FutureLearn

As I've had a fair bit of free time between work projects I decided that rather than just enjoying the island life I should also put some of that time to good use, so today I start my first course with FutureLearn.  FutureLearn is a private initiative owned by the Open University whose stated aim is "is to connect learners from all over the world with high quality educators, and with each other".  It is just starting out and provides almost forty free little mini courses  (you can pay for a physical certificate of completion at the end if you wish) in a good number of areas ranging from Shakespeare to human anatomy to business.

So far I have signed up for four five (just added another while checking to see how many courses they offer) courses between now and April with each course taking between two to four hours and week and lasting for between two and eight weeks.  The first is an eight week course called Climate Change: Challenges and Solutions, by the University of Exeter.

The other three four courses are:

Fairness and Nature: When Worlds Collide, by the University of Leeds

Make an Impact: Sustainability for Professionals, by the University of Bath

Exploring Our Oceans, by the University of Southampton

Moons, by the Open University

As mentioned the first course starts today so I will keep the blog updated on how they are going.

Salazie!

There are three spectacular "cirques" on the island, I've been to Cilaos a few times but in the almost two and a half years we have been here I hadn't been to either Salazie or Mafate.  So with Aurelie and the kids being away I thought I take the time to visit them starting yesterday with Salazie.

It's on the far (eastern) side of the island so it took a few hours to drive.  The eastern side of the island is the least developed coastal part of the island.  It  has a big Indian influence and it shows, at one point I passed what I took to be a Hindu offering/shrine? on the roadside as well as some men in full traditional garb. 

Hindu roadside offering

Salazie is reached by an occasionally knuckle whitening winding road and is the wettest of the cirques.  In the aftermath of the cyclone Bejisa you could really see what that means, there were lots of spectacular waterfalls (some pouring onto the road!) and there had been a lot of slope failures that were still in the process of being cleared up (at one point I saw a helicopter carrying out a cliff face inspection above where a landslide had occured, looked like fun!).

Helicoptering engineering 

Unfortunately when I got to the end of the line (literally, the road ends) at Hell Bourg (a lovely little village) the clouds really closed in reducing visibility to a hundred meters or so and the rain started in earnest so I didn't get to take many photos.  Still the image of the deep green mountain slopes draped in the mist was otherworldly and a little eerie and will stay with me!

Hell town (Hell Bourg) town square!

So next week I'm planning to take a little visit to Cirque de Mafate, this one will be a little different as there are no roads, foot access only!

Cyclone Bejisa

So cyclone Bejisa has been and gone. I've been in big storms before, giant electrical storms in Africa, the monsoon in SE Asia but I think that this was my first experience within cyclone.  

Euronews report on the cyclone

We are just to the right of the eye!

It first rain and light winds arrived on Thursday morning (the 2nd of January), building up through out the day to the afternoon until we had high winds and very heavy rain.  The power went early in the day as expected, like I guess most people here we have "cyclone stores", torches (with plenty of batteries), candles, fresh water, etc. so I wasn't worried by that.

The view from our veranda, facing the direction of the cyclone, early on Thursday afternoon

The view from our bedroom window in the lee of the storm, again early on Thursday afternoon

By late afternoon though all was calm and quiet and just a little bit eerie, it really was the eye of the storm! Soon enough, just about dusk, the storm picked up again, building up through the night to what seemed to me a good bit stronger than during the day. The house that we live in has thick wooden shutters for all of the windows and doors and as I sat in our fortified house with the two cats, reading in the dark with my headlamp, I could hear the occasional crash or thud as something carried by the wind hit the house, exciting times!

By morning there was still waves of heavy rain and high winds but the worst had passed and it slackened as the morning went on.  

