Rain and Drought in the Center of the Island

Mauritius is currently in one of the worst droughts in recorded history, and several of the reservoirs are close to empty.  While we may hope for a 'non damaging and quick hurricane' to bring rain to Alabama, many Mauritians are hoping for a non-violent cyclone to come soon and bring rain.  Since cyclone season starts in December this could happen.  Because of the drought the municipalities are limiting water, and we have very low water pressure in the afternoons.  We've had so little rain that when a heavy shower did fall in Quatre Bornes on Friday the streets quickly flooded.

This shot was taken in Vacoas, the town next to Quatre Bornes.  It is a mortuary, and, yes, that is a display coffin propped up there by the door.  The boys were horrified.

I bought Will and Sam some traditional Indian wear.  As you can tell, they loved them so much, and could hardly wait to take them off and never put them on again.

Market day.  Our potato guy.

Curpipe, Port Louis and Home - All in One Day

So on Saturday I had to be at the George V Football stadium by 8:30 am to meet with the Sports Minister (and his minions) to discuss progress with the stadium turf.  To get there by 8:30 am we had to be at the ShopRite bus stop by 7:00 am.  We got to the Curpipe market at 8:10 am, and you know a place is close when you ask the cab driver to drive you to the stadium, and he points and says:  'it is right there - you can walk to it'.  He was correct, and so we did.  After an hour spent discussing the stadium, we caught a bus to Port Louis because Will wanted to see Fort Adelaide.  So we did.

Sam posing outside the national football stadium at Curpipe.

The Assistant Minister of Sports (L), his Assistant (hidden), Jesse (center) and the field manager (right) at the National Football Stadium.

The shoe repair facility at Port Louis.  These guys are here every time we go by.  

The Catholic cathedral in Port Louis.  It's a classic - incredibly gory wooden carvings for the Stations of the Cross.  Many saints dying in all their grisly glory.  The crucfix outside is full color.  The boys loved it.

Once you get away from the touristy waterfront much of Port Louis is old and worn.  This was a local bar as we walked to the fort.  Since we went to the fort on a racing (horse) Saturday this bar was full of guys reading their racing forms.  The fort overlooks the race track.

Racetrack visible below the fort.

Fort Adelaide.  The whole palce is this grim grey stone, and there (no OSHA, remember!) are no barriers, protection or anything else to keep you climbing anywhere you want.  We went up and down 180 year old spiral staircases and steps - it was great.  Not too may tourists - it is a haul to get up there, and in classic Mauritian fashion there is not much in the way of historical information. 

View from the Fort Adelaide.  The cannons and fortress that is Fort Adelaide were started in 1830, and finished in early 1840.  The fort was never used, nor ever occupied except by small garrisons every once in a while.  The rationale for its' construction is a bit varied, but most think it was built as a deterrant to an anticipated slave uprising (the slaves were given freedom in this period, but no revolt ever occurred), or to be there for protection for the 1200 English in Port Louis, as they were outnumbered by French (~3500) at the time.  That was never a problem either, so the fort never saw any type of strife or combat.

Street scence in Port Louis on a Saturday.  This is the street, so add cars to this mess.  When we were waiting for our bus (which also comes down this street) the police came through in a truck.  Apparently, the street peddlers (the guys who just lay their stuff out on a cardboard box or towel, blocking the sidewalk) are not supposed to be in the bus lane areas.  The first guy saw the police truck, he hollered, and everyone just picked up their stuff and disappeared.  Melted right into the crowd.  Gone in like 15 seconds.  The minute the police passed by they returned and set up shop again.

A Week of Various Observations

So, this post is a variety of pictures of typical things I see while I walk to work, or as I do the errands of the day.  Hard to believe that today marks our one month date until we leave the island.  The boys have one more week of school and my last lecture is Monday.

The view from across the street from our house.  This lot used to be covered with tall brushy vegetation until the owner got really busy and took everything away.  It was full of metal, trash and other things people had been dumping for years.  I am not sure what the plan is for the lot, but it currently is not an attractive site.

