Christmas Day

Christmas Day on Reunion Island was the best tropical Noel I've ever had. The strangest aspect was waking up alone in the morning and opening my presents...alone. But in the end, it's hard to be blue when the palm trees are swaying and you have Bing Crosby singing Mele Kalikimaka at a high decibel!

My day was spent with Radical Tom, Australian wonderboy. After a quiet morning playing with the toys Santa brought, I made my way to Tommy's where small children in tighty whities were running around the house deliriously happy with their new presents. The parents cattle ranged their wild things, put some clothes on the hot little bodies, and away we all went into the hills for Christmas lunch with family friends.
My recollection of what we ate is limited to something resembling bread and pastes of different varieties--meat, vegetable? No matter! The true highlight was when Marie-Christine, the matriarch, went into the family vault and pulled out two fine bottles of Rhum Arrange. This is a Reunion Island tradition of white rum distilled for months at a time with different fruits and spices. As we were to discover later in the day, it's powerful stuff. Radical and I, as the representative foreign legion, were the recipients of these beautiful bottles, a fine gift indeed.

After we heartily helped ourselves to dessert, Tom and I slipped out the back door and headed south. On a previous 'round-the-island tour, I had visited a place called Manapany-les-Bains, a large protected tide pool. It had been my hope to return for a swim, and what better time than on Christmas Day! We arrived there in the late afternoon along with 700 of our favorite aunts, uncles, and cousins. The place was crowded but festive. Radical got to work taking shots of the place, I immediately stepped on a sea urchin. It was unfortunate, but did not keep us from playing gladiator on the rocks or "who can stay under the water longer." The sun got a little lower in the sky, my urchin spikes started getting the best of me, and we ultimately decided to head homeward. On the drive back, our friend Thomas who was expecting his girlfriend from Dusseldorf, called to say that she had been stranded in a snowstorm there, and could we please come and eat the romantic Christmas dinner he had prepared? The answer was obviously yes. But first we had to swing by my place where Radical performed life saving urchin spike removal from my foot. The local cure for this is to lather the infected site with a cream laxative that supposedly relaxes the skin and encourages expulsion. hmmm... Unfortunately (!!?) all of the pharmacies were closed, so we did it the old fashioned needle and tweezer way.

Onwards and upwards! We hot footed it--ha--to Boucan Canot and the candle-lit dinner that awaited us there. Having made the best of a sad snowy Christmas situation in the northern hemisphere, Thomas did not let us down with his culinary skill. We might have been in the heart of Deutschland had it not been for the 100 degree heat in his apartment. I brought the after-dinner entertainment in the form of a gingerbread man kit that my parents had sent from the U.S. A little rhum arrange and too much sugar later, we were rocking around the Christmas tree!

Christmas Eve

The days leading up to Christmas were strangely tropical. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen preparing cookies, cakes, and other little treats to give to friends, but it just wasn't the same listening to Christmas carols alongside the whir of my air conditioner. This is beach weather: the trees are heavy with pineapples, litchis, and mangos, and the closest thing to snow is the white sand lining the coasts.

Next to the weather, another challenge of the holiday season is that there isn't really one here. In the U.S. we start celebrating Christmas the day after Thanksgiving: going to parties, Advent masses, seeing friends, listening to our favorite carols. I have come to attribute this over the top festiveness to the fact that this season at home is otherwise very dark and cold-- we need something to celebrate and look forward to; Christmastime lifts our collective spirit. The weather here, on the other hand, is sunny and beautiful all of the time, there is always a party or gathering of friends--no matter what time of year--so Christmas is just one more fun thing to add to the mix.

Nonetheless, I decorated my apartment the best I could and threw myself into the festivities. For Christmas Eve I was invited to my friends and neighbors, the Devictor's. They are a wonderful older couple from Marseille who have lived on Reunion Island for the past ten years. Every Christmas, I was to discover, their large following of friends and admirers travel here to bask in their generosity and fun. I was lucky to be amongst the guests and was even placed at the head of the table where my only requirement was to lead the crowd in late night choirs of American Christmas carol classics.

