I arrived on this beautiful island on Wednesday, with no idea what to expect. Air Madagascar pulled out their best performance and got me to Saint Denis with all my luggage present and just about in tact AND a man with a business class ticket needed to sit in my cattle class seat to sit next to his colleague so I managed to swap seats and get myself in business class for half the journey! I was met at the very snazzy Saint Denis airport by one of my lovely mentors, with her English husband and her bilingual daughter. After 4 flights and 4 Malagasy airports with 2 suitcases and 3 hand luggage bags, I was in Saint Denis, La Reunion.Saint Denis is the capital of La Reunion, on the northern tip of the island. I am teaching in two sixth forms on the southern tip of the island so my first experience of La Reunion was a beautiful drive along the western coast. Mountains. Sea. Mountains. Sea. Mountains. Sea. That's how Reunion sells itself to tourists, and that's exactly what I was met by, on a spectacular scale. The coastline morphed itself from beaches with black sand to huge cliff faces to deep gorges with huge waves in a matter of 10mins in the car. John, my mentor's husband who's from Yorkshire, told me tales of shark attacks, volcano eruptions and he also said that there has been talk of building a road in the sea, to avoid the problem of falling rocks from the cliff face into the main dual carriageway on the island...not surprisingly this was going to be one of the most expensive roads in the world, using EU money apparently!
So, when we reached Saint Joseph, the town where I will be teaching I met my other mentor, Nathalie. (I'm already used to the 'mwah, mwah' upon every encounter) She's welcomed me with open arms into her family life. Because we've just started the 2 week half term, the sixth form is closed. I was originally going to board in the school at the beginning until I found my own place, instead I'm living in Nathalie's beautiful house, between Saint Joseph and Vincendo with her 3 very active young children!
La Reunion feels almost like seaside France. There are patisseries a plenty, 'Geant' supermarkets and everyone drives on the right with a little blue "F" on their number plate. But. There are palm
trees everywhere, mangoes, pineapples, lychees ready to fruit and we haven't had a day when the temperatures haven't reached 27 degrees. I think this is my kind of France! The other significant difference that I've noticed between here and France is the people. I don't think I've ever visited anywhere where there is such a range of skin colours. And it seems that everyone lives happily alongside each other. The Creole culture here is very apparent, within Nathalie's extended family everyone speaks Creole to each other. But the slight language barrier hasn't stopped them from welcoming me into their houses with a cold beer and many jokes.The past few days I have been on tours of my two sixth forms and got to know the area a little bit, as well a having a big meeting with all the other assistants on the island in St. Denis. 8 nationalities and 4 languages (English, German, Spanish and Chinese) were represented and everyone seems really cool, with interesting stories about why they chose La Reunion and how they got here. My two sixth forms are very different. One is a Lycee Professional (vocational college) - where their level of English is very low, but apparently all the boys know how to shout "I LUV U" and "U R BUTE-IFUL" across the playground. The students at the other lycee have a much higher level so it will be interesting to see how I get on! I will be leading conversation classes of 8-10 students in both schools - teaching a total of 12 hours a week.
For the moment, I'm on a mission to find somewhere to live, probably in Saint Pierre, the 'capital' of the 'wild south', where loads of the other assistants are living too. I think I've managed to complete all the necessary paperwork, I've now got a French bank account and a French phone number (+262693039733), the last thing left to do is find somewhere to live...but I'm sure something will turn up soon, it's difficult to get stressed about these things when the sun is shining so brightly!
Illian, Nathalie's youngest, with my glasses on at the beach in Saint Pierre, yesterday.
No comments:
Post a Comment