Disponible en Francais: Cliquez Ici Just as you’re never more than 12 kilometres from the sea on this island, you’re also never far very away from a distillery. It’s not often that the landscape, people, culture and tradition of a country are in such harmony with a product, but rum in Martinique is more than…
It was one of those events we were told is the best of the year, “A ne pas rater!” We checked the list of bands and considered going, but decided against it on account of the hour and a half drive across the island from Sainte-Anne we would have to do at midnight after spending…
Céline, a charismatic French woman with exceptionally long hair covered by a cabby hat, greeted us warmly. Her positive energy was infectious and her openness made her easy to talk to. It was no surprise that she knew a lot of interesting people and discovered many new things. A friend of Tom’s co-worker, we were…
We had originally planned to celebrate Passover/Easter by combining a little bit of what I remember from Catholic school and mixing it with a little bit of Martinican tradition: watching The Prince of Egypt while earnestly singing along and eating frozen stuffed crab from Leader Price… It became clear Easter was around the corner when…
After consulting a road map of Martinique and working through the directions visually, we got in the car hoping for the best. In spite of our best efforts, we overshot and ended up driving up and down some of the steepest hills I’ve encountered on this island. Ten minutes later and the car smelling strongly…
In the commune of Sainte-Marie, there is a natural wonder unique to Martinique and a global geological rarity. Here, you can only visit the two hillocks of Ilet Sainte-Marie during Carême—the dry season between January and April—when the tide goes out and the seas part to reveal the tombolo, a sandbar connecting the mainland to…
Carnival is an outlet where everything is permitted—inversion, derision, inhibition, questioning the rules—cutting into the monotony of daily life. Carnival in Martinique is special—it’s not a spectacle with bleachers, stages, and famous artists flown in to perform. Here, everyone is together and in movement: you can be as much a part of the parade as…
With another dark drive to areas in Martinique unknown – this time to Habitation Beaufond in Trois-Ilets – we made our way to the 16th annual Marley’s Marathon, the number one reggae event in Martinique according to the France-Antilles Magazine. Bob Marley was born on February 6th, 1945, and since 1998 Ras Daniel and le…
Overseen by Luc Kabile’s acrylic portrait of Frantz Fanon’s iconic gaze of intensity into an unseen expanse, I had the opportunity to learn from another student and colleague of Aimé Césaire present that night. With the collective knowledge of 88 years of life and writing a complete history of Martinique, author and historian Armand Nicolas…
Before going to pick up Tom from work in November, he sent me a text along the lines of: “I was at someone’s house and got some plants, I’ll explain later.” I was confused and only became more so when he walked towards our lovely green Opel Astra with plastic bags full of plants. He explained…