Water Tank Fairies

Hotness.  The past few days have been the gorgeous, sticky, tropical summer days that make the tourists flock here when it gets cold and grey up  in the North.  I love to see the happy, sun-dazed and rather sun-burned tourists that wander up and down the streets.  You can tell they are getting their daily sun, water and palm tree dose – exactly what the brochures advertise.

On Friday we ran out of water. 

Climbing on top of our water pump box and unscrewing the large cap on top of the tank to peer inside, I noticed that there was only a small puddle on the bottom.  Our water tank was empty and there was no water coming in to fill it up. 

I called our gardener to come and check on the situation.  He seemed nervous after looking inside the tank and told me to wait until Saturday morning.  He then explained that due to the increase in tourists, the lack of daily rain waters and the high degrees of daily heat, the main water lines to private houses might have been shut off during the day so that the hotels and sugar farmers would have enough water.

Saturday morning came and Saturday morning went with no increase in water levels during the night.  We were given the key to the owner’s house next door so that we could take showers and use the toilet.

While walking across the lawn to the neighbors and carrying my little travel bag of shampoo and soap and with my towel tossed across my shoulder, I tried to think of this little excursion like that of going to a locker room or to the shared bathroom in the college dorm. 

But, it still felt strange to be taking a shower in our 85-year-old proprietor’s winter home.  Getting into the house proved to be rather tricky because like most South Africans and many others here, he had installed cage door gates and bars on all the doors and windows.  It takes a while to unlock and open everything up.

The Frenchman refused the offer and decided that our swimming pool would become his temporary sweaty-body rinse off which was fine by me.  A splash of water from an Evian bottle would work just as well considering that the moment you dry off from the shower, you’re sweating just as quickly once more.

After my rapid splash down, the gardener was still with the plumber examining all the hoses to and from the tank.  There didn’t seem to be any leaks.  And so we were told, once more, to wait until after Saturday night to see if the water levels had increased.

On Sunday morning I went out to the tank and was excited to hear the tiny drip-drip of water coming into the tank.  I turned the pump back on and we were able to take rapid showers and even flush a toilet or two.

We spent the majority of the day at a beach by our house.  While snorkeling, we saw a few sea snakes and schools of black and white stripes swimming in the pink coral chunks.  When we returned home the drip-drip of water had stopped and the tank remained painfully low.

As of this morning, we still have very low levels and no one seems to know the reason why.  This has never happened before and we haven’t been using any more water than we usually do.  Perhaps the recent electrical work that was done caused a change in water pressure or maybe there is a break in a main water line. 

With all of the recent and late season rain water we received in October and November, it seems odd that the reserves would suddenly be low.  But, who knows.  All I know is that I’ll probably never know the exact reason why because that’s just how it is here.

I am now practicing water patience and hope that the water tank fairies pay us a visit soon.

Cosby and His Pudding

I just had one of those discussions where after I was driving away I thought, “Oh god.  Did I just really say that?!”

Granted, this is not a new experience for me.  Us uber-talkers tend to run north to south and back again with the mouth on any given day.  Our discussion map doesn’t really follow any set line or pattern.  We go where the vibe leads us and that’s exactly what I just did with a 17-year old French teenager.

A month or so ago I agreed to meet weekly with Cool-French-Kid to help him practice his English speaking skills.  In the beginning we were pretty diligent about picking a movie or an article out of Newsweek to discuss, but lately our talk sessions have started to resemble gossip fests and I think I’m the one to blame.

I always start out by asking Cool-French-Kid how his week at school went down.  He tells me all about his classes, tests and what his friends back in France are up to and how much he misses them. 

He’s starting to prepare to enter the French university system, which I still cannot get my head around, and he has tons of practice exams and other regular exams that he has to study for in addition to completing his normal course load.

On many Saturdays he and his entire class have to be at the school at 8 a.m. to take 3+ hour practice exams in such subjects as Economics or English.  When I first heard about this, I said quite simply, “Man. That totally sucks,” which caused him to laugh.

