Dear Children & Grand Children,
I want to begin my days with God and with you all as often as I can. Again this was made easier today as the day started at 4:15 AM. As I was woken by the morning chant:
Aaalllaaah – hmmmm – Bissmilllaaaahhhh – Aaaahhh…
This chant by the muezzin asking God to bless us all at the start of a new day has quickly become my new alarm clock!
A chant by the muezzin in the middle of a well populated town followed shortly by the numerous Cococoricooooes of the cocks also crowing to announce the start of a new day? - Am I dreaming or am I awake? Where can I possibly be? Oooh! Yes! I must be in Mauritius! In but a few hours of flying, how so very far removed am I from Bellevue and my standard frames of reference? But, no matter where I am, I am near you because God is near us all!
Remember, I am in a well populated town! I walk by the side of the narrow road carefully watching every step and the very busy traffic of cars, trucks and loud colorful derelict busses belching out clouds of thick dark diesel smoke. On edge, I look out for both where and into what world I am possibly stepping while also scoping what is coming ahead? All of a sudden, I count one, two, … ten, fifteen, oh, I have lost count, there must be at least twenty wild erring dogs walking in procession weaving their way among and between the heavy traffic. My heart misses a bit, soon there will be dog meat all over the city street! Poor, poor Patta, she would have been run over eons ago. But these dogs are like street kids – They are survivors! Wow! Look out! I shout! But the leading dog as if with a sixth sense had already applied its brakes hard and then leaning to the right, it veered sharply to try and avoid the big red bus bearing down on the pack. The unperturbed driver of the big red bus did not even release his foot off the accelerator for a split second. The bus held on its course as it belched a continuous thick cloud of dark smoke. What happened? Had all the dogs followed their leader in taking that life saving quick evasive action? I heard no yelpings. The cloud of smoke cleared. The dogs were all safely still marching ahead heading for the Cash & Carry supermarket in quest for a second course of early morning breakfast. They had retrieved their first course out of an overflowing garbage bin. Where am I? What kind of dogs are these? Oh! Yes! I must be in Curepipe, Mauritius - Here multi ethnicity is not restricted to people but also to dogs. Indeed in that pack of dogs I could not single out two of them that shared the same breed or color! But all those wily bastards stood firm together shoulder to shoulder!!!
My fifteen minute walk, has brought me safely deep in the center of town. Thank God, I made it into the heart of Curepipe!
Oh! But where are all the skyscrapers, the clean tall glass buildings rising towards the sky? Where are all the window cleaners hanging alongside the buildings making sure that everything looks immaculate every day? All I see and smell rising here are the fumes from the buses and the varied perfumes from the cooking stalls. Where am I? I must be in Curepipe, Mauritius - Where it is not only the people and the dogs that show a wide array of colors but many a single building structure displays a kaleidoscope of colors. Oh! Yeah! Look at that one for example. I wonder what was its original color and when will it be finally completed? I wonder how long has it stood fully occupied in that state of seemingly permanent ‘unfinish’, like so many of its neighbors? What will be its single color if it ever gets one? Will time, sun and weather finally give it a uniform shade or will it ever even if were to last for a short while get covered with a single coat of Permoglaze paint? I understand that the climate, the UV rays, the rain and the humidity must work havoc on color schemes here. So maybe people have stopped interfering. Maybe for now and forever building owners rely on nature to give to each and every building a variety of shades ranging from off white to an even somber most uneven gray intermingled with stripes of dark black mildew marred with streaks of light and increasingly brown rusty rivers of leaching rust descending down each face of the building! Wow! Even the world famous architects of the most modern multicolored EMP building in downtown Seattle could not have in their wildest dreams come up with a color scheme to remotely match the somber if not sober colorful buildings found here!
But, yes, I am in downtown Curepipe. Here, I cannot afford to be at all discriminating! Even The Ritz sports a different ‘Ritzy’ look. So, I better enjoy it for what it is! Can I? Will I? Time will tell! Instead of looking at the multi-colored dogs or buildings, I now choose to gaze at the multi-colored people and the ‘tremendous’ opportunity that exists to make it really big here!
I am once again, on my way to Mauritius Telecom offices meandering through low arcades filled with high hopes where the multitude is all eager to make and to shout for a buck! What a wide variety of opportunity exists here? Indeed I can smell success along every impasse and arcade corner! (Note everything in life is relative) Look at this guy here for example – He is hustling his ‘gateaux piments, his faratas and his dahl pourris’ all being freshly cooked in a basin of burning hot oil right there on the street curb. Should Starbucks be envious? How ingenious? He pays no rent. Wow! He is creating a compelling road block on the side walk! How can I miss him? As I am trying to thread my way between the people moving about like an army of ants, that very industrious street vendor has spotted me. His job is no longer to cook. In an instant, he has transformed himself from being a cordon bleu chef to being one of the most ardent disciples of Elmer Wheeler. Indeed, he is a born salesman! He has to be. After all, his very survival depends entirely on his cooking and selling skills to survive in this most competitive society. I am a mug. Rather than be mugged, I fall for it. But, we are both in a hurry. In a jiffy we have exchanged goods. He has a few rupees from me, I am taking a bite of his chili bites! Oh! They are hot. But so is everything else here including the weather and the service!
