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Well, the funeral for my cousin’s father was interesting.

The funeral was at Mr. Andreani’s village. La Porta is a very small typical village tucked away like many others in the middle of a mountain range. The area is called Castagniccia, and is located about 55 km south and 25 km west from where we live in Patrimonio. (In the map on the right, the closest point to where we live is St. Florent - located on the top-left coast right under the "Cap".) It took us about 1.5 hours to get there, since the last 1/2 hour of the driving is in the high mountains.

Once we got into the mountains, we got a little lost trying to find the village (my aunt Julie was navigating and thought there were two ways to get there), so we visited several of the nearby villages in the area until we finally stopped and asked some old man with withered hands for directions. I can see why the old people are so wrinkly. The winters here are tough, with a constant wind and high humidity. It was actually fun to drive around on the tiny little leaf-covered roads. It is such a pretty area and kind of reminds me of the rocky mountains, but with much less snow and with little villages all over the place. And with hunters standing on the side of the road every once in a while with shotguns on their shoulders. Just waiting.

Typical attire at the funeral was either black or camo. It was Sunday afternoon, after all, and that’s prime hunting time. I didn’t see any red caps, so they probably took them off out of respect. The church in La Porta is pretty neat. It was built in the late 17th century and has a separate bell tower off to the side. I guess that’s typical for the time. There’s a big "meeting square" area outside the church (also typical), and there were probably 75-100 Corsican men standing around in the square. No women. The women were inside the church at the mass. Well, there were men inside, too.. but mostly it was women. Mr. Andreani was well known and liked, so there were a lot of people in attendance.

It was a catholic mass, complete with sprinkling of "holified" incense and water on the casket, Corsican wailing/signing, and plenty of the usual stand-up/sit-down. Wow, catholic funerals are even more boring then usual when they’re in another language. Apparently the main priest was from Russia or something and his French was really really really bad. (We were told it was worse then ours!) He didn’t finish sentences and things like that, and his accent was difficult to comprehend. No wonder we couldn’t understand anything! It also didn’t help that he spoke totally in monotone the whole time.

The immediate family sat in the front of the church, and the wailing/singing was always led by either one of the male or female family members. It was interesting to actually hear for real some of the Corsican wailing songs that I’ve heard performed on CD. It’s very haunting music. Soulful and full of deep feelings of loss and mourning. Perhaps even a bit hauntingly beautiful, with a tinge of creepy. After all, the church was pretty dark and gloomy.. as most 17 century catholic churches are… and all those garrish statues, wall decorations and big gray vaulted ceilings kind of creep me out.

Annick (Jean-Michel’s wife, and the one who is actually my blood cousin) wasn’t able to attend the funeral due to her late-stage of pregnancy. She’s ready to pop at any moment and everyone felt it best not to have her travel to a remote village in the middle of the mountains.. so she stayed home with her mom.

After the mass, we walked slowly behind the hearse up to the graveyard (1/2 km away in 2 degree weather). It was actually a pretty walk in the brisk mountain air with the sun shining. The view was amazing, and we could even see a glimpse of the ocean a little way off. (Keep in mind there’s only 80km between the east and west coasts of Corsica at the widest place, so although we were in the middle of an interior mountain we were still only about 15-20km in a straight line from the ocean.

The graveyard is literally a little terraced section of the mountain. A bit steep, as each terrace section is only about 6 meters wide. Very interesting use of the land. At the graveyard, they had already dug out the grave (there was very little dirt - it was pretty much just rock/shale) and the priests did another sprinkling or two of water/incense, and finally the casket was lowered into the ground. Then all the family dropped a pinchful of rock/shale onto the casket and a few of the brothers (he had 10 or 11 siblings) had shovels to burry the casket with the rock/shale.

Then it was over. We gave kisses (literally, the cheek-to-cheek kind) to Jean-Michel (my cousin) and Mrs. Andreani, from the Canadian side of the family, and then we all went to a local pub to warm up.

Pierre’s parents were at the funeral, and I was able to chat with Mr. Carli a bit during the walk back from the gravesite. He seems like a real character - much like his son. In the picture on the right, you can see us walking back from the graveyard.  I’m on the far right and Mr. Carli is to my left.  The church belltower is the big structure in the distance.

I was happy to be able to have an actual whole conversation in French with him all by myself. My French is developing much slower then Cara’s (because she works with French people in a French school, and I work in isolation at home in English), but it was nice to realize it’s coming along - albeit slowly. I’ve realized I learn by reading, so I think I need to find some simple French books and start reading. That will hopefully increase my vocabulary and word retention. I think I’ll start with comics. Perhaps I’ll visit the library and re-discover some of Asterix’s great adventures.

Mr. Andreani died yesterday. 

He had cancer for a few years, and his health was failing him over the last few month.. so it wasn’t really unexpected.  But still, it’s a bummer. He was 77 years old.  He leaves behind his wife and his only son, Jean-Michel.