I actually make him laugh quite a bit which I hope is a good thing and a sign that he’s getting more confident and comfortable in his English speaking abilities.  It could just be that he finds me to be totally obnoxious and ridiculous, but it wouldn’t matter.  I take it in stride.

Cool-French-Kid has the most awesome hair and this is one of his elements of coolness.  I don’t know how he does it, but it’s some sort of funked-out bit of fabulousness that I’m extremely jealous about.  Lots of the teenage boys on the island sport this style of supposed randomness.

Today, for some reason the topic went from parties in Mauritius to clubs in Mauritius to what the kids are drinking at parties in Mauritius to vodka to Bill Cosby to Jello-shots.  The entire stream of conversation was primarily controlled by cool-French-kid up until the bit about Bill and the Jell-o.

Of course he had no clue when I asked him if he knew who Bill Cosby was.  Why the hell would a 17 year old cool-kid teenager from France with awesome hair know or care who Bill Cosby was? 

But, boy was he interested in the Jell-o shots.  I should have stopped.  I should have said something like drinking will kill you and destroy your life.  But seriously, he’s French, smart and just too cool.  I wasn’t going to try to back-paddle up my jell-o-ee creek.

Out came the laptop and we spent the rest of our time checking out the flavors of Jell-o on their website and searching for Jell-o shot recipes. 

I think I passed on an important bit of American culture to Cool-French-Kid.  He now knows all about Bill, pudding pops and Jell-o that wiggles.  The word ‘Wiggles’ was a new vocabulary addition to him as was the word ‘gelatinous’.  So, thank you very much proper teacher people.  I, too, can introduce new vocabulary into day-to-day conversations.

He’s going to try to locate this mysterious Jell-o when he heads back to France for his winter holidays, but I have also now been tasked with bringing him back some boxes after I return from Minnesota from my own ‘winter in the Northern hemisphere’ break.

I told him I would do it, but only if he promised me that he wouldn’t try to make the shots before he turned 18 in July.  18 years old is the legal drinking age in France.

Again, more laughing.  Hey, hey, hey.

It breaks my heart

It’s another cloudy morning on the island.  Where is all that bright sunshine that we had last year at this same time? 

Tonight, I’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving by teaching my yoga class.  I’ve decided to instruct on a sequence that includes all of my least favorite poses with emphasis on trying to find comfort while in the pose and moving through the sequence with a happy heart.

The Frenchman and I were discussing last night over dinner how much both of us have grown and changed during our time here. And it’s cool to look back and see how many of our big frustrations have become nothing much at all.

One of the more interesting things I find within myself is that I no longer seem to be able to view current events back in the States with just a one-way perspective.  What’s even more shocking to me is that I’m able to admit that I used to do just that even though I used to think that my views and attitudes were the open and free ones. 

But, it just seems too close-minded and simple these days to pretend that I have all the answers.  The more I get to experience people who are not like myself, the more I am able to better understand and take the time to listen to those that used to seem so different from me back in the States.

It breaks my heart to read all about the bickering and squabbling that Americans are doing amongst themselves.  It really does.  Since I’ve been gone, I’ve entered into a new love affair with my country.  It’s perplexing and saddening to witness the great divisions within American from abroad.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and family back in the States.  Tonight, I will send my happiness to you in thanks for having had the amazing opportunities to have you all in my life.

I appreciate and respect each of you.

Golf Glove Fantasies

Boy, did we try.

Saturday and Sunday saw us participate in what has become one of our weekend rituals – playing the sport of golf.  Playing may or may not be the most accurate verb to describe what we do/did, but we did find ourselves on the golf course with clubs in hand.

Things always start out in such a positive light.  Morning breaks and regardless of the weather, we pack up the truck and make the hour-long drive from the North over to the East to Belle Mare.  If the weather is fine and we can secure a decent rate, we’ll usually stay Saturday night at one of the resorts located on that coastal stretch of island. 

But, alas it’s ‘high season’ and rates have spiked; therefore, our golf game on Saturday was the simple 18 followed by a light spot of kitesurf for the Frenchman.  I hope the tourists get the bang for the buck they are spending to come here for their holidays during this ’high season’ because I’ve felt terrible for those that have arrived over these past few months.

