Submitted by Taurence Chisholm on the 2018 winter session program in Martinique sponsored by the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures…
The first night I arrived in Martinique I was very nervous because I already knew that my comprehension of French, when spoken, was not that great. What made it even worse was that I met my house mother and she couldn’t even understand any English. So the drive from the airport was a lot of “pardon” and “comment-dit-on” followed by a slower, yet somehow even more unintelligible sentence or silence. I started to just say “oui” (yes) a lot even when I didn’t understand, but the first full day got better. We took a tour of the main city Fort de France, where Gustave talked to us about the history of the church and Martinique’s founding. He spoke mostly in French, which wasn’t that bad actually, then we ate at one of the many amazing restaurants.
We went to a part of the island with a beach called Trois Illets, where we hung out and “practiced French”. Which was just telling each other how little we understood. I think the best part of the week was realizing that everyone else was in the same boat and that this was a very new experience that could get awkward, frustrating and overwhelming. As we learned, it got easier.
