Weather as Entertainment

On the island, a storm with lots of thunder and lightning was causing all sorts of problems (electricity on/off/on, internet on/off/on); and on the east coast back in the States, there was a crazy snow blizzard. 

Is it global warming or are satellites from space controlling the weather?  Or am I just WAY too aware of the weather these days?

In the almost two years since I have lived here, I don’t ever recall hearing the rumble of thunder nor seeing the bright, white flashes of lightning until recently.  The northern part of the island got thumped pretty hard from this storm and it was a bit of a thrill.

You know you’re hard up on choices for entertainment or lacking in areas of any real responsibility when watching the clouds move through the sky becomes a part of your daily list of things to do. 

From all of this cloud gazing, I feel pretty confident in my ability to tell if that grey mass in the sky will be just a quick shower or if it’s going to produce an all-day downpour.  When it rains and it’s still sunny, I really have no clue; but I do enjoy the rainbows as a result.

There are many rainbows in Mauritius and I have been lucky enough to see both ends along with the full arch, which is pretty cool, on more than one occasion.

But, trying to prepare ahead by checking the weather on-line here is just kind of useless to me.  After getting used to the fact that the weather moves counterclockwise (hello, southern hemisphere of the world), I still don’t get much useful information from viewing satellite images for the area.  

When I used to check the weather regularly on-line, I would see large masses of clouds and various storm formations moving towards Mauritius, but then, where exactly was Mauritius among all that white cloudiness? 

It’s so tiny that by the time you zoom in to see if anything is really happening, the entire country is either completely covered by a giant cloud mass or is about to MAYBE be hit by any variation of potential cloud groupings. 

And what happens on the ground is dependent on the speed in which the storms move across the ocean and ‘the edge of the storm’ can also have a big impact.  These things are lost on me and I fear that any ambitions I might have to be a round-the-world sailor, will not be coming true any time soon.

There can also be huge differences in the weather on any given day in various places on the island.  The satellite image will show a cloud mass over the island or about to touch the island and it will be pouring rain in Port Louis, but up in the north it will be dry and sunny.  For such a small land mass, it still amazes me that there can be these types of variations from place to place at the same time.

The mountain areas tend to get more rain than other parts of the island; but I must say and from my own personal experience that the north, which is considered to be one of the driest parts of the island, does get quite a bit of rain, as well. 

Over time, I’ve just started to watch the sky and I tend to think of each day as bringing any variation of weather surprises.  I never really know what is going to happen. 

The only thing certain is that when you live on a tropical island such as Mauritius, you can be sure to expect huge amounts of humidity at all times throughout the year.

How humid is it?  We have these anti-humidity tablets from France that we’ve been using in the closet in an effort to fight off the mold and they seem to be helping. 

The box says the average time a tablet will last is two months and that you MIGHT need to empty the water collected during this time.   Our tablet is completely dissolved within two weeks and I have to empty the water collection container a few times in between each tablet.

The plus side of all this in-the-air water is that I no longer need to wear moisturizer, hand lotion or lip goo of any kind. 

Whenever we fly to France or back to the States, one of the first things that both the Frenchman and I notice is that our lips flake (kind of a lot at first – very pretty) and our skin losses that lush, greasy shine that it normally sports all year-round on the island.

I come from the Land o’ Lakes with big skies and wide prairies.  I know how to layer and can recognize the coming change of a season.  I can scrape ice off my windshield with any found object and I know that I can expect the crocus to be one of the first bits of green to shooot out of the ground after the dark winter.

I do not know how to read tropical island weather patterns nor do I know how to keep our coffee table bolts from rusting.

Banana Beeatch Friday

Where are the Mauritian bananas?

All week long, the bananas I’ve found at the local market are not, most definitely, the Mauritian bananas that I so love.

Did the recent surge in holidays deplete the stock?  Are the hotels and resorts getting first pick?  Or are they now being exported as exotic expensive fruits to Europe? 

I would pay more for a genuine Mauritian banana if I lived in Europe and had evidence that it was, in fact, grown in Mauritius.  They really are that good.  And yes, I know I’ve gone a little banana-nutty, but they have become a pretty important staple in my diet.

Mauritian bananas are not only full of true banana flavor, but when they ripen they don’t get super squishy right away.  They only get better.  The peel could be brown and muddled with spots, but when opened, the fruit inside is perfectly delicious.