Jean-Michel is married to my cousin, who’s father (my Uncle Minique) died earlier this year… also from cancer.  (The same cancer type that killed my own dad.) She is due to give birth to their second child in about one week.  Lousy timing, but I guess death isn’t used to being kept waiting.

Death is so final. And cancer sucks. Why can’t anyone figure out how to fix cancer, anyway? We can send people to the moon, computer pi to the nth decimal, grow ears on mice, practically map the entire human genome, but we still can’t stop the occasional cell from mutating.

When I think of all the relatives I had who have died from cancer, it makes my sad, angry, and a bit fearful.  Statistically, it’s what I’ll die from. 

The funeral is tomorrow, in his village (named Porta).  It’s about a 1.5 hour drive from where we live here in Patrimonio, so we’ll carpool with my Aunt and cousin Laure.

On a more upbeat note, I finally figured out what I’m going to get Cara for Christmas.  Apparently giving her the seed of my loin isn’t enough and she wants an actual "gift"…. so… ya. 

Aren’t you glad you read my blog?   

Ok, you asked for it.  Due to popular demand.. I’m back!

This post is going to be short and sweet.  Just a quick update to let you know the latest and greatest in The Absolutely Thrilling and Amazing Life of Henri The Amazing Living Legend.  (And Cara, too.. in this case.)

The gloves are off. 

Yes, the shooting range is now open.

To put it bluntly, the monkey is out of the cage.

If you haven’t figured out the meaning of these extremely thinly veiled euphemisms, then.. well… you’re probably either not breathing or you’re a monk.

Wish us luck!

So it turns out I’m Corsican after all. 

Yes, you guessed it.  I made fire!

I went out to the Cave of Wonder (my Uncle’s garage, where has has pretty much anything and everything you might need for anything) looking for an axe, so I could maybe chop up some of the blocks of wood I have into smaller pieces.

I couldn’t find the axe (I’m sure it’s there, but only he knows where everything is and I didn’t want to disturb whatever sense of order is in there), so I was standing by our woodpile, likely looking a little forlorn… when my Aunt came walking up.

Qu’est que tu fait?

(Which, loosely translated into English means, "You dumbass, I heard you couldn’t make a fire. Now you’re standing here looking at your wood? What? You think it’s going to carry itself into your fireplace and light itself on fire?  I’ll show your sorry Canadian butt how to make a fire. Here, follow me. )

So she leads me back into the Cave of Wonder, where there is secret stash (I had never seen it during my cave exploring outings) of dry sticks and twigs.  Actually, a bag of the stuff. My aunt points to this bag and says, "You need this.  Moron."  OK, she said it in French, but I’m pretty sure that’s what she said.

Ah ha! That is the secret to making a fire. Dry wood.  And the right type.  And small.  Ros, you were right…  :)

So I went for a walk.  Up a ways, past the little cottages and houses and into a big wooded area, where I figured there are trees there must be wood. 

Did you know that the floor of the woods is literally covered with twigs and broken pieces of branches?  I guess I never noticed this before.  My mountaineering experience is mostly in the high mountains, and I have to pack fuel for the stove.  There’s no trees above the treeline, and I don’t particularily like forests much.  I suppose I never really noticed all the stuff on the ground.

I packed my big bag (one of the corsican "recycle" bags), full of little twigs and what I felt would make good firestarter.  Took me only about 45 minutes, which isn’t bad.  My exercise for the week, so I killed two birds with one stone there. Ya for me!

Anyway, I get back to our place and show Cara my treasure.  She is suitably impressed, although she does notice that my bag of wood is rather wet. Sure, makes sense, after all it’s been raining for the last few days. 

Then my Aunt knocks on the door.  My Uncle is going to be delayed (snow on the road in the mountains, etc), so she’s here to show me how to start a fire. 

She brought her bag of twigs with her.

I showed her my own bag of freshly gathered wood and twigs, and she said, "Non, pas sec".  Which translated roughly means, "You really are a dumb canadian immigrant, aren’t you? The twigs must be dry.  Dry!  Can you hear me.  DRY!"

Then she shows me the secret. 

Well, first she validated my theory that the problem was the wood.  It seems my wood is not good wood for burning in a fireplace. So she went out and got a few choice peices of her own wood.  (Conveniently stacked right next to mine.  Or rather, my wood is stacked next to hers.)

She placed a few crumpled up bunches of newspaper on the bottom layer, then a whole heap of *dry* twigs on top, and then a small/medium log on top of that.

Then she lit it up with matches.

And she showed me how the fireplace works.  You see, it’s an insert.. which is a special type of fireplace, specifically designed to work with fire. You can use it to manage your fire, by adjusting various sliders to limit airflow into the fire area.

