What I did during my first 24 hours in Rodrigues, the smallest of the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean, is indicative of what my time on small islands has been like:
A car full of locals met me at the airport, even though there was a seven-hour delay and I arrived at 10:30 p.m. on a Monday night. Fake flowers added color to the otherwise whitewashed cement house of my jolly Creole host mom. I opened the freezer, and there was a giant octopus looking right at me. Gulp. But I imagine it will be similar to calamari ... no problem. I’m grateful to have my own room, though there are no doors—just lace curtains. Floor space around the bed is only enough for the width of my suitcase on the floor and a nightstand with colorful images of Jesus and a French Bible.
I woke up to roosters cockadoodledooing at 6 a.m., mixed up some powdered milk and poured it on muesli, and got ready to meet a string of people representing different sectors of society. A headmaster/grassroots organizer, a government chairperson, a cultural icon/musician/storyteller, an environmental NGO coordinator, and about five of my host mom’s colleagues in social work. Along the way, I tried a few new Creole dishes at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant playing American pop too loudly over the speakers, and learned some basic Creole language phrases, which are similar to French. “Bonzzour!” “Como sava?”
Before it got dark, I jogged past a maize field and up to the top of the mountain behind our house to see that the smoke coming from the other side was a big pile of burning garbage on the edge of a landfill. Plastic bags that were carried by the wind (coming all the way from Australia with no barriers) are caught in the prickly pandanus trees like unfortunate Christmas ornaments. Nearby, little barefooted boys with chocolate skin and shrieking with intermittent laughter were playing soccer with a deflated ball. They stared at me when I jogged past.
When I got home, I discovered that there was running water for a shower, but no temperature control. The wind coming through the windows was enough to make me ask my host mom if I could put on the kettle, then take it into the tiled showering area with a hole at the bottom of the wall as a drain. Half boiling water plus half rain water proved to be a fantastic temperature for my bucket shower. After maize, green papaya salad and fish—catch of the day. My young neighbor taught me a few hip-swiveling sega dances and I was very grateful there were only women in the room to laugh along with me as they tried to teach me to be “a sexy Rodriguan.” As a foreigner on a remote island, I get enough attention as it is; I don’t need to learn the local tactics!
Before bed, I wrote in my journal by candlelight as little moths drowned in the hot wax.