Stranded in the Seychelles: teachers in paradise

by Bev Spicer, Sue Michniewicz (Illustrations)

Bev and Carol are back and looking for a new adventure! This time, they fly off to the Seychelles to teach students of the National Youth Service. They are provided with a beautiful house on Mahe and commute to work on the tiny island of Ste. Anne in a World War II landing craft. Lush, sunny and colourful, the Seychelles is the perfect setting for two girls on the lookout for inspiration and fresh experiences, so why not join them? See the sights, find out about life in the Indian Ocean, and enjoy the madness. Fuelled by fish, rice and South African rum, Bev and Carol tour the islands on an ancient motorbike in their free time, discovering paradise and what lies beyond. There are giant spiders, heart-stopping bus rides and a tangled expatriate community, against a volatile political backdrop. Put your feet up and dive into Bev and Carol's chaotic world, where common sense and spontaneity are often at odds. You'll see what makes them tick and probably have a lot of laughs along the way. 'Stranded in the Seychelles' - could it be this much fun?"

Genres: Memoir, Biography

237 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2014

About the author

Bev Spicer has been writing full-time for a number of years, from her crumbly Charentaise house in France. In a past life she gained a degree in English and French Literature (Keele University) and a PGCE in English methods (Queens' College, Cambridge).

She has lived in Bridgnorth, Cambridge, Rethymnon (Crete), Mahe (Seychelles), and now lives in Charente Maritime with her husband and youngest son. The next place she wants to explore is probably Spain. Her husband is very tolerant, and secretly enjoys chaos.

Bev has been a teacher, blackjack dealer for Playboy, examiner for Cambridge ESOL, secretary (various sorts - most boringly 'legal'), lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University, and a Sunday checkout girl for Tesco (who allowed her to deliver surplus bakery products to the homeless – ‘every little helps’).

She loves people, reading, writing, speaking French, astronomy (quantum theory addict), gardening, travelling, and hates housework, cooking, drizzle and honey.

Bev publishes her lighter books under the name of Bev Spicer and her more literary works as B. A. Spicer.

Reviews

[Julie Haigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good fun, a quick, light, easy read.

Well, what can I say-I feel I’m repeating myself, but-yet another great fun read. I’ve read both of Bev Spicer’s previous Bev and Carol adventures/memoirs: ‘One Summer in France: Two Girls in a Tent’ and ‘Bunny on a Bike: Playboy Croupiers in 80s London’ and yet again, here is that winning formula. It’s a quick and easy read and not long after I started the book it was soon turning into one of those where you 'just have to read a bit more' when you really should be doing something else, but you can't resist. Bev and Carol are working as teachers in Ste. Anne. There’s fun and happy memories as they go shopping, plan trips, experience crowded bus rides (which reminded me of the ones I had been on in Barbados), Mini Mokes, sand flies-I remember those! And the motorbike episode!!!! So funny! There are plenty of happenings to keep you reading. I have thoroughly enjoyed all three of Bev Spicer's books and look forward to reading more from this author. Good fun, a quick, light, easy read.

[Whistler's Mom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hi-jinks in a tropical paradise.

This is the third book in the Bev & Carol Adventure series and (IMHO) the best. I think I like it because the two women are older (although sometimes they don't ACT very mature) and because it's a good look at a nation emerging from colonialism.

The friends are turning thirty and both have been teaching English - Bev to snotty middle school kids in Milton Keynes and Carol to monks in Tibet. Now they want a last adventure before they settle down to being adults.

The answer is to take ESL teaching jobs in the Seychelles. This requires figuring out exactly WHERE the Seychelles are (Indian Ocean, off the coast of Africa) and then going in for a suspiciously brief interview. "You're hired. Here are your air ticket vouchers. See you there." Young people seldom ask a lot of questions and these two are no exceptions. They arrive in the Seychelles with only vague ideas of where they'll be living and teaching.

The reality is a shock, as life often is for the young. The other ex-pats are a mixed bag, living accommodations are shared with lizards and spiders, and the students aren't as enthusiastic about education as school authorities like to believe. It LOOKS like a tropical paradise, but life there is hard for a couple of youngsters from middle-class English backgrounds.

I think the author does a good job of writing about memories from thirty years past and trying to convey the feelings of the young woman she was then. Her bewilderment at being in a strange culture comes through, but so does her intelligence and concern for others. Indeed, that's part of the problem. A young woman raised in a First World country is appalled by the mistreatment of women in Third World countries. And the arbitrary edicts of a government that exercises strict control over its residents is a hard pill to swallow for those accustomed to unlimited freedom. Sadly, gorgeous beaches and perfect weather can exist alongside starving stray dogs and brutal child labor.

