You Won't Believe Why We LEFT Mauritius

Back to South Africa, are you crazy! 1. We stayed in Mauritius for 5 years – Why Did We Moved to Mauritius​ in the first place • We visited Mauritius and we were immediately drawn to beauty of the island. The first night when we were there as tourist we swam in the warm water past sundown. It was intoxicating. We woke up the first morning hearing the cooing of the zebra doves. This is when we decided to come and live there. I asked myself what will I do in Mauritius​ And decided that going back to being an artist sounds just incredible. • It was exciting and overwhelming. I wanted to learn French so that we could integrate into the local community. After learning a thousand French words the language eluded me. I could not get the pronunciation right. 2. Life on a Small Island is just that, life on a small island • Mauritius is beautifull, stunning beaches, tropical weather, and island life. I started a youtube channel with my phone and Adobe Prenier pro. When I look back at my first videos I can only laugh at my feeble efforts to be a content creator. But this took us all over the Island and taught us everything about the history, food and people of Mauritius. I would look up a new area and read up on it and then we would drive there over weekends and make a video. • Daily life was different from South Africa? The supermarkets stocked a hugh variety of merchandise from all over the world. Wine from France, fruit from South Africa and lamb from New Zealand to mention a few. It was exciting to try out all of the new items on the shelves. We loved Halim, (a curry lamb soup). dholl puri, biryani, curries, and mine frit (fried noodles) And then we learned how to prepare fresh fish. The red romans was our favourite. Infrastructure on the Island is fine, everything works, there are no power cuts, internet workd although we had some issues with network where we stayed. One of the things that frustrated us was the road networks. Do not use Google to take you from A to B. You might get seriously stuck. Roads are narrow. Coming from South Africa where all the road signs are obeyed means you have to unlearn all you know. There are almost no road rage.People are very generous drivers. They will always give you space. Dogs, bicycles, pedestrians and mobeds crowd the roads, so you have to be vigilant at all times. When you get to the island at first you say that Flick and flak is only 40 km away. And later you say that it is a days ride away. So you never go there. The traffic can be horrendous. I always had buyers for my paintings and got commissions from Interior decorators and developers. • The limitations of living on a small island was that we started feeling "island fever"? This is when you come back from a trip to South Africa and have experienced the vastness of the land and all that there is to do. And then you realised that you have done all on the Island and that there is no new challenges. • The pros is the slower pace of life. The cons are higher cost of living. 3. Cultural Differences & Challenges • We missed switching on the radio and hearing Afrikaans. We missed the family and the grandchildren. • I could not get the French language. You greet someone and after that they know you are not french. • I struggled to get quality canvas, oil paint and other art materials for my large paintings. I had to buy these in South Africa and bring them back with me after a trip. • Cost of living is definitely more expensive? Meat is quite expensive and alcohol is taxed highly and this means that a bottle wine is approximately 3 times the price of a bottle in South Africa 4. AFTER 5 years we made the Decision to Return to South Africa • The tipping point for us came when we discovered that the landlord started building unto our one story rental house. He added a second story and the house became a building site. Everybody knew that my studio was there and moving meant that we had to start all over again. On top of that new buildings was going up all around us. • We missed spending time with our children and grandchildren who was still back in South Africa? • What we learned to appreciate is the preciousness of time. My grandchild is only 1 year old once. • We will never move back to stay there permanently but we will visit Mauritius to see our friends 5. Final Thoughts – Would You Recommend It? • My advice for anyone considering moving to Mauritius. Go to Mauritius for 6 months. Rent a house and car. Stay in a local area. Eat local, shop local. And then decide if you want to relocate there on a more permanent basis. Speak to people who moved back and asked them why they did it. Do not sell your house back home. Rather rent it out, so you have a place to return to. • I wished I knew that there were so many mosquitoes and that it would be more difficult than I thought to establish my business in Mauritius.