We got off lightly without much damage to the garden and none to the house.  Some of our neighbors lost numerous big boughs of their trees, in our case it was a fair few litchi branches along with most of the rest of the litchis (which will be a bit of an issue as there is a sea of them in the garden mixed in with leaves and they will stink and attract mosquitoes as they rot!), most of the avocados and a big bunch of coconuts that were all blown down.  So Friday morning, in between showers, I got to work clearing up the debris, which I've spent a fair bit of the last two days doing, not finished yet mind you.

Power came back on last night and we still have no running water (and when it does come back we''ll have to rely on bottled water for a while as the public supply usually gets contaminated after heavy rains) but I'm sure that'll be back fairly soon (a shower would be nice since I've been working in the garden with 30c heat and very high humidity, it's a good thing that Aurelie and the kids are in France!).

I did learn a few lessons for our next cyclone: 

If Aurelie and the kids are here we will need more lights.  By myself I only used my trusty headlamp (I did light some candles in the living room but after a while realised that I wasn't using them so I blew them out) but if the kids are here we will need more lanterns for them (currently we only have one).  

Get the gas bottle for our cooking hobs replaced, we are only on our second gas bottle in two years so it must be nearing empty, it didn't run out but if it had I wouldn't have been able to cook and that would have made me sad!

Get some way of charging electronics without mains power.  With the power out I had no land line and the iphone isn't noted for it's battery longevity (plus virtually all my books here are on my ipad).  I'm thinking a Power Pot X http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/david-toledo/the-powerpot-x-most-reliable-10-watt-portable-gene

All in all not a bad first cyclone and I did quite enjoy it.  It's not something to take lightly though and not everyone was so lucky, fifteen people were injured and one or two killed on the Island.  I was lucky enough to have everything (mostly) prepared and be in a (mostly) well constructed, safe, house.

Holiday season No.3 in the sun!

So we've had our third Christmas on Reunion and are just about to launch into a new year.

All went well for Christmas, there was good food, well received presents for the kids, extra cuddles and super excitement! 

As is the French tradition we had our Christmas meal on Christmas Eve and as is our tradition it was a lot lighter that the Usual Christmas feast. Blinis with fois gras, tamara, and Roqufort cheese plus samosas for starters followed by smoked salmon and pasta (the kids absolute favorite) as our main course topped off by a buche de Noel (Yule log).

Aurelie and the kids have headed off to Lyon for the next month so I'll be celebrating the New Year this evening on my lonesome (though I will be Skyping the clan in Lyon around midnight Reunion Time!)!

So here's wishing our friends, family and the world in general all the very best for 2014!

Starter course (Note that it's bright daytime outside)

Golden Boy!

Between course dancing to Christmas music after our starter course (Note that its pitch black outside already, night falls quickly here)

Dancing with Ela

Bananas!

Bananas from the garden, ripening in the kitchen

Garden Bounty

I'm a big believer in growing at least some of one's own food. We are lucky enough that the place we are living has a number of mature fruit trees and over the last couple of years we have planted various other plants around the garden.  Last week I took a look a wander through the garden and counted up the number of different edible types of plants in our garden and I came up with twenty!

Our garden is all fairly haphazard and experimental but one of the things I plan to do in the next few years is to plant an edible forest garden and the quest is on to find a suitable plot of land to do it, so we'll see how that goes over the next few months.

• Coconut
• Lemon
• Vaoca
• Blackberry
• Carrots
• Broccoli
• Passion fruit
• Papaya
• Litchis
• Choux
• Avocado
• Banana
• Cour de Beouf (Custard Apple)
• Cherry tomato
• Citronelle
• Tomato
• Pepper
• Strawberry
• Rosemary
• Mint

At the moment we have large amounts of litchis, passion fruit and bananas ripening so we are going to be sorted for fruit for the next few months!

Coconut

Lemons

Vacoa

Blackberry

Carrots

A very sad and savaged broccoli

Passion Fruit

Papaya

Litchis

Choux

Avocado

Banana

Cour de Beouf

Cherry tomatoes

Citronelle

Tomato

Pepper

Strawberry

Rosemary and Mint!