Devictor Family Christmas Tree

The guests from Marseille came loaded with fois gras and we ate more of the stuff than anyone should in a lifetime. Putting vegetarianism aside, I did not hold myself back. Robert Devictor, head of Christmas Culinary Arts made an excellent Rougail de Saucisses, the old Creole standby, and by the time dessert rolled around, we were all rolling around ourselves. Since this was a crowd from Southern France, we enjoyed the 13 desserts, a classic regional Christmas tradition that I once enjoyed while living in Aix-en-Provence as a student.
It was a Christmas that combined traditions from around the globe. One of the Devictor children, having spent a lot of time in England, brought the traditional British Christmas Crackers. This is a silly ritual where each guest is given a "cracker" which is a harmless paper firecracker filled with a crown, a joke, and a small gift. You intertwine hands with your neighbor, explode each other's cracker, and then jaunt around with your goofy crown for the rest of the evening. Highlight of my night.

Another tradition that is very typical to Reunion Island are "Les Lanterns Magique." They are large paper lantern-balloons. You light the base on fire and soon the heat lifts the lantern into the air--going quite high, I might add!!! Is that a UFO? The Christmas Eve sky was dotted with these beautiful balls of fire gliding into outer space. Lantern launching was followed by the traditional Devictor family cheer, brought to you by one too many bottles of champagne...

There's certainly no place like home for Christmas, but I felt that I was in the homiest place I could be on a night so far from my own.

My honorary Christmas relatives!

Rouge Celedon

A good friend and neighbor of mine, Anne Devictor, manages a small home and fashion boutique on Reunion Island's west coast. It is called Rouge Celedon and it is the cat's meow. If you are familiar with the women's clothing store, Anthropologie, then you will have an idea of what this place is all about--except that it's the real thing.

The store is a small two room paradise filled with the most lovely kitch-chic things you'll find the world over. The owner, Mademoiselle Poisson, designs everything herself and gathers much of her inspiration from the small Indonesian island nation of Bali. Most of the goods are handmade there and shipped to La Reunion, currently the only place in the world where one can revel in the Rouge Celedon mark. The store is not "wired," and therefore all transactions are recorded in small spiral notebooks, receipts are handwritten, and you won't find any sku numbers or barcodes on the merchandise.

Anne needed some help leading up to Christmas and I agreed to sit in a small corner of her heavenly little store wrapping presents. I have worked in retail stores before and the most depressing aspect of large American corporations is the requirement to best sales from the year before. "Ok, we did $10,000 last year, let's make it $15,000 for this year!" the store manager would cry over a megaphone. Here the industry is an art form, the owner is intimately involved in the production and sales, and business transactions are friendly, not pressurized.

If you've ever seen the movie "Love Actually," there is a scene in a department store where Emma Thompson's husband (who's quasi having an affair) goes to a jewelry counter to buy his flame a necklace. He's rushed because he's afraid his wife will catch him, but the salesman takes his sweet time adding the most ridiculous flourishes to the gift wrapped package. This was essentially my job function: to add pompoms, ribbons, and garlands--all tasteful, of course!!--to the lovely little cadeaux customers had bought for their loved ones. I had to laugh when I was met with the occasional opposition, "No, please hold the pompom, I'm in a rush!"

I learned lots of new vocabulary, enjoyed the Christmas shopping season with an ocean view, and participated in the lazy lovely local business scene.

Field Trip!

At the beginning of December, I was asked to accompany a group of first year patisserie and bakery students on their annual class hike. A bus was scheduled to take me, three other teachers, and the group of 25 students to a trail head in the mountains above school. Thinking back on my own high school days, our field trips were to museums, historically reenacted villages, and theater performances. We were always restless, rarely attentive. I was eager to be an accomplice to a trip where students would be encouraged to run through the woods rather than tiptoe through austere galleries. Up until this time I had fancied myself a competent hiker. Hanging out with kids who had been trekking these hills for their entire lives, I learned a lesson or two. The biggest victory of the day is that I didn't bite the dust in front of everyone. There had been some rain the night before and the trails were extremely slippery. As I was making the ginger steps of someone with wooden legs, the youth of Reunion Island were racing each other down the steepest, muddiest inclines you've ever seen. I was impressed. "Madame, just do this!" They would yell to me, as one kid did a back flip off a rock and the other a cartwheel down a cliff. Clearly they had a better idea of what they were doing than I did, so I stopped monitoring acrobatic behavior.

We arrived at our beautiful summit destination in the late morning, just in time to see an astounding view of Mafate and the Riviere de Galets before the clouds started rolling in. Museums, theater, arts, and culture are so important, but after this field trip I have come to feel that the simplicity and beauty of a day in the woods needs a place at school as well.

