WINTER IN THE SUN; Guadeloupe as Language Lab
By Ann Pringle-Harris
I'D been in Guadeloupe only 48 hours and already I had attended a birthday party where I ate curried goat with wild peas (pois des bois, greatly prized) and drank the local rum punch; had struggled 4,800 feet up to and down from a volcano after five hours' sleep, and had soaked or muddied about a third of my wardrobe, including my one pair of sneakers -- which, however, were totally inadequate for near-vertical paths of rock and mud.
On the whole, I felt great. I did all of this by choice. There are beautiful things to see and do in Guadeloupe that do not require climbing La Soufriere, and delicious things to eat that do not involve the flesh of baby goats, but the key word for my trip was immersion. I wanted to improve my French and to experience, as far as I could on a 12-day visit, the language, culture and cuisine of the French West Indies.
The language part came first, and as it turned out the rest followed. Consulting a directory of French language programs abroad, I chose Media Langues Caraibes in Ste.-Anne, Guadeloupe, because it offered both intensive and semi-intensive courses virtually year round, assisted students with lodgings and scheduled visits to points of interest on weekends. The school's response to my initial letter couldn't have been more welcoming. They would reserve a small apartment for me near the school (I took the only plane reservations I could get for the second two weeks in January) and would provide transportation between Ste.-Anne and the airport at Pointe-a-Pitre on arrival and departure, all at what seemed a reasonable fee. Both Ste.-Anne and Pointe-a-Pitre are on Grand-Terre, the more developed half of the island.
Because there are no direct flights from New York to Guadeloupe, I spent most of a day flying to San Juan and transferring to one of American Airlines' commuter planes, reaching Pointe-a-Pitre shortly after 8 P.M. There to meet me was Christian Aventurin, a computer specialist whose wife, Marika, is director of the school. Christian (first names only is the school policy) asked me if I would mind making a stop at Les Abymes, a town nearby, where his grandmother was celebrating her 89th birthday. Mind? I was enchanted, and very soon found myself surrounded by Guadeloupeans of all ages, from infants in baskets to grandparents and great-grandparents. There was soul-stirring, foot-tapping music (I was told it was African); much embracing in the two-cheek French style; platters of food ready to go in the kitchen, and a variety of wines, punch and other drinks on a table in the large living room. I was offered celebratory champagne and a bit of Scotch -- I suppose in deference to my status as a New Yorker -- but no one spoke to me in English, which was exactly the way I wanted it. At whatever cost to my sanity and self-esteem, I was going to live these 12 days in French.
Christian and Marika and their two daughters drove me from the party to my apartment in Ste.-Anne -- two modest rooms and bath with a terrace overlooking the village and the ocean.
Those of us who made the ascent of La Soufriere assembled at 8 A.M. the next morning for the drive to Basse-Terre, the other wing of Guadeloupe's butterfly-shaped island. The rest of the students, I noticed, had sturdier shoes and warmer clothes, and they all had rain gear. I had packed for Guadeloupe expecting warmth and sunny skies, and although I got plenty of both, I also discovered that the island, even during the December-to-May dry season and especially in the mountainous, volcanic Basse-Terre, is subject to sudden downpours that obscure the gorgeous views and turn the lush green earth into mud.
Starting the climb to La Soufriere I blanched at a sign that said to allow one hour up and one down, suspecting, rightly, that it was an understatement. Magdalena, Tina, Melanie, Yasmine, Sandina and Annette set off jauntily in their lug-soled shoes while I picked my way over rocks and exposed roots in tennis shoes, puffing and half-slipping all the while. Once at the summit we saw nothing but clouds and mist, yet I felt a certain exhilaration at actually being there -- a feeling enhanced by a round of champagne courtesy of Magdalena, whose birthday it was. We descended in a drenching rain with great splashings of mud and some shifting of rocks, but it wasn't as bad as I had expected, mainly because Christian kept to my pace and lent a hand when I needed it.
Classes began on Monday morning at 8 for students taking the intensive course of six hours a day. I had chosen that schedule without quite realizing it would begin so early, but I decided to stick with it. Watching the sun come up as I drank my coffee on the terrace looking at the ocean, seeing cows peacefully grazing on the hill that led down to the village and the school, listening to roosters crow goofily in response to darkness as well as light was surprisingly agreeable to a heretofore night person. I didn't want to give up those early-morning hours in a place where cows, goats and chickens roamed freely among residents and beach-bound vacationers and where it seemed that the charm of le village Creole and la plage Francaise had harmoniously blended.
For the first two hours of Monday's lesson, Marika worked with all the students as a group. Those I had met at La Soufriere -- except for Magdalena, who had gone home -- were there, plus Michel, from Austria, and Alden, from California.
