Roche-Bon-Dieu, the village of Maxime Larose, reinforces his faith in what he does. At first encounter, one would say Maxime Larose is a typical Rodriguan farmer cultivating crops and keeping a lively animal husbandry. Maxime is more than that; he is imbued with a sense of calm, wisdom and patience. He knows he cannot fight against the vagaries of nature, the heat, the water scarcity, and that thing which everybody fears, a cyclone. He and his family are well grounded and would for nothing leave that region of earthly paradise, what with a vast area of land, the plains and the track roads which connect them to relatively neighbouring villages. To say, the air is fresh, and cool is a pleonasm but still it is.

What strikes the visitor is the permanently open front door and the astonishing absence of burglar-proof bars on the windows of his concrete house. I remarked this was how we, in my childhood days, had the same culture of trust and good neighbourliness. But those were the days. Today, Maxime is fortunate and well protected like many of his countrymen without protective bars. After all, he lives in a village mounted by a rock and appropriately named Roche-Bon-Dieu.

At 77, Maxime goes on growing onions, brinjals, chilies, alternately respecting fallow periods of six months, techniques gathered in the field in the literal sense. The salinity of the soil in his field does not allow a satisfactory yield of good beans, those that Mauritians look for on visits to the island. So, he concentrates on hybrid maize, manioc and creepers like watermelons, cucumbers and pumpkins. He sells his produce in bulk of which the chili, symbol of Rodriguan fame the Ti pima Rodrigues is exported to the Mauritian market.

Mrs Antoinette Collin, a social worker on a visit to the family.

The silence of the farm is interrupted by the short barking of his dogs, the latter either saving their energy for serious interventions or the summer heat having an effect on them. He has lambs and rams of the Brahman breed and 17 goats. This is his wealth on which he watches to ensure he can have enough revenue for the family. But his only presence and his two dogs cannot do much to fight away stray dogs, violent, aggressive, killer animals hungry for goat meat. They are a large pack of roaming invaders.

On the farm, activities include rearing poules locales which are fed twice a day without mistake. He feeds them well with chicken feed imported from Mauritius. The activities of the farm are regulated by unwritten rules and regulations, but all living things look happy, including the goat which does not suspect danger until it is attacked.

Leisure for the Larose couple is watching football on TV or local matches. They do not feel bored and have no complaints to make not withstanding the rain that falls “par episode” in Maxime’s own words and the pack of roaming invaders. After all, the end of year period would entail preparing a mixed compote of banana, pawpaw, pineapples, mangoes, local peaches and coconut with the unique Rodriguan recipe and taste. Maxime and his family, like almost all families in Rodrigues, would start the new year with a freshly concocted compote, maybe with a slightly different taste but still one of hope, of determination to resume the cycle of sowing, weeding, fertilizing, harvesting, with a reserve of compote that would last the whole year. Then a new cycle will start, a never-ending process: the simple life of a farmer far from the madding crowd.