Morne Vert River Hiking

Hi everyone! The last 10 days in Martinique were a whirlwind, so I didn't get a chance to post on the blog. Even though I'm back in Delaware, I still wanted to share about the rest of the trip!

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Saturday the 23rd was our last all-day excursion. Our guide extraordinaire René planned a whole day for us in the rainforest near his home, Morne Vert (green hill) in the northern part of Martinique. Our hike was up the small river, not on the banks of the river, but actually in the water.

It never got deeper than about knee height, and René had gone out the day before and placed ropes in strategic locations so we could get up the small waterfalls that were found along the way.

There was one straight waterfall that wasn’t climbable, so we went around it, after standing under it and taking pictures of course! It was pretty cool! The weather was just about perfect, not too hot, but not raining either.

We hiked for about 3 and a half to 4 hours before coming upon a shelter that René and his friends had built in the forest. It seemed like it was in the middle of nowhere, but we found out later it was about 5 minutes from a road. It was equipped with tables and chairs as well as a kitchen where his family and friends had been working for our arrival. A 5-course meal was waiting for us at the end of our hike. We started with Accras, then had salad, the main course, fruit and dessert! All of it locally sourced from René’s garden or from those around his home.

They had even made a special effort to have dishes that our vegan and vegetarian students could eat! The students were surprised that the dishes just kept on coming, but at a good pace so that we never felt like we were stuffing ourselves. They thought that the fruit was the dessert, but then they pulled out an old-fashioned ice-cream maker and we churned our own coconut sorbet! In the end, we had eaten over the course of about 4 hours, a true Martiniquais/French meal.

Anna working the ice cream maker!

Everyone has said that this day of hiking was one of the highlights of the trip and I have to agree, it was pretty incredible. One thing that made it even sweeter was that we all knew there was a huge snowstorm (named Jonas) hitting the East Coast at the same moment. So now, when people ask any of us about Jonas we get to say that while the snow was falling we were hiking in the rainforest, climbing waterfalls and enjoying the beauty of Martinique!

Carnival in Martinique

Giants!

The weeks leading up to the beginning of Lent are very special in Martinique. Technically, the true “Carnaval” takes place during the four days leading up to Ash Wednesday, but there are many carnival activities throughout Martinique well before the official start of carnival, usually just after the Epiphany (January 6^th). Parades are held on Sundays all over the island in the different towns, and private costume parties are abundant! Because no one else in the world celebrates Halloween, this is the time of the year for dressing up. Kids, and adults for that matter, host themed costume parties just like Halloween in the US, except it lasts longer and has an actual meaning behind it :P

The carnival was first celebrated in Martinique at Saint Pierre by the French Catholics in the 18° century. In the 17° and 18° century it was a celebration reserved for the rich colonies, with elegant receptions in costume. Only after the abolition of Slavery in 1848 was carnival actually opened to everyone and gained its characteristic style. It became famous for its originality which is influenced by the former slaves’ adaptation of their own beliefs and traditional instruments: tambourines, cha-cha, ti-bois…

From 1848 to 1902 the Carnival of Saint Pierre was extremely famous in Martinique, despite the fact that the celebrations at the time were overshadowed by the discrimination. In effect, one side of the colony was celebrating with masked balls, private banquettes and luxurious costumes whilst the other side of the island was occupied with celebrations of the vidés nègres. After the catastrophe of Saint Pierre, the carnival festivities were halted for 2 years in Martinique. When they started by up again, the Carnival relocated to Fort de France.

In some parts of the US, Mardi Gras is actually celebrated the day before Ash Wednesday. “Fat Tuesday” is the last day people had to eat rich, fatty foods before the strict Lenten fasts began the next day. Well, here they don’t just celebrate Mardi Gras, they have Samedi Gras, Dimache Gras, Lundi Gras and Mardi Gras. Each day has a different custom connected to it:

Samedi Gras:

This is the day the “Queens” of Carnaval are presented to their towns. Each town elects a “Queen” a “mini-queen” and a “Queen Mother” and they take part in the parade as royalty. Anyone can dress up in any costume they like on the Saturday.