Le Port

In addition to my work at the two high schools, I am also giving English lessons at a shipping company in Reunion Island's port. The business, C.O.R., handles much of the bulk imports that hit Reunion on a daily basis. Ships come from around the world delivering bulk grains, metals, and fuel. C.O.R. meets the vessels and is responsible for discharging the products.

I have two students, Nathalie and Thomas. Nathalie sits at the head of the organization and is responsible for most of the large managerial operations. Thomas is on the ground as the head docker and handles all of the unloading. I work with both of them, one-on-one, several times a week. The lessons are very intense but useful in their line of work as they are frequently required to speak English with crews from around the world.
Yesterday I was granted exclusive access with Thomas to board a coal ship from Russia and a grain ship from China. There is a lot of maritime language and vocabulary that I don't even know, so I am spending a lot of time doing research from my end. I spent the afternoon taking pictures and documenting all of the different types of equipment and machinery that the dockers use on a daily basis. I was even present for negotiations between one of the ship's captains and Thomas as they worked out a time line for unloading the carbon. What do you get when you combine a Creole and a Russian speaking English together? WKLJalkjskd,ndlkfja;ois;lmfnghs!

So I know that I have a lot of work to do.

Here is Thomas, my student!

Gite up and go!

Last week I went trekking in Mafate with a group of very ambitious hikers. Having fairly little woodswoman experience myself, I typically let others make itinerary decisions for me. My friend in charge of the trip e-mailed me the trail names and I did my standard reflection, "No idea what that means, but will find out soon enough." Later that night I stopped by a colleague's house for a visit and told her what we were planning to do. I will preface her response by saying that both she and her husband have done the Grand Raid multiple times. This is Reunion Island's response to the Iron Man where foolish people resembling a new breed of epically muscular humans race the length of the island through the center mountainous cirques, covering 9,000 km of elevation within two days. She looked at me with pity and said, "If you make it home alive, give me a call." I was depressed.

The good news in all of this is that someone in our group had made the brilliant decision to stay in a "gite" over our two day hike. I am not sure what the worldwide incidence of gites are, but they are a huge phenomenon on Reunion Island. Essentially gites are small hostels or guest houses located high in the mountains. They provide showers, clean beds, and dinner and breakfast to hikers. In Mafate they are only accessed by foot or helicopter. The joy of the gite, in short, is that you can hike for days at a time and not have to carry a tent, sleeping bag, or heavy food supplies with you. If you suddenly find that the group you are hiking with is planning to do a more difficult version of the Grand Raid, you happily take any advantage you can get.

The picture below is of one of the big crates helicopters haul supplies in, usually making daily deliveries or trash pick-ups.The fearful build-up was unfounded as the group leader had ultimately partied too hard several nights before and was no longer up for the Olympic trials. "What a shame! I guess we'll just have to do that trail next time," I patted and comforted him on the back. (Note to self: do not pick up this guy's calls ever again).

Once the pressure was off and the itinerary rewritten, I had a really great time. We hiked along the Canalization d'Organgiers which is a tranquil trail leading into the heart of Mafate. From Cayenne it was a short distance to Pavillon, where we stayed for the night. It is a beautiful sight, trekking through these very remote corners of the earth. This is a picture of Cayenne as you approach it from the Riviere des Galets.
Maybe it was my overall relief of being alive, or the fact that I knew I was going to live another day, but I was in a very celebratory mood when we arrived at the gite. We were shown to our bunk room which was a very pleasant little place with a Buzz Lightyear theme. You have to chuckle over the fact that at one time a helicopter carried an entire crateful of Toy Story quilts, sheets, and posters over the impressive untouched ravines of Mafate. Everyone settled in, took their showers and started meeting the other hikers at the gite.

After a while a gal from another group invited us to play some kind of French trivia game, which was followed by another piping in about how fun it would be to play girls against boys; before I knew it, I was sucked in. Unfortunately no one realized that I was going to be the weak link in the chain of French pop culture fun, ultimately causing the girl's group to lose by an immense margin of 50 points. Onwards and upwards!

You might think that being hated by every women in the gite would have brought me down, but it did not. I proudly sat with the men for dinner--after all, they were very thankful for my presence. We ate a delicious meal prepared by the owners, multiple courses, everything that you would hope for after a day of backpacking. By 8pm the sky was black but made florescent by the stars. In the hopes of improving gender relations amongst the camp, we played a spirited game of fussball late into the night. Everyone was friends again by the end.

