Hello hello,
I made it! I've been in Pointe-a-Pitre for 6 days now and it's pretty awesome. I'm staying at a high school where kids from neighboring islands and cities come to stay for the week. There are a bunch of little buildings that house 8 people and have a kitchen and 2 bathrooms. It's pretty nice and I even have air conditioning...sometimes. It's the rainy season and it rains at least once a day, but not for more than 20 minutes usually. I don't mind because the result is a beautiful island full of palm trees and beautiful rivers and waterfalls.
The first day here I met a Spanish guy who does my same job and did it last year too. He invited me to go with him to meet his Irish friends that he knew from last year so I drove across the island with him and hung out at their place that overlooks the sea! They turned out to be really cool people so I went apartment searching with Victoria the next day and hung out in cafes in Pointe-a-Pitre, the economic capital of Guadeloupe.
Saturday night I went with a few people to a beach where we sat in the warm, shallow water for a hour and listened to the French Caribbean music, Zouk, that is so popular here. There were tons of people there even at 11pm just hanging out and playing volleyball. Zouk is played everywhere, at all times, especially in the buses where the drivers are self-proclaimed DJs and blast great music all day.
The next day I went to Basse Terre, the mountainous half of the island, and swam in two waterfalls with the Spanish guy, Carlos. We would climb up about 30 feet to the top of the waterfall and slide down the natural rock slides made from volcanic rock. It was SOOO fun!!! (I'll bring you there if you come to visit me :)
On Monday I rented a car and drove up to the northern part of Grande Terre, the flatter part of the island. Myself, Victoria and another American girl went up to Port Louis to check out the town as I thought I was going to be living there. It's pretty cute, but not much was going on as we rolled through at lunchtime, when everyone goes home for several hours and has the biggest meal of the day with their families. So we went to the beach and swam around for a while. Unfortunately we had to move down a way because a guy was doing...inappropriate things about 30 feet from us. We yelled at him and told him to go home to do that. Then we drove down the road a bit to a view point overlooking the Atlantic and some cliffs to watch the sunset. Wow so beautiful!!
Yesterday...I was hot.
And finally, TODAY! First, I found out that I will not be teaching in the little town up north with the pervert. But instead I will be teaching here, near Pointe-a-Pitre. So I went into town and met with the apartment lady again and said I'll take it! I'll be right downtown and have a great little balcony to hang out on.
SO that's my adventure so far. I hope that all's well with you all and I promise to not write so much in the future :)
Love, Avery
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