Dimanche Gras:

The Sunday before Ash Wednesday is when the king of Carnaval, Vaval, is presented. He is usually a giant puppet or doll that takes the shape of a certain political figure, or even an abstract figure that represents an idea or type of person. Vaval will be symbolically burned at the end of the Carnival festivities on Ash Wednesday. The Carnival queen sits beside Vaval during the parades. Again, this is a free costume day and everyone dresses as they please.

A different type of queen :)

Lundi Gras: Monday is a themed costume day! The festivities start early when a chosen member of the town runs through the streets waking everyone up to join him in the streets wearing their pajamas. A pajama parade ensues! The evening’s theme is burlesque weddings and them men dress as brides and the women as the men.

Anna fraternizing with this fabulous devil!

Mardi Gras:

Everyone dresses like the devil and calls for the destruction of Vaval. In the traditional Catholic calendar, this would be the last day of Carnival, but in Martinique, the festivities continue through Wednesday, with the frenzy growing each day!

Ash Wednesday:

All dressed in black and white, in mourning for the death of Vaval, who is symbolically burnt on a bonfire at nightfall, the inhabitants of the island are at the peak of Carnaval!

My host mom!

Unfortunately, Carnaval starts the week after we leave to go back to the US, so we won’t be here to see the full spectacle, but we were able to see a parade at least! Because it was a Sunday, Anna’s host sisters came and grabbed me and we went downtown to watch the parade for about an hour. I wanted to see my host mom, in her cute little bumblebee outfit. We were just about to leave without having seen her when I spotted them in the distance. Perfect timing!

We left just after that so we wouldn’t get stuck in the crowds. Since it was just about sunset time, I had them drop me off at the hotel near my host mom’s house where I swim in the mornings so I could catch the sunset… it was a good one I think… what do you think? :)

Saint-Pierre and Mount Pelée.

Climbing up Mt. Pelée, into the clouds

Have any of you heard of a Peléan eruption? The USGS defines a a "Peléan" or "Nuée Ardente (glowing cloud)” eruption, as “a large quantity of gas, dust, ash, and incandescent lava fragments are blown out of a central crater, fall back, and form tongue-like, glowing avalanches that move downslope at velocities as great as 100 miles per hour. Such eruptive activity can cause great destruction and loss of life if it occurs in populated areas.” This type of eruption is named after Mt. Pelée here in Martinique. In May of 1902 it erupted so violently that the entire bustling town of St. Pierre, the “Paris of the Caribbean” along with the 27,000 people there, were razed in a matter of minutes. It took 30 seconds for the Nuée Ardente to travel from the mountain to the town with the force of an atomic bomb that instantly killed everyone in its path. The 800+ degrees Celsius cloud then set what was left of the town ablaze and it burned for days afterwards. Only a few people survived the initial blast, all but one of them soon perishing from their injuries.

Cyparis' Cell

The one sole survivor, Cyparis, survived because he was in a holding cell at the local precinct, having been arrested for drunken disorderly conduct and sentenced to a week of community service. He was halfway through his week, asleep in his stone cell, when the eruption occurred. He was found 3 days later by Father Mary, the head priest of the local parish found him and treated his burns, nursing him back to health. Cyparis left the island and, sadly, that priest perished in the second violent eruption of Mount Pelée that happen 4 months later. Cyparis joined the Barnum & Bailey circus, marketed as the miraculous sole survivor of the eruption that killed so many others. In his 2012 book “Operation Freak: Narrative, Identity, and the Spectrum of Bodily Abilities in Francophone Literature” Christian Flaugh researched Cyparis whose appearance was especially distinct: “his skin was recorded as especially distinguishable, with his bare and burned feet that were ‘scarred with frightful marks’ and the ‘white scars on the black skin’ that gave him ‘an uncanny appearance’” He also researched that happened to Cyparis later and there are many theories. Some say he died of natural causes in 1929, others insist that he died weakened and impoverished, abandoned by Barnum & Baileys in Panama in 1955 while another theory states that he stabbed a Barnum & Bailey’s employee in 1903, not long after he started with them, that cut short his career.

