Encore en fwa!

I’ve been here for over a month now and I’ve slipped quite well into a routine. My grandmas sister 'Titante' wakes up at 6am without fail everyday and puts her radio on to listen to ‘dimoun ti’n mor’ or people that have passed away. Even though she is 85 and can only walk a few metres before getting breathless, she washes the clothes, and cooks curry, with rice, salad and satini (chutney) all before 7am. She then sits on the verandah, saying ‘salaam’ to everyone that walks by. She tracks peoples movements more tightly than a CIA agent. She can tell you, who’s dating who, where they’ve been and what they ate for supper last night. Even though her kids range from 45 to 62, with grandchildren of their own, she still tries to impose curfews on them. Her behaviour is the subject of many amusing conversations and impressions. Since my grandmother and their other sister 'tante' passed away, she is the last true matriarch of the family, and she rather relishes being in charge of all the young 'uns.

Every night she briefs me on the latest goings on in Mont Buxton before we watch the news and then she gives me a creole lesson. She tells me not to let on that I know creole so that I can let people divulge information on the downlow. It’s been quite cool actually. I found out some very interesting stuff in the staff hospital while pretending to read a newspaper in the staff common room a couple of weeks back. The lady gossiping stopped and said to someone ‘I pa comprwa mwa, li?’ which means ‘she cant understand me, can she?’ someonethen said the equivalent of ‘hell no’ before they returned back to their character assassination of a very close colleague...

I usually wake up late (around 7.30am) realising there is a meeting I have to go to and run down the mountain to get a taxi or on those few occasions I'm on time, I walk to the hospital. I say hello to the familiar faces that I meet on the way. Half of them seem to be relatives, close family friends or ex's of my brother who apparently dated the entire population when he lived here.
Whenever I tell people I live in Mont Buxton and I walk to and from the hospital every day, they always says ‘its good for you’ after a quick glance down at my thighs.

Over the last couple of weeks our monitoring and collections have been going ok, I’ve been a bit behind with counting my eggs (I haven’t counted any). I’m starting to know Mahe and know it a lot better than most of my family now. What has been quite annoying is that some of my traps have been turned upside down, stolen or knocked over, so results from some areas are missing. I did get rather excited last week though when I spotted some Culex egg rafts in one of my traps. I cant wait to identify those little beauties. Of interest also is a suspected imported case of Malaria by an Indian worker who has travelled in. I’d be interested to see how that is dealt with and also whether any competent vectors are around as I suspect perhaps they may be. My Italian supervisor has been quite supportive, almost ringing me on a daily basis to give me pep talks as well as new tasks to do for the EMCA conference next year. (Quick plug – any budding entomologists or public health people please sign up at www.zanzare.eu!)

On the animal front, I’m also starting to deal with the dog situation. I’ve learned that if you are going into uncharted territory you need to carry a big stick or a few stones to chuck. I’ve also shouted ‘alle!’ at dogs and they’ve strangely obeyed a couple of times. I always hate it when my cousin gives me food to carry home. I might aswell walk around in a cat suit on all fours. I walk home in fear of being ambushed by beasts whilst dodgy the hazardous driving up a mountain with no lights or barriers to stop you falling 10 ft into a ditch. It's all an adventure I suppose.

Bush (Titantes adopted dog) is my darling. I never thought I’d ever say that about a dog, but he really loves me. I went to the shop the other day and he warned all the big scary dogs off, waited for me and then took me back home. He gets happy when I come home and wags his tail feverishly. He knows I’m not down with the licking yet, so he senses my discomfort and holds back bless him. Hopefully Davinia will come with the flea collar Titante requested as her way of trying to de-flea him (spraying him with bug spray for cockroaches) doesn’t really work funnily enough.

There are other animals a plenty and I’m not so keen on them. I woke up the other night to here some rustling only to find a 20 by 2cm long centipede crawling all over my bag in snake like fashion. I had to kill it, then pick it up with some lab tweezers and take a picture of it, it was phenomenal. There are cockroaches and spiders galore, not to mention geckos, lizards and every night you hear the bats screaming in the mango trees. Bat is a delicacy here. Perish the thought. I hear that if you don’t remove the glands properly you get the taste of BO. Nice. I think Titante summed it up nicely when I asked her if she ate bat, she replied ‘urgh! I can never eat bat! Its like eating a little person – they have periods!’ -I told you she was hilarious.

My friend Davinia arrives tomorrow. I’m quite excited about her arriving, this first month here has seen me immersed in family events, barbecues, beach parties and drinking on the verandah every night. I wonder how she’ll take to life in Seychelles. She’ll definitely fall in love with the surroundings and the people too. They are eccentric but warm and generous. Having said that for the average Seychellois, life is difficult. The backlash from the global economic crisis is taking its toll, and with almost everything being imported, life is expensive here, more so than the UK. People wrangle for foreign exchange and the blackmarket economy is rife. There are often food shortages over here, last week there was no salt in the shops, a couple of weeks before that no oil, there are often fights in supermarkets as people try to stockpile goods. One year there was no toilet paper! (and before you ask, I hear people used kitchen towel).

On this lazy Sunday morning, Im getting ready for another family get together. My cousin Denise the queen of socialites is leaving for America next weekend so I expect a bonanza of party.

I can hear Bush barking outside and Titante ordering him to come and say ‘Bonzour to mama’. Little does she know, Bush has a new mama in town :-)