Meeting in La Réunion, November 2021

The covid situation started to calm down during the autumn 2021. More and more people got fully vaccinated, and the world started to open up again. We started also to have slight hopes to be able to have a meeting in La Réunion in November. After all, teams Spain, Portugal and Finland got permission to travel, but unfortunately our fifth partner, Wales, coudn´t make it.

I must admit that I was worried about missing documents or tests, or anything that would stop our journey, until the moment when we got out of the airport in Saint-Denis. Luckily everything went fine and without any problems. The feeling was quite unbelievable after 29 hours of traveling: suddenly we were standing in a tropical landscape and having wonderful adventures waiting for us!

The bus came to pick us up, and we drove along narrow serpentine routes up to the mountains and back to the coast of L'Étang-Salé. We had warm welcome by all the host families and local teachers who were already waiting for us. 

    Warm hugs by the hostfamilies

 

Monday

In the Lycée des Avirons the school day starts at 7.30. Also, our official program started at that time. In a nice welcome ceremony, the mayor of the city and the principal of the school welcomed us, and we got our name tags and material for the week. We also had a guided tour of the school. There's a lot of art on the walls in the school, made by students and teachers. Many of the artworks are about sustainable development, and they woke a lot of thoughts.

Art in the chool

Here is the tree that Sissel and Erik planted 2019. It the picture below you can see how much smaller it was then. 

The participating students had prepared presentations about circular economy that we heard right before lunch. It was interesting to hear about sustainable companies and solutions that are made in other countries.

     Team SPSU having their presentation

During the first day, we also met two local students, Justine and Lila. They are participating the long term exchange and will come and study in SPSU in the beginning of December. Welcome!

     Justine and Lila

In the afternoon we hopped on a bus again and drove to an ecological farm up on a mountain. The owners told us about their philosophy and showed us around the place. After a nice chat with them we headed to a rainforest nearby and had a lovely hike through humid and green vegetation.

    Visit to the farm

     Hike in the rainforest

Tuesday

On Tuesday we made fist trip to a secondary school Simon Lucas, where they have started a project called Ti Bazar Vert. The students and teachers have built a garden to schoolyard where they have chickens, rabbits, bees and fish, along with different kinds of trees, vegetables, herbs and flowers. Together they take care of the plants and animals. We also planted some bananas to the garden. Here’s a video about our trip: https://www.facebook.com/100074299513602/videos/287326536601197/

    Visit to the Ti Bazar Vert

We spent the afternoon in Saint Leu where we first had some free time to explore city, and later went to a turtle sanctuary Kelonia. We heard stories about the turtles they have saved and of course about the life circle of turtles. We had also the ability to participate their important work by planting vegetation to the beach. The aim of that is to help the nests that turtles make on the beach to survive waves and rains. It felt good to be able to do something for these lovely creatures.

    Saving turtles

Wednesday

On Wednesday we spent the day at the school again. We had a jewelry workshop with recycled materials, and our students visited the English classes where they talked about themselves, about their schools and about their countries. This school day was a bit shorter and the rest of the day we had free time with the families and friends.

 
    Team SPSU on the way to school

 

Thursday

Thursday was a national holiday, and we had ability to visit the famous volcan Piton de la Fournaise. As guides we had a wonderful couple, geologist and biologist, who told us about the history and plantation on the volcano area. We made some stops on the way up and finally descended the stairway path from the pass to the caldera floor near the crater. There, next to the crater, we ate our picnic lunch. Unforgettable!

Afterwards we also visited Cité de Volcan, the volcano museum. It was also an informative and interesting visit.

 

     On the volcano

Friday

On Friday we spent the whole day at the school. First, we had a zero-waste workshop where we made DIY toothpaste. Then we had a really interesting lesson about biodiversity on the island of Réunion.

Zero waste workshop

In the afternoon, we had a tree planting ceremony at the schoolyard, and at the end of the day we had a small farewell party. We got our certificates and t-shirts, and had a Zoom connection with our friends in Wales.

Treeplanting

The week went really fast, but it was really fruitful and educational. Luckily, we still had almost the whole Saturday to spend on the local market and by the sea. Then it was time to say goodbye to all the old and new friends and head back home.

Thank you, all the participants, and specially team La Réunion for really interesting program and welcoming atmosphere! We’ll see you all soon in Finland!

   Au revoir! <3

 

FACTS ABOUT LA RÉUNION

- An island in the Indian Ocean, located appr. 550 km east of Madagasgar and 175 km southwest of Mauritius

- An overseas department and region of France

- Population 858 450 (january 2021), area 2,511 km2

- Official language of is French. In addition, a majority of the region's population speaks Réunion Creole.