Here is a picture of the gite in Pavillon the next morning as we took off for the second part of our hike:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving 2010 was a holiday of firsts: certainly the first time I'd ever been tan in a sundress at the end of November. It was also the first time I ate Creole sausages instead of turkey, hosted my own Thanksgiving, and (literally) had people banging down the door for more.
For the past month I had been offhandedly inviting friends and acquaintances to my little ocean view studio for this happiest of American holidays. As friends began following up to ask what they could bring, I sat down to count the confirmed guests. Suddenly I was eying a list of 35 people and wondering whether my pint sized patio could handle the masses. Even as the event approached, I was receiving daily requests: "Can my friend come?" "Is it alright if my boyfriend's sister's brother comes?" "Can Uncle Claude come because he once ate a turkey," etc. Of course Reunion's social code of conduct requires that you turn no one away, and the numbers kept rising.
Two days before the Thanksgiving Apocalypse, a large package arrived in the mail from my dear parents filled with cans of the staples: pumpkin puree, cranberry sauce, turkey motif table cloths, napkins, and plates--everything needed for an authentic Thanksgiving in the tropics. My landlord's mother sternly delivered the box to my door and sweetly stated, "If you and your guests so much as crush one blade of grass in my daughter's garden, we will evict you."

The fear was ultimately unfounded. Our lovely little Reunion Island Thanksgiving embodied all of the wonderful togetherness that the holiday is known for. There were Creoles, Cubans, Austrians, Germans, Frenchies, Indians, and one and a half Americans! Many nationalities, colors, creeds, ages, and walks of life gathered to discover the holiday and support me in my home away from home. There was music, art, dancing, laughing, delicious food, and plenty of wine.

We did not have any turkey, but with the help of my landlord's daughters, we constructed some mighty tasty turkey cookies (which my pal Eliot is modeling above). All of the guests were responsible for bringing a dish to share. I initially tried to keep it as traditional as possible. When people asked what they could bring, I would e-mail a mashed potatoes recipe, for instance. The response generally followed like this: "Actually, I'm sorry, but I really don't want to make mashed potatoes. I have no idea what that is and I think it will be too hard for me. Would you mind if I make a mixed spiced pork roast with a curry vegetable sauce and fried banana plantains instead?" Of course I threw in the towel after a while. Thanksgiving was Creole cuisine heavy, though yours truly did all in her power to keep some of the root vegetables alive and well on the otherwise non-traditional table.
The party lasted late into the evening; even those with the most skeptical view of the whole affair ended up being the last to leave. Of course no Thanksgiving would be complete without a little bit of drama. At 4am, after everyone had departed and I had long cleaned and gone to bed, a still enthusiastic guest returned with hopes for more, banging on my door and ultimately falling asleep in our driveway until my landlord and I sent him packing at sunrise!

Dipavali Festival of Lights

The Diwali Festival of Lights (Dipavali in French), is a large Indian holiday signifying the new year. Over 23% of the population on Reunion Island is of South Asian descent, within this figure resides a sizable Tamil population. During the first two weeks of November, celebrations were hosted around the island. St. Andre, a lovely town on the east coast, is home to the largest Tamil Indian community on the island. From the moment I arrived in September, everyone began telling me to head east for an incredible Dipavali display on November 13th.

My Dipavali experience was something akin to the Griswold Family Christmas, I starring as Clark Griswold. I began amassing brochures and Indian trinkets weeks in advance, mentally preparing myself for the glitz and glimmer of the Festival of Lights. One paper said that vehicular access to the parade site would close at noon on the day of the "Grande Spectacle;" I began rallying the significantly less enthused troops for an 11:30AM arrival.

Disgruntled and tired people were pulled from their beds early Saturday morning to my excitable beating drum. Eastward bound to St. Andre! Didn't want to miss a thing! Upon arrival came the brilliant yet eerily quiet flash of understanding that the newspaper had lied to me. After all, nothing on Reunion Island happens according to schedule. Not a soul, not one living soul, had beaten us to Dipavali. Some eyes were rolled in my direction--but on the plus side, I reminded everyone, we got the best parking spot in the whole place!

