Well, hello world. I am sitting on a grassy hill looking out over the carpark of a gym. Doesn't sound very exciting does it? Well, in fact it is quite exciting for me. For different reasons. The first reason is, although a carpark gym isn't the most glamourous of places, this car park has palm trees. The second reason is that the sea is the backdrop for this car park. And the third reason, is that this spot is just down the road from my school (and the mosque - by the sounds of things) and has a wifi connection...
So that was a draft of a blog post that I wrote just before my battery died on my laptop. Everything was perfect; grassy hill, pre-prepared lunch, wifi...but my Toshiba battery couldn't keep up with the excitement.Yes, I have moved house, again. After discovering the world of frenchies who abuse the benefit system, I decided that that house was not for me. By a huge stroke of luck, I've hit gold with a month sublet in a great houseshare in the middle of Terre Sainte, the old charming fishing village over the river from the main town of Saint Pierre, in the south of Reunion. This house is a 30's style bungalow with glass bricks and 2 gardens, large sitting room with the usual array of furniture made from palettes - there are lots of houseshares with only Metropolitans (people from mainland france) and all of them will feature palette furniture - a cheap way to furnish your new rented house in the tropics. I'm sharing with a French physio and a guy who used to be a tree surgeon and plays the digeridoo. Both of them, and their friends, are totally on my wave length. I was welcomed with a prawn dinner washed down with a box of red wine in the garden. It was a very good start. Living about 200m from the beach is something that I will pine for wherever I live after this. Any spare half an hour is an excuse to 'aller a la plage'. Et bahh voila! By the powers of techonology - have a little tour of my road down to the beach!
I have also managed to get myself acar...which is on loan from the housemates who I am temporarily replacing in this house. A absolute banger of a ford Escort that needs a screw driver to start the engine and worst of all the passenger window doesn't work...which leaves me a extremely hot and sweaty driver. None the less, it's a motor and it gets me from A to B (after swallowing petrol at the rate of no car I have ever driven before). And allows me to explore the island after 17h30, which the buses do not allow for.
There is one thing that I cannot avoid writing about today. The big C word (not that one...) CYCLONE. La Reunion has gone into a state of mild panic preparing itself for Cyclone Giovanna that is on course to give us a good beating tomorrow and Monday. My housemates and I went to stock up on emergency supplies yesterday evening - emergency supplies mainly consisted of chocolate, crisps and rum. We took the last 2 5litre bottles of water from the local supermarket as Reunion prepared for the possibility of no water over the next few days. Today we woke up to blue sky - "la calme qui précède la tempête"...et voila, this is what's in store for us:
Now, people don't go worrying about me. We've got everything we need ready for this beast and it also means that if all goes to plan, we all get Monday off work! Like the Reunionnais equivalent of snow day! My thoughts are with those in Mauritius and Madagascar who will be much more affected by Giovanna because of their lack of sturdy housing.
I will try to record as much of the cyclone drama as possible so you can get an idea of what's going on. But for now, I'm lying on my bed, watching the palms outside flutter about a bit more extravagantly than usual and waiting for my digeridoo-playing housemate's band to arrive. I think the cyclone party might be about to kick off...
...all we need now is an eruption from the volcano and the Reunion experience will be complete.
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