Stop the bus

While preparing for a holiday in Malta a few years ago, I was surprised to see that one of the "essential sights" listed in all the guidebooks was the bus station in Valletta. I'd seen buses before; what could be so special about Maltese ones? 

Ever curious, I did end up going there, and it was worth the detour. 

Buses in Malta are traditionally owned by the driver, and although the exterior colour scheme is the same for everyone, each bus is customised with slogans, artwork, trimmings, family photos, and even tinsel. In case you can't read it properly, the driver above doesn't want you to judge him before you know him. 

Back on my own island, there are two types of buses; those operated by national companies such as Rose Hill Transport or the National Transport Corporation, and those owned by individuals which run on scheduled routes, but are even more personalised than the ones we saw in Malta. 

My first experience of a driver-owned bus was on holiday here in 2012. We were on our way back to Port Louis one evening on what I now refer to as "The Party Bus". There was music, there were flashing lights, there was a singing driver - it was a unique experience. We were also the only people left on the bus when, a good 20 minutes outside Port Louis, we approached the turn off which would take the driver directly home. He decided that continuing to Port Louis just for 2 people wasn't really worth his time, so he radioed (called?) his friend, who happened to be driving his own bus not far behind us, and he negotiated for his friend to stop and for us to switch buses so that he could go home. He politely told us he wouldn't be finishing our journey, but that we could hop on the bus behind at no extra cost. Crazy.

The drivers who customise their own buses have some unusual and creative ideas, to say the least. I started trying to take photos of all the different ones I saw, but it's not easy to take photos from a moving car.

The Fast and Furious "Highland Shuttle"

GB Travel - there are also some with specific British city names. 

Princesses

This last one is a particular favourite. Who decides that the perfect decoration for a Mauritian bus is an aeroplane with Air France livery, but with National Express written on it instead of Air France?! The "Dare to Challenge" part just adds to the mystery. 

Continuing on the travel theme, I spotted this "Titanic" bus. It was parked on the waterfront; I hope it's not going to end up at the bottom of the sea like the Titanic did.

I've also seen the ambitious but slightly unrealistic "Worldwide Express". This one was easy to photograph because it was a weekend and the driver had taken his family and friends to the beach on the bus, which is a regular occurence here; when they're not driving official routes, the buses are used for all kinds of purposes. We even took a customised bus on the day of Papy Pierre's funeral - it had been hired as part of the undertaker's package to transport guests between the chapel, funeral service, and cemetery. It was a bit more cheery than riding behind the hearse in a black car.

Last time we were in Mahebourg, I visited the bus station, which is not in any Mauritian guidebook I've read, and took some more pictures, including one I'd been trying to get for a long time - the "Good Luck" bus.

I find this especially amusing and appropriate, considering the way Mauritians drive. It should be written on every moving vehicle! It also says "KiToGété" on the front, which is Mauritian Kréol for "What are you looking at? 

The first time I saw this bus, I was surprised to see there was a swastika painted on the side. I didn't know that, long before it was adopted by the Nazis, the swastika was a sign of good fortune, luck, and well-being, especially common in India. It also has religious symbolism, which you can read about here if you're interested. You learn something new every day.

As well as the interest value of the buses themselves, there's a lot to learn about how these buses actually operate, and the habits of the passengers. On the photo below, for example, you can see that the seats on the left are much smaller than those on the right. When we got on the bus, we sat on the right hand side in order to have more room. When Mauritians get on the bus in Port Louis to head south, they will sit themselves into the small seat on the left, even if all the other seats are free. They're prepared to be squished into a corner by a complete stranger, if it means not being on the right hand side. The reason for this? The sun. They don't want to be in the sun, and will do anything to avoid it. I once even saw a woman, forced to sit on the sunny side during rush hour, open her umbrella to protect herself!

Individual bus drivers share some of the routes with the national companies, and go to extraordinary lengths to maximise passenger numbers, as these have a direct impact on their salaries. During the day, some routes might only have a bus every hour, so the driver will go as slowly as he possibly can, in order to collect as many passengers as possible. If he sees someone on the pavement between stops, he might shout to ask if he needs a ride. It's the total opposite of the chaotic Cars Jaunes schedules on Réunion Island.

Rush hour, though, is a completely different story. If the driver sees another bus ahead, ready to poach his potential passengers, he'll do anything to get ahead, including speeding, overtaking on white lines, and stopping in the middle of the road, instead of pulling into the layby at the bus stop. This is when you really need the good luck!

