Season's Greetings

We went to collect our turkey today and have a festive pork pie in the freezing cold car park. Merv and my Dad call it a tradition; I call it an excuse to be greedy. They are tasty though. It's a world away from the tropical island Christmas we had planned on this year. I've only been back in the UK for a couple of weeks and I've already forgotten what it feels like to be hot!

We spend a lot of time apart because of Merv's job and, as difficult, frustrating and disappointing as it is, I'm very lucky to have such a lovely, supportive family who always help us to make the best of it. Thank you!

 

PS. I didn't take this picture - I borrowed it from the internet.

A moral dilemma

Following my post about the mango-stealing neighbour, I discovered that there's an official term for his particular misdemeanor; it's called praedial larceny. The exact definition is "theft of agricultural produce or livestock from the land" and, though his was only small-scale badness, in several Caribbean countries it is such a big problem that they have a Praedial Larceny Prevention Act and specially appointed agricultural wardens to enforce it.

Now while I don't really understand why the mango-stealing neighbour went to such lengths to reach mangoes in someone else's garden when he had a treeful of them right outside his own front door, I am tempted to commit my own crime every time I open my bedroom curtains and see this:

I love bananas in Mauritius. They're locally grown so left to ripen on the tree, and are much smaller and sweeter than the variety we get in Europe. In our corner shop, we pay between 3-5 rupees (6-10p) per banana, so I estimate that this "régime" holds about £15 worth of fruit. I've been watching them grow for months now, since they were this size:

It's been fascinating; I never knew that bananas grew upwards on the world's tallest herb (not a tree), I didn't know that the leaves start off like the big one you see in the picture, and that they separate out into fronds as they grow, or that the purplish part under the bananas is the flower and is also edible. In La Réunion, they call it "baba-figue" and it's usually cooked and eaten in meat dishes or salads.

The thing is that these bananas are not growing in my garden, so if I were to pick them, I would be as guilty of praedial larceny as the mango thief. I originally thought they were growing in his garden, in which case I'd have picked them immediately and left half on the mango tree owner's doorstep. 

Closer investigation, however, shows a more complicated problem. In the picture above, the garden you can see the most of, on the right-hand side, is the mango tree garden, the yellow house is the mango-thief, then there's our house on the left, and another ugly concrete house behind ours. The banana plant is in the garden of the ugly concrete house, but they're actually growing diagonally over the wall into the mango tree garden. Mango tree man is elderly and rarely goes outside so he won't be picking them, mango-thief has his own banana leaves blocking his view of the booty, and I don't think ugly concrete house man can either see or access them, despite them being in his garden. That just leaves me. 

If they were growing over into our garden, Merv reckons the law would be on my side and I could go pick them (not like British law which would require me to give them back to their owner), but there's really no justification for me taking them where they are now. Except that if I don't, they may well be left on the tree to rot, which would be a real shame.

As I see it my options are:

• Sneak out after dark and help myself, but share them with friends and family to feel less guilty
• Go and introduce myself to ugly concrete house man and offer to cut the bananas down for him, hoping he'll share the spoils
• Tell the ugly concrete house man the bananas are there, just so he'll go get them and they won't go to waste
• Do nothing and tell no-one and watch over a hundred bananas rot on a tree, while I continue to pay 5 rupees a banana to the local shopkeeper

What would you do?

Say cheese!

In 2012, we visited Mauritius for the first time. I'd never been to a tropical island before and was excited to try all the fresh fruits and other local specialities, so I got a bit of a shock on the first morning when I sat down to breakfast at my now Father-in-law's house and he presented me with a toasted cheese sandwich! I love toasted cheese sandwiches, but I'd never had one for breakfast before, and I'd never had one made with this:

I soon realised that processed cheese like this is everywhere, in fact for a long time it was the only cheese Mauritians knew. Nowadays, there's much more choice but, as there are very few cows on the island, 99% of dairy products are imported and are priced accordingly. My Father-in-Law told me a story about when the first Camembert cheeses arrived in Mauritius and one of his colleagues was raving about how delicious they were. Pierre spent over half his weekly wages on one, but when he got it home and opened it he saw that it had mould growing on it and he threw it straight in the bin without tasting it!

There are at least four brands of processed cheese on sale, and I think all of them are produced in Australia. Kraft was the one we had at Pierre's house, and it's by far the most well-known, not only because it was the first, but also thanks to its aggressive marketing campaign. You see ads everywhere, from this supermarket stand:

Kraft, the taste of Mauritius.

to corner shops all over the island :

and even on bus stops:

During my parents' recent visit, they decided they wanted to see what all the fuss was about so we bought a box (yes, cheese in a box, and doesn't even have to be kept in the fridge!) and, in true Mauritian style, ate it for breakfast. An entire block disappeared in two days so I think they liked it!

I Googled Kraft processed cheese before writing this post, just to see what would come up, and I found a great product review on Amazon :

"This cheese is very popular back home in Mauritius and I am very pleased that I can get it here in the UK, it is a bit expensive but worth it as its taste is unique and cannot be compared to any other cheeses produced here in the United Kingdom!"

 

It's (almost) official!

