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It is supposed to be my second home. Me and my two friends went to Martinique (French Caribbean) in May last year 2019. It was an idea that I had in the back of my mind for ages, but it took time to put it into place. It was my first time taking a long-haul plane, my first time to go to the Caribbean, my first time to discover the other part of myself. Nothing has been taught to me and it seems that I didn’t really have any interest in the other side of my personality when I was younger. But recently, with the reunion with my father whom I have not known since birth, I felt a desire to discover my well-hidden but also obvious black roots. The first impression is what you remember most. We arrived at night, there was air conditioning in the plane so we had no idea what the weather would be like. It felt like entering a glasshouse, I really thought that would only be inside, but outside felt exactly the same. We were looking for a taxi to get us to the Airbnb, I was the only one to speak French as my friends are British. So I had to do the talking, the shyest one of the group. It wasn’t very hard, as people are very easy to talk to here. Once I found a taxi, he asked for the number of the Airbnb, which I found very strange, but it apparently is a thing. His name was Patrice, he called the woman from the Airbnb to understand where she lived exactly, the capital city is small enough for that. His tone seemed to me quite rude and I felt uncomfortable for him to speak this way to my soon-to-be host for the next days. I apologised to the lady about this behaviour when we arrived, but she didn’t understand why I said that. So that was a thing too. Being blunt. I know where I got it from now. On the way to the house, he was asking a lot of questions: where do I come from? Why do I speak English? Why am I here? Have I ever been here before? “But, you’re Martiniquaise, why have you never been here?”, “You don’t speak creole ?? But you’re Martiniquaise, you should know how to speak your own language.”. All of those questions I have heard them throughout our travel for 2 weeks. Only black people would ask though, just like in London. It seems that people do not understand that when you are mixed-race there is no side to pick as you are on both. You have to learn two different cultures, two different peoples and values and accept them. I know that I have always been on the white side of my culture. I have grown, learned and only lived with white people and whiteness. But I know today that I want to embrace the other side and consider myself as black. This is, after all the first thing that everyone sees and judges me from. On our way to the house, Patrice was talking to me a lot, he gave me a mango that he took from his garden the same morning. I deeply thanked him. Mangos in your garden? I am truly a novice. I kept being surprised like this throughout our trip. I woke up the next day and had a look in the garden to find bananas growing right at the window, and a mango tree at the front of the house. Although it is a mundane thing here, we had stars in our eyes at every instance like this. Martinique is a beautiful country with beautiful and kind people, one of the best places I have ever been to. It is my second home, although I often feel like a stranger, either there or in France.