The bananas I’m finding now just don’t taste as good and they seem to go bad more quickly.  I must be banana spoiled, but I do not like these new bananas.

When it comes to fruits and vegetables not only am I eating much more now than when I lived in the States, but I think I’ve developed a ’spotter’s eye’.  Or maybe because I’m eating a diet that is almost completely filled with non-processed food, my taste palate has changed. 

Whatever it is, I say ‘boo’ to these new blah bananas.

Shopping for fruit and vegetables at grocery markets in America, I had endless choices and everything always looked so shiny and  perfect.  Too perfect.  With nothing less than perfect to compare all that other produce perfection against, I think I just started to think that all fruit and vegetables should look like plastic. 

But, the problem is that when produce looks so much like plastic, it kind of tastes like plastic.  There’s no flavor.  It’s like it’s all been watered down or sucked out during the manufacturing, I mean, growing process.

And yes (I rant on), I’ve become a little obsessed with food supply, food safety and food processing, manufacturing and storage methods since moving here.  But, it can’t be helped.  I have lived and worked it there and I have lived and worked it here.  How can I not compare?

Many of the tomatoes sold here in the larger markets are obviously grown using commercial hydroponic techniques.  They are just too perfect.  Every one is the same size and each one has the same little, green stem with the same number of green points.  None of them are bruised nor do they have any differences in color or spots.

In other words, they look like plastic, taste like water (shudder) and I refuse to buy them.  Give me a lumpy, bumpy multi-colored tomato.  One that I can bring up to my nose and smell earth and tomato.  Taste, not appearance, is what I want.

I don’t want to use them to decorate my home, I want to eat them.

Basically, if it looks too perfect here, it’s almost certainly an import; and the bananas here suddenly look way too perfect so I’m guessing they’ve been imported. 

Lots of the fruit and vegetables, if not grown here, are imported from South Africa.  At least, that’s what I’ve been told.  But, I’ve also seen apples with Chinese stickers on them and dates and tiny expensive potatoes coming from the Middle East.

I guess I’ve come to like my fruits and veggies banged up a bit – not rotten, just real looking.  I like it when the zucchini has tons of different shapes and sizes to choose from and I dig it when the eggplant has a few brown spots because to me this means it was grown in the ground and not in a factory.

I’m not foolish enough to believe that all the farmers here grow everything organically.  For some odd reason I have heard more than one tourist speaking in the produce section about how everything here is grown organic.

I don’t think so.  If every local farmer grew things organically here, there wouldn’t be enough fruits and veggies to sell at the markets and shops.  They couldn’t make a living if half of their crops were overcome and destroyed with pests.

When you drive past the little towns and fields and you see a bunch of people with plastic jugs on their backs spraying the plants with masks on, you can bet it is industrial pesticide. 

The masks are not some sort of sun-shielding device.

There’s been chatter about a potential new official organic certification being introduced in Mauritius, and I would welcome it gladly.  However, I would need to be absolutely certain that the fruit and vegetables I was purchasing were in fact 100% organically farmed and that would take a very organized regulation and control system that was constant, effective and efficient.

I would also pay more for 100% organic food here, but again, only if I knew – without a doubt - that it met all the qualifications to be labeled as such. 

I used to shop at organic farmer’s markets in the summer months back in Minnesota and Chicago and I never felt cheated by paying more for the produce.  If I could taste and see the difference in quality, I felt that it was worth the extra cost.

And because I come from a land of farms and farmers, I know that tiny strawberries that are just left to grow and ripen in the sun without being hosed down with chemicals, probably won’t produce as many strawberries that can be sold in the markets.  This is also why I would pay more.

I think the French are slowly working their food magic on me because ‘taste’ has suddenly entered my life in such a big way.  I’ll continue to let this magic work its spell because it’s a much more enjoyable way to experience food.

Viva la taste!  Bring back the bananas!

He Rides a Peacock

The Tamil celebration of Thaipoosam Cavadee was celebrated in Mauritius on Saturday and I decided to wake up early and wander down to a small kovil (temple) in the north.

Last year, we were in France during Cavadee and so this year I wanted to try to experience it as much as I could in my own local, non-Tamil, non-Hindi, ‘I-have-no-clue-what’s-going-on’ kind of way.

This meant doing lots of reading about the holiday beforehand and asking many questions to some of the local people whom I used to work with in downtown Port Louis. 

