Into the Swing of Things

It’s been a good while since I’ve been back and it has been much better since my shaky return. I have been going out more, being more adventurous, spending a lot on gas, teaching private English lessons with kids who are motivated (!!) and finally getting a sense of enjoyment out of living here. I’ve been going to the beaches more, making a checklist of things I have to do before I leave Martinique… The secret of life here is to stay busy, even if busy means taking the time to relocate to a beach to read instead of just hanging out at my place. There are a ton of tourists here now. The season for the Caribbean has begun and the prices reflect it, so do the crowds. As always, Martinique is visited by vast quantities of French people, a few German people, and even fewer other nationalities. I am glad I went to St. Lucia before the break, but now I am wishing I had gone to other islands too. I have 4 day weekends now. I do private English lessons on Tuesday nights at a family’s house in Ducos, but that is about it. I have plans to travel to Antigua over Carnaval when Benji comes to visit. And I am going to be going to Barbados and St. Croix with my family as the big finish to my time in the Caribbean.

Since I have these very long weekends, it seems like a shame not to try to visit other islands and see what I can see now that I am here and it feels like it is all at my fingertips. But the Caribbean is so expensive, especially right now. I am fighting between saving what money I have for the end of the trip and the beginning of life in Williamsburg again, but also thinking when will it ever be this cheap to travel to other islands again… I thought about doing EasyCruise but I think I would rather just go to an island and stay there for a few days. The other trick is finding people to go with. Not everyone is without things to do for four days in a row every week.

Friends and I have started making pacts about doing things before we leave, and the only way to make a successful pact is to set a date to do it. So I have already pledged myself to a reggae concert at the end of January, a drive up to Carbet to see this live latin music club do it’s Friday night dinner and dancing party, to climb Mt. Pelée, go to Anse Couleuvre (a famous black sand beach) and the Gaugin museum. There are a lot of things left to do and see here and I think I just need to get myself together and go do them. It probably sounds like it wouldn’t be that hard, but driving here takes it’s toll on you pretty quickly. The roads are winding and hilly, and my car does not have power steering, so I have to get pretty physical behind the wheel. And, even though the island is small, to drive up to the northern part of the island, barely 40 miles, it takes almost two hours. So you can see that it takes motivation and a good itinerary to merit a trip like that for me.

Speaking of which, I did have a good trip up to the northernmost part of the island last week. In fact it turned into the highlight of Martinique so far for me. Ceri’s brother was visiting, so we went to Gorge de la Falaise, which is in Ajoupa-Bouillon in the heart of the mountains and fertile rainforest of the north. You drive up a gravel road to a little wooden complex of picnic tables, a gift shop and a few changing cabins, you give 7 euros to a man sitting in a chair and he sends you down a very steep pathway that leads you to the bottom of one of the cliffs. From there, you follow the little river you find up until you see a very fit man in a wetsuit waiting for you. He takes your tickets and then climbs like a spider monkey over the rocks before you, leading you into a narrow passageway between two large cliffs that has the clearest, purest, most delicious water at the bottom. You follow this trail of water, at some points swimming, at some points climbing up waterfalls, scaling boulders or walking along the edge of the rocks above until you come to a 30 foot waterfall at the end. Here there is a large pool of water and you can go under the waterfall and swim around in the pool below. The water is not warm, but it is so sweet and pure, and gives you the most refreshing feeling ever.

After you spend some time at the waterfall splashing around and getting pounded by the falls itself, basking in your own self-accomplishment, you begin the trek back. You are under the impression that you’ve done the hard part, now it’s just a matter of going back to the beginning. But the guide throws some surprises at you, you’ll be walking and you’ll get to one of the waterfalls you had to climb up and he’ll tell you, “okay, you walk out onto this rock, put your foot there, all the way to the edge…” and you do it, then he says “now jump”. And you look at him with surprise, and then you look down, and it’s not that far, but it’s a narrow jump and the pool doesn’t look that deep, so you look at him again and he says “jump!” and then you do, and it is even better than just splashing or swimming into the water. It is very deep and you couldn’t tell because the water is so clear. And it feels great. Then, you keep trekking back and there are more little surprises like a secret cave hidden under one of the waterfalls that you are challenged to enter after jumping off another small cliff. It was such a fun outing and the whole trek only took about one hour. The trip up took a long time, but it was a really great afternoon.

I went to see Giselle as performed by the Russian National Ballet Company in Fort-de-France. It was a solid performance, and it was nice to go out to a cultural evening. The Atrium center is pretty nice, but nothing like Paris. I find myself missing France a lot, especially Paris. I feel the draw to go back to the places that I fell in love with when I was there. La Martinique, ça n’a rien a voir…

This past week at school I worked with the students on songs. We translated “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston and it was hilarious because all the students sang along mimicking Miss Houston’s vocal stylings. At least they had fun. But it didn’t take too much time because there aren’t a lot of words. So sometimes I would do two songs in one class. Another one was “I Feel Good” by James Brown, at the request of my students. Not too many words either but sometimes they would talk about it or the expressions I taught them. So it was alright.

On Wednesday I was invited to partake in “Galette” which is the traditional Epiphany cake that has a little figure hidden in it. Whoever finds it gets to wear the crown. It was one girl’s birthday. She brought in three galettes, two of almond pastry, and one of sweet potato pastry. I arrived at noon for the class, the girl was setting up everything, and she takes out the cakes, and the sweet potato one, the special one, was stolen. They took the knife too. I was under the impression that only teachers would be the subject of ridicule and stupid disrespectful actions like that, but unfortunately, there is not even a code of respect between the students. Nothing is sacred it seems. We managed to find plenty in the two cakes that were left for the class, but still, the little party was somewhat dampened by the rude actions of another class. It’s kind of a good example of how things go in the schools sometimes.

I have to do a separate entry for the last three days since this one is already getting kind of long. The pictures I posted are from a beach not too far from me, Tartane.