Though I was sad to see Mauritius go, it was time to move on to another country, but I had a hard time trying to decide which ones to visit out here in the Indian Ocean. I wanted to make sure that my choice would be the most beneficial to our mission. The other hard part was the fact that traveling out here from island to island seems to be more difficult than you would think.
I am guessing that there must not be that much traffic in between islands in this area, except for the main ones that are the most frequented. My options were very limited in regards to travel, so I chose the island of Seychelles. Even with that country, I had a hard time getting there from the island of Mauritius. My options were to get there via traveling all the way to Dubai or Johannesburg or wait for a flight that leaves Mauritius only twice a week.
Wanting to stay within our budget, I chose the flight that left twice a week. However, this did not make the traveling any easier. That route, flown by a company out of La Reunion (Air Austral) flew me back to that island first. From there, I waited four hours before getting on my flight to Seychelles, which then took about two hours and thirty minutes to complete.
My friends, you all know by now about my concern with flying over open water. Given all of the trouble that I’ve had with my one engine plane over large bodies of water, can you imagine me flying alone on a flight like this? I’m glad that I’m in the hands of a capable company with a much larger airplane that has more than one engine. Though I’m not sure that they are the smartest financially, as they had only 36 passengers on a plane built for 150 – but hey, I’m sure that they can take care of themselves.
This particular airline did make sure to feed us well, though rest assured they made those expenses up by charging so much for your ticket. Unfortunately, smaller and more remote places are like that sometimes. Since they don’t have much competition, local companies can get a monopoly and control the price of things because they know you have no other choice.
The other thing that I thought was rather odd was the fact that you could get to France quite easily from the island of La Reunion. You could easily get a flight out of there to at least four or five cities in France. And if those weren’t enough, you could get access to a lot more European cities by flying from that island and going through a major hub in Africa and/or the Middle East.
My return trip from Seychelles wasn’t any easier. I had to stop overnight at the island of La Reunion before getting into Comoros the next day. It was time consuming, but at least I was able to get a lot of work done while in Seychelles. Countries like that are very important for our mission strategically, since no one tends to think of these little island countries out here in the middle of nowhere.
Our goal is to increase the number of countries that recognize us – no matter how big or how small. We want to get the message out to their people and have an impact worldwide. Our strategy has to be different from Serbia, who might tend to focus on the larger, more powerful countries. By reaching the people, media and government in more of the smaller countries, we have an opportunity to make a more personal, human connection and to share with them first hand about our country and our cause. We have to think about building our cause through the volume of the countries that we make a connection with, in addition to having some of the more powerful countries support us.
Once I set foot on the island of Seychelles, I knew that the hassles of travel were worth it. I don’t know if I am getting older my friends, or what my problem is, but the more I travel, the more I tend to enjoy the smaller, less populated nations. There is such a sense of peace, calm and relaxation in places like this. The older I get, the less I am able to tolerate those urban jungles like Mexico City, New York city, Tokyo, etc. Those cemented lands with all of their people going at such a fast pace, those are not the places for me anymore. In fact, they make me feel much more closed in than even the smallest nation.
Here in Seychelles, we have only about 90,000 people in the entire country. It is over 900 miles away from Africa (to the northeast) and the capital, Victoria, is on the island of Mahe. Most of the islands that make up this country are uninhabited and are made up of granite and/or coral, but the country claims to govern over 100 separate islands. You can imagine how beautiful it is.
Originally, there were no indigenous people on these islands. When the French took it over (and later the British), they brought in people to be used as slaves. This was not uncommon back then and much like what happened in Mauritius, where I just left. Most of the people brought to this land were of Indian, Chinese and African descent, but over time they began mixing with those of English and French origin.
The country still speaks French, but you can see by the architecture that it once was British. Many of the people here have historically worked on cinnamon, coconut and vanilla plantations, although in today’s time, the country tends to rely on things like tourism and foreign investment to survive. The unemployment rate here is really low too, which is refreshing for me to see.
I must admit though, that things are a little more expensive out here, especially the hotels. I ended up paying way more for the accommodations than what they were worth. My hotel was old and run down, with no hot water (despite their advertising). If there’s one thing that I dread in the morning, it is a nice, freezing shower to wake me up. But, I had no other choice but to pay $200-300USD for a more fancy hotel, which I was not willing to do. Sometimes you just have to deal with little complications like this. Tomorrow will be a new day and I will be out of this hotel and working on our mission.