Much of the narrative concerns the two girls and their adventures and friendships, but it also gives a glimpse of a nation trying to emerge from colonialism with varying degrees of success. After independence from the UK, long-time Prime MInister Rene established a socialist republic that was unconnected to the USSR. Education and health care were free, although the locals put their own twist on both. As in any "emerging" nation, reformers struggle against traditional social patterns. It's confusing to locals and baffling to visitors.

I enjoyed the comparison of the Seychelles to Mauritius, which in the late 1980's was far behind in social reforms such as free education. If Carol and Bev had visited after the island became a republic in 1992, they would have seen changes that the Seychelles Islands had already implemented (or tried to.)

Today most visitors to the area book into expensive resorts and never leave them. Bev and Carol weren't residents for long, but they worked with locals, attended (by accident) a riotous local wedding, rode local buses (a book in itself), and shopped at the local market. What they observed is entertaining and educational. I like to laugh while I'm learning, so I can recommend this book.

[Ed Lehman · Rating 3 out of 5]

While reading (and enjoying) this account...I kept thinking about Patsy and Edina from Absolutely Fabulous. A fun read. 3 1/2 stars

[Carrie Lahain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now that I've read all three of Bev Spicer's humorous memoirs about her adventures with her best friend Carol, I think I like this latest one the best. STRANDED IN THE SEYCHELLES has all the irreverence and joie de vivre of ONE SUMMER IN FRANCE and BUNNY ON A BIKE, but there's a maturity in this one that adds poignancy and richness. The lovely-but-a bit-silly students and don't-call-ME-an-adult career girls are pushing thirty when they take jobs teaching English as a second language in a lush tropical nation that is newly independent and not at all sure about the form that independence should take.

Spicer does a wonderful job evoking the spectacular natural beauty of the Seychelles, but she doesn't skimp on the grimmer side of life--huge spiders, fatally curious lizards, and waters as shark-infested as they are beautiful. The humans she and Carol meet are treated with the same objectivity. And there are plenty of colorful characters: a gorgeous and pathologically unfaithful Swede who Bev can't help but find attractive, an English couple whose marriage re-defines the term passive-aggressive, a Bed and Breakfast owner with an interesting take on food recycling, and a maniac bus driver who nearly brings our heroines' lark to an abrupt...and permanent...end.

Funny as the book is, it also touches upon the harsh reality of life in a poor, politically unstable country. This reality hits Bev and Carol hard at times, such as when they find their movements curtailed and their lesson plans censored. Unlike in their previous adventures, they can't just decide that they've had enough and go home. Not with a one-year contract and a disordered government that does very little and that "little" at a snail's pace.

It was amusing that, as I reached the end of the book, I found myself lamenting the same thing as the author--that this might be the last Bev and Carol romp. There was a hint (tiny but enough to hang a hope on) that there's at least one more to come. One with an Asian flavor. Fingers crossed!

[Clive Mullis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read the two other books in the Bev and Carol memoirs, I was eager to read this third offering.

Stranded in the Seychelles didn’t disappoint.

Our two fun-loving girls are a little bit older now, a little bit wiser and both in the teaching profession. Bored and with direction problems they decide to take up teaching positions on the other side of the world.

They encounter an eclectic group of people, ranging from the eager locals to a group of varying foreign nationals; as well as a government not exactly sure of where it’s going. There is an element of pathos to the recollections as it looks at the restrictions placed upon them and the local people, the undercurrent of control, and the poverty which surrounds them; all of which doesn’t sit very well with our two girls.

That said, the humour is there in bucket-loads, the sharp wit, the wry observations and the tendency to throw two-fingers up at authority. It didn’t seem as if I was reading this story, it was more like listening to two friends recounting their adventures whilst sitting down the pub with a few glasses of wine and a couple of beers in an atmosphere of joie de vivre. Lovely stuff!

