First Big Souvenir

This is the beadspread I bought at an Indian market last weekend. It is silk, beautiful, and I love it!

Not-so "Frère" Jacques

This is a Jackfruit. A what? A Jackfruit. Oh, a Jackfruit. (Shout out to Tom Patton). This bad boy grows on trees and is ginormous. Apparently you are supposed to harvest it when it is small, but we didn't know that. I guess the people in the markets don't know that either because they sell huge Jackfruits. Anyway, after hacking at it for ten minutes with a dull chopping knife, Davida and I managed to get it off of the tree in the yard. We then took the sticky beast into the kitchen where it took us another hour or so to open the darn thing, extract a small bit of the edible flesh, and then sautée it with garlic and onions. It ended up tastinglike a potato and, I have to say, was good but not worth the effort. See the goo? See it? That white marshmallow looking substance is as sticky as chewing gum and more imossible to get off. Yes. This is the Jackfruit's natural defense mechanism agains idiots like me. I ended up rubbing canola oil on our knife and hands and cutting boards to release the stickyness and then washed it in a heavty bath of dishsoap.

Roche Ecrite

Hiking la Roche Ecrite was fun and challenging. Going up was not terribly difficult, but coming down my left knee was quite angry with me. It's tough to get old. It was 19km round-trip, about 11 or 12 miles, leading up to the summit of a peak directly across the valley from Piton des Neiges, which was unfortunately obscured by clouds when we arrived. This is my friend Marjorie who has invited me to do a lot of things here. She is so nice and really wants to help me see the sights. She even packs great picnics. She reminds me a lot of my Aunt Karen.

Le Repas Créole

Here are two pictures of a delicious créole meal. You eat on a banana leaf, pile on rice, lentils, and whatever chicken, fish, or vegetable dish has been prepared, then the fun begins. Eating with your hands should be reinstituted in Western society. The process is simple: ball up the food with your fingers and then push it into your mouth with your thumb. This is funny in French because you "pousse avec le pouce." This is done with solid food quite easily and becomes quite a challenge with food items such as tapioca pudding and soup.

Car Jaune

The round-the-island public transportation system is called the Car Jaune and is a great system of yellow busses that run to and from most of the major towns and cities. To indicate the next stop, you must clap twice (loudly) to signal the driver. No fancy buttons or cords here; we do things the old-fashioned way. My only worry is that if I have never been there before, how do I know when to clap?

We take the Car to the beach and we took it to the volcano, which works out nicely. The only trick for the volcano was that the bus stop (arret de bus) is 27km (about 15 miles) from the gite. This meant we had to either hike the 27km in the rainy darkness to get to the gite (obviously not a popular option), or hire a taxi that charged 100€ each direction. After hours of trying to rent a car or find a ride, we called our landlord and she said that here uncle would come get us and drive us to the gite. "Uncle" came to our rescue, drove us up the volcano, and helped us check in. We are not sure what his name is, but we like to call him "Uncle." We had the same transportaiton dilemma descending the mountain, but we felt like calling Uncle again might be too much, so we sucked it up and got the cab. Ouch. We think the Car Jaune should extend its network.

Also, these are those huge travel busses. They can take hairpin turns like you would not believe.

Le Volcan

I just got back from three days hiking Piton de la Fournaise with 3 roomates, the volcano here on Réunion Island. Sadly, our timing was off and we hit three days of cold, cold rain and wind. Needless to say, visibility was limited. The hike itself did not pose too much of a problem, it was mostly the weather that made it difficult.

The volcano is currently 'en erruption,' so the top crater is roped off and several trails are closed. We climbed as high as we could go, looked into part of the crater and only saw a bit of steam, then redescended the lava plain. It is neat to see how different the landscape is: from large, smooth serpentine lava flows to black, holey, jagged rocks to 'lave cordée' that looks like cords of sticks or like when you pour cake mix into a pan (think of the folds). The rather barren, Martian landscape has few signs of life- only a rare lichen-type plant at the lower elevations.

The geologist in me emerged and it was all I could do to limit myself to bringing only two small rocks home with me.

We stayed in a gite, like a small mountain lodge, only we were the last to arrive so we got put out in the tent. It was solid enough to protect from the rain and wind, but still cold, and our soaked clothing and bodies would have liked a roaring fire and some hot cocoa.

My camera did not like the rainy hike and is currently refusing to work. Once I get it fixed I will post some photos. Dont expect much- think 'cloudy.'

La Case

My house is the white house that looks like it belongs on a Greek island, and it is officially know as " the house," or in Créole, "la case." It is great; it came furnished. Not just furnished, but I'm talking pots and pans, sheets, curtains, silverware, more armoires than we know what to do with...

6 of us live in la case, 4 Americans (3 girls- me, Sarah, Davida; 1 boy, Dane), 1 Brittish girl, Caroline, and a Spanish girl, Marina. I am sure that living with 5 women must be a bit much sometimes for Dane, but he takes it in stride. In general we speak English at the house, much to my disappointment, but Marina is really good about speaking French with me. She is also very gracious when she corrects me if I make errors, for which I am so grateful. Improving one's abilities in a language requires lots of practice and making lots of mistakes. Good thing I do a lot of both!

The best part about the house has to be our electrical appliance situation. We have no hot water, even though the ouvriers (workers) have installed a chauffe-eau (water heater) in addition to the solar heater, it does not work when we use it. Seriously, only when the ouvriers are there does any hot water come out, and only for about 5 minutes. The problem is not the number of people using all the hot water, it is that there IS no hot water. Our "big" fridge went out the other day and our small fridge freezes everything. Surprisingly, the situation does not irritate me; I find it really humorous. Although, I would really like a hot shower... The other thing is that we just bought a washing machine, the 6 of us together. I have never made such an grown-up purchase, 1/6 of a washing machine.

We live on chemin des orangers, which means "Orange Tree Lane." Poetic, non? It is at the top of a hilly neighborhood called le Moufia and it is quite a walk to/from the grocery store. "Sweat" is the word that comes to mind.

The past two days have been windy but beautiful. Tonight I am going to a Créole festival. Should be good food. I am going to the beach again tomorrow and have plans to hike the VOLCANO next Monday!

That's all for now, take care everyone!
Love, Katie