I finally make it to Mauritius Telecom. After standing in a long line, I ask the lady dressed in her bright colorful sari if I can get fast internet connection ADSL? Oh! No problem at all she says! We can work on it right away. I am elated. Within hours I should be online! To confirm my hope I ask: How long exactly will it take? Where am I? I must be in Curepipe, Mauritius. Here fast speed ‘online’ connection does not necessarily mean that I will be connected to the service very fast. In fact, now that I am hooked, the lady with a smile has a new line. It will only take between 2/3 weeks to get my ADSL line. But you know – That depends – It can also take less time. I have been gone from Mauritius for 40 years. So I am entitled to pretend that I do not know what she means? Yet I remember that here fast service equates to fast underhand buck! I’ll wait!
I leave the Mauritius Telecom offices and I wander further down Main street. Some things have not changed. The sign: Raoul Caustat Tailor is still boldly advertising the services of our tailor who started making our school uniforms and suits back in 1956!
It is indeed reassuring to think and to know that other things around me have not changed! I am hot and head back to the flat. I need to go to the bathroom. I hope I can make it. No Mickey Macs, Burger Kings, Denny’s or gas stations offering clean bathrooms around every corner here! I make it home. Once in the bathroom I realize that some things do not change. At home in Bellevue, I had to open and close the water before and after each flush in our bathroom. I have to do it here too! Otherwise the water leaks. So, for now, while I am leaking all these day to day impressions over to you, I find comfort that possibly in time I will succeed to flush out all these oddities and truly re-become a down hearted Mauritian but a down hard one with renewed lifted up spirits!
And, I say to myself: “Louis, look up to the heavens and I note that the gray cold skies of Bellevue are gone, that the bluest skies I’ll ever see are – Yes, in Curepipe, Mauritius under the bright burning hot tropical sun! Was all I saw just a mirage then? If so, then where are my children and grandchildren? Oh! Yes! They are everywhere I am. They are constantly in my heart!
I want to begin my days with God and with you all as often as I can. Again this was made easier today as the day started at 4:15 AM. As I was woken by the morning chant:
Aaalllaaah – hmmmm – Bissmilllaaaahhhh – Aaaahhh…
This chant by the muezzin asking God to bless us all at the start of a new day has quickly become my new alarm clock!
A chant by the muezzin in the middle of a well populated town followed shortly by the numerous Cococoricooooes of the cocks also crowing to announce the start of a new day? - Am I dreaming or am I awake? Where can I possibly be? Oooh! Yes! I must be in Mauritius! In but a few hours of flying, how so very far removed am I from Bellevue and my standard frames of reference? But, no matter where I am, I am near you because God is near us all!
Remember, I am in a well populated town! I walk by the side of the narrow road carefully watching every step and the very busy traffic of cars, trucks and loud colorful derelict busses belching out clouds of thick dark diesel smoke. On edge, I look out for both where and into what world I am possibly stepping while also scoping what is coming ahead? All of a sudden, I count one, two, … ten, fifteen, oh, I have lost count, there must be at least twenty wild erring dogs walking in procession weaving their way among and between the heavy traffic. My heart misses a bit, soon there will be dog meat all over the city street! Poor, poor Patta, she would have been run over eons ago. But these dogs are like street kids – They are survivors! Wow! Look out! I shout! But the leading dog as if with a sixth sense had already applied its brakes hard and then leaning to the right, it veered sharply to try and avoid the big red bus bearing down on the pack. The unperturbed driver of the big red bus did not even release his foot off the accelerator for a split second. The bus held on its course as it belched a continuous thick cloud of dark smoke. What happened? Had all the dogs followed their leader in taking that life saving quick evasive action? I heard no yelpings. The cloud of smoke cleared. The dogs were all safely still marching ahead heading for the Cash & Carry supermarket in quest for a second course of early morning breakfast. They had retrieved their first course out of an overflowing garbage bin. Where am I? What kind of dogs are these? Oh! Yes! I must be in Curepipe, Mauritius - Here multi ethnicity is not restricted to people but also to dogs. Indeed in that pack of dogs I could not single out two of them that shared the same breed or color! But all those wily bastards stood firm together shoulder to shoulder!!!
My fifteen minute walk, has brought me safely deep in the center of town. Thank God, I made it into the heart of Curepipe!