My book of Hinduism that I purchased in the States before arriving, doesn’t even mention Cavadee or Lord Muruga, who is the main Hindu deity of the festival.  Apparently, this publication’s focus is only on the Hindus in the North of India.

Hinduism, as I have slowly learned, is a massive sprawling religion and I had no idea just how varied it was until I moved to Mauritius.  Wowza.  My on-line research made my head spin. 

I would start reading about Lord Muruga and Cavadee in Mauritius when suddenly I would find myself reading about Subramanya, Skanda, Kartikeya – just some of his MANY other names.  I started clicking away on the different names and discovered a bit about the Chinese Hindus in Malaysia and about how the world’s tallest statue of Muruga is actually in Kuala Lumpur (interesting fact).  The information was coming at me from all over the place.  I needed some focused answers. 

And so, I’d like to give a HUGE shout-out to the two wonderful, young women who answered all of my questions regarding the holiday in Mauritius.  I received some concrete information, did not make a fool of myself and was at the temple on time.  Merci.

Here are a few rapid, super-quick, attention-deficit-disorder items about Cavadee that I learned and other items I noticed on Saturday. 

To any Mauritian who may be reading this:  If I have incorrectly stated something, please – by all means – add a comment to correct or add to the item.  Be patient with me.  I’m trying my best to understand.  But, remember how long it took me to remember many of your names?  Baby steps, folks.  Baby steps. 

• Before the high- holiday on Saturday, people may choose to fast for 10 days prior.  There are prayer services at the temple on each of these days, as well.
• The celebration is to honor and show devotion to Lord Muruga.
• Lord Muruga is considered to be a god of war; therefore, many of the symbols used to identify him are war-like.  For example, he carries a spear or sword.
• He rides a peacock (very cool in my opinion).
• The outside of the temple is decorated the night before the celebration.  I saw dried palms tied into shapes, prayer flags and fresh flowers which were all strung together to make garlands that were then strung around the temple.  Large posters of Lord Muruga were also hung outside the temple’s main doorway.
• The celebration of Thaipoosam Cavadee is held on the full moon during the Tamil month of Thai.  Here in Mauritius the first full moon of the year was shining brightly over the weekend.
• There is a procession from the sea or river to the temple during the morning of Thaipoosam Cavadee.
• Some of the people in the procession carry a cavadee or pull a decorated cart. 
• Many of the cavadees that I saw were carried on the shoulders and were shaped into an arch with a pointed top.  They were decorated with green leaves, lots of flowers and pictures of Muruga.
• The color of the day is this gorgeous hot, vibrant pink.  Men, women and children may wear this color.
• Some people may rub sacred ash on their bodies and others may pierce themselves with small silver needles with a flat, diamond shape on the end.  When I was doing my research before the holiday, I read that men would pierce their backs and chests with needles and that some men and women would pierce a needle through their cheeks and through their tongues.  At the procession that I saw, I really didn’t see many people with pierced cheeks or backs.
• Many of the women and children had hot pink scarves tied around their heads to cover their mouths.
•  Some women and girls carry small pots of milk on their heads.
• The procession that I saw started with a small group of girls playing the Kolaattam, songs sung and played by banging together two sticks.
• The road for the procession is kept wet by water trucks dumping water along the route.
• I was told by the local police and by others that the procession would leave the sea at around 9 a.m. and arrive at the temple around 10 or 10:30 a.m.
• The temple had some great music playing from early morning when I arrived (7 a.m.) until after the full procession reached the temple (11 a.m.).

I went alone to the temple and my personal Cavadee experience was rather interesting and exciting – that is, until the mobs of tourists started to arrive. 

These tourists, in my opinion, could have tried to be a tad less obvious.  It was one of the few occasions here where I made certain to mention that I was an American and that I was a lone ranger for the day. 

I was enjoying the morning just hanging outside the temple chatting to the police, listening to the temple music and watching things quietly progress from the side of the road.

It was hot and getting hotter by the hour so I was sticking to the shady areas while snapping the occasional photo.  A few people actually posed for me while I took some photos in front of the temple (merci! to the gracious women that allowed me to indulge my admiration of bright saris in the sunshine by clicking away).

And then, just when it felt like the sleepy morning was finally starting to wake up, the tourists came.

