last week

Last week... the weather the last couple of days has been crap. Unstable with heavy rain and thunder...lucky that we have the study and great series on the computer :).

We had a great dive on wednesday last week, finally! I had no problem equalizing so the cold was over. 

This week we´re entering the phase of analyzing some of the results. I can´t beleive that in about one month the tourism program is finished!

STB Party

Saturday was a great day, we were invited to a barbeque at the Beach with Seychelles Tourism Board. Curious to see what a office party would look like? It was in our area, in the south so we walked there, the party started at 9am (!). So what are you thinking now? hm. yepp. We have experienced this before, and people in the office told us please join the party, then you will see people loosen up a little bit more with beer...Beer it was at 9.30 in the morning! A massive, delicious barbeque, good music, volleyball, domino with the competitors of Miss Seychelles... We blended in haha...a heavy rain hit us in the afternoon but that didn´t stop the day as we then continued playing in the water (it´s still soooo warm).

We have now experinced the first creepy spider (inside the house, up in the ceiling) brown, fury big one if you ask me. Frightened to go to bed, it wasn´t very pleasant. Freaks me out! Also this morning a huge cockroach was sitting on the AC. really. the small ones in Cape Town I can handle but big ones. Grrrrrr.

I´m sad that our Seychelles bubble is soon to end, but also very excited about what´s coming up. This study has been, yes u know I probably don´t have to say it. Will hopefully get some last amazing dives before leaving, and a visit to Takamaka destillery for another fantastic dinner...can´t wait! And a lot of studies is to be completed this week! But no stress...we live in a slow world here. And there´s still 2 more weeks to go when we get home before finishing.

Puss och kram

Its now about 2 weeks left in the Seychelles...Today we´re in the office updating stuff, focuing more and more on the theories, and backgrounds to the sustainability work, the impact from the governance etcetera.. After studying all kinds of Master Plans and development documents, at this point it feels like I know more about the Seychelles than Sweden (ok no- but u know). Yeah, it is a small country with only 85 000 inhabitants, it´s important to add. Interesting anyways.

We studied the whole weekend as we couldn´t go diving because of my (still) blocked nose. 1 week now, tireing as fu* as I am feeling good since long way back. Hopefully we can schedule some dives this week. The internet situation is not very convenient. Our gig ran out after 3 days with a result from working at home in google docs. So using internet at home for blogging, docs and uploading pics is not an option as it´s way too expensive. We want to work from home anyway this week, therefore it will be silent in the blog for a couple of days.

 

The last interviews was very fulfilling, it was great to se Praslin as well, but I will say I prefer La Digue as an island. While in Praslin we had to skip Valleé de Mai, the Unesco world heritage site (the entrance was too expensive) but we did visit the famous Anse Lazio. And yes, we even manage to get the last eco-certified hotel intreview on friday in Mahé. Within the time we expected. I remember how nervous we were the first time lol, now it feels great and comfortable and we´ve improved being quiet and with lips sealed and no face expressions haha...the recorder we borrowed from school has been great and worked very smooth. Even for non-technicals hehe.Puss och kram

   

May so be...

I can accept failure

but I can´t accept not trying

-Michael Jordan

Yesterday is history

Tomorrow´s a mystery

-Justin Timberlake 

Tomorrows a mystery? May so be but tomorrow is also what I decide it to be, I am the only one to decide my future, and I will make some choices to try and control it...but so far I let it be a mystery but I am damn curious to know what it will all look like in 6 months...where I will be, what work I will have? hm..

Last week of interviews

Tomorrow we are doing our last trip for the research. We have 2 scheduled interviews in Praslin, also one of the most popular island, slightly bigger than La Digue. This time we wont be able to move around with bikes so STB are assisting us with transport. We are leaving at 7.30 in the morning and will be back by wednesday night. Time flies! It´s hard to beleive but now we only have 3 weeks left...we have been busy the last week with transcribing and digging out interesting things from the respondents, which is an very easy task, there seems to be more issues in paradise then expected. Beyond sustainability..

We moved back to our old house again, the 2 floor chalet with sea view. We are so lucky to have a friendly owner and still pay the same price as for the small house. Home sweet home. Living the happy life.

Puss och kram

My lovely Family

Ok if you wonder who I am and why I am like this, this is my family fox....LOL!

