March 19 Post

Mauritius has a very diverse population with 70% following the Hindu faith and 20-25% of the Catholic Christian faith. The Islam tradition is also represented here. The French brought the Catholic faith, and since the British brought slaves from India (their colony at the time), the Hindu tradition was established. Some of the first people to come to Mauritius were Arabs, and with them came the Islam (Muslim) tradition. There is intermarriage, and the result is a wonderful milk chocolate skin with tolerance for differences.

Yesterday I went on a “cultural” tour with a small group starting off with a stop to an octagonal Chinese pagoda filled with burning incense. On the way to front door, we spotted a very old tortoise (well, we assumed he was old). Mary Gail, from Alaska, wondered how he entered the walled grounds, and someone said , “Well, we drove in and parked didn't we?” Read for the other classic Mary Gail comment later. There were incinerators where evil thoughts were burned as we approached the front.

Next, we visited (well, I viewed from the bottom) Marie Reine de la Paix Church on Signal Mountain which was a place of prayer by a priest during WW2 to spare Mauritius from the fighting. It was built in 1940 and overlooks the capital, Port Louis. Only priests can enter the sanctuary and a service is held every Sunday with the congregation sitting on lawn chairs around the church. Pope John celebrated mass there, so it was a big deal for this little island with probably a lot of lawn chairs!

Jummah-Mosque was started by some Arab Muslim merchants in 1852 and eventually covered an entire square block. When we entered, we saw the washing stations for feet, hands and faces used by those entering for prayer, and eventually saw the washcloths hanging out to dry on the second floor. A 150 year old almond tree grows on the ground in a central place.

The Hindu Temple was built in 1850 and had some colorful creatures around but the buildings have mostly a red and white color theme. The Hindus believe in one god, but many special god were created for special purposes because the thought is that humans need to prayer for special needs. I think of it like the Catholic Church having special saints to pray to for special help, but these Hindu gods can look pretty weird. My goodness, the painting and sculpture is very ornate! BTW—a image of a cow is always somewhere around. (Remember the living white cow beside the street in my India section?)

An offshoot of Hinduism is Tamil that the gives the son of the main regular Hindu god the top position. These temples are VERY colorful and and ornately decorated. We visited the Tamil Temple Kaylasson that was built in 1854.

We are lunch at the Indian restaurant that was air conditioned. The cool air felt refreshing!

Our last stop on the tour was not a place of worship but an extraordinary French “chateau” with large landscapes all around it. It was built by the French governor of Mauritius in 1850, and eventually privately owned by the same family for many years. Cyclones occasionally devastate the island and one year it affected the chateau. Noticing that the place needed serious care, the remaining family undertook a campaign to restore it to it's original condition. This is a preservationist's dream, and it is now a museum.

 

The funniest thing that happened on this leg of the trip was that I found a very clean bathroom before we were to get on the bus. I was so excited about the cleanliness of the place, I was going to tell everyone about it—except that I couldn't unlock the stall no matter which way I turned the lock. I heard some voices outside the building, so I began knocking on the solid, heavy door and yelling, “Help! I can't unlock the door! Please tell Jeannette!” (She was our tour liaison, and I didn't want her to wonder why I wasn't on the bus.) Soon people began talking in different languages outside the door, then someone in English telling me to try unlocking again.....Finally, my fellow travelers were all outside the door saying: “Try again! Get a bigger key! Someone needs the master key! Hang on, we're looking everywhere!” Then, Mary Gail suggested I crawl underneath the door—there was only a quarter of an inch to the floor. She also suggested, they get a ladder for me to climb up and then they'd lift me down—there was a maximum of 18 inches from the top of the door to the ceiling! Finally, after many keys, someone found the right one and the door flew open to see me using the toilet as a chair and dripping in sweat. I was freed from my entrapment, and a manger gave me a cold washcloth for my face. I'm sure the story is being told around the ship!