked up one of the elliptical shale stones, rubbing it absently between my thumb and finger – visualizing the challenge of running on this beach while scared, and loaded down with thirty-five pounds of equipment.   Running towards the gun emplacements, still visible seventy years later tucked into the hillside. 

How did anyone survive?






We stood silently, staring at the ocean, thinking about the very human cost of war.   Any war.   



Rocky beach of Dieppe