Even more Digressions

Ennio Marchetto

Ennio Marchetto

A couple of days after arriving out here I bought a copy of L’Express, which seems like one of the most popular of the local journals. It’s mainly in French, though periodically has segments in English. I haven’t yet worked out the whys and when’s concerning the English bits, but it’s nice to have a break from the  slow, laborious, translation struggle. Like kayaking through choppy seas against the current, around the Musendan Peninsula, into the Persian Gulf, and coming round a headland and suddenly entering a calm, balmy, khor (fjord). Ok, that’s a fairly excessive comparison, but it was the first one that came to mind. Anyway, as I was struggling through French L’Express, sort of understanding that there’s a bit of an uproar regarding the proposed construction of a new power plant and that two brothers had been let out of jail by mistake, I saw an advert for an upcoming show, Ennio Marchetto. Now he is one of my hero’s, one of those legend alternative performers who have spent decades developing a one off, specialized act. He is one of those whose uniqueness and style as a performer I once longed to emulate, but was never able to reach those lofty heights, as I can never persevere along one track for long enough without boredom setting in. That’s why my show was more the work of a flibbertigibbet, jumping from a spot of technical juggling to a Tommy Cooperesque “Bottle, glass, glass, bottle”, and over to fire eating, then back to doing something with a ballon; be it a three foot long modeling one or a six foot diameter giant number! Yes, for fifteen or so years I have longed to see Signor Marchetto perform, but have never been in the right place at the right time. And here he was, two days after my arrival on the island, being advertised as an upcoming event in li’l ol’ Mauritius, in between performing in Helsinki and St Petersburg. I have since learnt that, understandably, due to the size of the island and backgrounds of the populous we are fairly starved of professional, international, entertainment! Again, without being boring, there’s got to be a hidden message here, and it can only be a positive one?

And with Kate & Leonardo

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Getting dressed to go out and buy an early morning croissant and I find that I’ve got no freshly ironed underpants in the closet! I know it’s been the weekend, but still, it doesn’t feel quite right to be putting on washed, but creased, jocks. In future I’m just going to have to get Fina to come in at some inconvenient hour over the weekends, to remedy this dilemma. (Eeek! I must be turning into one of those ghastly expat types I hold in such distain. Quick; a cold shower and self flagellation is in order, to banish these aspirations of grandeur.)
So a month on, this last Friday, six of us head up to Moka, the Mahatma Gandhi Institute, and wallow in an hour’s worth of mesmerizing costume changes, as this is the gist of the show. The whole show is timed to music changes, and so the stage will be blacked out and the British National Anthem will play, and then as the lights brighten Ennio will come out in a cartoon style paper outfit depicting the Queen, in one of her classic Queenie hats, frumpy dresses and holding a handbag, while waving, limp wristedly, at the minions.  His face, with heavy red lips and eye liner, is peering through, and throughout the show his ever changing expressions, after twenty plus years of redefining and repetition, come exactly on cue. After maybe forty five seconds of HRH the music pauses for a few beats and then it’s ‘I Want to Break Free’ and with a flip the Queen’s bonnet is transformed into peaked cap and the teeth and moustache of Freddie Mercury. The frumpy dress disappears and instead he’s wearing tight white trousers and a black, torso hugging vest. The icing on the cake with this skit is when he removes everything except the teeth and moustache, and with his own Number 1 cropped balding hair and leotard, he looks even more like Freddie. Other skits portray Madonna transforming into Eminem, a troupe of Greek dancers, Russian Babushka dolls decreasing in size as each is produced, Edith Piaf changing into the Titanic, where Leonardo and Kate straddle the bow, wind in their hair, before being chucked overboard, exactly on cue to the splash as they hit the water. And so it goes on and on and on. Brilliant stuff.

Most of the thirty three horse field, ready for the off

The East Coast
After the show and a couple of sharpeners with Forbes and his lovely gal Sonara, Jess, Pancho and myself headed forty five minutes across the island to the East Coast where we were playing a two day competition at the Anahita and La Touessrok Golf courses. The only blemish on the journey was when I was randomly pulled over on Scooter by two coppers. But after surreptitiously popping an extra strong mint in my mouth, the act passed off under the guise of a much needed cough, and presenting my licence, I was waved on. Thank you Forbes for giving me the three mints during the show. From now on they’ll be a permanent fixture. After spending the night in the cheap, but perfectly adequate, serviced villa I’d found the previous week in Trou d’Eau Douce we headed up the fifteen minutes to the Anahita, with plenty of time to soak up the vibes and take a few practice shots. The course is so beautiful, set along the coast, and the fairways give plenty of opportunity to escape the consequences of a wayward slice. Although Mauritian Vishal, insisting on hammering every tee shot with the Big Dog, reaped the consequences, and Swiss Richard, I think must have been doing it on purpose, as without fail, pretty well all his shots sped off at a forty plus degree angle to the intended flight path! I dread to think how many balls he went through over the two days! If there was a hazard to be sucked in to then Richard took a running jump every time. 

