The other day I read an interesting article about an effective slogan for Mauritius involving even poor Mark Twain, paradise being inspired by our lovely island and all the beauty and grace we always find described in tourist guides and on beautiful postcards. Pity that reality is so dramatically different!

For many years I had been coming to Mauritius on a very regular basis on business and for pleasure. I was a passionate supporter of Mauritius and told everyone I could about how wonderful this island was and how great their holiday experience would have been in the land of sunshine, dodo and sega. In those days a common slogan was: No problem in Mauritius.

And indeed, as long as I stayed in the hotels a pleasure it was, but as soon as I settled down to live here the story changed dramatically.

The proverbial friendliness of Mauritians nowadays is only to be found in the hotels, outside the elbow-strategy of who-the-hell-cares-about-you is dominating the scene. The traffic on the roads does not need to be described in detail and the number of casualties is miraculously low in consideration of the behaviour of motorbikes, busses and the occasional rich and famous in his powerful above-any-law-sports-sedan, all of whom ride and drive like there is no tomorrow, pedestrians are highly endangered but contribute to the general excitement with total lack of common sense despite pedestrian crossings and traffic lights installed here and there even to their advantage.

The invasion of walkways by more or less illegal hawkers (supplied by outside the law and tax system importers and wholesalers) makes a stroll through the old city centre a rather daring if not acrobatic exercise, never mind the conditions of the walkways themselves. And while some pretty standard restaurants have problems with their licenses because of sanitary regulations there is no embarrassment at all with the mostly disgusting, dirty and absolutely outside any standard of hygiene food stalls along the roads.

But as a foreigner you make the effort to rent a nice place, maybe on the seaside, pied dans l?eau. Nobody tells you that just behind your not at all cheap residence, even by European standards, there is sugar cane which will be burnt and the ashes of which will fly on to your piece of land, into your pool and invade the house and the cabinets where you keep the white linens. And nobody tells you that in Mauritius it is quite common to set things on fire when you don?t need them or this procedure is thought to be part of some sort of cleaning, which you as a stupid foreigner fail to understand, which the local law forbids, but which happens regularly and after the third time you have been literally smoked out of your house like a bunch of bees from your mailbox the local police, whom you have called hoping they might find the arsonist, makes you somehow aware of the fact that basically it?s you to be a pain and a nuisance. Not to mention the good neighbour who announces that the chimney of the sugar estate nearby will not fill your life with black smoke and dust for the next six months as it did before (let?s wait and see?) because of a huge investment made on the filter system of said chimney. And then he goes to the beach with some other neighbours, where he burns his rubbish, so that now that the wind has changed you will get your dose of smoke also on the other side of your home. And at the same time they are discussing with other members of the community how to organize the next protest against the oh-so-polluting incinerator which really is a serious threat to their ohhh so beloved environment. The empty bottles of their drinks fly into the fire, producing a small quantity of highly toxic gasses (dioxine), but what the heck, it?s just a little bit on their very own piece of paradise.

My eyes are burning, my white cat is grey, the floor of my home is covered with ashes, the pool is a mess and to take a rest on the sun bed is out of the question. It?s Sunday, I had been looking forward to this. After all I am working here in Mauritius and on Monday I go back to the office trying to help with my experience to improve things here and there, to teach, to make things happen. That?s why I have been called here and I like to do my job, I make life better for my staff and believe deep inside that eventually I am also contributing somehow to the progress and development of the country as a whole. Sometimes I wonder if anybody really cares, if it would not be good to leave things just as they are, since most Mauritians seem to be indifferent to the problems and unwilling to make the effort to solve them. I might as well stop being a nuisance and just pack my things and go back where rules are a bit stricter and the sun not so brilliant but at least you have rights and duties well defined and generally well respected (and enforced). Definitely I cannot keep on telling my friends that Mauritius is so wonderful after all, I have to be honest and make them aware of what they are going to find (or what they are going to miss).

Holidays in Mauritius? Definitely Yes, possibly in one of the nice hotels. It could be a dream come true!

Living in Mauritius? Hmm?? ?..why destroy a nice dream?

<B>Dr Mike M. HÖFER</B> Flic-en-Flac</I>