3 Months In

Three months into my year abroad and life is good. Three months is the longest I’ve ever been away from home in my life. Back in 2007 I spent three months living in Paris with my family, but that trip was planned to be just one month, was extended to two, and then to three months. So we spent the first month acting more like tourists whereas here in Mauritius we had time to settle in an live like Mauritians.

The best meal, so far, was at Escale Creole

The biggest settling-in challenge was shopping at the supermarket. Not because the shopping experience is any different, but instead because (except for salt and ketchup) every brand on every shelf was new to us. We spent hours in the first week reading labels. Not just for canned and bottled food, but for every packet of fish, as the species are different here, and every packet of beef and lamb, as every cut looks different here.

It took three trips to the market before we found the tofu. Surprise, it was in the counter with the fancy cheese. It took five trips to find baking soda. The good toilet paper has embossed puppies(!), but there are both bad and good quality with puppies. Repeat for milk, eggs, bread, cheese, cereal, beans, rice, lentils, shampoo, soap, and so on.

One month in, that was mostly sorted. Three months in, I know which brands are good and know which isle to find the products in the tree different supermarkets we frequent. Similarly, we know a dozen good restaurants, and what is best at each.

In short, after three months life feels totally normal here, despite being literally on the other side of the world, despite the cultural differences, and despite the only official language being English, but where most everyone speaks first in the local French Creole.

Now passed the halfway point for Mauritius, we’ve picked the next two destinations: Cape Town for the first few weeks of January, then Nairobi until early March. After that is still TBD.