[Anthony Stancomb · Rating 3 out of 5]

A racy story of two girls who spend a year teaching on the Seychelles.
Clearly written from experience, it’s about two pleasure-seeking Essex girls who sound the type who have mini-skirts and fat legs and intend to spend their weekends getting drunk and laid ( Though from the skilful way the tale is written and told, I suspect that the author is very switched on – and from her photo, she is certainly very attractive).
We follow the girls as they try to cope with their teaching responsibilities and try to fit in with not only the locals, but the loose-moraled cosmopolitan ex-pat crowd they hang around with.
Engagingly written with good dialogue (those who don’t appreciate coarse language should beware) and a good eye for character, the book is an entertaining account of the strange situations they find themselves in, and the scrapes they get into

[Bodicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The girls are back for this tongue-in-cheek episode as Bev and Carol get jobs as teachers in the Seychelles for the summer. As usual they are up to their old tricks of stirring up the local wives, creating havoc at the local school and making the best out of the local food and wine. Painfully funny in places, this story shows Bev and Carol at their hyperbole best as they take on the local school board and show them how it ought to be done. And then they decide to also take on the local government and demand some tax back too. Two feisty ladies and a story based on Bev Spicer’s own adventures. I would have loved to have met the real Carol but unfortunately she is but a figment of the imagination!

[Karenne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third of Bev and Carol's adventures in which they travel to the Seychelles and work as teachers. They find themselves in all sorts of situations and meet numerous other Seychellois residents, both indigenous and visitors like themselves. The descriptions of the islands made me want to book my flight! But is this island paradise everything it's cracked up to be? Read on and discover ...

[Noelle Walsh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was good. You could tell the author enjoyed writing this story. One should be warned that if you don't really like coarse language a great deal, you will find it here.


*won as a GoodReads Giveaway*

[Tammy Horvath · Rating 4 out of 5]

An island adventure that will keep you turning the pages. I’d love to visit the Seychelles, but I fear spiders, lizards, and a few other creatures in this book. But I don’t think I’d let that stop me, so I stayed up late reading “Stranded in the Seychelles” because I wanted to see if Bev and Carol would get to tour the islands or be stuck staring at the bottom of toilets every weekend. If you love to travel, buckle up for a fast-paced adventure as Bev Spicer takes you on an island adventure filled with rum, a motorbike, children falling asleep in class only to wake up to a deadly foot-long centipede, and so much more.

[N.A. Granger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stranded in the Seychelles is a fun, frothy memoir of two young women looking for adventure before they have to make a life decision about settling down. It is written by Bev Spicer, who has written several humorous memoirs of her life, including Bunny on a Bike, telling of the time she was a Playboy croupier in London.
Bev and Carol, her bosom buddy, have come to a fork in the road. Carol has just returned from teaching English to monks in Tibet, while Bev has held a series of uninspiring jobs, including typing out legal contracts and folding and labeling bin bags to send off with a quote to possible customers (that one really impressed me!). She finally gets a postgraduate teaching certificate from Cambridge and, at the time of this story, has been teaching English to uninterested secondary school students for a year. When Bev comes across an ad for qualified English teachers for the National Youth Service of the Seychelles, they both bite. I had to look up the Seychelles: the Seychelles Islands are an archipelago in the Indian Ocean off the eat coast of Africa, in the same general region as Zanzibar, Madagascar and Mauritius. The two friends fly out to their new island home, picturing a luxury villa on a beach, tropical fruit and air-conditioned class rooms. They should have been alarmed by the lack of information or even a syllabus for the classes they were to teach. By this time the reader is thinking too good to be true, don’t do it!
They step off their plane into the climate of a convection oven, peopled by native and mixed raced individuals who speak mainly Creole, with strange customs and even stranger food. Eventually they are given their own house, with a steady breeze from the ocean and electricity. Also lizards and a wondrous variety of spiders, which spin webs like nets overnight.
Their school is on another island, which they reach by landing craft each morning, together with other recruited teachers. The voyage is spent gagging on the acrid black smoke from the engine. Their classrooms are outside under tin roofs, which heat the air beneath to baking levels by the end of each day, and have poisonous centipedes dropping in from time to time. Teachers at the school come from various European countries as well as Sri Lanka and Mauritius, making a colorful, multilingual lot. The students, by contrast, are perpetually sleepy and unengaged in learning, despite Bev and Carol’s best efforts.
This memoir is filled with eclectic characters, surprising and humorous adventures, lots of local beer, and experiences on and with an ancient Kawasaki 250 cc motorbike they purchase for getting around. Along the way, the reader is nicely schooled in the sometimes harsh realities of life in a poor, politically unstable country. A concatenation of events lead to Sue and Carol’s long and eventually successful attempt to terminate their contract after the first school term: most significantly to them was the ban on traveling anywhere during their breaks except within the Seychelles and Mauritius. Not to mention the lack of eligible men.
This was a fun read, written with a sharp wit and keen sense of humor, with an eye to the ridiculous and candor with the politics. It’s a great memoir. It made me want to be young again, carefree and open to any adventure.

