christmas in mauritius
Passing the holidays Mauritian-style helped to reify exactly how far away from home I am -- as if the 9 hour time difference, the two oceans, and the entire continent separating me from my motherland weren't indication enough.
Let's begin with a discussion on the weather. Unlike the twenty-one Christmases I've passed in Buffalo, NY, Christmas in Mauritius was noticeably without snow or as much as a grey cloud in the sky.
Now, on the rare occasions that Buffalo experiences a Christmas without snow, temperatures are so far below freezing its too cold for snow to actually form.
Not the case in Mauritius however. If you're from the Northeast and are having trouble visualizing what a non-white, non-freezing Christmas looks like, here's a bit of photographic evidence. This picture was taken about 2pm on Christmas day, and seated next to me are Chris (another fulbrighter), and Mikalya, his wife of four months.. oh happy happy love!
Wouldn't it be amazing to have a picture like this on your annual holiday card?
In addition to the snow, another thing that was conspicuously absent from Christmas 2006 was family. Ever since 2005 when my father passed, I haven't enjoyed being away from home for the holidays.. or far away from home in general. Happily, however, due to the wonders of Skype, I was able to talk to everyone from home, and in turn, celebrate the holiday with my "family" here in Mauritius.
In typical Mauritian, extended-family style, my family here is comprised of upwards of a dozen people. These are my neighbors Gaw and Kamlesh; Sunil, Enrica and Natalie, a Mauritian-American family; Jason, a Watson fellow in Mauritius for 3 months; Chris and Mikayla, the couple pictured above; and Bill, a Fulbright Scholar teaching at the University of Mauritius.
The group of us got together on Christmas Eve for a festive holiday dinner that consisted of roast chicken (no turkeys to be found here), soy chicken breast (vegetarian must-have), twice baked potatoes, butter nut squash soup, green bean casserole and halim, an Indian-Mauritian lentil soup. Not quite the collard greens, yams and cornbread that I'm accustomed to during the holidays, but delightful none the less.
For Christmas-day proper, the Fulbright-Watson research posse went to the Perrybere beach for a couple of hours (see picture above) and then returned home to watch several heartfelt Christmas-themed movies on DVD.
One thing that struck my about Christmas in Mauritius in general is how widely celebrated the holiday is. Despite the fact that 60% of people here are Hindu, Christmas is just as big here as it is in the United States. For Hindus, it's an occasion to buy gifts, have large office parties and cook really elaborate dinners for family.
The only real differences of note were the absence of Black Friday (which doesn't exist simply because there's no Thanksgiving here) and the dearth of hearty looking Christmas trees .. local varieties of pine are pretty anemic looking.
I don't know whether that makes Christmas in Mauritius a byproduct of secularization, appropriation, or brilliant marketing campaigns. perhaps a bit of all three. In any case, I hope you enjoyed the holidays as much as I did.. whether you passed it christian, jewish (is Hannukah really only a minor holiday? If so, what about the dreidel song?!? Talk about a let down..), or secular-humanist style comme moi.
