Hi All,
Many apologies for not being in direct contact with you sooner. For a variety of reasons, our plans remained uncertain until the last minute, put we have made good on our dream to come to Martinique for an extended sojourn. We left Seattle on 8/8/08 with our house rented to grad student tenants, nearly all our things in storage, and with all we could fit in our bags we made it out here. I took one day off the day we were flying, and another day off a few days later to go to a birthday on the islet (l’islet) for my cousin Francois, but otherwise I’ve been working every weekday since we left. First photos are at http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=53206&id=571192952. Adrienne and the girls have been quite busy also getting things together at our new place, villa les glaieuls jaunes.
We spent 2 weeks at my cousin Michel’s bungalow, which is right on the point, with a spectacular view, and was a very great place to have a base. I’m still going there daily to work until internet gets set up at our place.
We’ve been in a whirlwind of activity. Finding and buying a car, getting reasonable insurance, registering the girls for school, getting their uniforms, furnishing the apartment, setting up utilities, getting cell phones, eating and swimming and playing and working have been full time occupations.
We’ve tried to spend free time with cousins and their kids. Olivia and Colette have been given some lessons in French by Marine and Laura, and also by Michel’s wife Brigitte and daughter Claudia. The girls have spent many hours swimming with flippers, Olivia with a mask searching for sea urchin shells, Coco frolicking in the water. Down at the water from our house, there’s a small shady area where the girls play while the bay gently laps at their feet.
Adrienne and I have spent some nice meals and afternoons with the parents and older adults, talking and swimming; and eating. My favorites so far have been incredibly tender conch in a burgundy sauce, gateau mille feuille (1,000 layer cake with vanilla custard, drizzled with chocolate), tuna steak, carmelized onion quiche, fresh mangos, fresh quenettes (a small round tree fruit about the size of globe grapes, that come in bunches, with a thin, peel you split open to find the fruit, a pink orange sweet and tangy fruit around a large round pit – eat a dozen or three of these if you ever get the chance), a lychee champagne cocktail, French bread with chevre and guava jam, and Jus de Prune de Cythere (I don’t know the word for this in English).