Now, I realize that I am kind of like a tourist here, or at least I definitely look like a tourist complete with my big ol’ camera slung over my shoulder and I had been hanging out there since 7 a.m.; but I just would never do what some of these tourists were doing.

As the mini-buses started to drop them off by the side of the road, some of the tourists took off their shoes and went inside the temple to walk around and to take photos.  No one objected to this and it wasn’t a big deal.

Maybe it’s because I’m a P.K. or maybe it’s because I think it would be odd to have a mini-bus of people dropped off at the church on Christmas Eve or Easter during the church service, come inside and start walking around taking photos, but I never go into any structure and wander about when it is currently in use for a religious holiday.  It’s just my take.

Personally, when there isn’t a religious service or ceremony going on, I see no problem with entering sacred buildings as long as you follow the rules for entry.   But then again, I grew up crawling underneath the altar and sneaking bits of communion wafers out of the church storage closets in between services.  I may have a rather skewed angle on this.

But grazing about during a religious, festival day in the middle of devotions while wearing a bikini and a sheer beach cover-up?  Well, that just seemed slightly obnoxious.

Because I’m feeling kind of ‘listish’,  I shall continue and offer a few simple tips to tourists experiencing Cavadee in Mauritius:

• Wear pants.  Heck, just wear proper clothing. In fact, maybe even snaz it up a bit just like everyone else.  After all, it is another culture’s religious holiday not a ride at a water park or an attraction at Euro Disney.
• Observe proper parade etiquette.  As a procession watcher, you should stand at the side of the road and watch.  You should not, as so many of you seemed to think, stand in the middle of the procession and block it while taking head-on snapshots. 
• Take off your shoes when you enter the temple and shoes or no shoes, please do not try to scale the temple ground walls.
•  Do not smoke and snack while watching the procession or while roaming around the temple grounds.  I know what it’s like when a snack attack hits, but just try to hold off for an hour or so.  The pool bar will still be open when you return back to the hotel.
• If you see someone who appears to be praying, please just let them pray.  Do not lightly tap them on the shoulder to ask questions.  They don’t  ‘work’ there and are not taking a ‘break’.
• Even if you don’t consider yourself to be a religious or spiritual person, try to understand that this stuff is really important to some people.  There is a reason for it all. 

The people who belong to this particular temple in the north are obviously used to the masses of tourists that come to descend upon them each Cavadee and have clearly adapted as necessary.

Thinking back to the festival and to other encounters I’ve had here, I now find that respect and understanding, even if it’s just a little bit, is what I’m after these days.

Perhaps, it’s easier for me to see the details now or maybe the heat has just slowed me down to the point of being able to sit quietly and observe from afar for hours at a time. 

When you really just sit back and gently watch people in different cultures while letting go of what’s comfortable to you, I think you begin to gain a very subtle respect from the people who you are quietly interacting with.    It’s as if everyone starts to feel the same unspoken vibe of the situation even though each person is witnessing it with his or her own unique view. 

At least, that’s what my heat-soaked head thought was going on at the time.  We could have all just been experiencing some sort of collective misery about the blaring sun and the steaming pavement.

Right before the procession came down the tiny lane next to the temple, I was squatting Indian style (hurrah for yoga!) by the side of the road watching two women put the shoes back on the feet of a toddler who had accompanied them inside the temple.  He was squirming around and not making the task any easier. 

I made the tiniest of grins and continued to watch different people coming and going to the temple.  When the shoes were successfully on the young boy’s feet, one of the women came over to me and gave me a banana from the basket of fruit that she had taken to the temple as an offering.

Maybe there was a limit put on banana offerings at the temple or maybe she just decided to keep a few extra.

While all the tourists rushed about creating a rather large presence and energy that could not be ignored, I squatted in the heat by the side of the road and ate my little banana.

The Gang’s All Here

It’s the week of home repairs and projects.  As I write this there are six people now either in the house or out in the garden and not one of them speaks English and, for some reason, the housekeeper seems oddly suspicious of all of them.

But, I did just watch and learn how to fix a toilet with a nail and a bit of electrical tape.  Huh, who would have thought? 

I am a mini-MacGyver in the making.

The water tank mystery has moved to a plan of corrective execution which is being undertaking by three lads out back.  They are digging a massive hole, lining it with cement cinder blocks and when all is dry, stable and ready, are going to put the water tank into the ground.

