In the French West Indies, Guadeloupe is comprised of nine inhabited islands, two very large and seven relatively small. French is the official language spoken with a musical island lilt. Creole is a second mother tongue. The faces of its people tell Guadeloupe's history. The country has seen Spanish, English, and French Colonial settlers and the importation of West Africa slaves and indentured servants from Asian India. All brought traditions that have blended over centuries into a cultural complexity experienced in the local cuisine that combines French sauces, curry spices and fresh seafood and the madras fabrics glimpsed everywhere throughout the island marketplaces.

While Guadeloupe is hardly an affluent country, crippling poverty is rare; social and material need is not as pressing as on neighbor islands. For example, basic health care is free to all citizens. VISIONS participants will not build houses for the homeless (more of a social problem in the U.S. than in Guadeloupe). Yet in the special context of language immersion, you will be challenged instead to understand service as meeting both the material and social needs of a unique Guadeloupe community.

We live on tranquil Terre de Bas, one of Iles Des Saintes, the tiny islands forming the southernmost Guadeloupean Archipelago. If Guadeloupe is a special mélange of new worlds and old, then the Saintes are an even smaller universe. These verdant fishing islands have a history inseparable from "the continent" and yet a past and present that remains isolate. On Terre-de-Bas, one of the smallest Communes in all of French Outre-Mer, there are no tourists except for the occasional intrepid hiker. You will be charmed by the unhurried ways of our home in tiny Petite Anse and by the Saintoise who are a very social people, always excited to meet and make friends with visitors. Most islanders earn their livelihood fishing, although you'll find no fish sold in the few shops. The daily catch travels to nearby Terre de Haut and to the main islands for sale. It is an intimate way of life that may well pass within a few generations.

Our service on Terre de Bas varies from renovating public buildings devastated by recent earthquakes to paving walkways and landscaping in the cemetery to clearing trails with Service Technique. We work with young children, and we apprentice with fishermen, sorbet vendors, and an artisan who weaves fishermen's salakus, wide round-brimmed hats unique to the Saintes.

Because Terre de Bas is laced with trails leading to gorgeous vistas overlooking the sea and unspoiled coves, hiking will be a frequent past-time. We also ferry to Terre-de-Haut to tour the shops and to the main islands marketplaces and to hike to La Soufriere volcano, natural parks and nature preserves through rainforests and high into mountain waterfalls. We swim and snorkel, kayak and scuba dive. We learn Zouk and Gwoka (Creole for "big drum"), the dancing and persistent drumming that "underpins the island's musical tradition, like the solid wood of a table beneath a fancy dinner service."