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“Cultures grow on the vine of tradition.”

— Jonah Goldberg

Today we started on a traditional farm. After a solid cup of local coffee, the farmer showed us the sugar cane plantation and we were able to taste fresh sugar cane.

After the tour of the farm we visited the slavery museum. An old sugar cane and cotton plantation turned into a museum. It is terrible to see and hear how people used to be used as machines to produce. For the former masters, the slaves were nothing more than utensils. Yet slavery, or rather the abolition of slavery, has had much influence on the culture of the island. Think of the language, Creole, the food, the first settlements and the music.

It is important not to forget what has happened, but at the same time to recognize that it has also produced an important part of the island's traditions and culture.

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Today we visited the slavery museum. Normally I'm not that into a museum, but this one really got me. The story behind it is very impressive. The Museum of Villèle, created in 1974, is located on a huge colonial estate in the Saint-Paul hills. Rich Creole landowners Henri-Paulin Panon-Desbassayns and his wife Marie-Anne Thérèse Ombeline née Gonneau-Montbrun built the main house.

The museum is a heritage site. It highlights the prosperity of a well-known landowning family who influenced the history of La Reunion in the 18th and 19th centuries. This was an era when the development of cotton, coffee and sugar cane plantations was at its height.

Madame Desbassayns is an emblematic and controversial figure of Reunion's history, who managed the Villèle estate with a firm hand. The estate relied on servile labour born on the island, or taken from Africa, Madagascar and India. From the beginning of the 19th century to 1848, over 740 slaves worked on the plantation. After emancipation, and until 1974, various descendants of the family managed the estate. This trip really helped to understand the history and social differences that has been established on this Island in the past.

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Social practices reinforce the sense of identity.

One of the visited places today that closely conects to the topic of social practices as cultural heritage was Kélonia, a public aquarium and observatory specialising in Marine turtles.

Vezo people, the sea nomads, respect the rules passed through generations:

Sea turtles are not animals to be killed very frequently, for they have power. They can be killed once a month or once a year. It is forbidden to kill the turtle by cutting its throat, chest muscles or let any blood drip on the sand, to roast the meat or to cook it with the salt, the meat must be cooked by men and distributed to relatives and friends, it is strictly forbidden to sell the meat. These restrictions are meant to be signs of respect to the turtle. If the rules are broken, the people on the canoe which caught the particular turtle will never see another one again until the canoe’s owner makes appropriate acts of compensation.

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"I must get my soul back from you; I am killing my flesh without it.” “Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”

Today the original plan was about creole cooking on the east side of the island. Unfortunately the booking hadn't been through, so we had to leave the farm. That was not a deal breaker, since immediatly we went to the slavery museum. As a history teacher that really was impressive. Of course, I learnt about that phenomena in my study, but I never visited an old-master's house. A French tourguide showed us the house with all its room. The Desbassayns family runned the 'slave show' on Île de la Réunion in the 18th and 19th century. That family was the richest on the island and the slaves had to work in all different part of the household. There were slaves for agriculture, household, cleaning and they were badly treated. The hospital outside the house really impressed me. It was more like a lazaret to isolate people from the healthy ones. Even there they had to work. On the floor in one of the hospital rooms, all names of the slaves were written/inscraved on a stone. It got me a little emotional.

After that we enjoyed an amazing streetfood lunch somewhere around the museum. It was a barbecue with lots of different measts (chicken and pork) and bread. Lots of traditions of this island came together today.

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“Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.”

Today we are going to a farm in Saint-Anne. We left the hotel at 6:15 am. When we got there it appears that something went wrong reservation. Unfortunately we cannot cook in a traditional way. But luckily we get pineapple and home-made coffee. I have seen special fruit and vegetable plants there that I have never seen before. It was special to see vanilla plants. It was certainly instructive to see Reunion’s tradition and plants. On the way back we bought tasty traditional chicken on a coal BBQ. It was very delicious. Later we went to the slave museum.
Unfortunately we had a quid in France. I could not understand very much, But Tom did his best to translate everything. It was impressive to hear how the slave line was doing here. I still don't believe those stories that it happened.
Museum was the home of Madame Desbassayns (1745-1846). She had about 300 to 400 slaves on her farm. Slaves mainly worked on growing coffee and sugar cane.
Later we went to a turtle rescue center. We have seen special turtles there and what they used to mark as a turtle's shield. For example, they make shoes, jewelry, etc.

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Traditional cooking
Today we went together early in the morning to the village of Sainte-Anne and met a French farmer, the original Mr. Phillip Morel, the owner of the farm. The goal was a workshop for traditional cooking. It was not the case, while we went to the farm and saw different kinds of fruit, drank sugar cane syrup and then went to the museum to bring the slaves from Before the French colonization and in our way we ate grilled chicken on the coal that trade and import the slave to a dirty history in human life and the palace of the Lady, but Mr. Bassin the mighty ability at the time was the supervisor to deal with the slaves and control after that we went to the Museum of fishing turtles on the island has learned Many of the ideas in which how to handle Mr. and slave quality of their dealings

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Tradition lives because young people come along who catch its romance and add new glories to it.

Today it was about traditions and culture. We got up early to visit a local farm. We visited the kitchen and drank local coffee together. We were given an explanation of how pineapple is eaten (with salt or sugar) and we were given a tour of the farm where there were many chickens, pigs and bees. We also walked around the sugar cane fields and tasted sugar cane (juice). In this region, sugar cane is used, among other things, to make rum.

Then we went into the slavery past on this island in a museum. This has made a great impression. We looked around a former plantation and looked into a real slave master's house. It is a special thought that slavery was abolished so recently. Unbelievable that people were able to treat other people like this.

Finally, we looked at the sea turtle shelter. The sea turtles are natural heritage in many cultures. They are common in stories and many types of products are made. Now they are fortunately protected. This is now the tradition: dealing well with nature.