During our tour of St. Pierre we visited his cell, noticing its location had the protection of a small hill that shielded it from the blast and intense heat and the thick stone walls that no doubt are the reasons why he survived.

We also visited the ruins of the amphitheater in St. Pierre, as well as a small museum with some interesting artifacts found in the ruins. They had samples of the pyroclastic ‘bombs’ released by the eruption and even everyday objects like food, nails and tools that were burned/melted in the eruption.

Today the town of St. Pierre is a small one, with about 4,000 inhabitants. It is a shadow of its former self. The bay of St. Pierre is very deep, so it was the center of commercial activity starting way back in 1635! Within two years of Pierre Belain d' Esnambuc’s arrival in the bay, the French population had reached 700. More and more French arrived, mostly as indentured servants who were given a one-way ticket in exchange for 3-5 years hard labor, many not understanding they would never really have the opportunity or means to return to France. Many were sent against their will, including prisoners, beggars and vagabonds that were not wanted in metropolitan France. The few who survived the gruesome work were given their own plots of land to cultivate. The main crops in the beginning were manioc and potatoes for eating, rocou, indigo, cocoa and tobacco for export.

Though it sounds a bit random, the Portuguese conquest of Brazil had a huge impact on Martinique. They expelled the Jews from Brazil, most of whom ended up in Martinique, bringing extremely important knowledge with them that will irrevocably change the course of history for Martinique: the production of sugar! Fortune smiled on the land owners, the traders, and the ship-owners, but hell started for thousands of Africans. Growing and processing sugar cane required a lot of manual labor that the colonists alone could not do themselves. Soon, many slave traders unloaded their cargo of slaves on the quays of Saint-Pierre.

Throughout the centuries, Saint-Pierre adapted to changing economics. When the sugar cane market collapsed after beet sugar appeared on the market, along with the abolition of slavery, they switched to producing rum instead. The city was extremely prosperous and bustling. It was the cultural and commercial center of Martinique. Fort-de-France may have been the political capital, but the intellectual elite, the artists, musicians and wealthy Béké (descendants of the white colonists and merchants) lived in Saint-Pierre. It was very well-equipped, easily keeping up with the large modern cities of metropolitan Europe. Stores and homes were lit by electricity and were fitted with telephones; running water was the norm, and even a little tramway had been set up to serve the districts that were a bit out of town. Saint-Pierre enjoyed the status as the cultural capital of the Caribbean at large until May 8^th, 1902. The volcanic eruption literally wiped it from the map because from then on, the city that was once known as the “Paris of the Caribbean” no longer even appeared on any official maps, French or otherwise.

We had a historian/archeologist come speak to our students about Saint-Pierre and it’s interesting to hear about modern-day Saint-Pierre. It of course never recovered its former glory. Could it even be possible? Its inhabitants live in the constant shadow of a tragic history that is not their own, although it is just now starting to become so.  Time will tell what becomes of Saint-Pierre...

 

A double rainbow welcomed us into Saint Pierre

A Week of History...

This week was mostly dedicated to learning about the history of Martinique. Monday we had a guided tour of Fort-de-France, the capital. Our guides started out with a bit of history about the town itself, which is, today, the largest city on the island. I make the distinction because, although Fort-de-France (originally called Fort-Royale) has always been the political capital, it was not always the largest, most populated, or most important city. St. Pierre was actually that city until it was wiped out instantly by Mount Pelée’s 1902 eruption.

