Welcome to Europe! We are in Martinique, which is officially France. Thus, we entered a totally different language community, a different currency, and a just plain totally different culture.
We spent our hours in St. Lucia at a nearby beach, getting a feel for the lives of real St. Lucians while being in view of a rather large and exclusive resort. We were happy to find the resort totally unappealing to us and we talked about how eager we are to get to our worksite(s) in Dominica.
We started several hours early to get organized for our trip to Martinique by catamaran, a huge ferry that traverses the waters between the islands of the archipelago. We had ample warnings that the crossing would be rough, so we dosed up on motion sickness meds and ran for the top level of the boat, where we heard that it was less likely for people to throw up. We ran bets about how many of us would throw up (and how many times) but happily, we all lost the bet (as no one picked “zero” for either answer).
The boat showed a French language version of one of the Spiderman sequels, with English language captions. None of us welcomed the idea of trying to watch small screens while fighting through the waves, so most of us just zonked out before we even left port and stayed that way until the boat slowed to approach the dock at Martinique.
Our luggage collection proved to be less of a problem than we expected, though we are sick of hauling around huge bags of tools, first aid, and other supplies when we are not yet even using this stuff.
Still, we had no problems because Claude (who is still in Puerto Rico, but will join us tomorrow in Dominica) had made all of the arrangements for us and because our two French language speakers (Morgan and course consultant Matt Halperin) smoothed out any wrinkles that emerged. Morgan spent a full year abroad in France last school year, so she welcomed the opportunity to return to the feel of the Europe that she loved (and loves).
Morgan is the recipient of one of two (so far) proposals of marriage to members of our group. Because we have gotten two such offers in two days, we wonder if this is going to be a daily occurrence. We hope not.
We move on from Martinique just after noon tomorrow, so we have the morning to get a feel for this little island slice of Europe. Then one more boat ride, a long-ish van ride, and we will finally reach our destination. Thanks for paying attention to our blogs already; please tune in again soon to get the real scoop on what we are doing . . .
Hanging out at the beach in St. Lucia.
Leaving St. Lucia, Dock--Looking back at the dock in St. Lucia from the ferry.
Golden arrow--The hotel we stayed in on St. Lucia.
Dani walking back from the beach
Local Gift Shop at the beach
Look a crab!!
Sunset on the way Martinique
Team St. Mary's attempting to discover the beach
View from the Golden Arrow Inn
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