REUNION ISLAND: A MARVEL IN THE INDIAN OCEAN

This was the opportunity of my life: Visiting Reunion Island!

Located in the Indian Ocean and with a size a bit bigger than Tenerife, it's also reallly high, with an altitud which reaches 3070 metres above sea level, making it the highest peak in this Ocean.

As a teacher working in Erasmus+ programmes, I enrolled on a course in Reykjiavik last October 2023 related to the topic of our project: the care for the environment and looking for new solutions to our old pollution problems. During the course, I met a teacher. She looked very nice and by what she explained about her school I immediately thought it fit our needs in a very suitable way. We started talking and she was also interested in our work so we agreed I could come and visit her school in April 2024.

After a terrible 11 hour non-stop flight from Paris to St. Denis, the capital city of Reunion, flying with a company I had never heard of (French Bee, which felt a bit funny, but was cheap and convenient), I eventually arrived at Roland Garros airport in St. Denis.

The ten days I spent on the island felt like hours even though I hate hot temperatures and it was hot all the time: day and night! Of course it happens if you are on the coast. If you climb up to the mountains, you will enjoy a really beautiful mountainous landscape, but roads are extremely dangerous, narrow and winding all the time, with terrifying tunnels where you think the bus will get trapped. But, when you reach your destination, you will feel the fresh breeze caressing your skin and will get amazed at the beauties surrounding you like orchids, hybiscus, banana trees growing side by side with oaks or chestnut trees, at an altitude of 1500 metres. It's something unbelievable in Spain...! Surprisingly, the temperatures drops a lot at night here, reaching 10º C or even less at this time of year.

We even had private toilet and shower in the open air!

During this activity, we learnt about the natural habitat: identification of different plants, birds, mountains, etc. A few of the words I had the opportunity to learn are: Tektek, which is a very small bird which makes a sound a bit similar to its name, Bibasse, which is loquat in Creole, Paille en queu a very beautiful elegant bird which lives mostly on the coast, Tiharé, a very beautiful white and yellow flower which also grows on this tree and has a very nice secnt, cimarron or maroon, which is the way slaves were called and Merle de Bourbon, a blackbird endemic to the island, which was called Bourbon in previous times.

On the island, you can enjoy beautiful beaches, many with natural pools built by means of volcanic rocks, which are essential for a safe swim because of the abundance of dangerous sharks. You can also enjoy coral reefs, exotic animals like chameleons, which come out when you don't even think this is the right place, exotic hot meals and lots of different plants and animals. The exuberant nature disappears at the highest peaks and at the volcanic areas, where the landscape turns like martian with different shades of red and brown and yellow, no plants or just small dry bushes, a dry desertic area which shows the Earth is alive there. Piton de la Fournaise is still an active volcano which erupts from time to time.

The island is multicultural and people look happy all the time. The coexistence of different races has been very good up to now and everybody respects others. People are helpful, nice and kind and they are eager to make new friends who are very well treated when they come and visit. They also know how to enjoy life and make the most of it. They love going out for a picnic on Sunday and, therefore, all roads are busy, which can be dangerous. It's true, at the same time, that traffic is a bit of a problem on the island as there frequent traffic junks.

Saturday morning at St. Pierre market in the photograph.

At school, I felt like at home. I had the opportunity to be in some English classes which taught me new strategies to start lessons, which I thought were very interesting and shared with my partners at school. One of them consists in asking for a volunteer student to greet the classroom as a start by asking a few students how they are on that day. The students reply in turns and get a few explanations about how they are feeling. The volunteer students changes every day. Another practical task consisted in writing what the teachers asked for revision on a small blackboard shared amongst 4 students. It allows a fast revision as the teacher just has to check like 5 or 6 boards and it's environmentally friendly if done by using chalk and cleaning the board at the end of the activity. Other lessons were more or less similar to the ones we have at my own school. 

A few lessons with groups of Spanish resulted in a very productive experience to the students as they had the opportunity to listen to a native and exchange information with her.

Attending a couple of geography lessons got me the opportunity to see how they use digital tools in a class, with applications like Google maps or Youtube videos, which help students get the information they need to fulfill a series of tasks (on paper). I could also observe they deal with actual topics like Syrian migration or environmental projects and their impact on the landscape.

Seeing how they work with disabled students was also very interesting as they have really small groups focused on each individual and the tasks he/she may be able to carry out. And, to finish, I was really surprised by the effective application the teachers have to use on daily terms both for recording students' absences from school as well as for registering classroom tasks, carrying out assessments and so on. It's really well organised and I think we have to improve that (I mean, our government has to focus on improving the applications we are using at the moment).

The experience at school is not included in the video because of minor protection.

I'd like to thank Collège Le Rousseau and especially Mrs. Muriel Le Duic for a really unforgettable experience at their school and at their beautiful island. Thank you very much for such a warm welcome and stay. I'd love to return and I'll keep you in my mind forever.

Click on VIDEO to see what the experience was like!