We've worked a few times with a local NGO named Mission Verte who does most of the recycling in Mauritius. They have bins set up around the country for people to come deposit their bottles, paper, and other recyclable goods. We worked with them doing cleaning with locals this past Monday and Friday. The woman who has been has been helping us from the NGO, Sofia, adopted a stray puppy on Monday! The dog was starving and a few people in our group found it and fed it. There are tons of stray dogs everywhere in Mauritius. A local we've been working with told us that there are around 200,000 stray dogs here. I asked why, and I was told that people adopt them and then realize they cannot take care of them. Additionally, many people do not neuter their dogs which just exacerbates the problem. The puppy that was saved on Monday was very close to starvation, and the vet wasn't sure he'd make it. But he came to our cleaning campaign on Friday, and he was doing much better! He's very timid and not used to human affection, but he sat with me for a long time :) On Monday we also had a nice time with some of the neighborhood children who were very excited to meet people from other countries. They were asking us if we would come back and visit them, and it's sad to think we may never get to see them again. However, it's so nice to be able to communicate with them in French, and it makes me really glad I chose this as my foreign language. It'll be good for future travels in Africa. At our cleaning campaign on Friday, a local little girl of about ten years old came and sat with me for a while. Her whole family (she was 1 out of 7 children) lived in a small tin house under the overpass we were cleaning. She was talking to me about how people purposefully bring their trash to this area to dump instead of putting it in a dumpster. It's stories like this that really make it important to bring more awareness about the environment to the local people of Mauritius. It's also so nice to be able to hear about the problems here from locals, especially children.
We had interesting workshop on Tuesday with the Red Cross of Mauritius. They made a presentation about disaster preparation because of climate change. It was very interesting because the guy really stressed the importance of getting the locals involved, which we have experienced first hand here in Mauritius. If you can't get the local people on board, you won't be successful. On Wednesday we planted mangrove trees in the north of the island. These trees grow in the wetlands and provide a habitat for many marine animals. We saw lots of little crabs in this area! I also spent a lot of my time this day playing with stray puppies....they were happy to get lots of food from us :) On Thursday we went back on our favorite catamaran trip (with free alcohol and food). Last time we went we didn't make it to the island because the sea was too rough. Luckily, we finally got there, and it was so worth it!
Today we had our closing ceremony for the project with some members of the NGOs we have worked with and the members of the local AIESEC committee here. We presented the projects we've been working on. My group's project was about the coral reefs in Mauritius. Almost the entire coast here is surrounded by coral reefs. In fact, Mauritius has the third largest reef system in the world! The waves break outside the reef, creating lagoons near the beach. The tourism industry in Mauritius isn't good for the reefs because there's a lot of boating, scuba diving, and snorkeling that can be damaging. It's a dilemma because tourism brings in so much money to Mauritius, and the coral reefs are a big draw. I've learned so much about this beautiful island throughout my time here. I wish I could stay longer!! Mauritius you are beaaaaautiful.
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