Degaje

(disclaimer: I had to google the spelling of this word and found that this is, approximately, the 957^th blog post on this exact topic. Yay for originality!)

I learned my new favorite Creole word the other day and now I see it everywhere. Degaje on the street. Degaje in my classroom. Degaje at my apartment. It is all around. What does it mean, you ask? Degaje pretty much means, “whatever it takes to make it work.” You may have a different word for it. The one I have heard most commonly is “rigged.” In Texas, usually you just put something together with Duct Tape. That’s a common form of Degaje. In my apartment, Degaje looks like this…

Example #1:

From what I’ve seen around campus the last three weeks, when an air conditioner is put into a wall, it is a fairly simple process. Step 1: Knock out a hole in the wall. Step 2: Insert air conditioner. Step 3: fill in outside of hole with cement.  This might now be the best usage of the word Degaje…maybe this process is all too common to really be titled Degaje.

Example #2 Curtain Rod (part 1)

You need to hang curtains in your room, but it is hard to drill hooks into the wall and, lets face it, curtain rods are expensive. So, here is what you do. Hammed a nail into the wall about halfway, then bend it up. Do the same thing on the other side. Then, grab a piece of rebar (not sure if that is spelled correctly) and set it on top of the bent nails. Finally, hang curtains. (This was already installed when I got here. I can’t take credit for it).

Example #3 Curtain Rod (part 2)

My current roommate is getting married and moving out soon. She has lived here a while and had purchased a lot of the home furnishings that are in our apartment. Naturally, they are moving with her so I have had to re-decorate a little. I purchased this fabulous pink & tan shower curtain at the grocery store the other day. Then, another girl on campus gave me a white shower curtain to hang up as a window curtain. I decided to have the pink one on the window, but, alas, I didn’t have a curtain rod long enough for this window….but I did have two short ones! What do you do? You tape them together then hang a shower curtain from it to make a wonderful window decoration.