First week
Trip Start
May 14, 2008
1
3
Trip End
Jul 14, 2008
Albion, Mauritius
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
The intern house is pretty much as I expected it to be. When not working we either just chill out or eat. It is a shame we have to work in the office 9-5 every weekday, as so far this seems to be the best time for good weather! Saying that we did have excellent weather last Sunday.
Since being at the intern house Seth and I have set up a ping pong table and also brought fishing rods. As yet we haven't caught anything but it is just fun to go down to the pontoon after work and mix it up with the locals and pretend to know what we are doing. Last Friday we had a BBQ, with quite a few people came over. Seth and I went fishing and caught nothing but we brought some fish off the locals and told the girls we had caught it. This lasted about 3hrs until we came clean. Cant believe they thought we had caught it!
The intern house is very nice (see pic) but we are located quite a way from anywhere. Because of this I have become quite adept on the local buses although my French leaves much to be desired. I do have one slight problem with the buses and this is the locals just throwing rubbish out the windows! No wonder there is litter all over this beautiful island, its just a shame really as they are spoiling something so beautiful. Ok so enough of my whinging on to more interesting things.
The nightlife is very sparse on the island where we are but we do go to one place in Flic en Flac called Shotz (classy name I know). The other Saturday we went down to Shotz after going to a Sheesha bar. We arrived at 12 and ended up staying till 5am. It was a really funny night as we met up with the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation (MWF) and due to one of their interns leaving they were all very drunk. I played catch up and think I was about on a par with them.lol.
I suppose I should finish by talking a bit about the work that I am doing for C3. At the moment I am working on two different projects. One in conjunction with Seth, a project on seagrass and the species around Mauritius. This is to later tie in with the Dugong stomach analysis to be conducted with a dissecting microscope here in the lab (AKA the kitchen). And the other is a proposal for a sea turtle grant in the Maldives.
Last week Seth and I travelled north to Grand baie to one of the beaches to do the seagrass collection (see pic). As you can see it's a hard job but someone has to do it!
We do have a new intern with us now she came yesterday, a six week old kitten! Currently we are looking after her for Patricia (the C3 manager) but I have a feeling we may have her for a while as they have a dog and she's tiny!
Finally my fight again the mosquitoes is not going so well, my left leg is currently swollen due to a coagulation of bites near my ankle! Ah well at the end of the day i am very lucky to be here, and to say i enjoy it is an understatement!!!! Hope that everyone is ok at home! I do have a Mauritian number now that you can txt me on, it is +230 9779161.
Lots of Love
Mace.x
