People
in Mauritius were so friendly and within a few days we let
our guard atrophy and began to relax. Everybody we talked
to was excited about the presence of Americans as we were
surely a sign that President Bush's impending visit to this
tiny island was drawing near. We hadn't the heart to tell
them that the President of the United States had, in fact,
cancelled his plans to visit Africa and the tiny island
nation of Mauritius to attend an economic summit and instead,
had asked us to take his place as ambassadors of good will
and friendship.
We rented a car after a few
days of rest and succeeded in getting lost in the mountains
of the West side of the island. Passing several hindu temples
and beholding some of the most rugged and beautiful landscape
we rolled to a stop in our Suzuki four door clown car. A
large puddle lay itself across our path and we feared sinking
the little beast up to the windows. A lone Indian man wielding
a Honda 90cc motorcycle pulled up to witness our attempt
s at testing the water depth with a bamboo pole and digging
a drainage channel. We chatted and learned a bit about his
mystical island and he was happy to have met someone from
America. He asked us to sign his address book and so we
did. He was a nice man. A bus plowed through the puddle
displacing enough water to give us confidence that we would
not drown in our clown car. We spent the rest of the day
getting lost on the island pulling over to play on pristine
white beaches and swim in the crystal clear warm waters
of the Indian Ocean.
The next day while resting
in our room a voice called up the stairs, "Mrs. Yates......Mrs.
Yates, the Minister of Health is here to see you."
Getting used to Lisa being called Mrs. Yates is one thing
but visions of foreign prison for unknowingly transporting
some forbidden fruit or vegetable surely must be worthy
of jumping out the window and fleeing down the beach to
live as fugitives in paradise. Apparently, as the Minister
explained, we had travelled from the dangerous country of
Botswana and since Mauritius had no recorded cases of malaria
they wanted to test us for the nasty parasite. His eyes
widened as we explained how much time we had spent in Kenya,
Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Namibia; all malarious regions.
Had he wanted to draw
blood with a needle we were prepared to fight back and insist
on using our needles and onyl while supervised at a hospital.
But a simple pin prick with a lance and a few drops of blood
on a microscope slide and he promised to call us if the
test indicated we had the parasite swimming in our blood.
We never recieved the call.
While
getting lost in the back roads of Mauritius we stumbled
onto a Hindu temple. It was loacted in a town called "Rose
Belle". The temple was beautifully plainted with fascinating
vivid colors and was in excellent condition.
