Hello all,
I finally have a bit of time (due to the 'gilets jaunes' strikes going on right now, there's no school today!) so I thought I'd update all my people back home about what's been going on in my corner of the world! I've been on the island for almost 2 months now, and it's been a whirlwind since the very first day. Here’s a little bit of what I’ve been up to:
Daily Life / Host Family
Teaching
GR2 Hike
Les Courses
Flora of the Island
Travel
Let’s get into it!
Daily Life / Host Family
It's my first experience living abroad, so part of the adventure for me has been learning the day-to-day life here. Reunion is a good mélange between European French culture, and island culture, which I have greatly appreciated. I certainly was not searching for a Métropolitain experience when I came to the island! The big cities St. Denis and St. Pierre, are very much organized like towns in France. The city centers have buildings nestled close together, the streets are very narrow, all the cars are compact, and businesses close down for lunch.
On the other hand, the life in the countryside exemplifies a calm, relaxed island living. Where I live, in Petite Île, we’re about 3km away from the coast, and 450m in elevation, and life slows down a lot up here. Every day I wake up to a cacophony of roosters and parrots at 5h30, and as soon as the sun is up, people are taking advantage! Likewise, as soon as it gets dark here around 19h, things are pretty calm.
As for the food, the Boulangerie culture here is very strong, French baguettes are sold everywhere. There are also tons of products imported from mainland France. Mainly cheese. Yet there is also a lot of pride for the traditional créole dishes the island has to offer. Le rougail saucisse is everybody’s favourite dinner, and restaurants sell a variety of different cari for lunches. Everyone here also follows the cycles of which fruit is ripe when, since there are so many different fruit trees on the island! For example right now it’s the end of the season for Les cerises à côte, but very soon Lychee and Mango will be in season, as well as a type of black cherry I have yet to discover!
For my year here, I’m living with a host family, les Ethèves! It’s been really fun so far, I’ve had a much different experience than many of the other TAPIFers, who are living in apartments in St. Pierre. I’m in an immersion French environment, mostly, except when I’m teaching the kids English. I really enjoy the daily life here, living in the countryside with a family, it’s been a very cool learning experience. One difficulty is finding time to spend with people my own age, as I’m removed from the St. Pierre assistants, but typically the weekend is when I share time with them!
Check out this of me and my host siblings:
The house also has tons of pets! Including 3 parrots, and about 10 cats! Here’s a photo of me chilling with a few of them.
On Dec. 1st (With the help of my amazing cook of a mother) I’ll be hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for my family and some friends. I’m really looking forward to that! Thanksgiving is not known at all in La Réunion, not one of my kids knew what it is. There won’t be any Turkey, but we’ll have lots of other good food— both US. classics as well as some local dishes! And we’ll definitely have the most important thing: friends and family!
Teaching
It’s what I came here to do. It’s usually not the highlight of my day, but so far it has been going really well. I work at two schools, a collège in Petite Île, and a lycee professional in St. Joseph. The collège is a 15 minute walk from my house, and I work there two days a week. I often get to choose and have creative control over the lessons I present there. Often the goal is to introduce American culture to the kids. So I’ve done lessons on Halloween, the November midterms, Thanksgiving, my travels, US Govt/History, etc. It’s been really fun making those lessons. I’ve incorporated a lot of School House Rock videos in my lessons, which has been a blast! I also lead the English Club every Monday, where we do fun stuff in English like practice tongue twisters and watch Hamilton the musical. That’s probably my favourite class of the week!
At the Lycee, their curriculum is more set in stone, so I have less say in what we’re learning about. I typically just lead an activity that my professor has already planned, or help the teacher lead a lesson. This is essentially a trade-school, each kid has a very specific track they’re on: construction, commerce, math/physics, to name a few. I’m working with one group in the commerce track that’s preparing for an internship in South Africa in April. So we’ve been working a lot with numbers, prices, and speaking with that group.