Food is also fairly expensive and there are fewer options than on the islands of Mauritius or La Reunion. But I guess that is to be expected due to Seychelles remoteness. When you are relying on your supplies to get barged in from other parts of the globe, I guess you can’t have everything that you want in life. It’s just another reminder that there are pros and cons to every aspect in life.
Taxi’s here are also expensive, which makes sense since fuel is also barged in. My taxi from the airport (less than 10km) was $20USD. But I had no other choice since it was so late at night. For that reason alone, I decided that during the daytime business hours I will try walking and/or searching for a local bus. I would actually love to due this more during our mission, but the capital cities are usually so large that you must hire a driver in order to get any work done and see progress. But here in Seychelles, I can’t imagine that there are many media houses and the town looks small enough to attack on foot (little did I know that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was already sitting just a few hundred yards away from my hotel).
The next morning, I am up early and it is busines as usual for Flying for Kosovo: go, go, go and go some more. My day is made much easier by the fact that everyone here seems nice and relaxed. The media houses are very easy to work with and were all surprised to have someone all the way from Kosovo coming to speak with them. Though they are accustomed to welcoming tourists from around the world, they were quite excited to speak with me and learn more about us.
The first person that I made contact with was Ms. Marie-Antoinette Laurence from Today in Seychelles. What a very smart, polite and attentive woman. She wrote up an excellent article about us for her newspaper. It is people like here that will make the difference for us during this mission. People like her try very hard to make a difference by playing their role as a journalist and spreading news about our country to the local people. She has no idea how much of an impact she could be having for the people of our country.
I was able to get my media work done here fairly quickly, so I’d like to thank them all for their availability to me. Mr. Roger Mancienne with the newspaper Regar was helpful to me and very dedicated to his work. Mr. Ralph Gerard Volcere with the Weekly newspaper, promised to help get Kosovo recognized not only with a nice article, but also with the leader of the ‘New Democratic Party’ in his nation. He mentioned to me several times that his government usually ignores things, but that in the next elections, he was going to be running for election so that he will have a say in government concerns.
Thank you also to the team at the Seychelles Nation, the daily government-owned newspaper. Mr. Robert Andre authorized an interview for me with his journalist Mr. John Lablache, who knew quite a bit about the former Yugoslavia, since he had also lived and studied in there in the past. Sometimes with these government-owned newspapers, you might find that the journalists are afraid to cover your story or send it out to the public because they are afraid to create friction between the government and civil society. But at the Seychelles Nation, the team did a great job as journalists. They wrote an excellent article about Kosovo, trying to get us recognized by their country as an independent nation.
The team at the local television and radio station, SBC (Seychelles Broadcasting Company) were also excellent, thanks to Ms. Linda Rosalie. She was kind enough to authorize an interview with Ms. Bernadette Honore. Ms. Honore was very knowledgeable and was immediately interested in our story. She was hard-working, detailed and dedicated, with a great sense of humor and friendliness.
I would like to thank Ms. Amanda Hunt, the Press Attache and Prinicple Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Paul Adam. She granted us her time and hand-delivered our letter from Vlora Citaku to Mr. Adam.
I feel good that I was able to make great progress in Seychelles, getting everything accomplished within two days. Thank you again to all of the people here who are now part of our mission and friends to our country. I have nothing but great memories of my visit. There was excellent weather, beautiful scenery and amazing, friendly and welcoming people to interact with.
The downtown area is very nice and clean, with colonial-style architecture. I enjoyed passing by all of the little shops and restaurants, etc., especialy the outdoor market. It feels comfortable here and not too populated (even though it is a small island with 90,000 people). Seychelles is also very up to date on environmental laws and actually one of the world leaders in regards to sustainable tourism and development. A short walk around here would show you that they take their beautiful environment very seriously and try to keep it clean and presentable.
These last few islands that I’ve visited have definitely been very friendly towards tourists. They pay attention to outsidersa and are very welcoming overall. For sure, Seychelles is a vacation destination similar to Mauritius. One day, I hope to revisit this place and spend some quality time enjoying the sunshine and sandy beaches.
