Mauritius- 2/27

It was a bummer that we only got to spend one day on this wonderful little island, but we definitely made the most of it.

We spent the first half of the day doing a service project. We visited an Ashram which is a place where they send the elderly and mentally/physically challenged. It was interesting to see how to facility ran, but unfortunately they didn’t give us much of a chance to interact with the people there, so it felt more like a tour with people on display. I didn’t really get much out of that visit or the next placed we stopped which was a church.

At this point the trip seemed like a little bit of a waste, but we still had about 2 hours left. The last place we visited was a teen outreach program to keep young teens that don’t do well in the public school system from dropping out of school. This was by far the highlight of our day. We spent our time there singing and learning the traditional “Sega” dancing that is popular on the island. It was great because I could speak a little bit of French with them even though they speak a French-English creole that I don’t understand. It was great to see how they are teaching the kids vocations such as craft-making so that they have a better chance of getting jobs. Most of the children in the school come from poor homes where their parents are drug addicts, alcoholics or prostitutes. This experience again showed me how children in particular can overcome impossible circumstances.

The rest of the day we spent in a beach area called Flic en Flac where we had lunch and relaxed on the beautiful beaches. We had a few drinks and then headed back to the ship for a barbeque.

The night we got back was the opening ceremony for the Sea Olympics, which is color war or Maccabiah for any of you YJers reading this. We were divided into teams based on our “seas” which are our hallways and my color was orange. They had a lot of ridiculous games for us that night and the next day and it was a great day to relax since we all recently had a lot of midterms and projects due. Unfortunately my team was less than skilled in the competition and we didn’t do too well, but it was still a great break from the norm at sea.

We get to India in two days and I can’t wait for all of the adventures that are still to come. I’ll make sure to keep you posted.

SEA you later.