This nice leafy courtyard is in Port Louis, the Mauritian capital. You enter through an impressive, green, wrought-iron gate and it is surrounded on three sides by 18th century colonial style buildings. It's the kind of architecture that you often see on postcards, yet I'm willing to bet that my parents are among a select few tourists to ever set foot in there. It's the Supreme Court. We took them there on the second day of their holiday for the last piece of the immigration card puzzle; the affidavit, signed by my Father-in-Law and a good friend, to say that Merv is who he says he is, even though his second middle name is missing from our marriage certificate.

As we had no role to play in the proceedings, we waited outside in the courtyard, watching the well-dressed judges striding purposefully up the path, and the less well-dressed citizens milling around, presumably waiting for their court appearances. It was fascinating, but I didn't dare take any photos. We stood out enough as it was, even after my Dad took off his safari hat. 

The whole thing was signed, sealed and delivered in about fifteen minutes (thank you Smita!) and we headed straight off to the immigration office, armed with all this :

Almost ten months to the day after our first visit, my documents were finally accepted and I was given a signed paper stating that my application for residency was under consideration. I was told the process took approximately sixty days and that they would call me to let me know when we could go collect the card. We were a bit worried that they would call while Merv was off working and that they would destroy the card and make me start the whole thing again if we didn't collect it in time, but we didn't need to worry. It turned out they were super efficient and called yesterday, after only twenty-four days, to say my card was ready. Merv explained that I had left Mauritius to spend Christmas with family and they said they'll keep it until we can go get it. Phew!

Le Morne Brabant

Le Morne is one of my two favourite places in Mauritius. The south west part of the island is much less touristy than the north, but I think it's far more beautiful. I want to tell everyone to go there but then it will get busy, so I'm keeping quiet about it...

View of Le Morne from across the bay

It's surprising that the area doesn't have more visitors as it's classed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of only two in Mauritius. Aapravasi Ghat in Port Louis was the immigration depot through which half a million Indian indentured workers passed on their way to work on plantations all over the British Empire after the abolition of slavery, and Le Morne is a monument to slavery.

The Le Morne peninsula covers an area of about 30 acres and is most famous for the big mountain (556m) you can see in the photo. In the early 1800s, runaway slaves used the mountain as a shelter because it was difficult to access and has lots of caves and hiding places. The story goes that when slavery was abolished on 1st February 1835, a group of men were sent to the Morne to tell the slaves the good news. They misunderstood and, rather than risk being re-captured, they jumped to their deaths from the top of the mountain. There is a moving quote on the monument which reads :

"...there were hundreds of them but my people, the maroons, chose the kiss of death over the chains of slavery. Never must we forget their noble deed, written in the pages of history for the sake of humanity..."

As with the Maison Eureka, which I wrote about in a different post, the slave monument is disappointingly lacking in information. The monument itself is the above circle with some sculptures around the edges, and two plaques like the one below with lists of the people who were present when they officially opened the memorial. There is absolutely no explanation about the slaves themselves, I learned all I know from Merv's recollections of school history lessons!

Oh, I forgot this guy too...

I hope to climb the mountain one day to learn more about the place and see the remains of the settlements. You need a guide though and there's only one person who is allowed to lead walks up there. 

Interesting as the slave memorial is, what I really love about Le Morne are the beaches. The first few times I went there, we stopped for lunch at a very nice restaurant with tables practically on the sand, and then went swimming from there.

As you can see, it's not bad but there are a few boats about! Plenty of space though, no need to fight for a place to put your towel. The beaches in the north are nice but they are smaller and busier than here. 

It all changed the day I decided we should try to find the famous kitesurfing spot. We drove 5 minutes further along the road and saw this :

The kitesurfers only go up to a certain point before turning so you can swim without the threat of a kite landing on your head. The views are breathtaking, the lagoon is many shades of turquoise, the surfers are impressive, and there's a rocky area which you can swim (or even wade) to with a huge number of tropical fish, corals and sea urchins. It's just amazing.

From the sky Le Morne looks quite spectacular as well. Its optical illusion 'underwater waterfall', created by the shift of sand and silt into a trench, often features on "things to see before you die" lists. The truth is though, that's it's pretty much impossible to see in real life, unless you're super rich and travel by helicopter perhaps. Each time I go to Réunion, I try to take pictures of it from the window and I usually end up with this:

Not that impressive, right? You'd be better off Googling it to see what I'm talking about.

No more calebasse

Remember the rare plant that produced 5kg fruits that no-one knew what to do with? The one that was taking over my garden? Well, when I came back after a week away, I discovered it was trying to take over the garden next door too. Obviously ours wasn't enough, it was set on world domination.

Our landlady decided enough was enough and sent the gardener round this morning. The punishment was severe.

Our rubbish bin is now filled to the brim with chopped up plant, and the "garden" is back to its original gravelly self. I was pretty upset, especially when I saw the feeble attempt at adding greenery to the place. This grass looks like weed that's been pulled up somewhere else and dumped in this corner.

She had also given orders to destroy the papaya tree which had sprung up a little too close to the house - we think our handyman had one for lunch one day and threw the seeds away - but the gardener showed mercy when he noticed there was some fruit growing on it so we have that to look forward to.