Pierre Belain D’Esnambuc

So here’s a little history of the island: The original inhabitants of the island were Arawak Amerindians, with archeological sites on the island having them here as early as 400 BC. Then the Carib Indians showed up from the Amazon basin about 800 AD. They completely wiped out the Carib Indians, only keeping some of the women. In 1502, Christopher Columbus landed in Martinique during his 4th trip to the “New World” and named it after Saint Martin: “Martinica” which evolved into “Madinina” (Island of Flowers) then to “Martinique”

Over one hundred years later, Pierre Belain D’Esnambuc, a French pirate of sorts, arrived on the island with almost 200 French settlers and claimed it for the French. The French population grew quickly, with over 700 French settlers on the islan

d by the time Fort Royale was built two years later. They grew crops such as manioc (cassava or tapioca) & potatoes to live on and indigo, tobacco, cocoa, and rocou (it grows on trees and the pods contain small seeds very similar to pomegranate seeds which are used to color or dye things as well as for their slightly peppery with a hint of nutmeg aroma, or their nutty, sweet or peppery taste—we used some to paint our faces for fun!).

With these exot

ic crops, the island became a moderately prosperous locale, especially after Louis XIII authorized the use of African slaves in the French Antilles in 1642. Little by little the Carib Indians are exterminated, by 1660 none can be found on the island and Martinique became an official Royal French Colony, although it would be owned on and off by the Crown, private French elite, or companies such as the The Compagnie des Indes Occidentales. It wasn’t until 1674 that the colony became permanently under the direct control of the French Crown.

In 1685 the “Code Noir” (the Black Code) was adopted. This was a collection of laws regulating the slavery in French colonies. The 60 articles that made up the code included the prohibition of specific acts of cruelty to the slaves such as torture, death or separating families. It also stated that slave owners were required to instruct their slaves in the Catholic faith, which had huge implications because it implied that Africans were human being endowed with a soul that needed tending to. Paradoxically, the code also relegated the slaves to the status of chattel, giving them no more value than that of an animal. On a side note, this code also made it illegal for any Jews to live in French colonies, so they had to leave!

In 1762 the English occupied Martinique for the first time, but only for 9 months because the Treaty of Paris returned it and Guadeloupe to the French (in exchange for Canada). They would recapture the island in 1794 during the French Revolution and then return it again, to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802 under the terms of the Treaty of Amiens. Although Napoleon Bonaparte is extremely well known the world over, in Martinique, it’s his first wife, Josephine de Bonaparte, who is the celebrity.

She was born here actually, so when Napoleon reinstated slavery after regaining control of the island in 1802, the locals were not happy with her. As we stood near a statue of her in Fort-de-France, our guide explained that some Martinicans believed, at worst, that she promoted the reinstitution of slavery because it benefitted her family who needed them to keep their fortune or, at best, that she sat by and said nothing to dissuade her husband from reinstating slavery. On the other side of the issue are those who believe that, though she may have wanted to intervene, she had no way to do so because Napoleon did not take advice from his wife. This is still passionately debated and in the late 90s a group removed her head from the statue of her found in Fort-de-France. Years later when they re-did the town square where the statue is located, a public debate was held as to whether or not the head should be reattached, and even whether or not the statue should kept in Fort-de-France or placed outside of the capital in the area where she was born. The result of the fierce debates was that she should stay in Fort-de-France, but without her head, which can be seen on the 6th floor of City Hall.

Schoelcher

Slavery was permanently abolished on May 22nd, 1848. One of the biggest names attached to this final abolition of slavery is Victor Schɶlcher, who, as president of a commission, prepared and wrote the decree of April 1848 in which the French government announced that slavery was abolished in all of its colonies.

He is a beloved figure on this island and the town I live in is named after him. His estate donated over 10,000 books from his personal collection and a library was established to house them.

The building was actually built in France and on display in Paris for the World’s Fair before it was dismantled, shipped and reconstructed in Martinique to hold the collection. Unfortunately, a fire ravaged the collection and only 1,200 of the books are left :( and they’re not even found in the library because of their value. It’s a beautiful little building!

Another event that irrevocably marked the island and its history was the eruption of Mount Pelée in 1902, instantly wiping out the bustling commercial and cultural capital of the island. I’ll go more into that in another post.