Thursday was trash day.  You dump your trash in the top of each bin, and then the trash guys open up this side door, which is built into the wall of each house, and remove the trash.  An example of an empty trash bin is shown above.  I learned the hard way that the door of our trash bin does not shut well.  I learned this because it swung open one night and the dogs got into it, strewing trash all over the street.  What a mess! 

Sodnac (the area of Quatre Bornes where we live) is, as I've mentioned before, upscale.  One of the downsides of this is that folks tend to move around a lot, and many of the homeowners move overseas for some period of time, simply leaving the house empty.  This is such an example, and the owners live in England, and some extended family member is supposed to be watching the house.  Many Mauritians do not like to rent these house (interestingly, they especially do not like to rent to other Mauritians) so they sit.  

Typical wall architecture in our neighborhood.   Hindus live here, as you can see the roof of their private shrine peeking up over the wall.  In the morning you can often smell the incense as you walk by - it is a really great smell. 

Front street view of our local market.

Last night Will was invited to the birthday party of a child in his class.  Ashwin turned 10, and they rented out a ballroom at the hotel where we first stayed - the Gold Crest.  Over 100 people were invited, and when I walked Will down to the party it was obviously a very fancy event.  The women were in cocktail (the Indian equivilent) gowns and formal table settings were used.  The party went until 9:30 pm.  When I walked back down to pick up Will I snapped this picture of one of the local food vendors who set up and sell brianis and douhli and other Indian food at night.

Waiting on the bus.  In case you can't tell I wait on the bus a LOT.

Another Hindu house - see the red flags?

Happy Divali!

Divali was this past Friday night, with fun extending over the weekend.  Pretty much every major town had their square or stadium set for a Divali party, with bands and all sorts of lights.  The main decoration is lights - everywhere!  My Hindi friends here on the island view this holiday as an important one, and in fact many feel that the Indians in Mauritius celebrate it more vigorously than they do in India.  Lights, fireworks and the giving of sweets.  Everyone gets dressed up in new saris and charudi, and the women all get henna painting - those arists are at little kiosks in the mall and will do designs for around 60 Rs.  Again - no OSHA here, so the fireworks go off everywhere, and in any direction.  All day Friday and Saturday people are visiting, bringing small boxes of sweets.  We had two visits from our neighbors with sweets, and our regular vendors at the market gave us sweets on Saturday, too.

All of us Fulbighters  got together at our house, and we walked to see the lights and the activities downtown.  Here are some pictures:

On my way to buy bread on Friday morning you sawe many guys up on the roof finishing up the installation of the lights.  Unlike Christmas lights they simply hang them in strings from the top of the house to the bottom, at about 2 foot intervals.

Our neighbors house on our street.

Around the corner from our house.

The decorations on the Quatre Bornes municipal building, which is right across the street from the market. 

 

More decorations at the Municpal Building.

Extension Day

On Thursday of last week Jesse and I went touring.  Jesse is the recently retired head of the Ministry of Agriculture Plant Pathology Division, and is a very neat guy.  His daughter is a member of the University of Mauritius Faculty of Agriculture.   Jesse runs a very large hydroponic vegetable farm, and he is one of the guys trying to get this renovation of the football stadium at Curepipe going.  We drove to his family farm at Belacava, which now overlooks one of the fancy resorts that ring the island.  This all is on the west side of the island, north of Flic N Flac.  We also visited the resort/golf course, as one of the guys who runs the golf course there took my short course, and they wanted a visit to check out the greens.

One of Jesses' greenhouses.  He grows tomatoes and cucumbers.

Jesses' family home.  A caretaker lives in the two habitable rooms, to prevent theft from the property.  The view from that open third floor is spectacular.

Jesse on the right, and one of his employees on the left.  That gentleman is Jesses' shipping manager, who collects the produce and gets it to the stores with whom they have contracts.

