Saturday in Rose Hill

Rose Hill (say it like this:  RozzHeull, all as one word) is a suburb close to where we live in Quatre Bornes.  It is an older neighborhood, and is not touristy at all.  It is a Mauritian area solely for Mauritians.  It is a town where people go to shop, see the dentist, buy their bakery cakes and just do all the day-to-day things people do.  It is chock filled with small locally owned shops in a rabbit warren of alleys and roads.  Shops selling saris, charudas, really ugly plastic flowers, dieties, jewlery, drugs, shoes (lots and lots of shoes), fabric and pretty much anything else you might want or need.  On Saturday we hopped the bus for the short ride to the Rose Hill station, and then walked up to meet Matt, Anna and Daniel at a carbon and environment festival.  The festival was sort of dull, so we decided to walk home to Quatre Bornes, a distance of around 3 miles or so.  All of these pictures were taken on our walk. 

The picture above is a noodle stand in Rose Hill.  They are everywhere, and while my food cleanliness standards have dropped dramatically (my morning breakfast now is food off the back of a bicycle at the local grocery - samosas) the noodle stands still give me pause.  Environmentally, they are pretty cool - reusable bowls and forks, and you just sit there, eat your noodles and then return the bowl.

These are in every public square.  Since folks will pretty much stop anywhere, spread out a blanket and sell stuff these are intended to stop that. 

Sam at the entrance to old pharmacy in Rose Hill.  I think I may have described these before, but you may be able to see in the picture that everything is behind a case.  You tell the counter person what you want, and they get it for you.  No picking through the selection here.  The poster is for the 'Vegas Motor Show' which is currently being held in the shopping center near us (The Shop Rite - one we walk to at least twice a week).  We are going this weekend - they have a Monster Truck! (Whee.) 

I took this in our neighborhood today.  It's not raining - it is just really sunny and all the ladies have brought out umbrellas.  Today was the first hottish (85 or so) day that we have had.  Living in the center of the island like we do we are at least 10 degrees cooler and we have more rain.  This picture is just around the corner from our house.  I'm headed back from the SuperUnic, our local grocery store - buying bread.  Bread stays fresh for 6 hours and then it is pretty much awful.

Back at Rose Hill.  A bakery.

Will and Sam doing a pose for me on the main street of Rose Hill.  The storefront they are standing by is typical of Rose Hill- everything is just a bit older and worn.  I really like Rose Hill - no pretension here at all.