How do you spell quadruple trouble?

This is the problem with girls who have big hearts and love cute things....Suzie ran home one night, "Come quick girls!" We ran down the driveway, to discover something...or rather 4 little somethings who were very noisy. That's the moment I finally learned the word "chaton" = kitten. They had been wandering around on our rather busy street, curled up behind speed bumps, just a car accident waiting to happen. Despite all attempts to leave them for their mother to find them, we left them in a box, hoping somehow the mother would show. The next morning as I walked down to the bakery, there they were, huddled up in the cardboard box, snoozing away.

So allez-oup, we went into operation kitten rescue. Little did we know that no animal society would take them yet (they're too young), and that we would end up heading to the vet to buy cat milk, and laugh at the silly bottle feeding method, and of course, watch our hearts break as we named them (of course!) and learned their personalities. Of course we can't keep them, we're leaving in 6 months! But for the moment they sure are absolutely adorable.

While I write this post I'm laughing because my housemate is grumbling about our neighbors. "Get a %*&^ing job, you people." That could be said for a lot of our neighbors actually. It seems to be popular for the 30 something year olds from France to come wander to Reunion, and well, never leave....or do anything, for that matter. But worry not, my fellow humanitarians, because the French government will save them from themselves, or rather feed their bad habits. Of course I can't really complain about Olivier, our neighbor, who has lived here for over 2 years, doing....well...the macarena. He's quite funny at least, and I think Nathalie has completely confused him, explaining how she is my cousin from Texas....he doesn't really trust us anymore.

I've met less Reunionnais who are unemployed. Even the rather young seem to already be in the working world. The other weekend we met teenagers already working in bakeries, stores, shops....Strangely enough whenever we try to meet Reunionnais our age, they are surprisingly absent....

Turns out there's a good reason for that, as their mothers complain about bitterly: all the 20 somethings are in "Metropole," the mainland. Well, that is, those that can afford to. So that leaves a huge gap in the age group here: The really young, and the not so young. And then there's us. The assistants.

Dipavali

Whew, what a weekend. I can't believe how easy it is to just pick up and go somewhere. In thirty minutes, Carrie and I had decided to pack up sleeping bags, food, warm clothes, and hitch a bus to the beach to meet up with other assistants and camp for a night on the sand. You can just grab a hammock, a tent, or a sleeping bag, and sleep anywhere, it's pretty crazy. And with our big group, it's always great fun, although very little sleep involved and a lot of sand in the hair the next day....but we had a good time of it, swimming in the waves, trying not to get smashed against rocks or thrashed in the water. We sadly didn't see any sharks. Maybe next time....

So, despite the sandy beaches, swaying palm trees, French music, Reunion still has it's melange of cultures that I still don't understand completely....

This weekend is a good example: St Pierre is hosting the huge "dipavali" festival (Diwali in English), a Hindu festival that is considered a festival of lights, or the overcoming of evil. The festival seemed bizarre to me: Indian culture on Reunion Island? But it's just like those samoussas on the streets, or those Hindu temples scattered around the island, bright and impossible not to notice.

So we were able to watch the Indian dancing, celebrating Krishna, an important deity, with Rukmini, his first and most important wife. Lots of bright colors, loud music, and of course, spicy and delicious food. Too bad Carrie and I were way too exhausted to stay for the fireworks tonight. Early to bed for me....more creole food tomorrow! This time I'm going to learn how to make it myself. :-)

Nutmeg kills?

One of my favorite parts of the island is the smell. Whenever you walk through the open air markets you smell all sorts of spices, and they are all tempting to buy. Nathalie and I couldn't resist buying tiny sachets of peper, saffron, vanilla, and nutmeg. Little did we know how potent and dangerous some of the spices actually are....

Yesterday Dominique and Marlene piled us into their car to go visit a spice garden down south. The trip was great, we got a chance to stop and visit the lava flows from several years ago. It's always exciting to think that we've got an active volcano on the island. In fact it's been very active lately, they're pretty sure it's going to blow soon....