Now on to the golf course.  from the third floor of Jesses' house you can see this resort and golf course.  Jesse told me that as he grew up this was his and his brothers' play fields, before the resort was built in the 1980s.   Here we are walking on the hotel grounds, on our way to see a sodding project.

The bermudagrass sod.

I took this to show the palm tree growing inside the putting green, pretty much a 'no'.  They want to completely renovate the greens, and, frankly, they really need it.

A view of Belacava from the hotel.

At the spa, of which they are justifiably proud.

The Vegas Motor Show and the Crocodile Park

Over the past week I have had ample evidence that Mauritius has no OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Agency) department, and apparently liability lawsuits are not a big issue.  Last Sunday we went to the Vegas Motor Show, which has been held in a sectioned off part of the parking lot of our local shopping center - the Trianon Shopping Park.  This is the one we walk to about every other day, so attending this 'Major Event' was easy.  Because it is so expensive to ship over the cars, monster trucks and other vehicles for this show it arrived on the island on October 15th, and will be here through November 30th.  It was hilarious, and fairly lame by US standards.  The best part was that no one thinks about safety - they actually went and got people out of the audience (the prettiest girls), put them in the cars, and then drove them around on two wheels with these members of the audience inside.  Never would one see this in the US!

While we were there Sam had to go to the bathroom.  So - we walked to the entrance tent and asked the policeman where it was.  He looked at me and asked who had to go.  When I said it was Sam he told Sam to follow him, and they went around the tent.  Sam said he simply pointed to a spot and had him pee!  Awesome.  They people who ran the show also had audience members get into that big yellow truck you see in the above picture.

Car on two wheels.  They did this over and over and over and ......

So, on Friday of this week (a holiday - Divali, which will be the next post) we went to another non-OSHA non-approved location.  The Crocodile Park!  This was a very neat park that also had tortoises, bats and other assorted reptiles.  An excellent insect collection, too.  The best part was the tortoises, because you could just wander around amongst them, climb (!) on them and feed them.  Then, for a real treat, Sam got to hold a baby crocodile.  This park actually had some excellent educational exhibits, and it is amazing to realize that man managed to completely exterminate the tortoises from the neighboring island of Rodrigues in 80 years.  That species of tortoise is completely gone, and the ones in the breeding program at the park are from Madagascar. 

Riding the tortoise.  Poor things.

The biggest thrill was that the crocodile peed on Sam.   While he held it about fourteen French and German  tourists took pictures of him.

This is one of the old sugar cane train engines that were used on the estates to bring cane to the processing plants.  It had been moved to the crocodile park.

Sam in front of the fruit bat cage.  These bats are huge and are day flyers, and are pretty dang creepy.  They are spotted frequently in the Tamarin area, on the coast.

A Tuesday Holiday

Mauritius has a LOT of holidays.  They used to have even more, and then a few years ago the government told each major religon to get organized and pick the few they wanted, and then a few others got added too.  So, we get all the major religious events off - Eid, Easter, Christmas, Divali, Ganesh and Ougadi.  Today was the Holiday for the 'Arrival of the Indentured Labourers', which occurred 176 years ago.  The Indian indenture system started in the 1830s, when thousands of Indians were transported to Mauritius to provide labour for the sugar plantations.  The area where the ships arrived is a world heritage site, in Port Louis.

Since the boys did not have school we took a day long trip to the far northwest side of the island, to the very touristy spot of Grand Baie.  It was very nice, but it is very high end and built up, and thus does not look like most of Mauritius.

Grand Baie is the center for big time deep sea fishing, and the world record marlin was caught off this coast.  There are many charter companies along this section of the island.  Here are Will and Neya posing in front of one of the boats.  In the background you see a big catamaran, which is the boat we chartered for December 2nd, when we will all go on a day long cruise around the island.

Sorry - should have rotated this before I posted.  Here is Sam in front of some of the recent catch boards for deep sea fishing.  This one was for a 374 lb Black Marlin.  Other game fishes are tuna, skipjack, shark and marlin.

Will at Grand Baie.