Ascending & Descending by M.C. Escher

On no, it's a Public Holiday, so I had to make my own bed! Felt quite faint after the work load and needed a little lie down to build my strength back up, consequently necessitating remaking the bed again, which led to another rest before yet again reremaking the bed, leading on to another... I must have ME, Mauk Escher Syndrome, as this is developing in to a never ending spiral!
That evening I headed down to the Green Island Bar and Restaurant having been recommended that this would be my best possibility for catching the Blackburn Chelsea match. Trou d'Eau Douce is a quiet little back water until the tourists arrive at the end of the month, so at six I had the place to myself. It was only after seven that the hordes of locals arrived to watch the final of the Currie Cup, Sharks versus Western Province. The three of them settled down, muttering amongst themselves and to the manager. I knew exactly what was going on, having had the same scenario play out time and again back in the Ferret in Ras Al Khaimah. 'We want to watch the Rugby, so how come this tourist has the telly on the English Premiership. This is our local and we always get what we want'. Actually I fully appreciated, as this final is a big annual event for South Africans, despite the fact that Western Province didn't stand a chance. All I was waiting for was for one of them to ask me if we could change the channel, instead of whinging to anyone but me! Finally the young buck came up to me and couldn't exactly ask me straight out but circumvented the topic, so I let him stew in it for a while before saying that of course he could turn over and that I understood where he was coming from. But as it was there was still half an hour to go so we all got what we wanted!

Par 3 over the water, at La Touessrok

The second day of golf was at La Touessrok, set on an island, which is hugely more difficult with narrow fairways and plenty of dog legs, but I was really chuffed with my play. I don't reckon I've ever thought so much during a game of golf as you need to seriously adhere to course management, rather than just blattering the ball. Consequently Swiss Richard spent most of his time trudging around the Out of Bounds in search of his lost balls. Compounding to the difficulty was the fact that, despite distances to the centre of the green being written on the sprinkler heads, there were so many other times when you needed to know the distance, say, to the trees ahead, prior to a sharp bend in the fairway. Was it a hundred and ninety metres or a hundred and fifty? Consequently, with nothing to guide you, though afterwards I heard that they sold course guides in the shop, not very well advertised, especially as the uninitiated don't appreciate how vital they could be, if you were one club over then bye bye ball. Still it was a lovely course and very different. Inevitably the competition was won by the renowned local bandit who racked up, I think it was, seventy six points over the two days.

My local Winner's Supermarket on a busy Public Holiday.
 Not that this photo does justice on the 'busy' front

Now I don't exactly work hard now, but for the previous two years I worked six days a week at the Golf Club, and I would generally be in by eight and away around five, except Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays when, leaving the golf club at around one, I would do the two hundred and fifty kilometre round trip to Media City in Dubai, to do my bit for the company I've come here with. On these days I would generally tend to get home between five and six. Sunday was my day off and all I wanted to do then was be on my own, and even if I had wanted to party, everyone else was working, Sunday being the beginning of the working week in most Arab countries. As it was, after a bit of house cleaning, shopping, laundry and cooking up a batch to freeze in individual portions (professional bachelor touch here), there wasn't much time left over for anything else besides the ritual siesta on the sofa. Hey presto and it was dark and time for Sunday footie. Then it was Monday and six days to go... But this weekend had been a two day weekend, and despite my working situation, I was with others enjoying the Saturday and Sunday off. Consequently it reminded me of how important two days off is, as you need both in order to do the necessaries, unwind, as well as have the time to get out and have an adventure of some sort. So I say 'No' to six day working weeks. Ok, I now basically have seven day weekends, but I've done my bit in the past!

Public Holidays
Looking at www.gov.mu, the official governmental portal for the Republic, the blend of nationalities is summed up perfectly by the island's mix of Public Holidays, of which there are numerous. For example, on the fourteenth of February we have 'Chinese Spring Festival', on the fifteenth of August we have the 'Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary' and on the tenth of September 'Eid-Ul-Fitr'. Then on this coming Friday, the fifth of November, we have the Hindu celebration of 'Divali', the Festival of Lights, which involves the lighting of small clay lamps, filled with oil, to signify the triumph of good over evil. It is actually a five day celebration, and for many the most important festival in the Hindu calendar, and is celebrated by the sharing of sweets and snacks amongst family and friends. 
Today, the second, we have a special day off to celebrate 'Arrival of Indentured Labourers'... Presuming one or two people have persevered this far with my ramblings, maybe my mother for example, out of support for her self obsessed son, I believe I can hear one or two 'Well what in the world does that mean?' Over four hundred and fifty thousand Indentured Labourers were ferried from India, many from Bihar who were known as 'Hill Coolies', between eighteen forty nine and nineteen twenty four, to work on the sugar cane plantations. Being 'indentured' they were not slaves, but were employed, on, generally, a five year contract, with wages, housing and return tickets. Of course this was abundantly abused and a fair proportion were treated poorly, with their right's ignored. But many remained here and now their descendant's make up over fifty percent of the populous. Consequently Government is monopolized by Indian Mauritians, as they have the majority vote! But fair's fair as the Chinese dominate commerce, the Frogs are the landowners and the African's have poverty... The day is officially celebrated at the Aapravasi Ghats in Port Louis, where the labourer's took their first steps on to Mauritian soil.