Mauritius!

I have decided to write about our trip on my blog, but to post most pictures on facebook, since it has and easier platform for loading picts.


We left our house at noon on December 8, to drive to Salt Lake City to catch our first of three flights. WE had twelve pieces of luggage, and were worried that we might have to get them out in New York and re-check the baggage because of our flight arrangements. Thankfully, there was an extremely helpful woman at the Delta counter who was able to get our luggage checked all the way to Mauritius for us. We headed off to my cousin Amber’s house to visit with her family for a couple of hours, and so Spalding could give his online presentation for his class before we took off. I felt really bad that he had to cram that into the evening of our flight.

We had a red eye flight from SLC to New York. Then we had a 3 hour layover. We tried to get the kids to lay down somewhere to get some sleep, but the benches at the airport were not very “sleep friendly”. Next was the long leg of the flight. I thought that it was a 12 hour flight, but it was 15! It was LOOOONG! The kids were fantastic. They watched movies, colored, read, and slept some. We were happy to get to Johannesburg. Unfortunately, we found out that we were going to have a 3 hour delay until our next flight. That gave us 6 hours to wait in the airport. By this time, we were all pretty tired. The kids and I walked around the airport looking at the shops for a while. We found an empty gate that was next to our departure gate, and decided to sleep. We closed off some benches into a kind of circle, and all of us took a nap. I imagine that we must have looked pretty funny, and hoped that no one was snoring, but it was nice to stretch out and not sleep sitting up.

The flight to Mauritius was short compared to the other flight. Only 4 hours. We picked up our luggage, and sailed right through customs with no problems. Spalding’s family was there to greet us and help us get all our stuff to his Mom’s house. When we arrived at his Mom’s, I looked at my watch. It was 12:10 am, December 11. Our entire travel time from our house-to-house was 48 hours, and we had jumped ahead in time 11 hours. Whew! We made it!

So what have we been doing since we have been here? We decided to rent an apartment in Flic en Flac. It is on the west side of the island and has beautiful beaches and is a nice town for tourists, so we fit in very well. The kids love to say the name. We thought it was best to get an apartment because six of us really take up lots of space at his Mom’s house. We hope that she will come stay some time here with us as well, but we will be going back and forth a lot. It is only 20 minutes away.

Every day we have been at the beach! The kids are having so much fun. I watch them and play with them and already appreciate the time we are having together. The kids have loved building sand castles, burying each other and cousins in the sand, and snorkeling. Even Kieren has figured out how to snorkel and loves to look for fish and seashells.

The kids are amazed at some of the differences here, the weather, driving on the opposite side of the road, the traffic, the language. They are having fun with their cousins. They have 4 first cousins, and many more extended family to meet.

We love eating fresh bread baked daily and having fresh fruits to buy from small vendors at the beach. We love the fresh pineapple, mango, and coconut! We went to one of Spalding’s favorite places and had fried noodles.

We went to the cemetery where many of Spalding’s relatives are buried. We visited the graves of his father and grandparents. I am amazed at the size of the cemetery, and how family members are buried in the same plot, so there are many names on some of the stones.

December 14

Today I did some laundry and really missed my large capacity washer and dryer. The washers that most people use here only handle about 1/3 of a load size that I can do at home. The other issue is that I can only wash as fast as I have space to line dry. Looks like I should just do a load a day so that I don’t get behind.

We went to visit Casela Nature Park. The kids really liked it. We saw many exotic birds, and took a Segway Safari. Nick and Emma rode on Segway scooters and loved it. Spalding and I rode Golf carts with Kieren and Lani. It was lots of fun. We saw many animals: ostrich, boars, peacocks, zebras, deer, emu, and some I don’t know the name of.

We had dinner with a Spalding’s cousin and a family that moved here from South Africa, the Caines. Their son will be attending BYU-Idaho and will be flying there on Jan 1. He will get to Rexburg before we return. It was nice to meet them and Christopher was happy to know that he can come to our home anytime. I added a new food to my list of favorites: Milk Tarte. It was a delicious traditional South African Dessert. I hope to get the recipe.

