OUR TRIP TO MARTINIQUE

In the beginning of 2019, we travelled to Martinique in the Caribbean.

Martinique is still a part of the republic of France. Each of us lived with a host family, with one student at our same age. Their English skills were simple. We experienced how it is to arrive at a new place without knowing the culture or language. We formed lasting relationships with our host siblings, and the other youths, thanks to what our project is about; Integration through sports. We arrived Tuesday 8th of January and

left Monday 15th of January.

We started every weekday with school at 7am, due to long school days and cooler weather before sunrise. We participated in some of the classes and held small presentation about Norway. On Wednesday, we tried scuba diving, we dived down to 6meters underneath water surface. It was spectacular and exotic. We all went back home to our host families at 17pm to

enjoy the evening with them. The next day we played cricket. Cricket is more common in Martinique compared to Norway, however it’s still a far cry from the island next to Martinique, St. Lucia, where cricket is a huge sport. We had the opportunity to play cricket with instructors and players from St. Lucia and Martinique. We all found it challenging, but experienced universal rules make it easier to communicate.

This is an observation we will use in our project.

On Friday we drove to the very north. We participated in something called canyoing, it is an activity where we followed a river in a canyon. The canyon where based in the middle of the island’s rainforest, it was an incredible experience. Afterwards, we went to the volcano we all enjoyed exploring the country at the same time we got to know the local youths.

One of the highlights was the cultural evening on Tuesday. We held a presentation about traditional clothing in Norway. The students from Martinique dressed up with traditional cloths from the colonisation in the e 17th century until today. They told us during the 60 only 10% of the population owned their own pair of shoes. We were all

interested learning from each other, and the evening ended with a lovely dinner with traditional food from Norway, St. Lucia and Martinique.

We spent the weekend with our host families. We all had our individual plans, like training, going to the beach and sightseeing. It was challenging, due to the language, however our journey has taught us much about different cultures and a better understanding.

On our last day, we went to the southern part. We sailed in a local boat from that specific area. The clue to make it stay stable was teamwork. It was fun and we all felt included due to the teamwork. We learned about the nature and the youth’s relation towards it. We are all looking forward to meeting some of them in May.