Today was a big day. I had my first day of work, teaching at school. Of course I just went in to introduce myself, really excited to meet some of my students. In fact, I think we all ended up being excited, because there was a big hush when Dominique introduced me as their new “assistante d’anglais.” For the most part California seemed like a far away place to them (except for one student who had surprisingly already visited San Francisco????), and they wondered what I thought about their lovely island. Had I tried any of the Reunion specialties? In fact, I replied, I had. Last night.
Marlene (the one on the right in the photo) invited Dominique (on the left) and me to her house to eat a delicious traditional Creole meal: rougail saucisse: a dish involving rice, beans (not from the can), tomatoes, sausage. With “chou chou” on the side. SOOO delicious, with green chiles, you would not believe. Then a potato chocolate cake, that didn’t really taste like potato at all, but the chocolate was definitely there. All of this topped off with some of the most delicious rum I have ever tasted, with that good ol’ Madagascar vanilla flavor (from the vanilla beans Marlene had shoved inside the bottle way back). I think I could get used to this.
All in all I’m getting more and more into work, trying to come up with cool lesson plans, that will earn me top ranks. Tomorrow is movie day, and unfortunately the only English film I have that is relatively interesting for teenagers that don’t speak English fluently is….Finding Nemo. Oh well, it’s a movie, and I’m going to be one of those lame teachers that only let’s them watch about 5 minutes. Who would have thought.
