justin in africa

video update

2008-11-28T14:40:00.000-08:00

here are some videos i took while in mauritius:

2008-08-11T12:21:00.001-07:00

Bagels, eggs, donuts, and pizza - it's good to be back.

2008-08-07T11:25:00.000-07:00

Today was unbelievable. We had our last class of the trip, but really it was just a party with a bunch of food and games and songs and awards for the kids. During the afternoon we went to L'Ile au Benitier, a tiny uninhabited island just off the coast of Mauritius, on a small boat to do the "Coconut Challenge".

This essentially amounts to climbing a coconut tree, reaching for a coconut while maintaining your balance, climbing down, breaking it open, and then drinking the milk/juice/water/whatever inside. If it doesn't sound like a marathon to you, maybe I didn't describe it adequately, because that shit was TOUGH. In order to break the coconut you have to whack it repeatedly against a rock for about an hour. It's only very infrequently that I feel like I'm some kind of mountain man, but today was one of those days. It was pretty damn rewarding.

I have a great video but unfortunately the internet is too slow to upload it. I fell from the tree the first time I tried to climb it and I've got some nasty gashes on my legs and my arms, but I'm happy I didn't break anything. Here are some pictures, and I think my ridiculous jubilation shows:

Climbing the tree

Excitement after nabbing my coconut

After breaking the coconut open

Tomorrow we are taking a field trip with the students to Chamarel and then I'm having my farewell dinner with my family and Sam's. Then I think I'll hit the bar for one last time on this awesome little island.

My flight is on 10:30 PM Saturday (2:30 PM in the States) and then I connect through Paris to Boston. I'll be back Sunday afternoon at 3:30 PM EST. I'm excited.

2008-08-05T09:51:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks:

Crystal rock, a "floating" piece of rock that is slowly eroding away

At a road named after me in the Jardin de Pamplemousses

A woman preparing the meal at a Hindu wedding we went to (which was awesome)

Some of our younger students holding up a little quiz they took this week. I tried to make them look happy but mostly they were just bummed about having to take a quiz.

Everything is still going well, and now there are only 4 days left of the trip. My feelings are a mixture of somehow already-seeping in nostalgia for Mauritius and excitement to be back in the United States, with its big cities and people that speak English. But Mauritius has been kind to me: I've had a great time and have had the opportunity to experience many things I never otherwise would have. I don't think this will be my last post but this is the first time I've felt the need to sum things up. It's all gone by so fast.

2008-07-31T02:48:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since my last update, but everything is going really well here in Mauritius. This week we decided to split the class up based on a rough age/skill-level divide, and that has enabled us to focus our efforts more effectively.

With the younger kids, we learn how to write basic phrases like "Hello my name is ____" and "I am ____ years old". With the older kids we are working on possessive words (his, her, ours, theirs, etc.) and with some more expansive vocabulary. The other day we had them draw and label their dream houses, which was pretty fun.

But there's another issue I've wanted to mention for a while now, and I'm glad I'm finally getting around to it. Basically, as much as teaching English here is a positive benefit for Mauritians coming from low-income backgrounds, the only reason we're here is because the government has disadvantaged them in the first place - by making English the official language. Basically, these people are naturally bilingual - they speak Creole and French - and making them learn a third language solely to understand government documents and the like seems a bit stupid.

The way English is integrated into their curriculum is what I have the biggest problem with. Essentially, until the 4th grade, English is taught as a foreign language class much like French and Spanish are taught in America. But after fourth grade, everything switches over to being taught in English: math, science, history, etc. What happens then is that anyone who was, say, skilled in math or science but subpar in English falls behind and gets screwed over for the rest of their schooling. This hypothetical student would really struggle to graduate from secondary school.

I understand that English speaking skills are essential for those seeking work in the tourist industry, and I understand that Mauritius is a melting pot of language and culture. It just seems like the way the government has decided to implement learning English is far from sufficient.