Not long after, little stands began opening and we had the whole place to ourselves which--everyone had to admit--was wonderful. We made friends with all the vendors, ate lamb kababs, amassed lots of spices, I even considered buying a sari, but abandoned the plan when the salesman became too actively involved in measuring (or feeling?) my waist and bust size. Onwards and upwards! We tried all of the sweets, touched the beautiful silks and flower garlands, and later, hot and sleepy, sought refuge under a tent with a sweet young girl who gave us beautiful henna tattoos.
After 7 hours in the market place, we had fully immersed ourselves in Indian festivities and culture. The sun was setting as more friends began arriving and beautiful lights strung around the site began lighting up. Someone had placed little oil pots along the long length of the parade route and they began burning at dusk. Drums beating, music playing, men and women in the most breathtaking costumes and floats began marching past. For over two hours we stood in awe over this happy, colorful, display. I felt that I was actually in India, surrounded by people shouting, crying out, singing, dancing in the streets. Every once and a while a float would pass and someone would throw brilliant orange flower petals into the crowd. A beautiful sight to behold.

As the last float passed by, people began streaming to the far side of a vast field where a big fireworks display was underway. After only a minute, fire ants began attacking my feet and I too began dancing! The display slowly died down and the thousands of spectators began the long trek back to their cars; our little family had only to walk a smug five feet to my car, driving off elated into the dark night, Joyeux Dipavali!!!

Col du Taibit

After a movie several weeks ago, my pal Susanne and I were invited to go hiking with a friend of a friend whom we bumped into on the side of the road. The plan was to hike from Cilaos to Mafate via Col du Taibit, a narrow little pass high in the mountains that connects two of the island's three immense volcanic craters. From there, you can see the ocean on one side and down into the Cirque de Mafate from the other.

One of the joys of hiking on Reunion Island is how the geography is so truly untouched. It's a raw and beautiful experience of extremely remote, serene, and quiet terrain. The downside is that if there's any sort of problem, you usually have to get airlifted out. About two hours into our trek, we crossed a woman who had broken her leg. Soon we could hear the helicopter rescue team off in the distance. It got me thinking that the pain of injury may be worth it just to get an island tour! Just kidding, Ma! I couldn't get enough of these guys:

We made it up Col du Taibit without another incident and began the descent down into Mafate. Somewhere along the line Susanne made friends with some radical Creole mountain-men-band- of-brothers who were hiking, skipping, jumping all over the jagged rocks without any shoes on. They were doing the same trail we were on, a roughly 16 hour round trip adventure. I had seen this once before during an earlier trek when a guy with dreadlocks down to his ankles sprinted past me barefoot on a trail that was so unpredictable I needed poles to manage it alive. A Creole pastime, I've been told.

We got hit with a flash flood as we were approaching Trois Roches, our base camp for that night:
And here is a great shot from the next morning when we got up to begin the journey back. Someone let the cows out--though we have no idea where they came from. Apparently there are individually isolated farmers that live in these very remote mountain corners. Sometimes they live by themselves, other times with their families, but mostly they are roughing it alone. Access to the outside world is limited to the decision to hike the 8 hours to Cilaos, the closest town.

You can click on the pictures to get a better look!

That was easy!

The people I have met here have an endearing and irritating habit of declaring things "Easy," when in fact, they are very "Hard." At first you might find it charming when your friend who has invited you to a beach picnic brings a six course meal with wine, sees you ogling it, and says, "Oh really, it's nothing." But then you may start to find it irritating when you say, "Wow, Claude, I can't believe you brought a roast duck to the beach, what inclined you to do that?" and Claude's response is, "It was the easiest thing I could think of for the beach."

Well Claude, I can think of some easier things. Ever heard of a PB&J? How about a Lunchable?

Recently I was invited to my next door neighbor's house for drinks so I could meet their friend, Nadine, a choir director. At the very last minute, my host called to explain that Nadine was running behind schedule and could I please come over for a quick bite to eat later on? Sure, I said. I was truly not expecting the Christmas Dinner that awaited me on the other side of the fence. An exquisitely roasted leg of lamb, artichoke stew, a plate of fine cheeses. The dessert, an apple tart, was as much a work of art as a culinary masterpiece. It must have taken over an hour to arrange each paper-thin slice of apple into the birds-nest shape it assumed. When I asked for the recipe, my host refused to give it to me saying, "It's so easy, I'm embarrassed to tell you."

