Dear dear children & grandchildren,
The muezzin called. Guess what? This morning, I did not hear him! I must be settling in. Indeed, slowly adjusting to a 12 hour time change, I had my first night’s sleep!
Going to bed, the same thought that has haunted me since my arrival here kept me passing in review various observations and oddities. It is sure one thing to come here with the eyes of a tourist strolling along the fine pure white sandy beaches basking under the hot tropical sun and bathing in the emerald blue sea of the lagoon. It is quite another to return as an unsettled settler facing reality looming large around every corner and across the horizon.
Drrriiinnngggg! The phone rings. I rush to it. It must be one of the children! Yeeesss! It is! It is the baby! I hear: “Hi Dad!” Krrrrric Krrroooccc! I have hardly time to answer: Hello baaabyyy! Hello? Hello? Heelloo? The line is dead! The phone rings again! But alas, this time, before I can even answer – the ring has crocked. Where am I? Oh yes! I must be in Curepipe, Mauritius! For an instant, at the joy of speaking to ‘baby’ I had left Mauritius. I had been instantly transported on the wings of a ring to the US where most of those dear to my heart are! With the crashing ring so did my dream. I am here in Curepipe, Mauritius. We are in 2005. Yet, in a flash I was flown back in time to Curepipe, Mauritius in the early 1900s. My grandfather, Pierre Adam was the first to introduce the radio in Mauritius. I remembered my father telling me how my grandfather would invite people at a set particular time to huddle around his one and only radio in Mauritius to try and snag to air waves diffusing the BBC news. Apparently more often than not, the guests heard a Krrriiiccc and a Krrroooccc over the air waves and the diffusion having failed the confusion reigned and the guests were told: “Well, sorry, the reception was not good today. There is too much static in the air today. We will have to try again another day! We are 100 years or so later. Apparently not much has changed! We will have to try again to hear not the BBC but ‘BB’ another day! So, what will I do now for the rest of the day? Walk! Walk to everywhere I need to go! Walk like people did 100 years ago! My grandfather was also the first person to own a car in Mauritius. He would be amazed to see how many cars plough and criss cross the streets of Curepipe today. But I cannot afford a car. Even if I could, I would find it very hard to reconcile myself to pay for a car here. Where is the bang for the buck? In this third world country with so many two tier systems, there is a price for a car for some and another price for others. If you belong to a certain privileged group, you can buy a car free of tax. If you do not, then you pay 100% tax on the purchase of a car. Thus, an old rusted 1991 Toyota with 200,000 miles sells for $7,000!!! That explains why I find so many ‘antique’ cars with square wheels and seemingly held together with scotch tape still running – excuse me crawling along the streets of Curepipe, Mauritius! I keep reminding myself that walking is good for me. Look out for dad by the time he comes back. He should be able to outrun a young buck.
As you know, animal life here abounds in the tropics. Especially here in this animal hospitable land. In fact so friendly to wild life that it was even once the only home of the Dodo! Unfortunately, the Dodo is today extinct. The cockroaches are not. This morning, I picked up my cup preparing to make my tea. In the bottom of my cup, there were some black granules? Coffee grains in my cup? Strange! Oh! No! Look! There under the micro wave. There goes the culprit. An enormous cockroach is peeking at me hoping that I did not see it. He must have confused my cup with a gargantuan toilet. Those granules in my cup are none other than his droplets! Thank God, I do not drink coffee. Otherwise, I might have thought that the maid had been overly attentive and had already prepared my cup for my morning coffee. However, thank God that even without coffee I was as usual wide awake at the crack of dawn. The world is now populated with one less cockroach. Problem is: how many more were born at the very time this one was no more? Tomorrow may tell us the rest of the story.
The muezzin called. Guess what? This morning, I did not hear him! I must be settling in. Indeed, slowly adjusting to a 12 hour time change, I had my first night’s sleep!
Going to bed, the same thought that has haunted me since my arrival here kept me passing in review various observations and oddities. It is sure one thing to come here with the eyes of a tourist strolling along the fine pure white sandy beaches basking under the hot tropical sun and bathing in the emerald blue sea of the lagoon. It is quite another to return as an unsettled settler facing reality looming large around every corner and across the horizon.
Drrriiinnngggg! The phone rings. I rush to it. It must be one of the children! Yeeesss! It is! It is the baby! I hear: “Hi Dad!” Krrrrric Krrroooccc! I have hardly time to answer: Hello baaabyyy! Hello? Hello? Heelloo? The line is dead! The phone rings again! But alas, this time, before I can even answer – the ring has crocked. Where am I? Oh yes! I must be in Curepipe, Mauritius! For an instant, at the joy of speaking to ‘baby’ I had left Mauritius. I had been instantly transported on the wings of a ring to the US where most of those dear to my heart are! With the crashing ring so did my dream. I am here in Curepipe, Mauritius. We are in 2005. Yet, in a flash I was flown back in time to Curepipe, Mauritius in the early 1900s. My grandfather, Pierre Adam was the first to introduce the radio in Mauritius. I remembered my father telling me how my grandfather would invite people at a set particular time to huddle around his one and only radio in Mauritius to try and snag to air waves diffusing the BBC news. Apparently more often than not, the guests heard a Krrriiiccc and a Krrroooccc over the air waves and the diffusion having failed the confusion reigned and the guests were told: “Well, sorry, the reception was not good today. There is too much static in the air today. We will have to try again another day! We are 100 years or so later. Apparently not much has changed! We will have to try again to hear not the BBC but ‘BB’ another day! So, what will I do now for the rest of the day? Walk! Walk to everywhere I need to go! Walk like people did 100 years ago! My grandfather was also the first person to own a car in Mauritius. He would be amazed to see how many cars plough and criss cross the streets of Curepipe today. But I cannot afford a car. Even if I could, I would find it very hard to reconcile myself to pay for a car here. Where is the bang for the buck? In this third world country with so many two tier systems, there is a price for a car for some and another price for others. If you belong to a certain privileged group, you can buy a car free of tax. If you do not, then you pay 100% tax on the purchase of a car. Thus, an old rusted 1991 Toyota with 200,000 miles sells for $7,000!!! That explains why I find so many ‘antique’ cars with square wheels and seemingly held together with scotch tape still running – excuse me crawling along the streets of Curepipe, Mauritius! I keep reminding myself that walking is good for me. Look out for dad by the time he comes back. He should be able to outrun a young buck.
As you know, animal life here abounds in the tropics. Especially here in this animal hospitable land. In fact so friendly to wild life that it was even once the only home of the Dodo! Unfortunately, the Dodo is today extinct. The cockroaches are not. This morning, I picked up my cup preparing to make my tea. In the bottom of my cup, there were some black granules? Coffee grains in my cup? Strange! Oh! No! Look! There under the micro wave. There goes the culprit. An enormous cockroach is peeking at me hoping that I did not see it. He must have confused my cup with a gargantuan toilet. Those granules in my cup are none other than his droplets! Thank God, I do not drink coffee. Otherwise, I might have thought that the maid had been overly attentive and had already prepared my cup for my morning coffee. However, thank God that even without coffee I was as usual wide awake at the crack of dawn. The world is now populated with one less cockroach. Problem is: how many more were born at the very time this one was no more? Tomorrow may tell us the rest of the story.
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