Toto, I've a feeling we're not in London anymore

For the last few weeks I've mostly been around my house in La Preneuse having lectures, writing essays, eating macarons, boozing and occasionally doing something slightly interesting. So you've not heard a lot about wildlife, and for that I apologise. My next post will be about my field work on Round Island. I leave for the island tomorrow and will be there for around a week. There have already been some dramas (one failed attempt to go there with the coast guard). I'll give you the complete story once I'm back on the mainland, and trust me there will be loooooads of wildlife stories.

Last weekend we had an assessed presentation and then went nuts on Saturday night with a trip to our wonderful local nightclub come sports bar Big Willy's (please notice the apostrophe and I'll have none of your casual misinterpretation). Turns out it was a surprise LGBT night, and as a result it was bloody brilliant. A traditional form of dance here in Mauritius is called the sega. So let me say three words: Drag queen sega.

I wanted to talk for a moment about 'island living'.

My lovely room-mate Salina has a blog [Read it! Linky here: Stories from Salina ]

In her blog she speaks of island living. For her, it's been a lot of scavenging in woods like a feral child, but she does scrub up very well. The upsides to living here are plentiful... a beach party lifestyle, friendly neighbours, blue sea, big skies and a ruggedly beautiful national park just there on your doorstep, to name just a few. I'd like to add a few of my own not-so-brilliant experiences of island living though....

You and I, we've probably met. If we haven't, and I magically have more than one person reading this who isn't a relative, then let me tell you something about my way of being - I'm quite fiery. I can go from kitten to tiger in well under 6 seconds. Having been a Londoner for 6 years hasn't helped my patience any. I don't much have time for inefficiency. Except now I live in Mauritius. Deep breaths.

Here are some seemingly simple tasks:

Steps required in order to receive post

1. Receive letter from the post office telling you you have post.

2. Go to post office to tell them they can open the post at the central post office to decide if I need to pay duty. I'm usually at work or study when the post office is open so this is complicated. Also, the local post office is an actual shed. See picture above.

3. Recieve letter saying that I need to pay some duty on the parcel.

4. Go to post office to pay duty and get your parcel (hopefully before the local post office gets broken into again).

5. Rejoice! You have only had to go there twice and this has been straightforward.

Steps required in order to buy toner for printer

1. Go to shop to ask about toner. They will order it in.

2. They call saying you need to go back and put a deposit on the toner before they order it. You go to the shop again. Similar to post office, I'm usually at lectures when it's open, and it's about a 15 minute walk away.

3. They call you and say it's there and you can get it. Salina goes to the shop to get the toner.

4. Put toner in the printer, there is a burning smell. Lots of smoke. Fire exlamation mark fire exclamation mark fire exclamation mark. Computer says this toner is not compatible.

5. You go back to the shop and say about the smoke. This time you take the printer too.

6. The shop call you and say they think there's a dead gecko in it. I say 'I did check for geckos' and 'this doesn't explain why it's not compatible'. He says he'll take it apart and see. They will call me back.

7. Next day, man says 'yes you're right, there's no dead gecko'. But he did find a lot of dead ants. Ahh my old nemesis.

8. Go to the shop thinking they've fixed it. Not fixed, but I do get another demonstration of dead ants and where exactly the dead ants are burning from.

9. ??? I think he's calling the supplier because it's not the dead animals inside the printer that are the actual problem. Congratulations! You've gone to the shop 5 times and still it's just full of dead ants.

I can go on but you get the idea. Island paradise, but man oh man does it take some time to get sh*t done.