We have had quite the bizarre spring and early summer with tons and tons of rain. There hasn’t been that much sun and those wekends when we did stay at the resort, I found most of the tourists looking either super upset, slightly depressed or jolly and drunk (what else are you going to do when it rains for days and days?).  

Days of non-stop rain to slug through are not exactly what you sign up for when you book your 12-hour each way flight from Europe to the island.  I can imagine the back to work conversations that some people must have had once they returned:

Bob:  How was your tropical holiday that you spent months saving up for?

Bill:  We spent most of the time in our room watching TV and getting totally smashed at the hotel bar.

Bob:  How was that any different from what you do here?

There has been much more rain and cloudy days than I remember having at this exact same time last year.  In fact, the first cyclone has already arrived.  Mauritius just experienced the feather-tipped ends of a tiny one that hovered over the island of Rodrigues for a few days.

So now the rampant topic du jour is how horrible this cyclone season will be because it’s technically already started.  The only thing I usually contribute to these conversations is that I really don’t want to experience a full-blown cyclone while living here and you can never predict the weather. 

I think we get a lot of rain during the winter season and winter is what they refer to as the ‘dry season’.  All the rain makes the roads a mess and causes that lovely mold to appear in the house.  Not to mention that things have also started to rust due to the great amount of moisture in the air.  The bolts on our coffee table that we brought over from the States have started to tinge brown as have some kitchen knives. 

I can’t even image what a full-blown cyclone would do to people’s houses, downtown Port Louis and the golf courses here.  There has been so much rain lately, that a few weekends ago the front nine to one of the Belle Mare courses was actually closed for playing because the fairways were too soaked with water.

But, this weekend the sun gods decided to come out and shine down on us while we attempted to play golf.  To be fair, we’ve come a long way since we first started playing way back in January.  But, after all the lessons and playing, shouldn’t we be somewhat semi-pro by now?  Lifelong golfers – please keep your laughing to a muffled roar.

On Saturday we played at Belle Mare and things didn’t go too badly.  In fact I think we were both pretty pleased with ourselves.  Totally awesome and rocking in all things golf, we most certainly were not.  But we were pretty consistent and did manage to have some great shots. 

It’s become all about the individual shot for me.   I can’t stand to see it through to view my progress via hole by hole.  And forget front 9 vs. back 9.  I have to keep it simple with a shot by shot, somewhat decent vs. what-the-heck-just-happened situational analysis.  Anything greater than that or by actually trying to ‘play the game’ in the manner in which it was created would produce an unbearable crushing sense of defeat.

Sunday brought with it a new golf adventure and only a small amount of rain sprinkles.  We played at a new course on the West coast that we have never played.  Thinking back to yesterday, we really had no business swinging our clubs and wearing shoes with soft-tip spikes at the course known as Tamarina. 

Tamarina is the type of place that tries really hard to be an exclusive members-only club and succeeds.  We were only allowed to play because we knew someone who knew someone that something or other. 

The first thing I noticed when we pulled up is that it’s a gated community with some REALLY nice houses.  These are the type of investment purchase that only the really elite can even think about having.  Each house has its own private, slate-tiled pool with numerous verandahs for sunning and dining.  The groovy undulating facade of each house is made up of many little structures all connected via Pacific island style, pitched tropical-straw roofs.

Everything about them screams ‘exotic priveledge’ and I spent more time gazing and day-dreaming about what it would be like to live in one rather than focusing on my game.  Perhaps this is why I only really played half-hearted that day.  Or maybe it was because the course itself is situated at the base of some gorgeous mountains whose natural beauty forced me to pull out my camera at every hole.

I stopped counting how many shots it was taking me to reach the green.  I was too busy experiencing the day by pretending to live in some far-flung fantasy that I only really came back into the game when I noticed the Frenchman heading, or I should say falling, into some huge sand traps.  They were so massively deep and wide that going into them was kind of like adventure hiking in the dessert.

The day ended with the Frenchman completely depleted of spirit and energy and me content to have played ‘make believe’.  Almost every person I saw that day on the course and in the clubhouse was Chinese and so my golf out-of-body experience had me wondering what it would be like to be married to a ridiculously rich Chinese CEO and coming to Mauritius for a few months out of the year to check on my holiday house.

