People Who Live in Small Places #4: Seychelles

Today I bring you paradise! I could stare at the photos of those beauiful beaches forever, dreaming of the day we will hopefully visit once we are living in South Africa. However, having lived on a beautiful small island myself (St Lucia), I know that all that glitters isn’t always gold. Here, the lovely blogger Chantelle, who lives in the Seychelles with her son, Arthur, husband Mark and their ever-growing new “bump” and who blogs at Seychelles Mama tells us a bit about her small place.

So, tell me a bit about your “small place”

My “small place” is Praslin island, part of the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean.  There are around 6,500 people living here.  It’s the second largest island in the Seychelles at around 38km squared.  When it was first discovered they thought they had found the real garden of Eden! A couple of our beaches (Anse Lazio and Anse Georgette) are frequently featured in top 10 beaches of the world lists.

It’s also only one of two places in the world where the amazing Coco de Mer tree grows naturally (the other on an other near by Seychelles Island) in the Valee de Mai.

And what are the good – and the not so good – things about living there?

Something that’s good for us (but would be bad for some) is that life is quiet and pretty slow here. Despite being a tropical island there are not that many dangerous things here on land.  There are centipedes that have a nasty sting but other than that nothing crazy!  It can sometimes feel pretty isolated here, I don’t know what I would do without the internet to be able to stay in touch with family and friends. Power cuts are  also pretty common….

Food is becoming easier to get all the time but there are still times where certain foods aren’t available for a while such as onions, chicken breast, potatoes!!  It wasn’t until I couldn’t get onions that I realised that cooking without onions is really hard….We have friends that have lived here for over 10 years who tell us there used to be a time when things like toilet roll wouldn’t be available!!!!!!!

There is a small but supportive expat community here.

And while we do get rainy seasons there is no monsoon season so you’re never stuck indoors for too long!

What do you find to do to occupy yourself in your “spare time” (if you have any

Being a mum to a toddler, “spare time” is hard to come by!  But, the beach is always a lovely way to pass the time and we’ve definitely got our pick of them here!

We love to go for walks in the Vallee de Mai!

Boat trips are always nice, as is heading to another island for the day.  I love going to visit la digue and it’s only a 15 minute ferry ride away.

How easy is it to “get away” and where do you escape to? Do you feel the need to escape?

It depends on your definition of “Getting away” It is fairly easy to get to another island.  Price can often restrict staying anywhere though. We are lucky having resident rates in a lot of places which helps. We don’t really feel the need to get away too often though, pace of life is slow and a trip to the beach is usually more than enough to feel like you’ve been on holiday.

To go to another country is fairly expensive as we are pretty far away from anything here.  We have been to Sri Lanka we also want to visit some other places in Asia as well as South Africa while we are here

What is the local community like? Is it close? Too close? Did/do you feel welcomed?

We have been really welcomed by the expat community here, we are lucky that it seems to all centre around the school that my husband works at. The local community have been very welcoming too, there are also those that like to keep themselves to themselves…the same as any community really.

What advice would you give to someone thinking of moving to the island?

To be aware of how slow the pace of life is here.  Things take time to get done!!!  Its something that can be difficult to get used to coming from a more built up “westernised” society.  Being such a small place, news travels fast.  Don’t be surprised that as an expat, people know a whole lot more about you then you do about them…

Living costs here are rising.  It’s definitely not as cheap as you might expect. We didn’t really appreciate how expensive it is here until we went to Sri Lanka and saw how cheap it was there!!

 Being a tropical island there is not a whole lot going on.  If you are into a lively nightlife this probably isn’t the place to be!

And finally can you tell me a bit about yourself and your family

I live here with my family.  Myself and my husband moved here 2.5 years ago right after we got married as my husband got a job in the international school here.  We have since had our son Arthur, and are now pregnant with number 2!

Before I had Arthur I did some volunteering work on a nearby island monitoring turtle nesting.  Now I am a full time mama blogging about our life here.

Thank you so much Chantelle – I think we’ve all just fallen a little bit in love with Seychelles from these photos (packs suitcase). And if you like Chantelle’s blog please also check out her Expat Family link-up where expats from around the world post blogs about their lives once a month.

 And don’t forget you can read about what life is like in other small places here too – Mayotte, Gibraltar and a small French Village.