Back in Mauritius-October 2018

We had to return to the U.S. for a few weeks for various reasons, but we returned about a week ago and moved into a different house. We have lots of room, so visitors are welcome! Here are some photos to give you an idea.

Our farmers market

The trees in bloom

A statue at the entrance

An entrance to the sacred lake that is linked to the Ganges River in India.

The beaches are still wonderful. We got new snorkeling masks, too!

Food in Mauritius

There are lots of unique aspects of Mauritius, but one of the most fascinating is the food. Mauritians import around 70% of what they eat because most of the arable land is dedicated to sugar cane. Consequently, we get food from Egypt, South Africa, Thailand, India, Australia, New Zealand, and lots of other places.



For example, this corn was imported from Thailand, but the "Barbecue sauce" (which is really ketchup or catsup) was manufactured here in Mauritius.

We do have fast-food. There's a KFC near our house and a McDonald's near our office.

If you don't recognize the non-English on this wrapper, don't worry. It is Mauritien, the unique language here that is a combination of many languages.

This popcorn was made in Malaysia, distributed by a company in Hong Kong, and imported into Mauritius.

The pickles came from France.

There 

Why we're in Mauritius

You may be wondering why we happen to be in this far away place. We came to help with a developing university called The American Campus. It is under the direction of a man who grew up here but now lives in Utah, together with many American backers including USU, DSU, and 3 other universities.

We were planning to teach classes here starting this month, but the work here is stalled and somewhat in disarray. The hardworking staff here have encountered problems like unsuitable classroom space, delays in local program approvals, lack of equipment and furniture, changes in plans by enrolled students, etc etc etc . . . which has left us without classes to teach, but on the bright side gives us more time to see the beautiful countryside and visit the beach!

Current plans are to support the ongoing development, teach some short courses, develop degree programs for January semester, and meanwhile help where we can in the 3 small branches here in the Mauritius District of the Madagascar Mission. What could be better?

Pioneer Day in Mauritius

One of the branches in our District had a delightful activity celebrating the pioneers last Saturday. We were so glad to be there. We had meetings so although we couldn't participate fully, we did get a few photos.

Holiday trip

Beverly at the beach

Because it was a holiday, we decided to take a drive to the southwestern corner of Mauritius. We didn't think to take our swimsuits, unfortunately. We visited some beaches before driving through the mountains, where we had lunch at a little mountaintop restaurant.

These photos are a fair representation of what we saw.

The beach, looking south

The mountain near the beach

A bay that reminded us of Oregon

The bay looking toward the ocean

Oceanside cliff

The wind!

The coast viewed from the mountain road

Typical traffic. All the cars on the left are parked,
leaving one lane open. But the car in the right lane
is also parked! 

Driving in Mauritius

I took this photo when I was stuck in traffic on what passes for the freeway here. The orange thing dangling in the upper left is an air freshener that came with the car.

Yes, we drive on the left side. Plus, we have a stick-shift. Fortunately, we've driven enough in Australia, New Zealand, and England that it's not too bad. Beverly and I always wants the other one to drive, but we are both okay drivers (compared to everyone else).

The biggest problem driving here is the narrow streets that are wide enough to be one-way streets but are actually two-way streets, complete with parked cars on both sides. You end up weaving most of the time, cooperating with oncoming traffic somehow, as you also dodge the people on motorcycles, the pedestrians, and the dogs that are everywhere.

I haven't taken any photos of the narrow streets, mainly because that's far too dangerous, but maybe next time Beverly drives somewhere I'll do that.

The most fun is when we're using Google maps and it says to turn but there's no road. Once it told us to turn into a cemetery that had a sign saying "authorized vehicles only" with closed gates. Another time it told us to turn into a bus station.

It's also fun when we're approaching one of the many round-abouts and Google says keep left, but then it turns out the left lane bypasses the round-about and we have to recalculate for the next 15 minutes.

Actually, it's amazing how well Google maps works here.

One other nice thing: most people observe traffic laws and lanes. Throughout the Middle-East and India, I've found that people ignore the lanes and consider the laws vague suggestions. I've been on divided highways in India where the occasional driver thinks both sides are two-way roads.

Also, people here use headlights, which is nice compared with countries where the people think the headlights are only for flashing when you're close. I'm told they think the lights take too much power and they don't use them to save gas.

Which makes sense, when gas is about $6/gallon.

Our branch in Mauritius

There are three branches of the Church here in Mauritius. All three are French-speaking, which is fine for me. Beverly is doing pretty well with French now, too.

All the members are very friendly. We feel at home already. The only problem we have is when they speak Creole. Some of the people switch back and forth all the time, which is difficult to follow so far (after less than one week here).

The two Elders assigned to our ward are from Tahiti and Australia. We're in the Madagascar mission, although we have our own district here on Mauritius. We went to dinner with the District President and his wife on our second night here. Very nice people from South Africa.

Our chapel is in one of the most beautiful settings I've ever seen for an LDS chapel. A stream runs through the property, flowing next to the chapel, so you drive across a small bridge to get to the parking area.

I'm sitting on the bridge here. You can barely see the chapel behind me because of all the foliage.

Beverly in front of our chapel

The stream running by our chapel

These dogs seem to like the Church grounds

Some of the members of our Elders Quorum.

Holiday in Mauritius

Here in Mauritius, religious holidays are celebrated by everyone, regardless of one's personal religion.

Today is a national holiday for the Assumption of Mary. Everyone has the day off, schools are closed, etc.