GRR2 Hike
I won’t go over this here, because I already have a blog post about this trip I took! This 10-day trip happened in October over a two-week school holiday. Read about it here:
Les Courses
One unexpected thing that I’ve been doing, is some long-distance running. I didn’t envision this for myself while planning this visit, but it’s really popular on the island, and it’s what the locals do for exercise, so I thought I’d give it a shot. Every weekend, there’s a course somewhere on the island, and often time there are multiple!
The first one I did was called La Course de l’Ail which was in my home town of Petite Île! The race started at sea level, and ended at an elevation of about 400m, but not before reaching its peak at over 1000m! It was a long climb. One thing that caught me by surprise for this first race was that it was mostly on trail! I was envisioning marathons in the US where it all takes place on paved roads— but that was dead wrong! 20% of it was on paved roads, ad the other 80% was a mixture of hiking trails and dirt roads in sugar cane plantations. I went into this race with no training, and it showed. I was cramping by 15km, and hobbled to the finish line. It was well worth it when I received a bundle of garlic as a prize!!
The second race I did was called La Course du Curcuma and it was even longer, 24km! But I was better prepared. I did this race with a local friend of mine that I had met in Mafate, named Patrice.
As is the theme here, we began near sea level, and went up to over 1500m this time! Then ended the race at around 1000m. It was a longer race but I managed it better, so I had many fewer cramps overall, which felt like progress! And of course, I got some turmeric as a prize!
We hung out afterwards at his Patrice’s tonton’s place (Side note: tonton means uncle. However here, any friend who is a generation or so older than you is automatically a tonton or tati. Which gives those interactions a really nice, familial feel!) We chilled at tonton Francois’ house with some friends, and listened to reggae music and ate sambousas all day as we recovered from our long race! I taught a lot of English to the group that was there, and they taught me some créole slang! It was a good exchange, and a wonderful day!
Flora of the Island
Like I mentioned earlier, people follow the seasons of fruits here, and plan their meals accordingly. Bananas grow all the time, but other fruits are spread out throughout the year. It’s just now passed the season of la cerise à côte, aka la cerise cayenne because it’s so spicy! I’ve had fun picking these recently, as not many locals really enjoy this fruit. Yesterday I went out and visited some local friends who live on a plantation. They’ve been letting me pick from the cherry tree because otherwise they would all go to waste! I ended up chatting with them for a long time and they also offered me some peche pays or local peaches! Which was really kind of them! Below is a photo of the haul! With these cherries I’ve been making a thanksgiving style sauce, reminiscent of cranberry sauce. (Except this one has a little kick to it!)
Earlier in the year I was picking a lot of mûre pays, a blackberry that grows on a tree. And soon it’s the season for lychees and mangoes, passion fruits and much more throughout the summer! I’ll keep you all updated with my findings!
There are only two types of pine trees on the island: le christomeria and le filaos. Below is a photo with some filaos on the left and in the background! They only really grow in altitudes above ~1000m, so we saw a lof of them on the GRR2 hike. The word filaos is a créole word, a combination of the words fil-à-eau, because when the clouds roll in, the pine needles (fils) grab the water out of the air and it sticks to them. And time it’s even a little humid, you’ll see this tree with water droplets clinging to it! Le christomeria is more common, and can be found near sea level, below is a photo of some on the GRR2 hike!
Travel
A little sneak-peak at some of my future plans: I’m going to be visiting my cousin Nico in South Africa in January for about two weeks! I’ll be hanging out in Capetown and exploring the city, learning to surf, and will also visit some national parks with the cousin! A strong possibility is visiting the southern tip of the country, Agulhas National Park, and seeing where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet. There will also be stellar hiking and scenery no doubt. The plans are still pretty open, but whatever happens it will be an adventure! I look forward to sharing it with y'all when I get back!
Misc Photos
That’s all Folks
I hope to get one of these out every month, to keep things fresh. That’s the goal anyway. So hopefully the next one will be around Christmas time!
If there's anyone else you feel should get on these email updates, feel free to forward this on, and I'll add them to the next email blast!
Have any questions? Want me to cover something specific in the next update? Feel free to let me know! I’ll do my best to get back.
I’m thinking of you all, and in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’m very thankful to have you all in my life!
Ciao,
Jean-Canot