Travelling on a Mauritian bus is definitely an experience not to be missed. If' you're not in a hurry, it's a cheap, (mostly) reliable way to travel, and gives a great view over wall into people's gardens!

Market Day

I talk a lot about food on here, and, as I was in Mahebourg at the market last weekend, I thought I'd take some nice photos to show the incredible variety of fruit and veg on offer here. I love it. The market, or Le Bazar as they call it here, in Mahebourg is the second biggest on the island, I think, after Port Louis. The atmosphere is very different though; locals and tourists are treated the same and pay the same prices. You can find everything from fruit to dried fish, colourful baskets, fake designer underpants, and much more.

You can find a lot of vegetables we have in Europe, but I only took pictures of the stuff I'd never seen before coming to live here.

These are brèdes songes like the ones we picked and prepared on the family day. You need to remove the woody outer layer on the stem before cooking.

These are brèdes as well. There are lots of different kinds - chouchou, giraumon, tom pouce, chou de Chine - pretty much any greens can be eaten I think. I love all of them, but some take a lot more effort to prepare than others.

These are margose. I'm not a fan as they're often really bitter. I don't know anyone who actually enjoys eating these; even Papy Pierre didn't cook them.

Local cucumbers are white and thicker than English ones. The skin and seeds are inedible, but otherwise they're tasty in a salad with a bit of chili. On the pictures above you can also see aubergines, which are called bringelle here, green bananas, chouchou, and lalos, also known as lady's finger or okra. I have no idea what the thing in the bottom picture is; even Merv couldn't answer that one.

Patisson

I haven't tried calebasse yet. It's not the same as the stuff we had growing in our garden. I've been told it's very good for you, and can be cooked in the same way as pipengaille and other vegetables that I'm more familiar with. You just make a rougail base of tomato, onion, garlic, ginger, and thyme.

Chili - as much a part of the Mauritian diet as rice is. I've learned that the smaller the quantity of sauce in a dish, the hotter it's likely to be. My friend Sophie eats these like crisps; even smelling one is enough to make me sneeze!

Patole is a recent discovery. I saw it in a restaurant and asked what it was. The waitress went out into the kitchen to find me one so I could see what it looked like before being cooked. It's a bit like a courgette.

You can smell the dried fish stand from the other end of the market. I've only eaten it once, in Réunion, and didn't really like it; it was too salty for me. The smell, and the fact that in the market it's always covered in flies don't help either.

I just realised that this pomegranate is the only picture I have of fruit, and it's one you all know. The display is pretty though. It's not really a good time for taking fruit photos; mango and lychee season is over, and you mainly see oranges, apples and pears at the moment.

Potatoes - so well arranged that they deserved a photo

Giraumon. It's a member of the pumpkin family, I'm not sure which one. They're so huge that they are left under the table and the guy just cuts off slices to sell.

Nope, not sprouts. Merv says this is called engive, and is bitter like margose. I don't know, I've never had any. Everything in the market is sold by the pound, and if you buy local vegetables, they're very cheap.

I'm getting hungry just thinking about all this. Here's a meal I prepared earlier, featuring patole, lalo, and giraumon.

To finish, here are a couple of non-food pictures. I don't have any of the Cawai Kleine underpants, but there are some nice baskets and souvenirs. These were taken in Port Louis.

Ganga Talao - Le Grand Bassin

There is no official religion in Mauritius - Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Buddhists all have their own places of worship, traditions, and public holidays. Almost 50% of the population is Hindu though, making Hinduism the most practised of the major religions.

Grand Bassin, or Ganga Talao, is the most sacred Hindu site in Mauritius. It's a crater lake around 1800 feet above sea level, in the highest and wettest part of the island. As well as being a place of pilgrimage, it's a major tourist attraction, but you have to choose your day carefully as the weather is pretty unpredictable. I've been on days where the sky was blue and cloudless, I've been on sunny days but where the clouds closed in and the rain came down within minutes, and I've been on a day when the weather was so bad that you couldn't even see the lake from the top of the steps.

Mum wondering if she dares to ring the bell

The road leading to Grand Bassin is possibly the best maintained road on the whole island, with a pavement as wide as the road itself to accommodate all the pilgrims. At the end of the road, the world's second largest statue of Shiva stands guard. The detail on the statue is incredible. It's an exact copy of one in India and measures 108 feet.