These examples about food can be equally applied to acts of physical fitness. A favorite Reunionais pastime is hiking, but if you're invited, you have to assume that it will be akin to trekking Everest. Every invitation goes something like this: "Hello! How do you feel about a quick hike this Saturday? It will be easy, maybe 2 or 3 hours." That is followed by two hours of death defying treacherous mountain passes, four hours of scaling vertical rock faces, two minutes of flat dirt path, and a final 3.5 hours of climbing down house-sized boulders.

As I approached a trail head with a friend last weekend, he asked me whether I was afraid of heights. First of all, when you've just driven two hours to a high mountain peak, can you decide that the hike is no longer of interest? Secondly, wanting to impress peers becomes a priority when you're surrounded by excellence. So I coughed a "no" and put one foot in front of the other. We were off. I will describe the trail by saying that it was constructed as if someone had taken a small pocket knife and etched a foot path along the side of a vertical cliff (see picture below). There was a cable along the length of the trail, which I grasped with an iron grip. But this was truly one of those instances where one false move, you're a goner, no little hand hold is going to save you. I made it, but I no longer have control of any bodily functions and my hair is shocked with gray. A small price to pay for showing ease and grace. On the plus side, I caught my friend in a moment of weakness back at the car when he shook his head and said, "That was steeper than I remembered!"


Long story short: allow yourself to be impressed here, but don't for a minute be fooled. Just like those pretty Olympic water ballerinas who seem to effortlessly kick dance through the pool, you know that they've worked their whole lives to present flawless aesthetics. This concept is a frequent encounter on Reunion Island!

Early morning hike: I brought you some coffee for your croissant! Do you take sugar?

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween Ghouls and Boys!

It was a popular card this year--I'm still waiting for a third to make it a set!
Halloween is not widely celebrated here, nor is it very well known; some even go so far as to boycott it, expressing chagrin over the fact that this is yet another symbol of the encroaching "western world." Nonetheless, my neighborhood was transformed come sunset: little witches, monsters, and unrecognizable winged creatures shrieking for, "Les Bonbons, Les Bonbons!!"

I had done a fairly arduous hike earlier in the day and was hoping for a nap before the festivities began, but was awoken by a heavy rapping on my door with the sounds of, "There is an American who lives here. Come out America. You are here. We know because we saw you." So up I went, dressed as an American (which was sufficiently thrilling for everyone present), and snapped this shot of my little neighborhood friends:
The funniest sensation was knowing how truly far from home I was at that moment, but surrounded by children who could have been me and my friends 15 years ago. In place of the chilly autumn air whipping through some little polyester princess get-up, a hot stifling stillness was causing a small vampire's face paint to melt off. No bobbing for apples, crisp fall leaves, or candy corn: just mangoes, palm trees, and bonbons!

Madame

I am working in two vocational high schools on the island. Lycee Hotelier is a culinary school with a very serious career preparatory program. Some of France's greatest cooks come out of institutions like this. The best part of the whole place is a little bakery on campus where all of the "practice" bread and pastries are sold to the teachers. For a nominal fee I can by a decadent tart that is decorated with two crooked pieces of apple. You just can't lose. The other school is Lycee Vue Belle, also known as Lycee 9 mois (for the pregnancy epidemic that exists there). It is a much tougher crowd and the kids are more likely to give me the run around. In both cases I am only a few years older than the students and they see me as either their peer, an alien, or a potential love interest. I know this because they talk about me (and don't realize I speak French--should I spring the news on them at the end of the year!?).

Mostly my job is to encourage conversation and urge them to speak English. The most popular words that students like to work into any given sentence are "Sexy," "Hot Mama," and "Do you have boyfriend." I am becoming ruthlessly skilled at cutting teenage boys down to size. Obviously the best part of the job is working with the really serious students. Many and most have never left the island and they dream of traveling to the United States (New York specifically). I am really touched by the ones who make an effort.

The biggest surprise is being called "Madame." I always look around for the buxom 50-something behind me before realizing that apparently I just aged 30 years. I've noticed that most of the students have been trained to think well within the box and, therefore, calling a teacher by her first name is not possible. The beginning of every class is the same: I write my name on the board, pronounce it 5 times slowly, and encourage students to repeat after me. "Now what's my name?" response: "Marsha." From boy in back of classroom: "Madame, do have boyfriend?"

Failure.

Lycee Vue Belle

C-A-F-A-R-D

There are certain vocabulary words in a foreign language that you never have to know. Then again there are certain ones that suddenly pop up into your life and you have no choice but to confront them (or scream them, as the case may be). C-A-F-A-R-D is one such word.

