<B><I>A flower from Romania</I></B>

The flower she is named after is found mainly in Asia - the trait she shares with it is her beauty. Married to a Mauritian, this mathematician teaches at secondary level in Northfields school.

If you are to meet this lady one day, you must first understand mathematics properly. Camelia has such a keen mathematical reasoning that you might get confused and ask yourself many questions. Like other mathematicians, Camelia visualises things in a logical way. When she is cooking, reading, or even watching television she tends to count.

"Whenever I cook, I tend to rely a lot on the ratios. Whenever I see a number indicating something in a newspaper or a book, I try to interpret the figure and see if it is relevant. For example, I saw recently in the newspapers that 83% of children are victims of domestic violence. I tried to detach myself from the emotions. I then started wondering how the sample was taken. Is it representative of the island? How much can you trust the number?"

Camelia?s love of maths began when she was in primary school. Her teacher Virica Carpunaru had a very particular approach which made the pupils love the subject. She simply inspired Camelia and influenced her desire to become a maths teacher. "Teaching is something I enjoy a lot. What I like the most about it is the fact that I learn from my students. I learn how to be patient. I learn how youngsters think. But to teach mathematics is tremendous. I personally think that it can be considered as a way to empower people. But unfortunately there is not a proper approach to the teaching of maths in this country."

Besides teaching mathematics in Northfields, a private fee-paying secondary school, Camelia loves reading and swimming. Furthermore, she enjoys travelling. But one thing she simply cannot resist is spending time with her children and her husband. Camelia?s first language is Romanian. She also speaks Hungarian, English, French and even some Italian and likes to speak Creole whenever she gets the opportunity. Camelia was born on 20th September 1968 in Medias, a city in the heart of Transylvania in Romania. While she was studying in Washington, she met her husband, Sean. They got married in Mauritius in 1996 and they have two children - Miruna and Alvin.

Camelia did her primary and secondary studies in Bucharest. She completed her BSc in maths and computer science in 1993. In 1995, she was in Washington, in the congress of the bureau of labour and statistics. And in 2001, she got her PGCE in Maths at the Mauritius Institute of Education.

So far, Camelia she is enjoying life in Mauritius. She even feels Mauritian sometimes. She does not intend to leave here yet. However, she admits she misses Romania. "I like Mauritius a lot. The only thing I do not like is that famous reform which says that, when a kid is 10 or 11 years old, he/she must try for a star school. It is unfair because it is too early to judge the child. But, regarding my future, I might go back to Romania one day as my family is there. But it will not be in the near future. If I could split myself into two, I would love it because I like both countries one as much as the other."