Global Village & Beach Cleaning

This past Saturday we took part in an awesome event put on by AIESEC Mauritius called the Global Village.  Here, all the interns here through AIESEC in Mauritius right now got together with their respective countries to present fun things about their native land.  There's about 130 of us interns here in Mauritius for the summer, and out of that about nine or ten Americans.  Each country had a different table where they presented food and other such knick knacks from their country.  We were represented by around thirty five different nations.  At our America table, we were grouped together with a girl from Puerto Rico, and we had lots of candy and coca cola to eat and drink.  We also had a bunch of sports jerseys and other American memorabilia, including a picture of the US men's swim team ;).

The best part about this was being able to taste all the different food from all over the world! I had food from Europe, Africa, and Asia all in one sitting.  Everything was so different and so good I couldn't get enough! Additionally, the different countries did traditional dances, songs, or other performances of their culture.  As America has no traditional dances...we did the cha cha slide :) Countries such as Pakistan and India had amaaazing traditional dances! The local Mauritian people came by, and it seemed that they really enjoyed being able to look into lots of different foreign cultures. 

Today, we went to a rock formation at the southern end of the island called La Roche Qui Pleure...which in French means the rock that cries.  It's named this because the waves are very strong and hit the rocks and splash up.  It's very steep here with cliffs in most of the area.  The waves and currents are really strong here, and swimming is not really a possibility.  There are sharks here from time to time, and today some people even saw a whale.  This is an extremely beautiful part of Mauritius where they want to build condos and block it off from the public.  The local Mauritian people are upset about this because then they will not have access to this part of the island.  This has been a common theme I've seen throughout my time in Mauritius.  Many of the local people are upset because they do not have access to their own beaches because they are blocked for private residences and hotels.  We did beach clean up at La Roche Qui Pleure today, and it was greatly needed! Many of the beaches here are filled with trash, and there are not very many trash bins around.  We picked up tons of broken glass and filled almost ten garbage bags with everything from chip bags to peanuts to plastic bottles.  It's great that we could help preserve this local landmark for the Mauritian community.