After several years in the slums of Brooklyn, I became well acquainted with cockroaches. They were gross and I hated them, but on the plus side, they were small as ants! At a dinner party with friends several weeks ago, I met my first cockroach à la Reunion Island, a cafard. We were sitting around the table when suddenly a black hockey puck-sized mound flitted across the wall. Everyone screamed. I made the poor karmic decision of smugly proclaiming to my neighbor, "Thank God I don't have those at my house!"

Flash forward to last night when I was sitting eating dinner in peace and a cockroach the size of Alabama started playing in my kitchen. A frequent reaction to insects back home is to kill them. My question to the contrary is, "Would you step on a mouse to get rid of it?" Similar sizing--some things are much too big. I sat stock still in mortal disgust for nearly an hour, hoping that the cafard would skitter out of my home on his own accord. We each bluffed at each other: me with a broom, he with his antennae.

Honestly, after a while I lost interest in his childish games and went to bed (with one eye always opened!!). He was gone when I woke up this morning...

Logistics: the Russian Doll

The logistics of moving to the other side of the world were something akin to regressing to pre-school. I arrived on Reunion Island as a 25 year old with the logistical capacities of a toddler. Fortunately I fell into the good hands of Michel Eyquem, an English teacher at one of my high schools. He and his wife, Alice, graciously accepted me into their home, assuming the role of spoon feeding me pureed mangoes and strapping me into my car seat each morning. It was a ride on the total dependence side. They took me everywhere from looking at cars and apartments, to dropping me off at the beach, and showing me the secret back way to the neighborhood patisserie. I could not have done it without them.
In hindsight, my primary problem was that I had arrived on the island mentally under-prepared for the logistical reality of things. I had done virtually nothing to research apartments or living situations and although I had entertained the idea of a car as a fun activity, I did not realize that it was going to be an absolute necessity. The first two weeks were a scramble to recognize needs and figure out how to tackle them--in French. The process can best be described as opening a Russian doll: you identify one need which subsequently sprouts another task or need, then another, and another, until your head is about to explode and you realize that the only thing that will soothe you is playing "Super Bijoux Quete" on your cell phone (a mindless, brain-cell killing waste of life video game).

The other obstacle to settling into life on la Reunion is the pace with which tasks are accomplished. Most stores and businesses are open approximately 20 hours a week (that's being generous!!) and only about 7% of the work force is inclined to exert themselves. It is pulling teeth to get people to take your new bank account, for example, seriously. It's not that people aren't friendly or kind, it's that their enjoyment comes paramount to your logistical need. Bank account = not fun. What's for lunch = fun. I was forced to learn this equation very early on.

After all was said and done, I found an excellent studio apartment looking out over the west coast of La Saline-les-Bains. It's in the downstairs of a house owned by a woman named Elodie who lives there with her two young daughters (who are incidentally star-struck by my presence in their home). I have a breathtaking view of the lagoon and race home each afternoon for the best show of the day: the sunset. With the help of Michel, I also found a sweet little Citroen hot rod, and I am now zipping around the island like there's no tomorrow...

Neighborhood Volcanic Action

After only two weeks of being here, our local volcano, Piton de la Fournaise, began erupting. Laure, a friend from work, called me immediately to take an evening hike to see the lava flows by dark. That afternoon I headed south with three other German assistants and met up with Laure and her friend Adelaide in Petite-Ile. Laure lives in an incredible old mountain tree-house type place, perched on top of a ten-mile vertical winding incline. Needless to say, everyone was carsick by the time we arrived. We did manage to recover in time for a decadent Creole dinner of Rougail de Saucisses followed by an immediate food coma.

By the time we finished dinner, it was 10:30 pm and the moment had arrived to see this lava we'd been hearing so much about. What we hadn't anticipated was another hour and a half of driving à la NASCAR through steep mountain passes. Carsickness again, but this time we were filled up on sausage and in two separate cars. Upon arrival at the entrance of the national park, the others were nowhere to be found. By 1AM we had been waiting nearly an hour and were becoming concerned that a tragedy had befallen our friends; no one had cell phones. Finally we decided that we had no choice but to descend the mountain and find the corpses ourselves. After 45 minutes of more nauseating driving, we finally received word that the others were already climbing towards the volcano and where were we!!? Back up the mountain again.

