This weekend has been pretty busy, so I haven’t had as much time to write. We’re on vacation now, for 2 weeks. None of us feel like it’s well deserved, as half of the assistants haven’t even started working yet, but you can’t refuse vacation. So this weekend we had a party on the beach with a dozen or so assistants from anglophone countries.

It was quite the beach, with tons of people playing music, dancing, baking huge pots of creole food over open fires. It’s kind of fun to camp on the beach, it’s just a free for all public place, where you don’t have to reserve a spot, or pay for parking. You just show up, find a place on the lawn, and watch the sun set.

The girls and I decided to wander around and we ran into a crazy group of 18 year old boys having a birthday party. They were so excited to meet American/British girls that they invited us over to their camp to hang out, eat food, have some red wine. I was having a great time watching them fawn over Carrie who had no idea what they were saying, and Nathalie, who was learning Creole insults and using them on unsuspecting teenagers passing by. I was also asking the boys about Creole terms, like how to say, “Hi, how are you?” (Salut, comment il est? – Le la!). In the end, after many “Tu es jolie!” and “Je t’aime,” I told them I had a boyfriend, hoping to dissuade them. Didn’t work apparently. Their response was, “If he’s not here, why not have a Reunionnais boyfriend too?” Right…..

So today Carrie and I went to the beach to meet up with one of her friends, when we ran into a really killer break dance competition. I tried to snap some photos, but I missed the best act of all: a 7 year old girl attempting her break dancing moves, and smiling the entire time. We sat on the beach, waiting for our ten zillionth bus, and as we admired the incredible sky, two whales swam by, jumping and playing as they went, remarkably close to the beach! It was pretty incredible, we watched in awe.