2008-07-26T01:30:00.000-07:00

Hey - check it out. Sam and I made it into the Mauritius paper. Here's a picture of the article, and there's a link below to the internet version.

http://www.lexpress.mu/display_article_sup.php?news_id=112056

It's pretty funny - there are a few ridiculous inaccuracies (Sam's name is spelled wrong, my university is spelled wrong, etc.) but it's still really cool to be in the paper. We're celebs, man!

So the second week of class is over and I'm completely exhausted. Last night I went to the bar in Flic & Flac with Sam and our Mauritian friend Lorenzo, which was a lot of fun, but today I overslept and missed our group hike up the mountain. I'm sure it's going to be an awesome experience, and I can't wait to see everyone's pictures.

Other news:
-I just changed my flight so that I'll be flying into Boston with Sam, and I'll be able to spend a few days with Eliott in the Cape which will be awesome.

-I got run over by a car last week and forgot to blog about it. It hurt like crazy, but thankfully there was no structural damage in my foot.

-They wouldn't let us into the bar because we had sandals on. So we found a few people inside to throw us their shoes and we wore them to get inside. It was a little gross, I guess, and I got blisters because they were WAY too small, but it was pretty funny.

-Someone tried to pickpocket me in the market a few days ago, but the only thing in my bag was a bundle of bananas. He decided not to take them.

2008-07-22T21:18:00.001-07:00

After WAY too much time in an internet cafe, I managed to recover some of my lost photos. They're smaller this time around, because uploading the large-scale ones took too much time, but enjoy:

Mountain and beach at Tamarin. Probably my favorite place on the island yet.

Standing outside Casela Park

Mountains at Casela

Chamarel Falls

"Seven-colored Earth" at Chamarel

With the kids on the playground

Bamboo shantytown

Teaching, for the most part, is going well, although there are behavioral issues every day. The kids are constantly hitting each other and throwing things and crying, but as soon as you give them a piece of candy they cheer up, which is actually pretty funny to see. It's also funny to see them come into class every day with WWE t-shirts - wrestling is really popular here.

This week we've been teaching them body parts and emotions, and soon we'll move on to animals and to working more closely with sentence structure. They really liked the body parts lesson, and we played tons of Simon Says with them.

Outside of class, last night we went to an Hindu prayer, which was essentially a massive service at a local house with tons of beautiful garments everywhere, a shrine with a big fire surrounded by fruits and various ornaments, and a big feast where we ate with our hands and wore no shoes. All the old Indian women were dressed in these amazing colored silk garments, and I felt a little out of place in my jeans and t-shirt. Nonetheless it was a good time even if it was for a somber purpose; the woman who invited us, Ashwanti, organized the prayer for her father, who is very ill with Parkinson's. I don't think they can afford treatment so his prognosis is not good.

The weather has been great, for the most part, although at night it can get pretty windy and also surprisingly cold. During the day, though, it's warm and sunny, and it makes it easy to have a good time.

2008-07-19T04:10:00.000-07:00

Well, I promised some pictures, but unfortunately I don't have any to post. Why, you ask? Because some stupid man at an internet cafe ejected my SD Card while it was syncing with the computer and I lost all 300+ photos I've taken so far and also my videos. I'm pretty angry but thankfully everything else is going well. Today is our day off, and we've come to a resort town on the north of the island for a little time in the sun.

We paid 500 rupees each - just under $20 - to go snorkeling about 200 yards from the shore, and it was awesome. We saw tons of fish and some awesome coral, and even though I had a tough time breathing through the snorkel (this was my first time) it was totally worth the money.

2008-07-16T10:13:00.000-07:00

Today was our second day of teaching and already it feels like I've known these kids for a year. There have been ups and downs, for sure, but mostly I think that we're going to fulfill our goals we outlined when we came here.

