As a ten-year-old avid fan of Mallory Towers and Saint Clare’s I always wanted to go to boarding school. Midnight feasts of tinned sardines and condensed milk - What could be better?
...Well the last few days have well and truly removed that urge from my system. Sharing a bungalow with 6 other women and one toilet roll turned out to be a lot less fun than I had envisaged.
I threw my bag into the least stuffy room to claim it when I arrived, and was promptly told I would have to share the double bed that was in there. Ok, it’s a bit weird to share a bed with someone you’ve only just met, but at the time, in my sweaty state, I was much more concerned about air conditioning than privacy so I acquiesced.
We were crowded seven into a bungalow, there were no shops for miles around and so we could only eat and drink what we were given – which was basically bread and jam in the morning and aeroplane food carefully rationed into tiny plastic containers for lunch and dinner – as well as the few things the brave people who made it to the shops managed to bring back with them. We did have midnight feasts of sorts, only the ginger beer was replaced by rum punch and the tinned sardines by the remnants of our plastic airline meals. I was so hungry I actually considered catching a crab to eat - there were lots of them wandering around - but I didn't really know what you do with them. And besides they were quite cute up close so it seemed a bit wrong throwing them alive into a pot of boiling water to frantically nip till they could nip no more.
But despite nearly fainting with hunger on more than one occasion, our time there was on the whole very enjoyable. There were Spanish people, Brazilians, an Australian, a woman from Trinidad and Tobago, one from Jamaica, loads from the US, a couple of people from Ireland and a whole bunch of Brits too. We drank rum, we swam in the sea, played guitars and sang songs and generally had a great time getting to know each other.
For most of the week’s activities we were joined by some young tourism students who made incredibly sweet speeches in faltering English and Spanish (usually read from a crumpled up and shaking sheet of paper). My favourite was the girl who described the taste of one particular Marinique dish as ‘spiky’. Although I have no right to find this amusing since I have had French people rolling on the floor with laughter at some of the mistakes I’ve made in the past.
One evening these budding linguists gave a presentation of the typical fruits and drinks and foods from Martinique and then invited us to show everyone something from our respective cultures. Of course the Spanish showed everyone up with their enormous selection of cured meats and cheeses (which were muchos yumos by the way). I tried to convince people that Marmite was a delicacy in the UK but most people looked at me as if they thought I was insane. Other very English offerings included Liquorice Allsorts, shortbread and Jammie Dodgers. ...And we wonder why we’re a nation of fatties...?
When all the bureaucracy of France meets all the rum drinking laid back nature of the Caribbean, the result is like oil and water. So despite the fact that there was no one there when we first arrived and we were locked out of the bungalows for about three hours, and that everyone in charge arrived spectacularly late on first day, and that we started at least an hour late on the last morning (after some of the assistants had been really bollocked for turning up about ten minutes late on the previous day, which was a bit confusing), we still had to sit for hours listening to very boring lectures about social security, cartes de sejour, bank accounts and housing benefit, and I left the place with enough forms to start a VERY big bonfire (and yes, I am tempted).
I’m back in my apartment in Trinité now and very much looking forward to some real breakfast. None of this continental rubbish from now on. Bring on the bacon and beans!
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