After a short break at 10, we were divided into two groups. Alden, Annette, Melanie and I worked in a small room with another teacher, while the less advanced students remained with Marika. There were never more than six students in a group, so that everyone had plenty of opportunity to use the language. The overall aim was conversation, although grammatical corrections and suggestions were given. We read French journals and magazines, watched and discussed videos, role-played, wrote short compositions alone or with partners and analyzed some poems by writers of the French West Indies, among other things.
Except for Alden, a professor, Sandina, a college student from the Virgin Islands, and me, the students were mostly young business or professional people from German-speaking countries. But differences in background and age seemed relatively unimportant. Groups would have coffee or lunch together in the village during class breaks and sometimes a predinner drink at the town beach, a five-minute walk from the school. There was generally time for an afternoon swim at the beach, a pretty spot that was hardly isolated but not uncomfortably crowded either. Along the beach road, there were pleasant restaurants and cafes, and just one block inland was Ste.-Anne's main artery, Boulevard Georges Mandel, and the local outdoor market, whose stalls enticed residents and travelers alike with pots of exotic spices, fruits and vegetables native to the Antilles, rum punch of a dozen varieties, dolls made of lacquered banana skins, brightly colored pareos and, on weekends, tarts and other baked goods.
Sometimes, extracurricular activities were integrated into the school day. A notice of a trip to La Pointe des Chateaux for Wednesday at 3 P.M. was posted during my first week, and I quickly added my name to the list. Jutting into the Atlantic at the eastern tip of Guadeloupe, the point gets its name from a spectacular series of limestone cliffs that rise from the ocean like the towers of medieval fortified castles. When we reached the point, the sun was out and the ocean was dazzling. Dipping my feet into the water, I found it refreshingly brisk -- not tepid, as Caribbean water tends to be. Some 100 or so steps above the beach was a splendid lookout from which, on clear days, one can see La Desirade and Marie-Galante, two of Guadeloupe's outer islands. Near the highest point of the cliff was a plaque inscribed with a poem by St.-John Perse, Guadeloupe's Nobel laureate. Throughout his life he wrote about the island of his birth, although he left it permanently in 1899 at age 12.
ON our trip back from the point, we stopped at another beach, Bois Jolan, which must surely be the place where some of those paradisiacal television commercials are shot. Powdery white sand, palm trees, lapping waves: it's all there and reachable by bus from the main plaza of Ste.-Anne, but you must traverse a rocky meadow to get to the beach from the bus stop.
On a free Saturday afternoon, I took one of these public buses to Pointe-a-Pitre, about 45 minutes away. The bus passed villages, beaches and banana groves, stopped for those waiting at the roadside and dropped us off at the Pointe-a-Pitre docks, where towering cruise ships dwarfed the narrow streets and small shops below. From there it was an easy walk to the town center, the tree-shaded plaza, the cathedral -- with interior columns and ceiling reinforced with hurricane-resistant metal -- the boutiques and sidewalk cafes. I spent a pleasant hour at the St.-John Perse Museum, in a fine Colonial-style house. The poet never lived there, but the house is of the right period, and it is rich with literary memorabilia.
One afternoon after class Elzea Aventurin, Christian's mother and a student of local history, spoke to us about the island's history of slavery on the sugar plantations of wealthy French colonists, which ended in 1848. Today, Mrs. Aventurin told us, many Guadeloupeans are eager to uncover their African roots, lost African names and records, see Creole recognized as a distinct language, and preserve traditional customs and cuisine.
One of these traditional foods is kassav (the Creole phonetic spelling for cassava) au coco, a type of crepe made with meal from the manioc tuber and filled with shredded coconut, both locally grown. On a Saturday night, Christian drove a group of us to a spot on the Grands-Fonds road out of Ste.-Anne where crepes are made in the old way. The meal is pounded, flattened, pushed through a wooden sieve, then shaped into cakes, cooked and filled on a blazing-hot griddle called a platine. All of this takes place outdoors, with the cooks moving about like shadow figures in fire light, until several stacks of crepes, each about eight inches across and an inch thick, are ready for immediate sale. The flavor is mild but, I thought, delicious.
I had read about Les Grands-Fonds, a peaceful region of farms, green meadows, small villages, stands of banana trees and Guadeloupe's one baobab, an African tree. Because it wasn't on the schedule during my stay, I arranged through Marika to take a 15-minute drive to the region. Les Grands-Fonds provides much of the island's fresh produce. It is also a breeding place for the cattle that still work the land and haul loads throughout the island. We saw two of them patiently yoked to their carts at Domaine Damoiseau, a rum distillery in Le Moule, about 10 minutes from Ste.-Anne. There, too, we watched as the plantation's restored windmill was set in motion, a nostalgic reminder of a time when wind powered most of the island's mills. Today machines press the sugar cane and extract the juice that ultimately becomes rum.