Anyways, the garden was not only colorful and fragrant, but our guide was very informative. I had no idea that on the island grows a tree that produces four different flavors: cinnamon, pepper, cloves, and nutmeg. Of course we ran into these spices too, only to discover that innocent enough looking nutmeg is poisonous in large doses. Our guide explained that half a nutmeg is enough to kill a man....Nathalie of course was really curious, and asked a lot of questions about nutmeg while we laughed.... Our guide in the end of the tour gave us an extra little tour of how to make vanilla, and sneaked us each a vanilla stalk, which are about a euro a pop. Ooh, we were happy to have this special organic vanilla from St Joseph...

Indiana strikes again!

Before I even thought of working as an English assistant, and well before I knew of the existence of Reunion Island, I read a 17th French book called "Indiana," by a woman who went by the pen name of Georges Sands. It was a crazy book about some Creole woman who lives in France and is married to some fierce military general. At the same time it was rather soap opera-y, with Indiana falling for some idiotic romantic named Raymond, who had already had a love affair with her best friend, but she didn't know it....it gets way more complicated, but the point is, towards the end of the book she returns home to Ile de Bourbon, and the descriptions are amazing, of the tropical climate, the ocean, and best of all, the beautiful jungles with splendid waterfalls.

As soon as I got into the program I looked up Reunion on Wikipedia, only to discover that its original name was Ile de Bourbon....and today I saw that waterfall that I've been looking forward to seeing. We walked there.

Still here

This weekend has been pretty busy, so I haven't had as much time to write. We're on vacation now, for 2 weeks. None of us feel like it's well deserved, as half of the assistants haven't even started working yet, but you can't refuse vacation. So this weekend we had a party on the beach with a dozen or so assistants from anglophone countries.

It was quite the beach, with tons of people playing music, dancing, baking huge pots of creole food over open fires. It's kind of fun to camp on the beach, it's just a free for all public place, where you don't have to reserve a spot, or pay for parking. You just show up, find a place on the lawn, and watch the sun set.

The girls and I decided to wander around and we ran into a crazy group of 18 year old boys having a birthday party. They were so excited to meet American/British girls that they invited us over to their camp to hang out, eat food, have some red wine. I was having a great time watching them fawn over Carrie who had no idea what they were saying, and Nathalie, who was learning Creole insults and using them on unsuspecting teenagers passing by. I was also asking the boys about Creole terms, like how to say, "Hi, how are you?" (Salut, comment il est? - Le la!). In the end, after many "Tu es jolie!" and "Je t'aime," I told them I had a boyfriend, hoping to dissuade them. Didn't work apparently. Their response was, "If he's not here, why not have a Reunionnais boyfriend too?" Right.....

So today Carrie and I went to the beach to meet up with one of her friends, when we ran into a really killer break dance competition. I tried to snap some photos, but I missed the best act of all: a 7 year old girl attempting her break dancing moves, and smiling the entire time. We sat on the beach, waiting for our ten zillionth bus, and as we admired the incredible sky, two whales swam by, jumping and playing as they went, remarkably close to the beach! It was pretty incredible, we watched in awe.

First commute day

Well, today was not the ultimate "commute to work" day for me. First, I'm still trying to figure out the easiest way to get to work (I think I may have finally put my finger on it), and secondly, although the clapping scheme is cute, the buses are somewhat frustrating. True, there are buses to every location I work. That being said, most of them run once an hour, and the word "transfer" does not really exist on this island. What could be a 1 hour trip with a direct bus ride ends up being 3 hours with waiting on all ends.

So this is how my day went today (if you care to amuse yourself, you can look up a map of the island): caught bus from St Gilles-les-bains at 7:18 to St Paul station. Waited for half an hour, transferred buses, got to school in La Possession at 9:00 AM. Spent one hour working on classes, preparing, etc. Taught for two hours (more on that later), took a bus to St Denis and bought 3 samoussas for lunch (really healthy I know). Then a 20 minute bus ride to the rectorat to turn in missing papers, waited for 15 minutes for it to open after lunch, handed said paper in. Now I will get paid by November. Sweet. 20 minute bus trip back to city center, hopped on bus to St-Gilles-les-bains, listening to Bonaparte along the way. ;-) That means, 3 hours of bus transport today with 2 hours of waiting time....when I showed up at the grocery store at 4 PM and ran into my new neighbor Roxie, she took one look at me and said, "You are so spaced out. Oh my god!" Then she continuously laughed at me.

