72 hours after landing in Fort-de-France (Martinique) and taking a boat to St Lucia where we currently are, I’m slowly getting used to the heat and already astonished at how much I learned about myself.
If Martinique looks a lot like “France in the Caribeans” (same stores, same roadsigns, same apparent way of life), StLucia is another planet. Gros-Islet (the town we stay in) is built as a melting pot of “full accomodations houses”, barracks and slams-like-tents all looking like they reached their breaking point half a century ago already. And to be honest, I had not pictured it this way.
I already mentioned it when writing about my trip to Ohrid in Macedonia, I have not been in many countries where the level of life is so different from ours in Western Europe. So it is with my “beware”, “stay alert” and “WTF does this guy want” mindsets that I approached the people here.
As I said, the city does not look like much. But the patchwork of people that live there really make up for it. I must admit I have rarely seen so many people just happy to say “hello” or simply wishing to know where you’re from and how you find the island. With my initial mindsets on, I had the tendency to try to avoid any conversation… which was really sad now that I came to realize all this.
This said, I am now talking to people… and that’s truely the best part…