A Sunburn. While waiting for the bus. In the 'dead of winter.'

Let me begin by saying that I'm feeling rather empowered right now. I've completed everything on my to-do list save the big one (find a permanent residence) but I have an appointment to see an apartment later this afternoon and several more prospects. All in all, I'm feeling good.

Yesterday I trekked to the University of Mauritius campus for the first time. Hm. Well, parts of it are lovely. Parts of it look like what I imagine old KGB buildings look like. Either way, I hope there's some good learning to be done there. I feel like there will be. I met a few students. All were very nice. I also, just for fun, went walking down a random road on the edge of campus. It dead-ended abruptly into a field of sugar cane that workers were busy burning. My dad could probably explain the agricultural value of such activities, and I'm sure that if I had asked the workers would have explained it (in Creole). I just abruptly turned around and hoped that they hadn't noticed me. 

The real story from the University, though, was learning buses. Up until then I had been moving around mostly on foot and rarely by taxi. But I needed to get somewhere that I couldn't walk, and there wasn't a taxi in sight. I needed to learn buses anyway. I asked four separate people how the buses worked. The first was a man employed by one of the bus companies. While he meant well, the only ingots of information I could salvage from his kindly onslaught of French Creole were that I didn't have to pay before I got on, and that to get where I was going I should take the number 73 bus to St. Pierre. Wonderful. I waited for an hour. There was no number 73 bus. Overheated, I walked to the school cafeteria (read: old red bus converted into a lunch stand). There I purchased a Pepsi and asked the woman working the counter if she could enlighten me. She happily explained the buses to me, I assume, but once again, her kindly diatribe was in French Creole. She then did me a great service. She asked a nearby student if he could help me. He spoke perfect English (although we still communicated more in French).

Let me say that I have come to regard English speakers as a luxury. I could go about my day completely in French (NOT French Creole. Yet.) if it was a necessity. It is nice, though, to be able to communicate in my native tongue. I'm much more eloquent in English, and there's also a sense of symbiosis with "English speakers." They all naturally wish to improve their English skills. A conversation with me about, say, how I-desperately-need-help-with-buses-or-I-may-cry has got to be good practice. So they get practice and I get total comprehension. It works out wonderfully. In any event, he helped me a great deal and even congratulated me later as he saw me boarding the correct bus. He also offered to pay for my fare. I declined. I then bought his lunch.

He was not the only one to offer to pay my way. While waiting for the right bus (any number bus in the direction of Vacoas or Curepipe), I met a little woman. She was an "English speaker" whose opening line was "Good morning my son." It was currently nearing 3 pm. In any event, we continued talking and boarded the same bus. Thirty minutes later, she had paid for my bus ticket. She also bought me an Atlanta Braves hat, a bottle of soy sauce, a questionable bag of edibles called "baguettes aux fromage" (NOT what you're probably visualizing) and a bag of jasmine rice. I'm not exactly sure why she purchased me any of these articles. She kept saying, "a present for your father." (read: uhpresentpouryofatta). Anyway, I bought her some shorts and a blouse that she picked out as repayment. Don't worry, I spent more money on her than she did on me. She was incredibly pleasant, although we did get some silly looks from passersby. I am, as I said, about 6 feet 2 inches tall. She was perhaps 4 feet 6 inches tall, and the entire time she was standing on tip-toe to speak to me while I bent nearly in half so that I could speak into her ear. What a day. 

Spotted in Port Louis: Overweight Mauritian wearing Texas Longhorns shirt. Also, Small Mauritian Woman wearing LSU baseball hat. I asked her about it. She said it was a university in South Africa.