Dear friends and family,
I just wanted to let you know what I've been up to...
First of all here's my new address:
47 Hortencia Dugazon
97139 LES ABYMES
Guadeloupe
Cell phone number: 011.059.069.47.96.60
I will also have a land line...number TBA.
I finally have a home!! I moved in on Saturday night with my friend Courteney from North Carolina to an appartment that is really nice and big, though our voices echo a little because the floor is tiled. It's fully furnished and everything seems to be brand new. We rent from an elderly couple and they had their whole family over there the day we moved in. They're so cute! M. Andre fretted over the placement of the refrigerator while his wife showed us how to use the washing machine the how to close the balcony garage door thingie again and again. They wanted to show off how secure the place is to us, which it seems to be. Courteney and I cruised around the neighborhood the next day and found other big appartment buildings like ours, a shanty town and a hidden away wealthy neighborhood where the scary watch dogs barked at us, all in a 15 minute walk. It is amazing how first world and third world Guadeloupe can seem at the same time in different places. The mall we go to is really swanky but the bread and meat shop across the street looks like a shack in a third world country.
Weather report: rained every 3 hours or so all week. Hot and muggy. Bought a new fan.
Daily activities: Stay in the shade, play cards for several hours, drink a gallon of water.
I haven't done much travelling much since my first week here. I failed to mention last time that I hurt my knee jumping off a waterfall. I thought my bone was chipped on my tibia but it turned out to just be a hematoma bruise that is almost gone now. So I've been taking it easy. Courteney and I get exercise by going down to the road that encircles the airport where over 100 people walk and jog just before sunset.
I am very glad to be living where I am now in a very residential neighborhood, just a 10 minute walk from the bus line and the discount grocery store that we discovered yesterday. The high school where we were staying was very isolated and we would hang out in the parking lot at night and name the cows that were also hanging out in the parking lot, wondering why their mating attempts always fail or why they chew constantly even though they're not eating anything. All the lizards, cockroachs, centipieds and millipieds, mosquitoes and frogs that would come into our building were really getting on our nerves. I am also glad to not be in Pointe-a-Pitre, the big city where I had wanted to live before. The appartment that I had checked out in P-a-P fell through because 1) the landlady was a crook and lied to us about various things... 2) the pleasant smell that I thought was from walnut wood ended up being mold...and 3) little kids threw small rocks at Courteney and I (white women) while nicely avoiding our friend Marie-Claire (a black woman) just as we were approaching the appartment. Needless to say, we did not feel welcomed to Guadeloupe that day.
It's an experience for me to be one of very few white people here. The population is very diverse and skin colors range a lot from very dark brown to very light brown. People are descendants of Africans, Indians and whites and it's really neat to see all their different appearances. Surprisingly I feel more at ease here being white than I do in the US when I am the only white person somewhere. I don't feel that it is as tense at chez moi in Wisconsin. I get a lot of cat calls, or rather hisses, which I really don't like but ignore easily enough. But I have had a good experience with most of the people I have met here.
School... Hmm Comment dirais-je?... the pedagogy here is very different. The teachers are extremely strict and never really smile or praise the kids for their work. Their teaching style reminds me of movies about boarding school it he olden days when teachers would hit kids on the hand with a ruler. I think the teachers are trained in the typical French style and I'm not a big fan. The kids, however, are very responsive to positive feedback and we've been having fun doing little skits. Yesterday morning before school a little girl came up to Courteney and I, asked how we were doing and started playing with our hair, smelling it, touching our faces and our arms. It was so funny, an experience I've never had before.
All in all, life is good here. I'll try to stay busy for the coming months--any ideas? I lied about not writing a long email again oops.
I hope all of you are doing well and I miss you!
Much love, Avery
|
