La Guadeloupe, je suis arrivé!

I'm in Pointe à Pitre, it's Sunday and everything is closed except for KFC. Very French:-). I woke up early after I felt asleep around 9pm last night. Went for breakfast and around 8am I was out exploring the city centre. That didn't take very long, it's a small city and it's Sunday. Nobody in the streets except for some fisherman and 'other non specified man' who all wanted to talk to me and give me a ride, which made me feel at home again after a year of the same in Tanzania. Or some of them also warned me, for themselves I guess:-). It was interesting to see the colourful houses, little shops and (closed) bigger French chain shops, empty markets, seaside with small cruise boats, old wooden houses, people speaking funny French which I hardly understood, or speaking Creole which I didn't understand at all and than the only place where I saw many people was the cathedral. Later in the day on the way to a beach with Emmanuel (the brother of the audiologist I'll work for) we saw many more people outside another church and all the white people on the crowded beach. It can be confusing to be here as infrastructure looks all very French, because it is French and so you might think you're in France for a moment. But than I'm 5 hours time difference from France and it's at least 20 degrees warmer. Well, my most important first impression today, people are very friendly and warm!

Transit

This is my 10th day in Belgium after having left Tanzania last week. Tomorrow I'm flying to Guadeloupe and two weeks later I'll travel to Martinique. I will work as an audiologist, fitting hearing aids. I will first have two weeks training in Guadeloupe, Pointe-à-Pitre and then I move to Fort de France in Martinique where I will be based till the end of August 2012. This time I will not work with VSO but with a private company.