My last Media Langues excursion threatened to be a replay of my first. It started quietly enough with a tour through a Creole garden in Ste.-Rose that grows virtually every fruit, vegetable and plant species on the island, including one whose leaves are prickly enough to serve as scouring pads. The Creole gardener's aim, we were told, is self-sufficiency.
From the garden we went to Le Saut de la Lezarde, a 100-foot waterfall reached, I saw to my horror, by a tortuous upward path of rocks and mud. For the next half hour, skidding through the ooze, I asked myself why I was doing this, but in the end I found my answer. Not the highest falls on Guadeloupe, La Lezarde is nevertheless esthetically perfect, a semicircle of sheer rock shaded by trees and freshened by outcroppings of moist green fern. The main falls crash down at one end, while thin, ribbony streams bubble out of rock crevices all around it. Best of all, the water forms a deep pool at the bottom, an invitation to swim that we all accepted. Local daredevils like to jump from the top, then swim underwater far enough to clear the falls. We watched, but none of us were tempted to jump.
On the day I reluctantly left St.-Anne I took a last look at the village church and the ocean from my terrace. At the airport I checked a bag through to New York, but it never arrived. It is still missing, and my secret hope is that by some chance it remained in Guadeloupe and I will have to go back to claim it.
Between lessons, hikes and ocean swims
Getting There
I flew to San Juan, P.R., on American Airlines, (800) 433-7300, www.aa .com, and from San Juan to Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe, on American Eagle. Air Guadeloupe, (590-82) 47 00, offers flights from San Juan to Pointe-a-Pitre three times a week, and Air France, (800) 237-2747, www.airfrance.fr, flies daily between Guadeloupe and Miami, making stops at Haiti and Martinique.
The Department of Tourism in Pointe-a-Pitre is at 5 Square de la Banque, (590-82) 09 30. In Ste.-Anne, the tourism office is off the Boulevard Georges Mandel on Galbas; (590-88) 09 49, fax (590-88) 10 34.
French Classes
I learned about Media Langues Caraibes from a directory of French language programs in France, Switzerland, Canada and the French Antilles published by EMI International, Post Office Box 640713, Oakland Gardens, N.Y. 11364; (718) 631-0096. It costs $19.95.
Marika Aventurin is the director of the school, which operates year round. Students are accepted at all levels and no more than six are allowed in each of the classes, which meet from four to six hours a day (weekdays). Those who sign up for individual teaching meet for 15 to 30 hours a week. A two-week session of four-hour classes costs about $500, at 6 francs to $1. The school arranges lodging that can include rooming in a local home with board, a guest room or a private apartment, depending on the student's preference. I paid about $1,500 for the two weeks of six-hour classes, a modest apartment near the school (kitchen, bedroom, toilet with shower, and a patio overlooking the ocean), transport to and from the airport and excursions to points of interest.
Media Langues Caraibes, Le Solarium, Rue de Debarcadere, 97180 Ste.-Anne, Guadeloupe, French West Indies; (590-85) 45 91, fax (590-85) 45 93.
Getting Around
During breaks in classes and on weekends, students at Media Langues are taken in the school van to La Soufriere volcano; Le Saut de la Lezarde waterfall; the limestone cliffs of La Pointe des Chateaux; Domaine Damoiseau, a distillery, and on other excursions beyond the limits of Ste.-Anne. But there are several car rental companies in Ste.-Anne for those who wish to arrange their own trips. There are also taxis and public buses for travel to most of the main towns and villages on both Grand-Terre and Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe's two main islands.
Buses in Ste.-Anne leave from the town hall on the main square, La Place Schoelcher, about every 20 minutes. I paid about $3.50 for a round trip to Pointe-a-Pitre, with shops, cafes, an early 19th-century cathedral, an open-air market and the St.-John Perse Museum. The museum, at 9 Rue Nozieres, (590-90) 01 92, is open from 8:30 A.M. to 12:30 P.M. and 2:30 P.M. to 5:30 P.M. weekdays and from 8:30 A.M. to 12:30 P.M. Saturdays. Admission is $1.70.
Restaurants in Ste.-Anne are fairly informal. Along the Rue de la Plage, leading from the Boulevard Georges Mandel to the beach, there are pleasant, terraced restaurants that serve such local specialties as accras, a cod fritter, and ouassous, crayfish.
ANN PRINGLE-HARRIS
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