Apparently, this will solve all the issues with the tank filling and we will no longer need to run extension cords out to the road to increase the pressure from the main with the other pump because with the tank in the ground, gravity will do the natural thing and take care of it.

This project is going to take nine days or so.  We are on day 2 and there is a large, perfectly square – I mean, it’s gorgeously cubed and was done by means of shovel, tape measure and wheel barrel -  hole in the ground.

About two feet down, the orange/brown soil turns to sand in a very clear layer.  Kind of interesting, but this is an island after all and we don’t live that far from the coast.

Whenever the ground is dug up like this, we can expect one or two things to occur.  A scorpion spotting, which is what happened at the first house we lived at here and when they too, were doing some repairs to the water tank and house water lines, and/or a feverish increase in cockroaches.

Last night while I was sweating it up cooking in the kitchen, the population increase of la roach came a-calling.

Usually, the after sunset cooking in the kitchen has me rubbed down with bug spray swatting away a few moths and chasing out a few frogs.  The lizards and I seem to have developed an unspoken understanding.  They stay out of my way while I’m in there and while we sleep at night, the kitchen is open for feeding. 

Quick point of info:  We don’t have screens on any windows or doors and we keep everything open all the time so that we don’t roast alive whilst inside the house.

But, cockroaches can be very annoying when you are trying to whip up dinner, can’t they?  Dang them. 

The other gangs of animals and insects are pretty passive and just kind of look on from afar, but the roaches just want to get all up in your face and check out the action first hand.

I killed four while I was cooking, one of which decided to check out the lardons I was removing from the pan (for some unknown reason I made daube provencale, a rather wintery stew dish, last night) by sitting himself in the palm of my hand under the paper towel I was holding. 

Tickle, tickle.   What the heck.  Small scream.  And whack with a pan.

The Frenchman killed another two that were flying about while we were watching a movie later in the evening.

We are so not afraid of so many things anymore and that is such a kiss-ass, kung-fu feeling.  Fear of any kind is such a downer and a dragger and just so not necessary.  And even overcoming small fears, such as, the creepy-crawly bugs, adds and bulids and strarts to turn into something wonderful.

And thus, fear is being replaced by gusto and the giant hole in the ground project is under way. 

Our dishwasher (Why, yes!  They have dishwashers here), which has not worked since we returned from holidays at the end of December is still not working, BUT it has been checked out by two different people and another guy is supposed to arrive today.

 I hold onto hope.

IN POST UPDATE:  While in the midst of posting this, a team of two repair men came to check out the dishwasher.  I showed them what was up and while the machine was gearing up to run, the senior of the two men leaned over and listened to the machine.

“I know what is wrong,” he said a few moments.

And with that they took apart the machine, replaced a part and fixed it. 

Super cool.  These are the things they don’t teach you at college:  how to fix a toilet with a nail and a piece of electrical tape and how to fix a dishwasher by simply listening to it.

Attack of the Spider

With the exception of a small hair burning incident (there is such a thing as getting too close to smell food cooking on a gas burner stove – hello, lesson a 5-year-old could tell you – duh), the week ended well and I added another mushy count to my ‘kill list’.

I was enjoying an in the car musical presentation of the soundtrack to the movie ‘A Knights Tale’ (comments kept quietly to yourself, please, my car is not MP3 ready and there’s only so many old CDs to toss into the player) that I had popped in as I drove past the ‘French Home Depot’, or as it is professionally and locally known, ‘Espace Maison et Jardin’.

“Further on up the road someone’s gonna hurt you like you hurt me,” I sang.  I was going to le Caudan to meet a friend, who I had done some contract work with last year, for lunch.  “You gotta reap just what you sow,” I belted out as I continued to drive my tiny car into Port Louis from the North. 

I was in a wonderful mood and excited to catch up with my friend.  I cranked the volume up a bit more as Eric Clapton sang and I joined in, “Further on up the road…hmmm hmmmm hmmm“. 

I was stopped in the always constant traffic jam at the Goodyear round-a-bout still enjoying myself and some good old American blues, when the attack began.

I didn’t see him (unlike that giant spider in the Lord of the Rings, my giant spiders are always of the male gender) coming.  Heck, I wouldn’t have even thought to prepare for his coming.  I was in my car.  I was driving.  The absolute last thing on my mind was that a giant spider could come out of nowhere and crawl across my windshield and stop right in front of my face.

But, that’s exactly what happened.