We also stopped by the Aimé Césaire Theater during our visit. He is one of the most beloved Martinicans. He was elected mayor of Fort-de-France in 1945 and stayed in that post for 56 years. On what would have been his 100th birthday, the Toni Morrison Society installed “A Bench By the Road” which is a movement inspired by an interview in which Toni Morrison stated:

"There is no place you or I can go, to think about or not think about, to summon the presences of, or recollect the absences of slaves . . . There is no suitable memorial, or plaque, or wreath, or wall, or park, or skyscraper lobby. There's no 300-foot tower, there's no small bench by the road. There is not even a tree scored, an initial that I can visit or you can visit in Charleston or Savannah or New York or Providence or better still on the banks of the Mississippi. And because such a place doesn't exist . . . the book (Beloved) had to" (The World, 1989).
There are 14 such benches found throughout the world, with others found at key locations related to slavery and the abolition movement. Some other locations include:

·         Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina, site of Fort Moultrie, and the embarkation point of nearly 75% of the slaves who entered America in the 18th and 19th centuries.

·         Oberlin, Ohio, a community active in the Underground Railroad.

·         Concord, Massachusetts: The Walden Woods “Bench by the Road” Project honors former slave and Revolutionary War hero Brister Freeman, along Henry David Thoreau’s Path.

·         Nyack, NY to honor Underground Railroad conductor Cynthia Hesdra.

A year after Aimé Césaire became mayor of Fort-de-France Martinique became an official French département. This was a big deal, changing their status from a colony to actually French/EU citizens with all the rights a privileges that come with!

So there you have it; the history that gives this beautiful island its rich and varied heritage! I’ll talk about St. Pierre and Mont Pelée in my next blog as it deserves its own post and this one is already pretty long!! Thanks for sticking it out and reading about the fascinating history of Martinique!

Visitors!

Salut tout le monde (Hi everyone!)

Saturday was a super fun day for me! The students and Anna all headed out early to visit La Savane de Petrification, the desert part of the island, but I didn’t go with them… I had visitors coming! Grandma Linda and Grandpa Tom are on a cruise that stopped in Martinique for a day! Their ship wasn’t due in port until 9am, so I got up early to exercise: my normal morning swim in front of the hotel.

As I was getting in the water at 7am, I saw their ship pass by on the way to the port of Fort-de-France. I swam, got myself ready, had breakfast, and then headed into town. I arrived almost exactly at 9am and the ship was still just off shore.  A bunch of locals and I stood together watching the ship come in, commenting on the enormity of the ship and the precision needed to bring it into port. The ship’s name is Anthem of the Seas and is part of the Quantum Class cruise ships, the second largest in the world!

Grandma and Grandpa came down the ramp at about 9:45 and we decided to head out to the Balata Garden, a privately-owned botanical garden that is one of Martinique’s most well-known attractions. Martinique is known as the Îles des Fleurs (Island of Flowers) and this was the perfect place to see why! It’s not very big, but it’s beautiful!

Grandma on the suspended bridge!

We spent a couple of hours walking around, and Grandma Linda and I both walked the suspended bridges among the trees. We ran into the Royal Caribbean group, but we were happy to let them leave us behind!

After the gardens we had lunch at the restaurant on site. Grandma had scallops, Grandpa the duck breast, and I chose the tuna. We all started with some Accra, which is one of the most famous dishes in the Caribbean. It’s a form of fritter in which you can put different ingredients so each island has their specialty. These were vegetable Accra and they were very good! The specialty in Martinique is Accra with Codfish, which I haven’t had yet, but I’m hoping to at some point in my stay. For dessert we had caramelized pineapple with vanilla ice cream that I added the rest of my rum punch to, significantly improving the dessert!

We had just seen the bus back to town pass by, so we had about 20 minutes to wait for the next one, so we hung out and chatted with some others who were visiting from the cruise ships. As we were walking to the bus stop to head out to the gardens, Grandma had seen a man selling coconut shells that had been make into bird feeders with hummingbirds on them. She wanted one of the small ones, so we looked for him on our way back, but didn’t see him. We walked the boardwalk where there were many others selling goods… we didn’t end up buying anything, but I definitely took note of what I might come back and get!

