Mauritius is Delicious, Fictious and Malicious


Half way through our journey around the world, five countries down and five countries to go. After visiting Cadiz, Casablanca, Accra, and Cape Town while simultaneously completing half of a semester of classes, Port Louis was a nice break from the chaos. We are constantly moving and doing new things. We are always meeting new people and adjusting to new places. We always come back to the normal stresses of class work and living very closely with one another. The time was right for a vacation and that was Port Louis, Mauritius.

While we were in South Africa many people asked us why we were there, like in all the other countries before it, and we told them the whole shpeel. The next question is always where are you gong next and of course in South Africa our next destination was Mauritius. Almost everyone responded by saying, "oh, vacation island," which was news to us. None of us had any idea what to expect from it. Most of us hadn't even heard of it before we got our itinerary, so we did what any normal person would do and we Google that stuff. Mostly we found tropical looking pictures and a few things about the country, like they speak French, English, and Creole. Aside from the few things we found on Google, Mauritius was fictious as far as we were concerned, that is until we got there.

This little island (you could drive to the other end in an hour and that's with traffic) was practically made for tourists. It seemed like the most popular thing to do here was lay on the beach, and that's just what I did. You could go hiking on the dormant volcano that created the island but we only had one full day to enjoy the beach and you could see the volcano any where you went on the island. Plus, this was the vacation we needed. A few other highlights of the island were Pomplamousse, one of the most famous botanical gardens in the world, and Saga Dancing, a traditional dance done by the Mauritians.

Aside from being on the beach the whole time I did visit a Non-Profit organization for children. This particular one is the SOS Children's Village in Beau Bassin. We basically went to hang out with the kids and see what their live were like. There were roughly 19 houses with seven to nine kids in each house. All of them had two care takers, a "mother" and an "auntie." The mother was the head of the house and the auntie helped the mother. Also, because there are two caregivers, one could watch after the kids while the other went home to visit their own families. These are women who don't have children of there own but do have extended family who they try to visit when they can. These women also do all of this for free. They are completely volunteer though I am sure that the housing, food, and other amenities are included.

The children, by the time they get acclimated to the village, have a "normal" life. They sleep in beds in house, go to school, come home and play for a little while before they have to do their homework, then, eat dinner and go to bed. Even though these kids are just "normal" they are the happiest bunch of kids I have ever seen. We got there right before most of them were getting home from school so we were able to learn about the village and ask their families a few questions. Then, the kids got home from school and the energy of the place shot through the roof, in fact, we stayed outside. They were running all directions, playing football (soccer), and imagining all sorts of things to do. Some of the students that I came with also brought stickers. Many of us were told that the kids love getting stickers. You knew when someone pulled stickers out because all the kids would swarm around trying to get there own and before long you saw kids pushing out of the swarm with their faces covered in all sorts of shapes.

The children also loved to help out. When we got there some of them were maintaining a garden. Every house had their own garden that was beautiful. They were well organized, watered, and not one weed existed any any of them. I talked to one of the mothers for a while and she said that they don't usually eat a whole lot of it but they are able to sell it to friends so that they can have a little bit of money for the family. The money could go towards games, clothes or anything else the kids would need at the time. We also saw some kids helping paint the trim of the houses. A few men had come to do the maintenance but sure enough the kids wanted to help. They picked up brushes and paint and joined the painting team. They all worked very hard in school and at home and deserved everything they had and much more.

I wished we could have stayed longer but now we are off again, back on the ocean blue. We are now traveling across the Indian ocean to Chennai (Madras), India. We will be there in four days and I am very excited. I'm starting to think that India is what I need. It's a very spiritual place and every bit of information I hear about it makes me more and more excited to get there. Talk to you soon...

Sam