The good? The kids are full of energy and smiles, and they come to class excited to learn English. Some are already excellent English speakers, and many are active participants in the games and activities we run each day. It's obvious they are having fun in class, and the topics we've covered so far - colors, basic introductions, and days of the week, to name a few - have gone over pretty well.

The bad? Because we're teaching in a rural district, and because our class is nothing more than a babysitting service for some families, we have students ranging from 5 years to 15 years of age, and finding an appropriate middle ground can be difficult.

Some of the younger kids are completely illiterate and only speak Creole (not French), so even though I hate to admit it, our efforts are probably lost on them. Also, and I'm not quite sure why I didn't expect this, it's pretty hard to keep the younger kids in check behavior-wise, especially when they don't understand half of what you're telling them. They love making this absurd noise by blowing hard with their hand against their mouth, and the more I try to stop them, the more they giggle and keep going.

The good news is that they're so cute, my anger isn't really anger at all. I love waking up each morning and teaching, and I'm excited to continue for the next few weeks. Each day, Sam and I make a plan for the next day and try to execute it as well as possible, and if we keep having the same kind of success we're having now, these kids should emerge with vastly improved English-speaking skills.

As far as what I'm doing outside of class, I'm playing a hell of a lot of football (not the American kind, of course) and today we went to the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen. I will post some pictures soon.

2008-07-14T01:53:00.000-07:00

As promised, here are some pictures from Cascavelle. Today we set up our classroom and met some of the kids, and I included some of those pictures, too.

Landscape in Cascavelle

With some of my students outside the school

Inside the classroom after setting it up

With some of the locals

With my host mother Nadia

Oh, R.I.P. Anheuser-Busch... I guess without me around you couldn't keep business afloat.

2008-07-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

Today has been the highlight of the trip so far - I moved in with my host family and things could not have worked out better. Cascavelle is a beautiful place, and as we drove in today the peaks of the mountains extended above the fog and low-laying clouds. The mountains are very rocky and jagged and I found myself thinking I was in central America rather than on a tropical island. The variety of terrain is remarkable considering its tiny size.

But what made today awesome was the people I met. My host mother's name is Nadia, and she is of mixed Chinese and Indian descent. She is a single mother, and her son Hans is 5 years old and ridiculously adorable. Both are native French speakers but both have great command of English.

After unpacking today, I spent a lot of time hanging out with Nadia and talking about life, ranging from topics like interracial relationships to Robert Mugabe to Turner Classic Movies. She is a very sweet woman, and I'm so happy to be spending the month living in her house (which is enormous and beautiful, by the way.)

After playing soccer with Hans and his friend Noah for the afternoon, I spent the evening walking through lower Cascavelle and talking to the locals. Already my French is improving noticeably, and I had my most proud moment of the trip so far when I had a fluid conversation with a local man for about twenty minutes, entirely in French. He was an African creole and he was very interested in talking about Michael Jordan, Samuel L. Jackson, and, of course, Barack Obama. The entire world loves him.

I have some pictures to upload but this Blogger uploader is horrible and I guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow to upload them. Sam, who was supposed to be living with me, is actually living with a nearby family, but we will still be seeing eachother pretty often. Tomorrow we will take a tour of the school and get ready to teach the kids on Tuesday. They are all so cute and smiley that any insecurities I had about teaching have pretty much fallen out the window.

2008-07-11T01:59:00.001-07:00

As promised, here are some pictures from my first day on the island. They were taken in Mahebourg, the second-biggest city on the island next to Port Louis.

My first meal on the island.

A view from Mahebourg.

This guy, Shiva, is a peddler of jewelry, and he was very excited to talk about Barack Obama with me. Even the poorer residents and street vendors speak English, and they are perhaps the friendliest people I've encountered on the island. At first I was taken aback because he had a swastika tattooed on his wrist, but later, he informed me that the symbol is originally of Hindu origin, and he cursed Hitler for stealing it and making it a symbol of hatred.

A Hindu sculpture.

