MAURITIUS JULY 2007 #6

Left to right:

* Jeremy

* Me

* Raishad Boodhoo

* Jacob

Raishad is a Muslim who plaid soccer for Mauritius in the 1980's; and also coached both of my cousins - Jeremy and Jacob. He makes jewellery as his main source of income, something that he has done for many years; after the insistence of his parents, who were worried that their soccer-mad son may not have a real career to fall-back-on. For this reason he began to take jewelery classes; something he grew to love.

Raishad is making me some pendants that i can't wait to pick-up. 2 lockets, and a star-of-David.

...Not only is Raishad a nice guy who showed me his old soccer photos and took over 2 hours discussing the designs i wanted, but he is also that little bit crazy. He threatened to beat-me-up if i continued to let my cousins smoke, after which he gave my ass a rather hard, but playful, hit.

Raishad also asked me over to dinner this week; so he must have taken to me in one way or another. I told him it would be an honour. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shot of Port Louis, the capitol of Mauritius (notice the KFC add)

Port Louis is a mixture of the old-style buildings you can see in the foreground, as well as newer development such as the sky-scraper visible in the back-ground.

As Mauritius switches from a country reliant on sugar-cane, to a tourist, business, and trade hub; more and more of the simple and elegant 1-storey-corrugated-iron-and-brick buildings are being torn-down. To be replaced with multi-storey concrete monsters.

The price of progress i guess; says the upper-middle-class man from Australia; who is well aware of the irony. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The results of a days deep-sea fishing 9 kms of the coast of Rodriguez.

I began to bring in the sail-fish that you can see hanging, but after about 15 minutes of arm-pulling pain, i passed the line over to Jeremy for a bit; and finally to Nathan who finished bringing it in. Jeremy had to hit it over the head with a wooden mallet about 3 times before it died.

The sail fish is one of the most amazing creatures i have ever seen; and it uses its long, hard nose to stun its prey, before it devours it.

The sail fish in the photo weighed 42 kgs; and almost ripped my arms off as i reeled it in. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Mauritian cop at the opening of my uncles Tortoise reserve in Rodriguez.

Speaks for itself... and if not.................................................... ALL COPS LIKE FREE FOOD.