First full day

We woke up early--the jet lag hasn't left us yet--and walked 1/2 mile to the beach. It was low tide so there were lots of exposed rocks and tide pools.

The beach goes on for miles and miles, bordered by the grove of trees. We see people swimming and fishing from the shore, but early in the morning, it was just us and a few other people walking along.

 Here the sun was shining through the trees. We're on the west coast. If you click on this photo to enlarge it, you can see the waves breaking at the reef along the horizon.

This sign says "Palmyra River" in French. It's the area where we live. In a way, we moved from Palmyra, NY to Palmyra, Mauritius.

Most of the crops here are sugar cane. The field behind me here is just weeds, an area that is being developed for more houses and condos.



This is a view from our apartment. The ocean blends into the horizon, but it's there.

:)

Last night we went to dinner with the District President and his wife (Church leaders) at a restaurant by the beach. Very nice and interesting people, originally from South Africa.

They've lived here 17 years and don't speak French. They say it's not a problem because almost everyone speaks English.

Beverly keeps asking why, if this was a British colony, everyone speaks French (or creole). They told us that many of the local people consider creole to be their native language, and there's a movement to teach creole in the schools (along with French and English), as well as to standardize creole spelling so people can write it more. We see very little written creole; all the signs are in French and/or English.

From the perspective of the youth, it seems like they would want to learn French and English because the only economic future is on a global basis. The main industries here are sugar cane (competing with Africa and Brazil, probably not the best idea), textiles (they don't grow cotton here but they import cloth and sew it into clothes) and tourism. Plus, there are call centers and other IT-related businesses.

We met a classroom of 7th graders who were all very friendly and smart. They were being taught in French, but they seemed to know English pretty well. Some of the people are difficult to understand when they speak English because thy're used to British English, not American, and when it's their second language, they have a heavy accent. It's interesting for me to talk with people in both languages. I can tell they are more comfortable and fluent in French (just the opposite of me, of course.)

More later.