[Valerie Poore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bev Spicer's memoirs are a delight to read. This is the third Bev and Carol book I've read and as always it is a wonderful evocation of youth and friendship.

Although older than they were in the previous two books, Bev and Carol's relationship slips right back into the bantering mould of their younger days as they take up teaching jobs in the Seychelles. Thrown in the deep end when they arrive, they experience culture shock first hand when they find out how little emphasis has been put on education in the past and how primitive the conditions are in which they have to teach. Nevertheless, they give themselves enthusiastically to the job, the social life and the delights and dangers the islands have to offer. There is only one snag, but I'm not giving anything away here. Put it this way, there's a reason the title is 'Stranded in the Seychelles'.

This is a great mix of travel, work, culture, exotic holiday and, above all, friendship and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Bev Spicer writes wonderful dialogue as well as great descriptions and lovely introspective pieces. And to spice it all up (sorry), there are horrendous insects, gorgeous tropical fruits, crazy islanders, wild parties and lots of sunshine. A real tonic for a winter's day. Highly recommended.

[Nina Levison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read the first amusing book in Bev Spicer's series, I was delighted to be offered a copy of 'Stranded in the Seychelles'(the third book) to read. Bev and Carol are off on their adventures again, as teachers on the island of Ste. Anne. Their adventures are a little more controlled than the first book but just as hilarious. I was slightly worried by all the strange things the girls had to eat on a regular basis, often with doses of weevils and other creepy crawlies! I loved the camaraderie between the two girls and their disparaging comments to each other. It was a very enjoyable book with a real insight into life on the islands and the problems with everyday living and teaching. I would thoroughly recommend this as a light-hearted read.

[Jilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a freebie, chick lit / memoir based on the authors own story and travels with her friend. Carol. It was a quick. easy read with some laughs along the way. 3 stars.

Bev and Carol are teachers and bored with their jobs so decided on a new adventure together, so they fly off to the Seychelles to teach students of the National Youth Service. They are provided with a beautiful house on Mahé and commute to work on the tiny island of Ste. Anne in a World War II landing craft.

Lush, sunny and colourful, the Seychelles is the perfect setting for two girls on the lookout for inspiration and fresh experiences, so why not join them? See the sights, find out about life in the Indian Ocean, and enjoy the madness.

Fuelled by fish, rice and South African rum, Bev and Carol tour the islands on an ancient motorbike in their free time, discovering paradise and what lies beyond. There are giant spiders, heart-stopping bus rides and a tangled expat community, against a volatile political backdrop.

Put your feet up and dive into Bev and Carol’s chaotic world, where common sense and logic are often at odds. You’ll see what makes them tick and probably have a lot of laughs along the way.

[Jennifer Pletcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of the author and her friend Carol. They take a teaching job in the Seychelles to teach English in a local school. They live in a beautiful house, and in between teaching, they explore the islands of the Seychelles. They had jumped into this opportunity with two feet, not knowing exactly what to expect when they got there.



This is a fun book. It is fun and silly and well written. The antics of the two girls and their fellow expat teachers keep you entertained through the whole book. We get a look at what it was like for these ladies and also for the people who live and work in the Seychelles. It is a fun read with sharp wit, and I am glad I found this gem.

[Tats · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a serial expat I was thinking to get a read with an interesting insight into life in the Seychelles as a foreigner. However, it left me with more questions than it answered. I was laughing at times and it isn't long but I am not sure who I would recommend 'Stranded in the Seychelles' for: for an easy beach-read you'll find many more with an actual story but as an informative read re. Seychelles or life as an English teacher abroad, there is not enough detail on that.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lighthearted, easy read. I haven't read any of the previous Bev and Carol books, but it didn't matter. Two friends get a contract teaching English in the Seychelles, all expenses paid. Sounds too good to be true? Well maybe, or maybe not. Fun adventures ensue, with an interesting support cast of characters. I'm sure I'll read the previous books in the series, too.

[Ronald Mackay · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading Bev Spicer’s “Stranded in the Seychelles” I’ve decided that if I am going to be stranded anywhere, it’s in those lovely islands in the Indian Ocean.

Many beautiful islands to visit, each with beaches, coral reefs and nature reserves.

Bev Spicer makes you want to get your English teaching qualification and head off to paradise!

A lovely book!

[Irene · Rating 1 out of 5]

It was a chore to finish, the main characters come off as spoiled brats.