Quick pic

I will write more later about the happenings this week, but I had to post this just quickly.

On the way home last night, I missed my turn and found myself driving through a little commune next to mine called Cocoyer. I had a slight idea of where I was heading the entire drive, but ultimately, I was lost. Not in any kind of rush (like every other person here), I drove up and down through the hills when I spotted the sun hitting this cow just perfectly. I momentarily debated if the stop for a photo was worth it but quickly decided yes and pulled to the side of the road and took this:

I've taken a lot of pictures in my day, but this has to be one of my top 3 favorites.  I feel like there's a moral to it as well, something along the lines of:

  if you think your lost, don't panic or try to hurry, because there will be beauty along the way, and if your only worried about finding your way back, you'll miss it.

I'm sure there are many other words of wisdom that could go along with it as well, but it's high tide I get ready for bed.

La Soufriére

Sunday morning, after only 2 hours of sleep the night before, a breakfast of a banana and piece of trident gum, and wearing someone else's shoes (a size too small), I hiked the volcano of Guadeloupe, La Soufriére. Hiking a volcano is (now was) an activity on my tada list (list of things to do before I die). However, it was extremely different than I expected. I figured hiking a volcano would be more like a steady incline, in dry air, with smoke and tiny lava explositions in the distance, ha. The air was thick, thick and wet, thick and wet and sulfery; and long, and far from a steady incline. It's a volcano in a jungle, I probably should have been a bit more mentally prepared. But it was worth it, not for the views at the top though, at the summit you could barely see anything, because it's in the clouds, and the wind was blowing about 100 km/h. It was hard to keep your balance, which is pretty important when you realize you are at the top of a volcano with no barriers between you and the 1400m below. There were some amazing views on the way up, they came and went as we hiked through the clouds.

Path

View of the city and sea below

Almost to the summit, I felt like I was climbing Mordor from The Lord of the Rings.

Path

Part of the volcano

The summit

This sign, before you begin the ascent, says something along the lines of "toxic gases and in dangerous concentration for your health and security". The smell of sulfur was very strong, even that night I could taste it when I brushed my teeth.

The day before the hike, I was at a beach in Deshaies, a city on Basse Terre, it was amazing, my favorite beach so far. The waves right at the shore were crazy. One second you could stand with the water at your waist, the next you couldn't touch the bottom.  I didn't have my bodyboard, so instead, the British taught me how to bodysurf, so cool. 

The beach itself was beautiful. The sand is half black half brown, it's the dividing line between the black sand beaches from the volcano in Basse Terre and the white sand beaches from the coral in Grande Terre.

The beach, it's also beautiful because it's so close to the sauvage 

Grande Anse

Today I started the English excursions. I spent the day doing activities with guadeloupean kids, one of them taught me how to do Kurudo, a traditional dance here. 

The kids playing football

Les Vacances pt. 2

Tuesday night I woke up two very distinct times durning my sleep. The first, I woke myself up hysterically laughing at a dream I had just had about Austin wearing one of moms colorful jean outfits, apparently it was really funny. When I opened my eyes, still laughing, I realized it was the middle of the night, and I was alone in my room, giggling. The second time, I woke up with a horrible pain in my foot from the sea urchin sting, that I thought had gone away. I couldn't fall back asleep, it hurt so bad. So the next morning I spent a good hour and a half soaking it and trying to get whatever was still in my heel, out, again (while watching Miss Teen India-Guadeloupe of TV).  After the hour and a half of soaking and tweezers and clippers and nail files, I thought I had finally succeeded, so I wrapped it up proceed with my day. Little did I know that evening I would experience the miracle of the birthing of a sea urchin spike out of my body. When I checked on my foot that night, I noticed a little white thing beginning to ascend from my heel, it was the actual spike. I watched it grow and grow until it fell out of my foot completely.

That cm long spike had been in my foot for a week!

Okay, no more about the spike. 

This picture encompasses one of the highlights of my trip thus far. I was wandering the backyard, in hopes of an avocado (there are 3 avocado trees). But because it's not really the season, they are few and far between. But I spotted one, way way up high in the tree. I scoped it out a bit, and decided to climb it. At the very top, I reached and picked the avocado, one of my proudest, most accomplished, moments.

Anse Maurice, a little "Anse"/beach where my teacher invited me to a picnic with her family and some colleagues from the school. (Side note: I don't want to toot my own horn, or jinx myself, but my navigational/driving skills here are pretty fantastic. I use this goofy little map of the island to navigate the roads and take the back routes (here they are called "le chemin chien" which means dog roads in English) when needed, and get pretty much anywhere I need to be, which doesn't sound too difficult until you see this place and drive these narrow, potholed, unmarked roads, surrounded by nothing but tall sugarcane, cows and the occasional rhum distillery.) The food they brought was amazing, and the beach was beautiful.

The beach

Some rocks.

Yesterday, I spent the day in Gosier with Katie (an American assistant) and 6 of the Assistants from Spain.  There is a little island, îlet de gosier, off the coast of the beach, 4 of the spaniards and I swam there (the others took the boat). Something I learned from that experience, depth perception and the ocean don't go very well together. Needless to say, the island was much further than I had anticipated. Anyways after about a mile or so of swimming, we made it to shore, that was a wonderful feeling. I swam to an island, pretty neat, I have to admit though, I took the boat back. We hung out there for awhile, ate lunch, wading in the water, and sitting on the beach, giving me ample time to acquire my first real, full body sun burn.