It was a nice, relaxing, no stress day that finished as they went back onto the ship and I sat on the boardwalk, my feet dangling in the water, and watched them sail off into the sunset…

First Week

Salut everyone!

I can’t believe we’ve been here for 5 days! It actually seems like so much more than that with how long the days have been!

My morning swimming spot!

Tuesday I started my morning going for a run then a swim for my morning exercise. The quiet little alcove in front of the Hotel Batalière is perfect for exercise swimming so it’s a great way to start the morning. Then the work day started out right away with a change of plans because our guide for the afternoon tour was sick, so we decided to stay on campus and show a movie. While Anna was in town making sure we got our bus passes, I was on campus making sure everyone arrived well and securing and setting up a room for the afternoon, since we hadn’t originally planned to be on campus. Once Anna arrived, we met with the 2 professors who are teaching the higher level courses and showed them how the online system works. We had a quick lunch at the cafeteria, then showed the movie

“Passage du Milieu” (The Middle Passage) for the afternoon session. This haunting film is, as IMDb puts it, is “A realistic look at the horrors of the slave trade, told entirely through the voice of a dead African slave whose spirit haunts the ocean route.”  The goal of showing this film was not only to give students insight into the origins of Martinique’s inhabitants, but also to facilitate discussion about how these origins still affect life today. The discussion that ensued was one of the reasons our students are on this trip: to broaden their horizons and reflect on other cultures as well as their own.

Once class finished it was the first time students were getting home on their own with the bus system. Of course everything had to be made interesting with a bus company strike that had some buses not running at all and others only coming once in a while. One group of students ended up getting a bus all the way into Fort-de-France just to have to turn around and take it back to the university because no buses were running to their neighborhood. It was kind of funny of course, and everyone made it home eventually, myself included!

Wednesday morning I didn’t go out because one of the classes started at 8am, so I wanted to be there to make sure everyone made it okay since it was the first time going to campus on their own. We also had one host family that didn’t work out, so we spent the morning arranging their move to other families. The afternoon had us visiting the Musée régional d’Histoire et d’Ethnographie in downtown Fort-de-France, located in the second oldest house on the island, built in 1885. We learned about some local history and saw an exhibition on the well-known writer and artist Joseph Zobel. On our way home we took the students to a shopping mall so that they would know where to find it if they wanted to come back on their own. I finally got a local SIM card and put it in my smartphone so I could have a local number!

La Presqu’île de la Caravelle

Thursday was our first excursion! We all met at 7am to go to the Presqu’île de la Caravelle (Caravelle Peninsula) for a hike around, a visit to an old sugar plantation and a stop at the beach! Anna hired a guide she knew from her stay on the island who will act as our guide on most of our excursions. We started hiking around the north-eastern peninsula and learned about the different plants and trees found in this part of the island, which is drier than the rest. It’s on the Atlantic side of the island and known for manchineel trees and the white-breasted thrasher, a bird that is endangered and only lives in the Caravelle Peninsula.

We didn’t see any of the birds but we did come across manchineel trees, which have a red band painted on them because every part of the tree is poisonous, from the sweet-smelling fruit to the bark and leaves. Even standing under it when it rains is dangerous: as the water runs over the tree and then touches a person, it will burn their skin! We just stayed clear.

After 3 hours of hiking we visited the “Château DuBuc” which isn’t really a château, but an old sugar plantation. The DuBuc family was extremely powerful in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially because they had one of the largest sugar plantations on the island. The wealth of a plantation was not measured by the size of the land, but by the number of slaves that worked it. A small plantation was less than 100 slaves, a medium plantation from 100+ to 250 and a large plantation such as this one was one that had 300+ slaves.