She closed the fireplace door, and *immediately* the burning paper just went crazy and rapidly started to be consuming by fire.  Apparently, the fireplace really doesn’t work too well with the door wide open… which is how I was trying to do it.  Immediately, I realized that yesterday during my fire starting attempts, if I had just shut the door and opened the air-vents.. all would have been well.  My mistake was keeping the door open and not understanding the airflow issue. Instead of practically knocking myself out with blowing, I should have realized the fireplace could do this for me, with heat-induced air circulation. How snazzy is that?!

Then the fire went out.  Well, the paper stopped burning. 

She turned a little sheepishly to me and told me that, usually, she didn’t start the fires.. it was Dominique who did it.  He is the fire expert, she says.  She’s just lighting this fire because he’s delayed and she knows Cara is cold, etc… 

She tries a few times to get the fire going, with new crumples of paper.. but it doesn’t work.  Finally, she stands up and tells me that we’ll have to wait until Dominique is home. No problem.  I’m reasonably confident that, now I understand how it works, I can get a fire going.

And I did.

After a brief inspection of the air-flow system, I figured out how it works.  It’s really simple, actually. The grill under the fire area is where the air comes out, so if you start your fire there (right in the middle), with lots of small twigs that will catch quickly… you only really need a few peices of paper to get it going. 

The fire gods, satisfied in my progress of study, once again deemed me worthy, and blessed me with fire. My sacrifice of pride was accepted.

So now you can all stop worrying about how cold Cara says she is.  The fire warmed up our place to a nice 18.9 degrees.  Not too hot, but not cold. Just perfect. 

Now.. couple of questions for you fire-people out there. (Corrie/Dawn, Ros, Oksana!)

1) Do you keep your fire going all night and day long?  Or do you let it die after you go to bed, and then start it again the next evening? 

2) Wood. How much wood is "normal" to use?  I think our fireplace insert has a leaky front window, because I can hear air whistling through the spaces.  I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be air-tight if I close off *all* the air-vents, but in our case.. air still gets through.. and so I think the wood is burning faster then normal.  Should I fix that?  (ie: scrap off the old seal junk and then buy some new sealer? I think it’s like a white fluffy sort of barrier thing.)

3) Any tips/tricks/suggestions on fire stuff in general?  I haven’t (yet) gone to the internet to do some research on using fire to heat a house (yes, I’m a geek!), but if you’d like to share your own experience and suggestions… well, I won’t pay you for it.. but consider me thankful.  :)

I am a crappy Corsican.

Why?

Because I can’t make a freaking fire in our freaking fireplace. 

Over an hour I spent trying to get a flame going… but no.. the corsican fire gods scoffed and spat on my effort.  Perhaps literally.  No fire for you!

Personally, I think it’s the wood.  You see, I’m using compressed lumber that was kindly donated to us by my cousin, who felt sorry that we didn’t yet use our fireplace since now Corsica is Land Of The Cold. (Well, it isn’t really.. but *they* think anything below 17 degrees Celsius is just Cold…)

Anyway, he went to visit his friend and then stopped by our place today and we unloaded about 2 big boxes of this wood he got for me.  Basically, they are "end pieces" from his friends woodshop.  It’s lumber, like the kind you would make big roof rafters out of.  (Think 8" by 8" huge blocks of wood cut into pieces about 2 feet long each.)  Did I mention that the wood is wet?

But.. I’m still a bit discouraged nonetheless.  After all, I have my pyrotechnic license for crying out loud. I am a certified fire maker.  I *love* fire.  Fire loves me.  We have a relationship.  A friendship.  An agreement. I will love fire and nurture it and make it big and strong.  Fire just has to show up.

Damn fire.

So what is it? What am I doing wrong? Is it the wood or is there some kind of trick to making a fire in a fireplace or something? Is there a secret Corsican fire starting ritual that I didn’t perform?  I used paper… I used small little wood pieces that I sort of chipped off from the blocks of wood… I even stole a few "normal" pieces of branches from my Uncles stash of wood.  (Shhh)

The problem is that the fire starts up, and even crackles and pops for a while.  But then it slowly begins to wither and finally dies after a while.  If I blow on it… it gets bigger of course.. but then I start getting dizzy and I don’t want to pass out and wake up in the hospital as a roasted Henri-kabob.

Tomorrow I’m going to stuff my incredible sense of humility into the closet and call my Uncle to see if he’ll let me watch him light his fire in his own fireplace. I’m sure he’ll laugh at me and make a few jokes out of it.. in fact I know this will be a running joke for a while… but you know what?  Electrical heat is expensive, and my desire to save money on heating is higher then my desire to retain my pride.

Besides, I can always prove my firestarting abilities at a later date by showing him how to make a home-made flamethrower.  He’ll like that.

Wish me luck! I hope he shows me nice and slow (like when he’s teaching me a new French word), because I don’t want to miss any slight-of-hand super secret tricks. Maybe he uses special matches?  I don’t know.  I still think the problem is the wood.

If I can’t get it after watching him, then I’m resorting to lighter fluid.  Pretty sure that’ll work. And hey, the house is made out of concrete so what’s the worst that can happen.  Yes, I have medical insurance.