Fort de France and Food

Our last day to spend in Martinique and we finally got around to visiting the de facto capital of the island! We got up bright and early to try to get downtown for a 9 AM walking and food tour. We left at 8 AM and were still late. I literally jumped out of the car at a stoplight to make sure our guide knew we weren't no-showing.

A rocky start, but we got to see a few of the sights and learn some new things along the way.

The historic Fort St. Louis is still an active naval base for the French. We didn't go in the fort, but admired from the nearby park.

Some of the pavement in the park was made of this red ceramic type stuff, which I loved and Arthur photographed for me. Right across from the park you'll find...
 

The beautiful and historic Bibliotheque Schoelcher!

The building was built in France for the World's Fair or some such nonsense, then it was disassembled and rebuilt here in Martinique. They wanted a metal structure that would survive hurricanes and not susceptible to fires. Having lost the previous library to a fire, this was a top priority.

The library is named for noted abolitionist Victor Schoelcher. He donated his large private collection of books and music to the original public library so that former slaves could access them and get an education.

Much of his collection was lost in the fire that claimed that wooden structure, but the surviving pieces are here in this library.

It's an incredibly beautiful art nouveau building, and it's still being used for community events, educational displays, and of course, books!

It's not air-conditioned, but there are these brilliant vents in the floor that circulate cooler air from below the building to help keep it cool.

It was hot, it was sunny, but we soldiered on!

The beautiful Hotel de Ville! It's not a hotel anymore, but a theater and museum dedicated to Aimé Cesaire, a much loved poet, playwright, and political thinker in Martinique. He died in 2008, but has a legacy of advocating for the people of this island and their cultural identity that won't quickly be forgotten.

And here is the local seat of the French government. From what our tour guides said, they find the governance of the French to be a bit neglectful. It doesn't sound like they get much in the way of representation and the issues of affordability and infrastructure are big issues for the average Martinican.

The kids were now asking me in earnest where the food on this food tour was. Well our first food stop was pretty interesting! We got to try some fresh jus de cannes.

Here's how it's made: squeeze the juice out of a stalk of sugarcane. Put it in a cup with an ice cube and a lime wedge. Serve. Here's the press that they use to juice the sugarcane:

I give jus de cannes a 10/10. Delicious and refreshing. One Christmas traditional food in Martinique we got to try was a little meat filled pastry, a little mean pie that fits in the palm of your hand. I might make this a Christmas tradition at our house now, they were excellent!

We sat down on a beautiful street in the beautiful shade to sample a Kreol dish of fish, plantains, and onions. 

I hope you didn't forget that I have been collecting flowers from Martinique, here is the last of my collection:

The boys found some beautiful blossoms on the ground that had fallen from a tree, and they kept giving them to me, so I had to put them in my hair!

After all that food, we weren't the least bit hungry, so we got dessert! A local bakery that has been in the same family for 6 generations provided some delicious guava, banana, and passion fruit filled cakes.

And, finally, the cathedral. We arrived just before a service, so I didn't stay inside very long or take many pictures so as not to disrupt the people actually attending church, but it had some beautiful stained glass.

Hot, tired, and ready for a rest, we walked back to the car, past the McDonald's, and returned to our hotel.

Our hotel room got a lot of visitors. Not the rude French tourists, or the kind Canadian tourists, but cute little critters.

The kitchen and table were on the patio. You could lower these metal shades for privacy and to keep bugs out, but when we were out there eating or playing cards, we would of course have them open for air circulation and general pleasantness.

We had a couple little birds, though, that would swoop in and snatch up crumbs the minute they thought we weren't looking. We learned very quickly to make sure all food was safely stored in the fridge or cupboards if we didn't want to share.

For our final evening, we walking over to the beach right by our hotel for one last splash in the ocean and a look at the beautiful views of Fort de France across the bay.

We had a final celebratory dinner of sushi and ice cream and prepared to return to a land where I'd presumably not need quite so much google translate.

And the next morning we packed up, cleaned up, and headed to the airport! Our flights home necessitated an overnight stay in Miami, so we didn't have to return to the cold right away. Salt Lake City did welcome us home with snow as our plane landed, I assume to make sure we didn't have time to adapt to the drastically different weather.

Les Savanes des Escalves and Anse d'Arlet

 On our third Martinican morning, we visited a beautiful, moving cultural and historic site: Les Savanes des Escalves. This museum is the passion project of one man, Gilbert Larose, who built this place and still operates it.

The history of Martinique is fraught with violent colonization, slavery, and a long fight for emancipation. This open-air museum tells that story, through a very thorough introductory film, traditional buildings, wood carved statues, gardens, and both French and English signage.