All the stores were selling blue cakes. Since they were on such a deal, of course we had to buy one.




Our condo is furnished with Christian features such as the clock on our wall in this photo. Our neighbors have other religious symbols and clothing, reflecting Chinese, Hindu and Muslim traditions.

The wording on the cake is "Vive Marie." Wikipedia explains the importance of the celebration:

The Assumption is important to many Catholic and Orthodox Christians as the Virgin Mary's heavenly birthday (the day that Mary was received into Heaven). Belief about her acceptance into the glory of Heaven is seen by some Christians as the symbol of the promise made by Jesus to all enduring Christians that they too will be received into paradise. 

We plan to respectfully participate in all the local celebrations, just as the locals do.

Maybe someday we can get July 24th, Pioneer Day, recognized.

:) 

First full day

We woke up early--the jet lag hasn't left us yet--and walked 1/2 mile to the beach. It was low tide so there were lots of exposed rocks and tide pools.

The beach goes on for miles and miles, bordered by the grove of trees. We see people swimming and fishing from the shore, but early in the morning, it was just us and a few other people walking along.

 Here the sun was shining through the trees. We're on the west coast. If you click on this photo to enlarge it, you can see the waves breaking at the reef along the horizon.

This sign says "Palmyra River" in French. It's the area where we live. In a way, we moved from Palmyra, NY to Palmyra, Mauritius.

Most of the crops here are sugar cane. The field behind me here is just weeds, an area that is being developed for more houses and condos.



This is a view from our apartment. The ocean blends into the horizon, but it's there.

:)

Last night we went to dinner with the District President and his wife (Church leaders) at a restaurant by the beach. Very nice and interesting people, originally from South Africa.

They've lived here 17 years and don't speak French. They say it's not a problem because almost everyone speaks English.

Beverly keeps asking why, if this was a British colony, everyone speaks French (or creole). They told us that many of the local people consider creole to be their native language, and there's a movement to teach creole in the schools (along with French and English), as well as to standardize creole spelling so people can write it more. We see very little written creole; all the signs are in French and/or English.

From the perspective of the youth, it seems like they would want to learn French and English because the only economic future is on a global basis. The main industries here are sugar cane (competing with Africa and Brazil, probably not the best idea), textiles (they don't grow cotton here but they import cloth and sew it into clothes) and tourism. Plus, there are call centers and other IT-related businesses.

We met a classroom of 7th graders who were all very friendly and smart. They were being taught in French, but they seemed to know English pretty well. Some of the people are difficult to understand when they speak English because thy're used to British English, not American, and when it's their second language, they have a heavy accent. It's interesting for me to talk with people in both languages. I can tell they are more comfortable and fluent in French (just the opposite of me, of course.)

More later.

Made it to Mauritius

We arrived in Mauritius Friday morning, but by the time we got through customs (we had to explain why we're staying 4 months, show invitation paper, etc.), got our luggage, got to our apartment, and then finally went to the beach, it was nearly 6 pm.

That means sunset here. 12 hours of light, 12 hours of dark, all year round.

This part of the island is surrounded by a reef that provides a lagoon at the beach. The waves are breaking at the reef, which is about at the horizon in this picture.


This photo is a close-up that shows the breaking waves far out to sea.

There is a grove of trees along the beach.  The beach, called Flic en Flac, extends for miles. Much of the sand is covered with broken pieces of coral, more than I've seen anywhere else in the world.





This is the first restaurant we ate at in Mauritius. It's basically a food truck, parked at the beach.

Made it to Dubai

We left Utah Wednesday morning. 24 hours later, we're in Dubai.

If you fly to Dubai,  I recommend leaving from Los Angeles because you get a more northerly route. We flew near the North Pole and I got some photos of the Arctic ice, as well as northern Greenland.  We flew over Moscow,  Tehran, the Caspian Sea, and lots more.

Because we were well above the Arctic circle,  it never got dark. On the map we could see nighttime in the US and southern Canada, but the entire flight was sunny until we arrived in Dubai.

Route map

Arctic ice

Mountain near Tehran

Moving to Mauritius

Famous underwater waterfall of Mauritius

We're moving to Mauritius on August 8 for the school year (August 2018 through May 2019).

We visited there in 2012, which is when we took the photo in the header of the blog. It's an awesome country, as you can see from the photos if you look online.

This blog will document some of the things we're doing. Mostly we'll be teaching, swimming, golfing, scuba diving, and reading/writing.

One of the first things you'll see online is the famous "underwater waterfall" of Mauritius. E.g., https://www.express.co.uk/travel/articles/771849/underwater-waterfall-mauritius
_____

In terms of Church activity, we understand there are two French-speaking branches and one English-speaking "group." We will probably attend the French-speaking branch near our house.

Antipodes

A fun fact is that Salt Lake City, where we currently live, is exactly half-way around the world. Mauritius is the "antipode" of Salt Lake City, meaning it's the farthest inhabited place on the planet. The place where we will be living is 17,526 kilometers from our house in Utah, which is about 10,900 miles.

The actual technical antipode of Salt Lake City is in the Indian Ocean, south of Mauritius about half-way to Antarctica, but there is no land there.

It seems strange to think that our new home is father from Salt Lake than Antarctica. When we visited Antarctica years ago, it seemed far enough!

We have an extra room if anyone wants to visit. Just be sure to let us know in advance because we're sure everyone we know is going to come over...