I've been reading about the origins of Ganga Talao and have found a couple of conflicting stories. Since I don't know which is right, I'm not going to tell you either of them. Despite being considered holy by Hindus for hundreds of years, the site was only actually declared sacred in 1998. Every year, towards the end of February, 400,000 Hindus from all over Mauritius walk to the lake to pray, make offerings, and collect water to take back to their local temple. It can take them a few days to walk the whole journey, and it often rains. They say that Shiva sends the rain so the pilgrims don't get too hot.

Once you make it past Shiva and down the steps, you can see temples all around the lake, with statues of different Hindu Gods. I eavesdropped on a tour guide's speech once, and learned that those with several arms didn't really have several arms. The extra ones are there to represent their supernatural powers.

Even when there's no festival, people often go to make offerings, and the edge of the lake is full of coconut shells, bananas, and miniature statues. The food attracts local wildlife including birds and monkeys, and some strange lake dwelling creatures.

My friend Anne took this photo

I've only ever visited Grand Bassin at quiet times, and would love to see all the colour and celebrations of Maha Shivaratri. I've heard that the pilgrims are very welcoming and happy to answer questions from curious onlookers about what's going on, but I think I'd still find it a bit strange to be caught up in the middle of it all. If we're still in Mauritius next February, perhaps I'll try and get there.

Lessons from my Mauritian family

Merv's family is huge. His parents have several brothers and sisters each, and he has more cousins from one aunt and uncle than I do in my whole family. After fifteen years outside Mauritius, he wasn't as close to them as he used to be, but since Pierre's accident we have seen each other a lot more, and I've been learning all kinds of interesting things from them. 

1. How to pick a mango

Sounds easy, right? That is, until you learn that a mango tree can grow up to 40m tall. Unless you have incredibly long arms, you need to find another way to do it. If you just get a big stick, you can bash your mango to the ground, but you risk damaging it in the process. 

What you need is a large plastic water bottle, cut in half and fastened to the end of your stick, making a perfect mango-sized cradle. Once the mango is inside the bottle, providing it's ripe enough, a quick flick of the wrist is enough to detach it from the tree, and you can lower it down gently.

 2. All about bananas

If you've read the blog before, you'll know I had a bit of an obsession with some bananas growing in my neighbour's garden. I've moved house now, so will never know what happens to them, but I did get to assist recently as one of the cousins chopped down a banana stem. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera for this one though.

The bananas grow on a stem, like the one above, and after one stem of fruit, the plant is pretty much useless and needs chopping down. That's not the end though, as, by this time, the plant will have produced several offshoots which will all be growing new fruit. In fact, a banana plant can be a bit of a pest in your garden as you never know where the next one will pop up.

3. How to eat

Merv's family is a perfect example of how multicultural and religiously diverse Mauritius is. His grandparents were both Catholic, but one of his aunts married a practising Hindu, and their daughter married a Muslim. This aunt sadly lost her husband two weeks before Pierre died, and we were invited to their house during the traditional prayers which take place after the funeral. Only the immediate family took part, so I don't really know what went on; we just saw lots of flowers and fruit offerings and burning incense sticks. We did, however, get to eat all the delicious food they had prepared, including the seven (vegetarian) curries which are customary at Hindu events. For each dish we ate, we had to put a small piece onto a different plate. It was to show that we were sharing our meal with Ton Kumar who had passed away.

The curries are eaten with ti puris, which are a bit like chapatis but fried, and served on a banana leaf. I'd already eaten briani before using my fingers instead of cutlery, but it's a whole different thing when it's just curry and no rice to stick it all together. I wanted to fit in as much as possible though so I refused offers of a spoon. (Unlike one of Merv's cousins who brought shame on his parents by eating with a spoon while I used my fingers!) Everyone seemed really pleased that I was making an effort, and it kept them all entertained as well. They all had their own technique they wanted me to try, and by the end I was doing pretty well. I learned how to pick up the food with the tips of my fingers only and to flick it into my mouth using my thumb.

I realise as I write this post that all I've talked about so far is food! It's a good reflection of how important eating and sharing food is in Mauritius. And I think it's one of my favourite things about the country; there's so much that is new to me, and I want to try as much as I can.

4. Preparing brèdes songes

One of the curries we ate was "brèdes songes", or taro leaves in English. I'd eaten this dish once before in a nice restaurant and wasn't really a fan, but the fun thing about this time was that we actually went walking to pick the brèdes, and I learned how to prepare them.

We walked near a reservoir in the north of the island called La Nicolière. It's quite high up so we had some great views and it was really quiet and peaceful.

I went paddling in the river with the children while the men did the hard work. I also ate some "goyaves de Chine" which were growing along the footpath. Apparently called strawberry guava in English, it was another fruit I'd never heard of. You need to be careful though; if they're not ripe enough, they taste horrible!

