Part 17: 6th April – Last official day in university

Thursday 6^th April

Approaching "Casa Pizza" near dusk

I’ll be “on-call” today, in case any of the students need to see me, and to have final discussions with staff.

The driver is “Jensen Button” again this morning. I must be getting more used to it because it didn’t seem quite so hair-raising (not that I have any to raise). He’s the brother of one of the other drivers.

On the way I’m reminded once again of the strange mix of cultures as we pass, at one point, “Charlie Avenue” and, further on “Murphy Avenue”. [Now Oi never knew there was a “Paddy” contingent, to be sure!]

The radio is jabbering away in some form of French, but the frequency of words like “Arsenal”, “Barcelone” and “Manchester City” is surprisingly (well maybe it shouldn’t be by now) high.

So I’ve just got into university and am at my desk now, waiting for my first visitor.

I don’t get any visitors, surprisingly enough. Instead, have a phone conversation with Vimi. We arrange for her to come and see me after her staff meeting. However, this overruns so we miss one another again. Not o worry, will catch up with her on Monday in Port Louis, with luck.

I bump into Olivier and the others in the corridor, who remind me about Saturday!

Then a meeting with Dharma to look at my exam questions, followed by lunch, and back to my desk to start work on the “model answers” .

I never got to see Souda today, but Dharma checked that the car is arranged for the airport on Sunday.

Souda did however send me a message to say he would ring me this evening – which reminds me: I had better switch my phone on (as I’m already back from dinner now).

So all in all, not a very eventful day. Back to FeF, and I strolled to town took a look at the beach – again – and did a little Spar shopping. Then an early dinner at “Casa Pizza” – so as to check about tomorrow’s excursion to the tea plantation. Thankfully it’s still on.

The High-Powered English twosome arrived again: dressed-down (shorts) exec/IT types. It seemed to me that they just picked up the same conversation they were having several nights previously and continued it! Mind you, they were further away tonight, so I couldn’t eavesdrop very well.

I realised I didn’t know the waiter’s name, so I asked him: it’s “Hanu”. I told him I am “Mike”. So he insisted on calling me “Mr Mike”. I said no, just “Mike”, but he said he had to call me that because I am a guest. OK, I won’t argue. I will just refer to him as “Monsieur Hanu” from now on. I asked Mme if she would mind if I get a photo of them all at some stage. Of course she wouldn’t. I want to include the chef and kitchen staff, because they always say hello and after all, it is they who do the real work! We’ll have to organise that before we depart.

A family arrived consisting of Mum, Dad and three children.

They looked like locals, but Mum and the children spoke a very definite South-East England twang, although Dad had a heavy accent, so maybe he is first-generation Mauritian. The smallest was a little girl who would have been too young to talk really, but nevertheless kept trotting over to say hello to me. The next smallest was also a girl, of maybe eight, and the boy was around ten. It seems he is a dab-hand at catching those lizards I call “geckos”. Take it from me: that would require a fair amount of skill. They don’t usually hang around much if you get too close to them.

Well, wasn’t that fascinating? Oh well, maybe tomorrow I will have something a bit meatier to report.

Night.