December 15

We spent lots of time in the water! Spalding was helping his brothers and sister today, so I went with our kids and our nephews to the beach. We ate lunch from the local “fast food”, which consisted of samousas, chips (french fries), hot dogs (not the same as ours, a much better tasting sausage on a french type baguette), and chicken kebabs. Fast food here is more like a concession stand in America. After lunch we walked back home and the kids played in the apartment pool for a couple more hours. My kids were exhausted, and Kieren and Lani were falling asleep during dinner. Yep, jet lag is still getting to them. It is interesting to me the difference from our last visit in how the kids interact. Nicolas and Emma were 5 and 3 the last time we were here. Play was the only language they needed. Now I see that with Lani and Kieren. They get along just fine because all they do is find a way to play with their cousins. Nick and Emma are trying to find ways to verbally communicate. Their cousins speak some English, but my kids do not speak french. They must try not to use American slang because their cousins don’t know the phrases. They are all figuring it out and as we spend more time with each other and the kids get to know each other better, they will find more to talk about. Our nephews are great. They are very kind and helpful. Meanwhile, I try to use some of the phrases I know in french, and it makes Emma giggle because it seems so strange to her to hear me try to talk that way. I am probably slaughtering the words, but at least I am trying.

December 16

Today I taught my sister in law how to use the bread maker that we brought her. She had asked me to teach her to make pizza. I got a pizza dough recipe from my sister, Crystal, along with our favorite roll recipe. I also thought they might like breadsticks, so I got that recipe from my sister, Audra. We put the pizza dough ingredients in the machine and got to work on the breadsticks. As I was putting ingredients in, my nephew said something in Creole and his eyes got big, I then realized that I was measuring salt instead of sugar and almost put in ½ cup of salt! That would have tasted bad. We finished up and baked the breadsticks. They loved them. So much in fact, that while we were putting the sauce and ingredients on the pizzas, Emma made another batch of breadsticks with her cousins. They were definitely a hit and everyone loved the pizza too.

December 17

We spent the day in Quatre Bornes. This is where Spalding’s mom lives. Kieren helped to pick Litchi fruits from the trees. They have quickly become one of her favorite fruits. We went to the Bazaar. That is the open market. There are so many people selling lots of things. I wanted to take my time and look. The kids touched everything so the vendors all thought the kids were buying things. It was hard for me because I needed Spalding around to negotiate the price. The people see me and they think I am a tourist. They hear me speak and they know I am a tourist, and an American. Immediately the price goes up. Next time I go, I will go with of my sister in laws or one of Spalding’s cousins and no kids. After the bazaar, we went to eat dinner with Spalding’s sister, Fi and her family. We ate dholl puri. It was so delicious. It is a food that is unique to Mauritius and Fi is known in the family for making it so well. IT is kind of like a tortilla, made of flour, salt and oil. But there is a ground dholl, yellow split peas, that is between the layers. Then you cook a curry and roll it up and eat it with tomato chutney and mango ashar (pickled mangoes).

December 18

Today we visited the Jugganaikloo side of the family. This is Spalding’s dad’s side of the family. We visited his two aunts and uncle who live in Henrietta. They all share the house that his grandparents used to live in. Spalding was born there. At one time, many of his extended family all lived in the house together. This meant his grandmother, two aunts, two uncles, and Spalding’s family consisting of his dad, mom, self, two brothers and sister. It is not a large home. That is just the thing to do here. Family members share the house until one has enough money to buy a house somewhere else, or to build on top of the house the parents live in. He showed us where his great grandmother lived, where he used to go picnic, and play soccer. Nicolas got his first big dose of Mauritian hospitality, where they show you how much they care by how much they feed you. Spalding’s aunts kept filling his plate as soon as his food got low. As for me, I think I have gained back any weight I lost before our trip because I have been so well fed. Later, we went to the Church for the Branch Christmas party. I think it was nice for the kids to have something that seemed familiar. Our church is the same, all around the world. There was a Musical program put on by the Opera Mauritius Choir. It was fantastic. They even sung a few songs in English. Other songs I knew the tunes for so it was fun to hear them sung in French. Kieren was not happy at the end of the program because she wanted to know when the activities for kids were. Most of the time in our Ward parties, there are some games for the kids, and this was not quite what she was used to. She did like the dinner served after the concert- fish curry, roti, and pineapple juice.