When we arrived back at the house with our loot, the women of the family sat around a big table in the garden to begin preparing the leaves for cooking. There was a really nice friendly atmosphere; everyone laughing and joking and pitching in to help. I asked if they would show me how to prepare them as well, but they said I should just watch because my hands would get dirty! I laughed it off and said they would always wash, and that I wanted to help, so they showed me how to break the leaf and peel off the woody outer stem, before they were chopped into small pieces for the pot. It wasn't as easy as they made it look! As I mentioned, the curries were being prepared for the meal accompanying the prayers the next day. I was terrified one of the visiting priests would end up with inedible food because I was so bad at the preparation. I seem to have got away with it though.

They were not kidding about the dirty hands though - by the time I'd finished, my hands were black. I had to scrub with wire wool to get it all off. Ouch.

5. Speaking Kréol, or at least understanding what's going on

This is an ongoing thing. The first time we visited Merv's family in 2012 I had absolutely no idea what was happening, or what they were saying about me! Most Mauritians speak French or English, so I don't really NEED to learn Kréol, but I love languages, and hate feeling ignorant, so I'm doing my best. Depending on who's speaking, I can usually understand the gist of a conversation, and I can say 2 or 3 basic sentences now.  However, as with any new language, when there's a big group of people all talking together, it's almost impossible to follow. The cousins and nieces are very good about speaking slowly and being patient if I don't know what they're talking about. I'll write more another day about the language itself.

The whole family have decided we should spend more time together, especially now Pierre is no longer here, and have invited me to visit them whenever I like, with or without Merv. I'm sure they've got a whole lot more to teach me, and hopefully I can share some of my own culture with them. A little bit of England in Pamplemousses. Yes, they actually do live in a village called "Grapefruits", isn't that great?!

Au Revoir Papy Pierre

One week ago, island life as I knew it came to an abrupt end following the unexpected death of my Father in Law. The past few days have been, without doubt, the most difficult of my life so far, but have also taught me many things. A blog is not an appropriate place to go into details of what happened; instead I'm choosing to focus on the positive, to share my feelings about this aspect of Mauritian culture I hoped never to see, and to pay tribute in my own way to Papy Pierre.

I grew up protected from the reality of death wherever possible. Talking about dying and funerals seemed dark and morbid; a topic to be avoided and even feared. As a result, I was totally unprepared for the events of this week. This is absolutely not a criticism of my upbringing, but rather an observation on the differences between two cultures. 

In Mauritius, a funeral happens as soon as possible after the death, and is preceded by a wake, during which family, friends, colleagues, and neighbours come to pray and pay their respects. I was initally surprised to see at least two young children present, but it quickly became clear that they are used to such events. They were quiet and respectful, but not visibly shocked or upset. I realised, at that moment, that the practical, open attitude that Mauritians have towards death is much healthier than ours. They are teaching their children that dying is a completely natural part of life, and is nothing to be afraid of. It was equally heartening to see family members of several different religions, or with no religious beliefs at all, participating in the Catholic and Anglican prayers said for Pierre. 

After a beautiful ceremony in a mixture of Mauritian Kréol, French, and English, we headed to the cemetery in the pouring rain to say our final goodbye. As the grave was filled in and covered in pretty, colourful flowers, a flash of lightning lit up the sky. One of our friends pointed out that Pierre must have just taken a photo! It was exactly what we needed to lighten the mood, and still has me chuckling five days later. 

One of the main reasons we decided to move to Mauritius was for me to get to know Merv's family, to see where he grew up, and to learn about his culture. I'm incredibly grateful that I've been able to spend this past year with Pierre. He was a man with a very strong character, and not always the easiest person to get along with, but he welcomed me into his home and his life and was always extremely kind to me. My favourite times with him were those we spent in his kitchen, or at the dining table. He shared all his Mauritian recipes with me, and I maintain that we ate better chez Papy Pierre than in any restaurant on the island!

Here are some of the dishes we cooked together: 

Mauritian fish vindaloo with carrots and lentils, and a watercress salad

Rougail corned beef with chouchou and cucumber salad

Sausage rougail with sautéed greens and kidney beans

I don't remember what this was exactly but it was delicious!

Patisson, Mauritian style mashed potato, and cabbage salad

Pipangaille (a local vegetable)

The last photo of us together. We were preparing green papaya salad.

 I will miss you Papy Pierre. Mauritius seems empty without you.