A quick spider background for those of you that have never visited Mauritius:  There are no deadly spiders here, but they do have some pretty big ones – oh yes, rather large.  To someone who has lived on the island for his or her entire life, these spiders are probably as uneventful as the tropical rains which happen practically every day throughout the year. 

But, to a little lady that grew up in the cold tundra of Minnesota where no living insect makes it out past the winters alive, these spiders are freaky in the biggest way.  Of all the bugs and critters that live here and in our house, these giant spiders are my least favorite to stumble upon.  They are fast and they jump and it takes a bit to kill them.

This eight-legged hitch-hiker, who was now firmly planted in front of my face, was a shade of bizarre cream with brownish spots, a color combination I had not yet seen.  But what was he doing on my car?!

I mean, it’s one thing to stumble upon a giant spider when you sleepily make your way to the bathroom in the middle of the night and then are suddenly jolted awake by the sight of a giant spider in the hallway, but to find one on my car?!  And while I was driving?! 

Come on now.  Not cool.  So not cool.

Giant spiders should only hang out in forests and if they really have to satisfy their curious streaks and need to venture inside a house, then let it be in houses where the inhabitants are at least able to quickly grab toxic sprays and brooms and other such spider destroyer things. 

Finding one on your car while driving, well, that’s just dangerous silliness.  Ugh.  Gone was my happy Clapton blues jamming moment.

I turned on the windshield wipers at super high-speed hoping that the speed of the wipers would either knock him off the windshield and into the median or squash or cripple him in some way.

No go.  Attack method fail.  The wipers just sent him scurrying over to my driver’s side window (lovely) and then to the back passenger window where he decided to buckle in for the ride (okay, then).

Traffic started to move and after checking and then re-checking again to make sure that all the windows were up and locked, I followed the lines of cars into the city hoping that I would pick up enough speed to hurl him off the car.

But, of course this never happened.  Traffic in Port Louis during the lunch hour comes to almost a complete cold stop.  While I inched my way towards le Caudan, I kept turning around to check to see if he was still on the window and peeking at him in a nasty way in my rear view mirror.

Ack!  Why was he still there?!  Uck.

Realizing that he was not going to move and knowing that I would never be able to calmly drive back in the car if I thought he was still on the car or worse yet, IN the car (what is that creepy crawly feeling on my leg? – oh, it’s the giant spider from before), I knew it was time to pull deep and muster up the courage to formulate a plan to kill him.

We (yes, he and I were now officially in couple status) reached our end stop.  I parked my car, removed the umbrella from my bag and quickly got out of the car.

There he was.  And there I was.  A spider to woman showdown.

I stuck and missed.  He scooted under the, I don’t know what you call them, visor shield-thing that is on the outside of the side windows on many of the cars here.  I tried again and jammed my umbrella in between the shield-thing and the window.

He quickly crawled away from the window, to the top of the car and then down into the crack that separates the back hatch from the car.

The giant spider was in the car.  In MY car.

There was only one thing to do.  I had to open the hatch and I had to kill him.  There were no other options.  He had to die.  His days of joy-riding and enjoying my somewhat bizarre musical choices were over.

I pressed the button for the back hatch door to open and with a click and a hiss it slowly opened wide towards the sky.

He was sitting in the back upper corner.  I took aim and I pounced again with the umbrella.  The first hit just kind of dazed him, but the second whack knocked off one of his legs.  Right, so, a spider is considered huge in my book when a forceful hit from an umbrella only manages to knock off a leg. 

I struck again and again until finally and just when he was starting to crawl over the backseat, his beaten carcass of a body fell out of the car and onto the asphalt in front of me.

The giant spider was dead.

My feelings of relief and sheer joy (yay!  I killed you, loser spider!) were short-lived.  During the entire spider to umbrella battle, I was, shall we say, providing play-by-play commentary…out loud. 

Some people may call this talking to yourself, but in all fairness I was also talking TO the spider saying things such as, “You little loser.  Where are you, loser?” and “Will you just die!  Die!”

When I turned around and after I closed the hatch and locked the car, there were four or five Mauritian men standing in the parking lot watching me with hugely amused looks on their faces.

“It was a spider,” I said feeling more than slightly embarrassed, “a HUGE spider.”

“Uh-huh,” their looks seemed to say.

I shoved my umbrella (giant spider killing weapon) into my bag and went off to search for my friend, some food and a cool drink.