Bonne Année

After over a month of not blogging, I'm sitting at my 10 euro, flat-pack, Ikea-style, green desk and thought I would update you all with the goings on of the past 6 weeks or so.

The end of term mixed the previously unknown combination of lychees, mangoes, heat and Christmas preparations...sweating in 30 degree heat to be confronted with twinkly snowflakes lights hanging over the mainroads is something that some what boggled my brain. Anyway, the last few weeks of term left me with trying to explain what cranberries, crackers and bread sauce are to my students. Before I knew it, I was packing my bags and was off to Mada for Christmas and New Year.

Although, it wasn't quite this simple, because amazingly, I had accumulated about 45kg worth of children's shoes, clothes, books and toys to take with me. With a last minute addition of 'missionary baggage' I saved myself a small fortune in excess baggage and had a fantastic time in Mada dishing out clothes and shoes left, right and centre. Christmas was spent on the beach and New Year's Eve in a wooden dugout canoe, with a beer on a string hanging down into the water as my Malagasy 'fridge'.


Coming back to Reunion after Mada was some what surreal. It's a strange experience returning from holiday to more 30 degree heat, a huge swimming pool at your house and two weeks more 'summer holiday'. Not that I'm complaining or anything. Obviously.

I just want to tell you all about the 'folie' (craziness) of mangoes in Reunion. They are everywhere. They fall from trees onto the roads below and get squashed by passing cars, they drop all over the show, my friend has a huge mango tree in his garden and he gives me bags of mangoes as otherwise they go to waste and attract mosquitoes in his garden. Lychee season has finished now, but the beautiful mangoes keep on coming, and falling from the sky. If Newton lived in Reunion, it definitely would have been a mango that made him contemplate gravity, and not an apple.

So, on this warm sunday afternoon, I am having the usual dilemma of working out what the hell I am going to teach my students tomorrow as unfortunately, we have reached the end of the holidays. But what awesome holidays they have been. Since getting back from Madagascar, I've had the use of a lovely teacher's car. So we have tried to 'profite' as much as possible (franglais franglais) from my beautiful Toyota Yaris. I've been to free concerts next to the beach, trekking in primary dense forest, watched the sunrise over the black lava of the east coast, had picnics on the beach, followed rivers up gorges, had crepe parties, seen waterfalls and natural swimming pools and also had a lot of laughs with my friends.

I will do my best to blog more regularly again now. It seems strange blogging about my day-to-day life here, because I'm totally adjusted to life I forget that you lot don't know about the stunning scenery, how my name here is 'l'anglaise' and the goats and chickens constantly make themselves heard from the landlord's farm next door. I'll try to keep you better informed next time.

Bisous et Bonne Année.

L'anglaise.