Mahebourg shacks.

Together with the volunteers at our first dinner.

Today has been a relaxing one - after sleeping in, I went for a run on the beach and bought some fruit for lunch. Now I'm going to go for a swim and then later we have our first orientation session for our teaching positions.

Some observations -Seeing as Mauritius is classified as African, I expected to see more Africans. This has not been the case; the vast majority of the people I have seen are Indian Hindus.

2008-07-10T04:37:00.000-07:00

Today, after what seemed like weeks of plane travel, I landed in Mauritius with a splitting headache and absolutely no sense of what this country would be like.

But after some Tylenol, a trip to the Mahebourg waterfront, and a bunch of incredible Indian food, I'm feeling a lot better, and I'm so excited for the next month. I just met everyone in the program and we've stopped in at an internet cafe before heading to the beach, but I took a ton of pictures today that I'll upload tomorrow.

You need to see it to believe it, but this island is unreal. I cannot believe how beautiful it is - the vegetation, the mountains, the water, the people - everything. Everyone here is so friendly and after only ten hours I can safely say the trip was worth it.

More updates soon!

2008-07-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

I wasn't going to post anything else until I was in Mauritius, but a friend suggested I keep this moving. It's early Monday now, which means I technically leave tomorrow. This came so fast, to some degree because of how much fun I was having as a summer camp counselor here in Georgetown, but while it's admittedly kind of terrifying, it's pretty exciting, too. In less than seventy-two hours I will be farther away from home than I have ever been.

In case anyone reading the first post doesn't know where Mauritius is, I'm including a picture this time around of its location (off the east coast of Africa).

Can't see it? It's the farther right of the two tiny dots to the right of Madagascar. Clicking the picture should enlarge it, but hopefully this conveys how tiny of a place this is. For a comparison, the entire island is about the size of ten Washington, D.C.s. It might sound like a lot, but I guess it's not, because this place is literally just a blip.

And, I've decided, a blip should not require very much luggage for a five week stay. I will be packing all of my belongings in one medium-weight REI backpacking backpack, and my job today and tomorrow is to decide what's worth bringing and what isn't. The short lists now?

WORTH IT:
- Sleeping bag (compresses very small)
- Running shoes
- Books & writing materials
- Bong (Just kidding...)

NOT:
- Computer (don't want to be over-reliant on my computer, and internet cafes should be fine)
- Cell phone

I found out my Transatlantic flight is at night, which is awesome. I'm a pretty impatient/bad flyer, so if I can just sleep through the whole thing that's certainly a plus.

2008-07-03T06:52:00.000-07:00

With this blog I hope to adequately document my time in Mauritius, a small island off the east coast of Africa. I will be leaving on July 8 and returning home on August 10, and while I'm there I'll be teaching English to a class of young Mauritians who need to learn the language to move up the economic and social ladders of their country.

Today I received my village assignment. I will be going to a place called Cascavelle, its location on the island shown below.

It's going to be awesome. Cascavelle is in the 'Black River' region of Mauritius, which is noted for its natural beauty; waterfalls, "coloured earth", forests, and beaches. My hosts will be the Apadou family, and apparently they wanted to host two volunteers, so I'll be there with a good dude named Sam who goes to the University of Wisconsin. We talked on the phone a few months ago to try and fly over together, and even though that fell through, I'm glad to be living with him. Even better, we're apparently about a half-hour walk from the beach, which bodes well for my skin color.

The population in Cascavelle is apparently really into soccer, so hopefully we will have some good times playing with the kids there. The goal will be to post pictures and maybe even embed some video into this page over the course of my trip, hopefully several times each week. I want to convey what it's like to be on the island and what it's like to live amongst Mauritians. I get the impression they are a really unique, laid back people - they have their own brand of reggae and they speak their own Creole. As part of the Learning Enterprises program, I'm going to Mauritius to make a difference, but I know the trip is going to be a ton of fun as well.