Just on the surface level, the gardens are beyond beautiful. I kept collecting flower photos here and I was excited to recognize a cacao tree.

But there is a lot more to this place. There was a traditional Carib village.

The pre-Colombian era of the Caribbean was dominated first by the Arawak, and then the Caribs. It was once believed the Arawak were very peaceful and the Caribs were the aggressors that eradicated them, but in recent years there has been some discussion of whether that is the case or if it was the justification used by Europeans to massacre the Caribs.

The colonizers first tried bringing in indentures from Europe to work the land, promising them their own land and freedom if they produced sugarcane or other cash crops for 5 years. Most didn't survive even that long.

Since that particular form of slavery wasn't proving to be all that lucrative, the brought in African people to enslave and work. I'll spare you the grisly details of what day to day life was like, the kinds of punishments inflicted, but this museum did not. 

There were huts that served as examples of what the living conditions were like for enslaved people. They were allowed nothing in their huts but some straw to sleep on. The huts here were populated with wood carvings, depictions of the people who might live in them.

And then there was the long fight for emancipation. Maybe folks aren't aware of this, but runaways, uprisings, and other forms of resistance happened constantly. One of the reasons punishments were so harsh was because the colonizers knew they were outnumbered and would be powerless to stop, or even survive, a unified uprising.

There are celebrated abolitionists like Victor Schoelcher, who get a lot of credit for the end of slavery in the French territories. There are also the likes of Empress Josephine, born in Martinique, who is--fairly or not--blamed for slavery being reinstated after a short occupation by the British had all but ended it. But I think the most impressive person we learned about during our visit was this man: Romain.

Drums were a vital way for slaves to communicate with each other, organize, and of course play music, but the first two were the reasons given for the banning of playing drums by the ruling class. Romain defied this new restriction and played anyway. He was put in prison.

His arrest caused such an uproar, there was a massive uprising and revolt in St. Pierre. The people who had been enslaved literally took over the city and threatened to burn it all to the ground if they weren't given their freedom. Eventually, fearing for his life, the governor of Martinique relented. 

On May 22, 1848 slavery was abolished in Martinique. The official decision from the French government to end slavery was signed and delivered two months later, but not till after the enslaved had already emancipated themselves.

Life did not magically get easy, but people were able to start building lives for themselves. Growing gardens--the Kreol garden is a cherished tradition in Martinique--and the huts in the Kreol village at Les Savanes des Escalves were a definite improvement over slave quarters: plaster on the walls, belongings, beds, furniture...home.

This museum is so effective at tell this story, but of course the only thing my children will remember: it was hot. There were cute cats (and Laszlo took pictures of all of them). We bought some juice from the juice bar and it was freaking delicious. There wasn't any ice cream.

It's a little weird to say you enjoyed yourself at a museum depicting the worst actions of human kind, but it was absolutely incredible. It was, however, also a lot of hills and heat and walking. We had lunch back at our hotel and then let the grandparents put up their feet and have a little break while Lee and I took the boys to the beach at Anse d'Arlet.

Anse d'Arlet is a beautiful little town with a big, beautiful beach, snorkeling, and ample parking! Glory hallelujah! I chose the beaches we visited very carefully; snorkeling and the possibility of seeing sea turtles were among my top criteria.

Lee and I took turns snorkeling and playing on the beach with the kids. We found that right in the shallows by the rocks there were quite a few fish, so Paul and Laszlo could get a little of the fun of snorkeling without going out deeper than they could stand.

But the best and most beautiful of the reef were out a bit farther. This reef in particular was like a sea garden.

We snorkeled all around the reef, then I noticed a group of people snorkeling in the middle of the inlet, not by the rocks where all the fish were. I had to go check out what they were looking at, just in case it was awesome.

And it was awesome. A TURTLE! I wasn't sure I'd get to see one of this trip, but there is that checked off my little bucket list.

The sandcastles the kids built and destroyed literally became the city of crabs. Arthur and I watched six little crabs popping and out of holes all over the remnants of their builds.

I wouldn't let everyone leave without getting some photos of the beautiful church of Anse d'Arlet. It's the kind of place that would probably blow up on instagram, and it was almost golden hour when we left.

Unfortunately, none of us are instagram models. We can't even stop squinting or, in some cases, look at the freaking camera for a millisecond.

But Laszlo, my budding photographer, got this photo of me that I genuinely love.

It was a gorgeous end to our day. Back at the hotel we cooked up some dinner, ate some ice cream, and Grandpa lost at cards repeatedly.