Naturally, I would be a wonderful golfer because I would play every day with my troop of Tamarina ladies and that would make the Frenchman, whom I would have hired as the pool guy, really rather jealous.  snicker.

The puzzling rub of the rupee

In 2007 an anti-corruption group in India developed a rather creative way to help people ‘just say no’ to corruption.

The ‘5th Pillar’ as the group is known printed some 25,000 rupee notes that had the official Mahatma Gandhi and design on the face of the note and a mission statement about anti-corruption on the other side.

The goal of this initiative was to allow ordinary citizens at all levels of society to take a stand without provoking  a confrontation with people in authority.

When I first read about this via the British ‘Times Online’, I was kind of thinking it was a bit of a joke.  Printing and distributing fake money with a mission statement on it that people could hand over to  police officers or other government officials that want to be ‘taken care of’ just seemed odd to me.

Why couldn’t people just say, “Screw off.  Just give me the ticket and let me be on my way”?

Corruption happens all day, every day in all places everywhere – no doubt.  I guess as a dreamy-eyed, milk-fed midwest American (ooo…look there’s another pretty colored temple), I just had never really experienced it in any real way before.

Do police officers here ask for bribes?  Perhaps.  I’ve personally never been asked, but I have also never been pulled over while driving.  I have, however, heard many the tale of others that have been pulled over and given a ‘have a nice day’ without any tickets or warnings after having palmed off a 500 rupee note.

But, if I ever was asked to pay a little extra to have my application approved, my contract signed, my construction project finished or my goods delivered, I’d probably comply.  That’s just seems to be how it goes down and when you’ve already waited for what seems like an eternity for something to get done or to be delivered, the extra bit of cash out of hand starts to feel like a VAT.  You’re not happy to pay it, but you pay it because you know you must if progress is to be made.

Call it bribes, kickbacks  or a gentle greasing of the palm, it’s definitely not right.  But, when everyone is doing it and no one is questioning it head-on, the general vibe about it all seems to settle into one of total normalcy.  And normal is good, right?

Boat shaking and water boiling can only lead to change.  Change will certainly come with chaos.  And chaos, as everyone knows, most certainly leads to some sort of unhappiness.  And when life is already hard enough, why be confrontational and create more chances for unhappiness?  

If the local cultural sense is to not want to provoke confrontation, I feel I made the fatal error of working here – I was confrontational with heaping armfuls of boiling water.

I foolishly thought that by being rather straight-forward and direct about issues and problems that were encountered during the project I was helping to lead would trigger the same sort of responses I was used to having back in America.  Identify issues and find solutions.

Heck no.  People did not like it and found my attitude to be aggressive, rude and confrontational.  Rather, ‘American-like’, if you will.

But, I refused to change my methods and that was my mistake.  I now realize that progressive change towards a more transparent way of doing things while having open and honest communication about issues can only happen here if you avoid conflict and confrontation.

And that’s the rub.  How in the world do you bring up issues with the hopes of working towards resolution when everyone you work with finds it to be confrontational and negative to have discussions about such things?

I wish I was one of those expats that was sent over from a large international corporation that has an entire staff of people devoted to helping expats relocate and settle into their new communities and work environments.  Maybe then I would have been given some up-front training and advice.  But, that’s not how my dice were rolled.

Looking back, I would definitely do many things differently.  And maybe by throwing myself directly into the funeral fire and later watching myself slowly burn, I developed even better skills than what I could have learned from an out-of-date powerpoint presentation and a lady in HR that has never left the country. 

There’s just that tiny voice in the back of my head that’s so hard to shut off saying, “It could be done quicker, better and more efficiently if it all went down like this.  I know.  Trust me.  I’ve experienced this exact same thing using these methods and success was achieved.”

But why should the crazy, loud, red-faced, really negative lady be trusted?  All she does is bring up issues and problems.  It’s stressful and not positive at all.

Eureka.  Step gently my expat friends.  It’s back to Bob and the baby steps.