Long story short, a major fight erupted between Laure, Adelaide, and the Germans when we finally reunited. Large and in charge women were screaming at each other in French and German about responsibility and friendship. As the lone Anglophone who didn't care about anything except seeing the lava, I was literally left to twiddle my thumbs and gaze at the stars while the others duked it out. We lost Adelaide who stormed off in a huff, leaving 5 of us freezing cold at 2AM to begin the hike inwards towards the volcano.

To say that Laure underplayed the rigor of the hike would be an understatement. What we had all pictured would be a 10 minute walk under the stars was a 2.5 hour hike over centuries old hills of hardened molten lava. We had head lamps, but the going was arduous to say the least. The one thing motivating me was the red aura that we could see from a distance. Every few minutes we were hit by a blast of warm air and we could tell we were getting closer. We arrived at 4:30AM at a most astounding scenic overlook of the volcano. In reality, we were about a mile from the eruption, but it felt much closer. Lava exploding into the air, an orange red train flowing down into the unknown. Maybe it was the emotion of fatigue, but at that instant, I felt that I had never seen anything so enormously impressive. We stayed fixed on the sight until we were all too cold to stand still any longer, and thus began the long trek back to the car. The sun was coming up as we finally got back to the parking lot at 7AM. Exhausted but moved to the core.

Piton de la Fournaise is one of the world's most active volcanoes and emits some of the most lava. It erupts every year--some years more significantly than others. This was a "moderate" eruption with lava projections of up to 65 feet in the air. Reunion's volcano sits within a protective crater, so in a moderate year like this, the lava did not flow out of the natural barrier. As recently as 2007, it is known to flow up, over, and down into the surrounding hillsides--sometimes into the ocean as well. No one lives in these hazard zones, so the volcano is typically viewed as an exciting wild card of nature, more so than an impending disaster. The picture below is of the lava trails from 2007; the rocks are still hot and smoldering!

Ile Bourbon

La Reunion has a long and winding history that involves both French and British rule. In the 18th century, the French East India company and French government took it upon themselves to settle the previously uninhabited island known at that time as Ile Bourbon. France introduced coffee as the primary cash crop. The ensuing demand for manpower led to an extensive import of African and Malagasy slaves. From the long history of slavery emerged a local Creole culture and dialect that is still widely spoken among locals as a first language. Indian indentured servants and Chinese merchants came soon thereafter, creating a marked ethnic diversity on the island which is still notable today.

During the Napoleonic Wars, Bonaparte lost the island to the British, who subsequently introduced sugar cane as the new big cash crop; vanilla and other spices were added to the mix as well. You can see vast fields of sugar cane all over the island today. During harvest season (ie: right now), motorists the island over must share roads with mammoth tractors. They descend the mountainsides piled two stories high with cane, blocking the sun and sky with their enormity. Fear envelopes me every time I see one of them 'a coming...

Ile Bourbon was returned to the French under the Treaty of Paris after only 5 years of British rule. In 1848, slavery was abolished, the island was permanently renamed La Reunion or 'meeting,' and it became an official Departement Francais d'Outre-Mer (DOM) in 1946. Today the island is home to nearly 800,000 people including Creoles, French expats (affectionately or sometimes derogatorily called les Zoreilles), Indians, Chinese, and of course little pockets of random foreigners like myself.

La Reunion is a tourist destination with many visitors from Europe. The primary reason that people seem to come here is for the hiking and extreme sports--there is no shortage of incredible trails and mountain passes to explore. Of course there are also the white sandy beaches that encircle the island, but believe it or not, the beaches are not what the island is known for. They take second place to the mountain adventures (although I would personally disagree with that statement!). All living and activity is inclined towards the outdoors. There are more than 20 micro-climates; from one town to the next you can see stark temperature changes and differences in rainfall. As we approach the very hot summer months, I am happy to know that I can always go into the mountains to cool off.

And finally a word on the quality of life: La Reunion is not a wealthy country, but it receives a lot of assistance from France and most people enjoy modern conveniences; it's not difficult to find the things you need. The population is extremely ethnically diverse, so despite the small size of the island, you have a nearly New York melting pot vibe. The west coast where I live is notoriously Zoreille, but going deeper into the mountains you will find many small Creole towns, the east coast town of St. Andre is famous for its Tamil Indian population, and of course the large cities like St. Denis have a little bit of everything and everyone.