It´s very unusual, to see us 4 together, this is 3 days before going to the Seychelles.. Älskar er min kära familj! and sorry for the funky photos haha :)

La digue

Famous Source D´Argent

La Digue

This research is getting more and more interesting, the hotels that we are interviewing are being very honest, more and more things are being brought up and they are giving us a lot of information about sustainability. We have now done 5 interviews and we are transcribing every day at this stage. The first recorded 30 minute interview we did took us 4 hours to transcribe…now it´s getting better, and we are a bit faster, are facing a long session today as one lady yesterday morning spoke for 1h and 15 min…we´ll see how much we can cut out of that to minimize the amount of material, basically it was all relevant and interesting to our research questions and we are although looking forward to analyzing this.

Last weekend we went to one of the smallest, but very popular islands here – La Digue. Extremely different from Mahé. No cars. Bicycles, oxcart and some golf carts (within the hotel areas). In La Digue, everybody know each other, people knew things about us even before arriving haha! It´s about 2000 inhabitants, lots of hotels, felt too touristic in one way. When we got off the beautiful Cat Coco Catamaran and people are offering us stuff, pulling our arms, trying to get our attention and buy tours in different ways. Renting bikes or whatever u know what I mean. Exhausting.

Charming, relaxed place, beautiful beaches and one of the most photographed ones in the world of Seychelles, the amazing Source D´Argent. The 2 interviews where done already on Friday so then we had the rest of the weekend free to enjoy ourselves. We stayed at one of Cathrins friends guesthouses, Etoile Labrine (that was also the guy who organized our house in Mahé) great to meet him and thank him for that! It was great to enjoy a fancy creole breakfast and yes, to spoil ourselves even more mohahaha. Lucky enough to get a last minute island hopping and snorkeling tour on Saturday, the boat took us for an extra 1,5h tour around the whole island. And obviously we got burned again. This time, on our bums, from snorkeling too much… butt (haha!) it was worth it because the water and the fishes, the corals, were amazing. Anyways, we went to Coco island and Felicite, and on Sunday we went to see famous Grand Anse, where I was to be able to surf, but it turned out to be only boogie boards, but nice waves, strong currents. 

Oh I almost forgot..not! Saturday we met up with more friends of Cathrin, they invited us to a massive family barbeque, ending up dancing creole, laughing our heads off by the g-string dancing father of the family...culture!

By midnight, the group of us, about 20 people went together to the big local bar/hang out and had a blast to a well known band from Mahé (everyone knew the lyrics except for us) Rastafari dudes, lots of dancing and clubbing. A great night with a local touch! Photos to come J

Puss och kram!

News of the day

Rules and regulations.

So this is why it´s always so quiet on the bus… it is also forbidden to smoke on most places on the island of Mahé. You are not to speak on the phone at the petrol station! It´s easy to know where everybody belong because E v e r y o n e has a business “costume” or logo on their shirt, even the prison staff (lime green..). Fancy. The most important concern for the government in the Seychelles is education and health, so the biggest budget is set in this sector.

Work.

The office of STB closes at 4pm. I really mean at 4 P M. 15:59 all employers stand outside the building and most of us (around 30 people) go together in one bus that the office provides. The bus drop us off in town (Victoria) where we then wait for another bus to take us to the south of the island. If you want to stay longer than 4 in the office, you need to apply for it. We usually get home by 5.30ish. Squeeze in at the bus, u know what I mean, seats for 3 where there´s no way u fit in more than 2 people. With sweaty buttcracks or boobs up in my face for 45 minutes approx. Hot, humid, crazy tired from the early wake up (6am) after the sunset at 6.30 it is night. Black outside, as I mentioned before, in our area there´s no light. When not to dead we´ll go for a swim, exercise or laugh most of the nights in front of Big bang theory (Cathrin has all of the series on the computer!) Love it! We´re soon about to watch crazy stupid love for the X… time as well J

People were right about the surf, although I read about it before going here there is none really. The culture hasn´t arrived to Mahé. Or if someone knows- tell me please. In any case there´s no place to rent boards they told us, so if I wanna surf I need to go to the beach, hoping that someone would lend me their board. We drove around the whole island during easter, and I didn´t even see one surfer dude or board. Oh yes, one SUP board at a snorkeling spot. Most breaks I´ve seen are, are way close to the beach or tubes on the coral reefs.

Study.

We´ve been writing some theory and methodology while awaiting the interviews to start. It is slowly but surely moving forward and we now have about 5 interviews scheduled. Will use a recorder for the first time, will be interesting even to see how people actually respond to that. It´s challenging to get everything the quality we like as we are writing the thesis in english.

and Easter. Yes. Lövely. More pics to come…

Puss och kram

Pics from Easter, Mahé

île Souris, Anse Royale

Anse Royale

Barracuda

Anse Royale

Anse Parnel

Anse Soleil

Port Launay, Ephelia Resort

Eden Island