NOT The Reunion Island Cardinal but rather the Red Fody (Foudia madagascariensis)

Reunion doesn't have too many mammal and reptile species but it does have lots of birds.  For some reason I've been noticing the sound of birdsong more over the last few weeks, it may be the time of year or just that I'm paying more attention!  One of the more colorful birds that we see a lot of is (I think) the Reunion Island cardinal and I managed to get a couple of snaps of it on my recent walks (the first on my phone, which explains the quality).

A Reunion Island Cardinal  Red Fody and a daytime moon

Reunion Island Cardinal Red Fody

A handsome guest!

Had to remove another uninvited guest from the living room, if it was up to me she (or he) could stay and reduce the beastie population in the house but that wouldn't be too popular with Aurelie!
 

Halloween pt 2 - Trick or Treating Island Style

As I mentioned in my previous post Halloween is pretty new here so not everyone knows about it or cares about it.  A good friend of ours (Isabelle) organised trick or treating near us for the day after Halloween. She contacted everyone on the road and found out who was interested and who was not and let them know when it was going to happen.  

It's different to Ireland, at least in this case all of the local kids gathered into a hyperexcited mob and all headed off in a group chanting "On veut des bonbons (we want sweets)!" it's like a group of little thugs trick or treating with menaces if you ask me!

Still everyone had a good time and there was plenty of loot to go around!

Cutie vampire, witch and devil

Collecting loot

Jelly spider!

The trick or treat crew!

Halloween pt 1

For Halloween night we had a little house party for the kids and some of their friends (and parents of course).  We did the same last year and it was lots of fun so this year we put a bit more thought into it and prepared some traditional Irish Halloween games for after a little trick or treating.  

Halloween is a relatively new idea here in Reunion, it seems the idea has come from France which imported it from the US.  It's interesting to see such an Irish tradition creep around the world to this little island on the back of US cultural influence!  So since Halloween is such a novel idea here only a minority of houses stock up on treats so you have to know who to go to.  As we are in a quiet cul de sac the kids visited just three houses (one of which Aurelie sneakily supplied with sweets while the kids were distracted) before coming back to the house to consume some of their goodies and play some games until midnight!

A vampire and Draco Malfoy

Vampire with attitude

The boyz!

Traditional Irish Halloween games

Matthieu giving it a try

Bobbing for apples

One tired vampire!

Fun in the trees

Last weekend we headed off to Makes (a village in the "hauts") with some friends to spend a morning at Makes Adventure Land.  We had to be there at 9.30 am so that meant leaving at 8am, so much for a weekend lie in!

The adventure land involved traversing obstacles up in the trees (all the time attached to a safety line of course!) including zip lines, moving platform etc.  There were two green courses for kids over five years old but less than 1.4 meters tall (this necessitated teaching Ela to lie about her age as she won't be five for a few months yet, we are bad parents!), a red course (easy enough but for those over 1.4 meters tall) and a blue course (the challenging course).  We discovered later that there was also a black course which seems to be only for guided groups!

We started out on the green courses with the kids, there was much excitement and at times a bit of fear!  Soon though they got the hang of it though and gained confidence pretty quick.  Sam soon headed off ahead by himself and watching Ela realise that there was nothing to fear after I encouraged her to step off a platform and let the safety harness hold her was cool, after that there was no stopping her!

I stayed with the kids to do another run through of the two green courses (and another after!) while Aurelie headed off to do the red course.  All in all a great morning out even with bumps, scrapes and occasional rope burn!  It's one that we'll be repeating, by popular demand (plus Aurelie and I have decided we'll be heading back sans kids to explore the red and blue courses).

Getting kitted up

The Bradley-Trombetta clan

Happy Sam

Monkey girl!

Aurelie on the zip line

Sam on a wobbly platform...

...and jumping to the next!

Ela making her way over the posts...

...and on more wobbly steps

More zip lining!

Aurelie making the platform, just about.

Heading home!