The family started losing their power in the late 18th because of a mixture of events including the cyclone of 1766, economic downturns and family feuds. That family is actually no longer found in Martinique, but apparently has a pretty good presence in Quebec…

Sugar cane was the main crop in Martinique, filling the coffers of Louis XIV and other kings of France for centuries. It took a nose-dive with the abolition of slavery, for obvious reasons. Now there is only one sugar plantation on the island and Martinique actually has to import sugar! Bananas now have the top spot on the agriculture of Martinique and counts for 54% of Martinique’s agricultural production.

After our visit to the plantation we had lunch and then played on the beach for a while. It was a great day and everyone was sufficiently exhausted by the end of it!

I was on the same bus as one of our students on the way home, so I offered to show her where I swim since she lives close to me. I had told her about it and she wanted to know how to get there from her house, so we hopped off the bus and walked down to the beach. We got there just in time to watch the sun set before walking home: a perfect ending to a great day!

Oh, you know, just walking home...

Getting There...

Hi everyone!

Yesterday started out very early: 2:45am wake up, 3:15am departure from the house, 4am meet-up at the airport! Much of the group traveled together from Philadelphia to Miami, but some students flew from other parts of the US such as Los Angeles and Cincinnati. Miraculously, all students arrived in Miami on time and everyone boarded our flight to Fort-de-France with no troubles. Our flights all went well and everyone arrived safe and sound in Martinique. Not a single piece of luggage was missing and all the host families were waiting at the airport! Our travels could not have gone better! We introduced everyone to their host families and off we went for our first evening en famille!

Exhausted but all present and accounted for: even the luggage!

My host “family” is actually a retired single woman whose grown kids live in metropolitan France. Because Martinique is technically France, when speaking about mainland France, they say “ en métropole” to make the distinction. Her beautiful little house is up on a hill right behind a well-known 4-star hotel, La Batalière. It took me not even 10 minutes this morning to get to the beach in front of the hotel!

Oh, you know, just my morning walk...

The beach is not a long one, but more a little alcove, so I might switch to swimming in the sea for my morning exercise! Mme Hayot, my host mom, told me when I got back from my morning jaunt that there’s a sports complex on the other side of the neighborhood, so I’ll check that out tomorrow.

My address for the month

I have a little room to myself, and a bathroom too, so I’m all set! The university is about 3 bus stops away from where I live, so will be easy for me to get up there. I’m pretty sure that bus stop also has a bus that would take me directly into Fort-de-France, which is the capital. Most of the students, myself included, live in the next town over from Fort-de-France, Schɶlcher, where the university is also located. A few students, and Anna, live in a neighborhood of Fort-de-France, so they’re a little farther from the university, but closer to town.

Today Mme Hayot dropped me off at the university at 8:30 since I didn’t have my bus pass yet. Students trickled in, many of them accompanied by their host families. Everyone seems to be happy with their families, getting settled in a used to speaking French! So far it seems all of our careful matching is working out and we’re hoping we don’t need to move anyone or have any issues like that. Anna went to the office early and dropped off the applications for all of our bus passes, then met us at the university to start our first day on campus. We had a guided tour of the university so students know where classes are held, where the library is and, of course, where to find lunch every day! Then they all had their first day of class before figuring out the lunch system at the cafeteria.

Our next step was to all go into Fort-de-France for a guided tour of the city. This is where we had a few snags. The first was that the bus company wasn’t able to get our passes done in time, so we didn’t have any. Not too big of a deal, they just gave us a receipt that we could show the driver. Then the guide we were supposed to have was sick, so we ended up going to the museum that was scheduled for tomorrow. We’ll do the tour tomorrow and we’ve learned all about the prehistory of the island… a good start to learning about Martinique; from the beginning! Our guide was funny and explained about the original inhabitants of the island, of which none remain, and their history. I’ll go more into that in a later post.

A successful first full day in Martinique!

Everyone was exhausted after that, so we took the bus back to the university. Because we didn’t have the bus passes, we had to call each host family ask them to come pick up their students, so Anna and I waited to make sure everyone got picked up before we headed home ourselves, tired but happy with our successful first day in Martinique!