Random Observations

 I have only been in Mauritius a few days, but I have already started to notice a few things that are different here than they are in beautiful Missouri.

- Most of the women carry umbrellas everywhere they go, Katie said that is because they don't want to get anymore dark skinned than they already are and it also rains all the time.  Most of the time they have umbrellas up when the sun is out though.  It is weird because in Missouri everyone is like "Must. Get. More. Tan!" but here it is the opposite.

-  The dogs here just run around where ever and are the muttiest looking mutts I have ever seen, I thought our dog was a mutt but compared to these dogs she is like a pure bred :).

- It is generally more common to see men wearing shorts then women which is kind of the opposite from Missouri.  It is totally not uncommon to see women wearing sarongs, which I kind of want one now.

- Mosquitoes are the devil..... But then, I already knew that.

- People eat a LOT more bread, you have bread with pretty much every meal.  I am not complaining though bread is amazing!

- The windows don't have screens on them and you can't get screened doors, which is very frustrating because there is no AC and without leaving the windows and doors open we would die, but in the evenings when it starts to cool off even more the mosquitoes so you have to close the windows at night which is the best time to try and cool the place down.  Katie said that you can get screens but they are SUPER expensive, she gave me an example, but I don't remember the specifics I just remember that it was a LOT.

- While we are on the subject of cooling implements... fans... they are amazing wonderful inventions.  It might just be that Katie and Yvan have a lot nicer fans that I have at home but they are wonderful, strong, majestic, creatures. Like my fan at home is super dusty (my fault) and you have to turn it on the highest speed to get much noise out of it and it often rattles and you have to smack it to get it to chill, and it doesn't shoot out any breeze anymore unless you set it on the highest speed and stick your face right up to it your hair might sway the tinniest bit.    The fan that I have in my room here is so magical, you turn it on it's lowest setting and it blows you with a cool strong breeze and makes a beautiful sound canceling purr, that is the LOWEST SETTING!  It also has all these magical lights and settings that would probably be really cool if I knew how to work them :D.

- Also probably one of the weirdest things to me is their cars, all the cars are kept beautifully cleaned and polished and shinning,  like just a regular parking lot looks like a car lot.  All the cars are beautiful.  Even the older ones are just glowing.  But the roads are terrible, you just kind of weave around the parked cars and get into other people's ways and squeeze your way between the tiniest gaps, and there are potholes and mud and stuff.  Everyone's cars just stay magically clean and dent free though.

- Another weird thing is everyone has cars, like in Missouri a lot of people have min vans, Suburbans, trucks ect, but here people have cars and motorcycle/scooter things.  It probably has something to do with the fact that the roads are so narrow, but it is still weird.  Coming from a ton full of families it is strange to not see any minivans, like anywhere.

- This one was expected but still sad and weird.  There are no cows :(, I love beef and cheese and ice cream but there isn't very much of that here and it brings tears into my heart, and it is just slightly weird to drive for 30 min and not see a single cow field.  

That is all I can think of for now but I am sure that there are a lot more things that I will notice as I am here longer.