The boat ride back

Iguana 

When Katie and I got back to Le Moule around 5, we started an adventure to get some Bokits (Bokits-the delicious fried bread sandwiches I've mentioned in previous posts), and by adventure, I mean we waited until 7:30 until a Bokit truck finally showed up in Centre-Ville.

Our patience was well worth it though. Le Bokit d'or (the name of the Bokit truck, in English "The golden Bokit") must be one of the bests, because by the time we left, the line was at least 15 people long. It was fantastic.

Le Bokit D'or

Me (really burnt) and my Bokit

Les Vacances pt. 1

We started our two week vacation yesterday. After 3 weeks of being in classes, I'm not working at the schools until November 4. It's a nice system they have here. 

A bird flew into my room, it's sitting in the corner of the window here.

The beach in Gosier at night.

The vue of the street in Gosier where two Assistants live. They had a birthday party last night, it was quite enjoyable. People from Spain, Brazil, Canada, Guadeloupe, America, England and Ireland all hanging around together speaking French.

Birthday cake shaped like Gwadloup

Breakfast of a bun filled with coconut over looking the beach. Yumm

The boats docked on the water in Gosier.

Îlet de Gosier, a little island off the coast.

The sting

Port of Petit-Canal

Marché des Esclaves, not sure the significance, but I think it's important in the history of slavery here.

Park in Petit-Canal near my school

Moulin in the park

My lunch on Monday. They put okra in the rice

My new gear

(That is the heel of my foot, anyone who knows my feet knows they are pretty disgusting and discolored already. So sorry if the picture is a little graphic. Not graphic because of the injury, but graphic because my feet are gross)

I got "stung" by a sea urchin. ("Stung" meaning I stepped on it, but I guess that's what you call it) the beaches in Le Moule are very "mouvement" (I don't know a word that describes it in English, but the water is constantly moving with lots of waves and wind and such) so it's sometimes hard to see the bottom, and hard to keep your balance, which can be bad because there are also a lot of rocks, algae and corals to accidentally step on. Then if you happen to step on spikey rocks, corals or sea urchins, it makes it very hard to move away from them or pull out the stupid thing that you stepped on. Anyways, it hurt a bit to walk on, but it wasn't until later when my landlords got out, the spikes, that it really hurt. Madame Jocelyn grabbed her needle and started towards the spot, then Mr Philippe came "to the rescue", and went to town with the needle and my heel. After about 3 minutes extreme needle work and pressure, they got out the spikes. But as you can see from the photo this morning, the spikes are still there but there's no way I'm telling them that. 

Samedi

Walk on the beach in Le Moule

Beach in Le Moule

Bird

Le Moule

My car parked in the street

Boudin made by Madame Jocelyn. This is the other type of boudin, white boudin. (The black boudin (or black pudding) was the "pig poop applesauce", remember?). This kind was much much better.  It's made with bread, vegetables and lots of spices, very delicious.

Stray cat with very bleu eyes

Coconut sorbet at night, under a palm

10/10

Here are some examples of the questions/comments I received from students: do you have children? How do you feel about obamacare? What do you think about Obamas politics? How old are you? I thought you were 28; Teacher: yes she looks like a real woman. In the future do you want to get married? How many children do you want to have? Were you ever on the TV show Americas Next Top model? Why not? Why are Americans fat? What are your aspirations in life? Are you Irish? You are Irish. Are you German? You are German. How many Mcdonalds are in Omaha? Do you have Facebook? What's your last name? How do you feel about violence in America? Do you have a gun? Are your eyes gray or blue? What's your favorite part about Guadeloupe?

To the last question I usually reply "I love the beaches"; which is always proceeded by an uproar of laughter. Every single time. And you wouldn't believe the laughter that ensues "I love the beaches here". I'm trying to find another word for beach, but I haven't come up with one yet.

When I got to school this morning at 7h30, I was informed Mr Genevey, (the Bruce Springsteen loving, Temptations look-a-like) my first teacher of the day, had quit.  So instead I went with another teacher, Madame Roche, who left me alone with her students to talk about whatever I wanted for an hour. Then I went to Madame Galli's class where I spent 30 minutes talking about prom. Then back to another class of Madame Roche where I talked to the students about whatever for another hour. At the lunch hour (I say lunch "hour" but here it's more like lunch "two and a half hour") I had to go get insurance for my new car. I bought a car yesterday, bought a car! It's a Renault Megane (I knew it was a sign when the car was called Megane) and it's automatique. Anyways, getting insurance was quite the (frustrating) ordeal, took two hours. Mr Philippe (my landlord) took me. The insurance lady was very nice, but drivers liscences in America are very different than those of Europe and here, and because we get new ones at age 21, the date issued on mine was 01-01-2012, which made it seem as though I had only been driving for one year, that's a big problem for insurance here.. Fortunately, mom sent a picture of my old liscence with the date of my 18 year old one, and it worked. The lady working couldn't get over the fact of how wonderful and quick to drop everything for helping me my mom was. She went on and on about how "ma mami était formidable" (my momma was amazing). (Which is very true by the way)

I tried Bokits for the first time the other night after I went to the new Woody Allen movie "Blue Jasmine" in Point-à-Pitre with my teacher and her husband. We got them at a little food truck type thing. It's a creole fried bread sandwich, and it was delicious! I got poulet fromage (chicken and cheese).

My tomatoes in the jardin, we will see what they look like when I leave.

Bokit

The Wednesday marché

Koko sowbé (creole for coconut sorbet/ice cream)

The car

Rainbow I saw on my way to work today. There are a lot of rainbows here, I love it.