Island Fever P.1

October 2010

I had never left the American continent, let alone visited more than five states, before travelling to the island of La Réunion. Four months after my parents’ separation, I was on an airplane, flying to the other side of the world. Réunion is a hidden island, which the French look to for vacation like the Americans look to Hawaii. For many it is a tourist attraction and promises breath-taking hikes and thrilling views. The island is secured about five hundred miles off the coast of Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world. Réunion, however, is close to being the smallest island, yet it is home to the tallest peak in the Indian Ocean: Piton des Neiges. If this “Snowy Peak” ever gets snow, the citizens go wild. Réunion thrives in the equatorial tropics so snow is a rare attraction.

I arrived on the morning of October 21. La Réunion would be my home for the next two years; I would engulf my life with island air and twist my throat to speak with the native Créoles. When I walked out of the airport, I saw the tallest mountain I’ve ever seen. The entire city of Saint Denis twisted and climbed up several hundred feet of earth. The air smelled humid with a hint of beer, many of the islanders’ favorite drink. 

            Exhausted from the nearly forty hour journey from Salt Lake City, Utah, to the Roland Garros airport, I couldn’t wait to get something to eat and sit down in a normal chair. I was assigned to work in Saint Pierre, the southernmost city of the island, which was roughly an hour from St. Denis. Saint Pierre is one of the oldest cities on the island and many “true Créoles” still live there. It was here that I began to realize that the island had a lesson to teach me. There were three other guys who lived with me in St. Pierre, Loose, Rellaford, and Farnsworth.

December 2010

It was the middle of summer, a strange phenomenon for someone from the northern hemisphere, and Rellaford, an exercise enthusiast, decided to take us to hike the Grand Bassin, to a small village at the bottom of a giant basin. This was one of the most interesting hikes I had ever been on but only the first of many Réunion hikes. The flourishing green journey to the bottom of the basin took about thirty minutes. The small city was surrounded by nature. Sugarcane, Réunion’s prominent crop, and banana trees grew freely around the city. The climb back to the top took about two hours.  The hike was only about two and a half miles, but I felt like I was climbing a colossus. Looking back I realize that the island’s beauty had a lot more to teach me than I had realized when I started there.

January 2011

My journey on Réunion was cut short, and it wasn’t until I moved from the island that I realized how much it meant to me. As I was serving an ecclesiastical mission, I couldn’t choose where I went or how long I stayed in an assigned area. Three months after arriving on La Réunion, and just as I was grasping the French language, everything changed. We got a phone call from our superiors. I knew they were calling to tell us if we were staying or leaving. I knew Rellaford would be going to Mauritius, another island, because he had already received his visa. I was prepared to stay on Réunion and watch over our area. Rellaford passed me the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey, how are you doing?” Johnson said, trying to find a way to tell me the news.

“Good.”

“Are you ready for the transfer news?”

“Yeah,” I said, sure that I wasn’t going anywhere.

“Are you sitting down?”

Just tell me already, I thought.

“You’re going to Antsirabe, Madagascar. You leave this Friday.”

I was shocked. I gave the phone back to Rellaford and went to see Loose and Farnsworth. My face was pale. Fear filled my heart. What was I going to do? I loved being on La Réunion. I hadn’t heard much about Madagascar, but the internet said that packs of wild dogs roamed the streets at night. It was a third-world country. I leaned up against the doorway, finding it hard to stand.

Loose said, “You’re going to Mada, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

His face dropped. He was only joking. “Are you serious?”

I nodded again, unable to use my mouth.

“You don’t look so good,” began Farnsworth. “Go sit down.”

Before I had a chance to say good bye to the many people I had worked with and made friends with over the past three months, I was on an airplane. I was on my way to Madagascar with a new language to learn, food to eat, and people to understand. During my time there, I would realize how much of my heart was left walking the streets of La Réunion.

Grand Bassin, La Reunion