Black sand and a surfboard

Sarah, my housemate who's a French trainee surgeon asked me last night whether I wanted to go surfing with her this morning. With a beer in my hand, I happily said 'oui, bien sur'. This morning the alarms were set for 4:45. By 5:15am we were leaving the house - with a surprise appearance from my other hilarious Parisian housemate, Jean-Yves, who has two silver skull and crossbones capped onto his teeth...he's downstairs at the moment cooking tripe for everyone for tonight...he's a character, to say the least.

Etang Salé was the destination, 20 mins drive west of here along the coast. The spiky peaks of the mountains always look stunning in the hazy morning sunshine and the roads were unusually empty. Jean-Yves brought his mug of 'chocolat chaud' and smoked his morning cigarette out of the passenger window. I tried to avoid the smoke in the back and make the most of the morning breeze rushing through the car. 

Etang Salé, literally means 'salted pond'. It has a little port, black volcanic sand and the possibility of surfing and snorkelling. The water in the port lay absolutely still in the morning light and a few fisherman pottered about on their boats. The water on the beach gently lapped the sand and I kicked off my Birkenstocks and went to test the water. Beautiful. We snorkelled for about an hour, I think I need to learn the names of more types of fish...my vocabulary goes about as far as the characters Finding Nemo. But there were long thin ones, big flat ones, camoflaged ones, brightly coloured ones and luckily we didn't come across any big nasty ones with lots of teeth. As the sun rose over the palm trees and the fishing village, it penetrated the surface off the water, casting long shadows behind coral. A beautiful start to the day. Then, Sarah lent me her friend's surfboard. The waves were very small and allowed me to find my balance and learn the paddling technique, while watching the more experienced surfers do their stuff. 

We came back here for breakfast at 7:30 and discussed life in Reunion in the car on the way back. It seems the relaxed attitude to life here is something that has attracted many people to 's'installer' here. As the island woke up for work, and the roads became busier we all agreed to have mornings like this on a more regular basis.

Christmas climate confusion

8:30pm. Un short, une bière fraîche et un arbre de Noel. 

A rescued chair

I'm sitting on my balcony, listening to the goats next door as the bleet in the afternoon warm sunshine. The palms of the coconut tree gently flutter at me, as I look out to the south facing blue sea. I can still taste the Mango and Passion juice that I've just drank straight from the fridge. Ahhhh. La Reunion.

Jean-Yves one of my new housemates cut down the bananas from the banana tree in the garden yesterday. They're sitting on our main table looking very green and will be snapped up by everyone, I'm sure, when the green turns to yellow.

All four hours of my lessons were cancelled this afternoon, sods law as this afternoon, I was the most prepared I have ever been. I spent last night and this morning revelling in the idea of teaching 'family links' with the help of The Simpsons and Facebook..."Homer is now married to Marge" etc. Hopefully I'll be able to whip out that powerpoint next week, for my class of rowdy boys who are more interested in getting my phone number than learning English.

So instead of teaching for 4 hours this afternoon, I managed to organise a meeting with a mum who wants an english teacher for her 4 young boys...I'll be teaching on her balcony that sits just above her pool, nestled in between the palm trees that stretch out to Saint Joseph and eventually to the sea.   Not a bad learning environment eh? She's another one of the many people that I've met who have emigrated here from Lyon in France. Not sure what the connection is there...but it seems this volcanic lump in the Indian Ocean is a popular place to move to from the Eastern French city.

After a bit of a shift round in my little bedroom - I've got enough room for my ever expanding kit. I don't know how it's expanding because I'm not really buying anything, but it is. I feel at home with the Malagasy pink woven 'wallpaper' and woven hanging baskets for all the 'knick knacks'! Not that there's a problem of storage in this house...any house that has a ping pong table in the sitting room with enough room for professional chinese players to play is big enough, I think!

I don't really have anything special to write about today. But after I rescued this chair from the shabby garden and took it up to the balcony, I felt compelled to write. It was either that or reading Harry Potter in French (I found it in the bookcase downstairs), but I haven't quite forgiven the translators for 'translating' Hogworts into 'Le Poulard' so I decided to go with the English blog instead.

Voila! A la prochaine...

Chez-moi for the next month.

Le salon of my new house

Somehow, it's been two weeks since I've written on this blog. I've been very busy with Mwenya Uganda (www.mwenya.blogspot.com plug plug) so I've put writing this to one side.

However, I'm now trying to balance les deux blogs!

The bar by the pool - new house

So, I spent the last two weeks living in a studio in the garden of a man who works at one of my schools. The studio was perfectly placed for my two schools, completely equipped and furnished and just what I needed on paper for accommodation. But, I was living on my own, and after a house full of active children and family coming and going all the time it was quite a shock to have so much time to myself. Therefore I continued my 'logement' search and last night I moved into a huge villa with a swimming pool, a sea view and real French housemates!

Everything here is great so far, I'm in the smallest room of the house so therefore paying the least rent and thoroughly enjoy a sea view from my bedroom window, afternoon cold beers with my housemates and the promise of a fully functioning pool. Turns out one of my housemates here works in Saint Joseph too, and she's got a car, and she's willing to drive me to work. Good times!

Hindu Temple in the garden - new house

Over the weekend, I spent two days up in the mountains huffing and puffing up the rocky scree slopes of the Cirque de Mafate. Reunion is made up of three 'cirques' - like huge mountain ranges in a big amphitheatre style circle. On Friday, myself and 3 other assistants took the local bus up to the village of Cilaos (one of the most spectacular bus journies of my life). We then managed to squeeze all four of us in the back of a little car after successfully hitchhiking! This got us to the bottom of the footpath and off we went. Three hours of walking up (and I mean up) the hill - stopping for a 'montante' (tea specially brewed to help circulation and respiration during climbing up hill) on the way. When we reached the peak, we were unfortunately in the clouds. The prize of a magnificant view didn't quite happen. But none the less, we enjoyed a huge lunch and descended down the other side of the peak, into the Cirque de Mafate. At the bottom of the huge solid lava mountain side, a little mountain village waited for us. No roads connect this village to the outside world, it is just the daily helicopters that drop off supplies and pick up rubbish that form any kind of link with the rest of the island. After a much needed coffee, we continued on our trek to La Nouvelle. After about 6 or 7 hours of walking we made it to our gite. Just in time, as the rain was rolling in and we were well and truely in the clouds. The next day we got up at the crack of dawn and walked back along the same route in the crystal clear light and surrounded by magnificant views. One of my French housemates has just told me that this hike was the hardest she's done since arriving here over 4 years ago...so I'm feeling quite smug!

Cirque de Mafate