Oh! But where are all the skyscrapers, the clean tall glass buildings rising towards the sky? Where are all the window cleaners hanging alongside the buildings making sure that everything looks immaculate every day? All I see and smell rising here are the fumes from the buses and the varied perfumes from the cooking stalls. Where am I? I must be in Curepipe, Mauritius - Where it is not only the people and the dogs that show a wide array of colors but many a single building structure displays a kaleidoscope of colors. Oh! Yeah! Look at that one for example. I wonder what was its original color and when will it be finally completed? I wonder how long has it stood fully occupied in that state of seemingly permanent ‘unfinish’, like so many of its neighbors? What will be its single color if it ever gets one? Will time, sun and weather finally give it a uniform shade or will it ever even if were to last for a short while get covered with a single coat of Permoglaze paint? I understand that the climate, the UV rays, the rain and the humidity must work havoc on color schemes here. So maybe people have stopped interfering. Maybe for now and forever building owners rely on nature to give to each and every building a variety of shades ranging from off white to an even somber most uneven gray intermingled with stripes of dark black mildew marred with streaks of light and increasingly brown rusty rivers of leaching rust descending down each face of the building! Wow! Even the world famous architects of the most modern multicolored EMP building in downtown Seattle could not have in their wildest dreams come up with a color scheme to remotely match the somber if not sober colorful buildings found here!
But, yes, I am in downtown Curepipe. Here, I cannot afford to be at all discriminating! Even The Ritz sports a different ‘Ritzy’ look. So, I better enjoy it for what it is! Can I? Will I? Time will tell! Instead of looking at the multi-colored dogs or buildings, I now choose to gaze at the multi-colored people and the ‘tremendous’ opportunity that exists to make it really big here!
I am once again, on my way to Mauritius Telecom offices meandering through low arcades filled with high hopes where the multitude is all eager to make and to shout for a buck! What a wide variety of opportunity exists here? Indeed I can smell success along every impasse and arcade corner! (Note everything in life is relative) Look at this guy here for example – He is hustling his ‘gateaux piments, his faratas and his dahl pourris’ all being freshly cooked in a basin of burning hot oil right there on the street curb. Should Starbucks be envious? How ingenious? He pays no rent. Wow! He is creating a compelling road block on the side walk! How can I miss him? As I am trying to thread my way between the people moving about like an army of ants, that very industrious street vendor has spotted me. His job is no longer to cook. In an instant, he has transformed himself from being a cordon bleu chef to being one of the most ardent disciples of Elmer Wheeler. Indeed, he is a born salesman! He has to be. After all, his very survival depends entirely on his cooking and selling skills to survive in this most competitive society. I am a mug. Rather than be mugged, I fall for it. But, we are both in a hurry. In a jiffy we have exchanged goods. He has a few rupees from me, I am taking a bite of his chili bites! Oh! They are hot. But so is everything else here including the weather and the service!
I finally make it to Mauritius Telecom. After standing in a long line, I ask the lady dressed in her bright colorful sari if I can get fast internet connection ADSL? Oh! No problem at all she says! We can work on it right away. I am elated. Within hours I should be online! To confirm my hope I ask: How long exactly will it take? Where am I? I must be in Curepipe, Mauritius. Here fast speed ‘online’ connection does not necessarily mean that I will be connected to the service very fast. In fact, now that I am hooked, the lady with a smile has a new line. It will only take between 2/3 weeks to get my ADSL line. But you know – That depends – It can also take less time. I have been gone from Mauritius for 40 years. So I am entitled to pretend that I do not know what she means? Yet I remember that here fast service equates to fast underhand buck! I’ll wait!
I leave the Mauritius Telecom offices and I wander further down Main street. Some things have not changed. The sign: Raoul Caustat Tailor is still boldly advertising the services of our tailor who started making our school uniforms and suits back in 1956!
It is indeed reassuring to think and to know that other things around me have not changed! I am hot and head back to the flat. I need to go to the bathroom. I hope I can make it. No Mickey Macs, Burger Kings, Denny’s or gas stations offering clean bathrooms around every corner here! I make it home. Once in the bathroom I realize that some things do not change. At home in Bellevue, I had to open and close the water before and after each flush in our bathroom. I have to do it here too! Otherwise the water leaks. So, for now, while I am leaking all these day to day impressions over to you, I find comfort that possibly in time I will succeed to flush out all these oddities and truly re-become a down hearted Mauritian but a down hard one with renewed lifted up spirits!
And, I say to myself: “Louis, look up to the heavens and I note that the gray cold skies of Bellevue are gone, that the bluest skies I’ll ever see are – Yes, in Curepipe, Mauritius under the bright burning hot tropical sun! Was all I saw just a mirage then? If so, then where are my children and grandchildren? Oh! Yes! They are everywhere I am. They are constantly in my heart!
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