But as soon as I got home, there they were, like good housemates, hanging out on the porch on their laptops, surfing the net. I begged to go to the beach, and by sunset we were there, watching surfers, and picking out boyfriends for Carrie and Nathalie, who think it would be cool to meet a surfer dude who has a car. I hope they do meet someone, then we could get around easier, without waiting hours on the bus...until then, I've got work to do. Lot's of work to do.

A new home, a new adventure

So, it actually happened. Us three adventurous teaching assistants, Carrie, Nathalie, and I, finally found a charming bungalow in coveted St Gilles-les-bains. I asked the girls how long it had taken them to get to the beach the day they came to check out the place, and they told me 6 minutes...and they got lost. Needless to say, we're not far. And if you walk down our decently long driveway, across the street is a nightclub that hosts salsa dancing every Thursday night. Needless to say, that's where we'll be heading in a few nights. My shoes haven't been worn in months!

So we had a good first night. Having no food, we bought Creole pizza, listened to music, put up posters, and walked to the beach. Us girls are pretty happy in our little bungalow. It's not high end luxury, but for 265 euros a person (Carrie and me are sharing a room), it's really cheap...which means our salaries can go towards more important things like traveling....yup, life is pretty good, by the sea. Admittedly it was hard to say goodbye to Dominique, who dropped me off with Marlene. They were like two mothers, inspecting the place, helping me move my things in, and the expected "Be careful at night, don't go out by yourself." Nathalie and I waved them goodbye as they drove away. At least I know I will see them now and then, I'm not worried. Now we just have to learn how to surf...

Cilaos

You know how you always wonder what teachers do during their spare time? I always did as a kid, I thought that teachers must have some mysterious lives outside of school. Take my mom for instance: how many of her students know that she bike rides, or bird watches? I came into her class to pick her up one time, and they all stared at me for a long time, trying to figure out what kind of offspring Dr. Stanton must have....

Anyways, I digress. This weekend I went to the mountains, to eat more tasty food, and to meet English teachers! Well, it was for a workshop for the chaperons of an organization called BEST that sends high schoolers to English speaking countries like Australia, UK, South Africa, and the US. The teachers, although they slave away during the "vacation" get the benefit of an all expenses paid trip. Although I probably won't snag a spot, it was worth a shot to at least go and listen to all the boring lectures. Plus we played some great games of mafia, although it involved werewolves instead of mafia members....I kept being chosen as the hunter, I don't know what that means...

So what do English teachers do in their spare time? Play games, dance to loud music, and get drunk on champagne. Oh, and well, work or something. The trip was beautiful, with some pretty impressive mountains, and a cute little town with a Sunday artisan market. I didn't get a chance to hike much, but it was worth it, just to see them drunk.

First day of work

Today was a big day. I had my first day of work, teaching at school. Of course I just went in to introduce myself, really excited to meet some of my students. In fact, I think we all ended up being excited, because there was a big hush when Dominique introduced me as their new "assistante d'anglais." For the most part California seemed like a far away place to them (except for one student who had surprisingly already visited San Francisco????), and they wondered what I thought about their lovely island. Had I tried any of the Reunion specialties? In fact, I replied, I had. Last night.

Marlene (the one on the right in the photo) invited Dominique (on the left) and me to her house to eat a delicious traditional Creole meal: rougail saucisse: a dish involving rice, beans (not from the can), tomatoes, sausage. With "chou chou" on the side. SOOO delicious, with green chiles, you would not believe. Then a potato chocolate cake, that didn't really taste like potato at all, but the chocolate was definitely there. All of this topped off with some of the most delicious rum I have ever tasted, with that good ol' Madagascar vanilla flavor (from the vanilla beans Marlene had shoved inside the bottle way back). I think I could get used to this.

All in all I'm getting more and more into work, trying to come up with cool lesson plans, that will earn me top ranks. Tomorrow is movie day, and unfortunately the only English film I have that is relatively interesting for teenagers that don't speak English fluently is....Finding Nemo. Oh well, it's a movie, and I'm going to be one of those lame teachers that only let's them watch about 5 minutes. Who would have thought.