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Typical Mauritian food

16 March 2008 By Avinash Meetoo 132 Comments

We were at PÃ©reybÃ¨re on Sunday as delightfully narrated by Gavin on his blog. There, after some swimming and kayaking, we indulged ourselves (twice!) in some “glaÃ§on rapÃ©” (pictured above). It’s basically, in case you are not from Mauritius, ice served with different kinds of syrup.

I may be wrong but I think “glaÃ§on rapÃ©” is typically Mauritian. I don’t remember seeing something similar in other countries.

Another example might be “mine-bouillie carri gros-pois” (boiled noodles with beans curry). Granted, many have never tasted it. But I can tell that this bizarre combination tastes very nice. Just ask Kavi, Begum and Christina who are converts now!

Yet another example is the “dholl puri” which is one of the staple food of many of us at lunchtime. It’s a kind of pancake with a mixture of different curries and chili. I didn’t see anything similar when I visited India.

Can you think of other examples of food only found in Mauritius?

(“GlaÃ§on rapÃ©” photo by G@V!N)

Are we worthy Mauritians?

10 March 2008 By Avinash Meetoo 12 Comments

Paul Graham, one of my heroes, has written Six Principles for Making New Things where he offers the following (timeless) advice when creating something new:

I like to find simple solutions
to overlooked problems
that actually need to be solved
and deliver them as informally as possible
starting with a very crude version 1
then iterating rapidly.

I wonder if this recipe can be used to create a new Mauritian society as the current one has so many warts (according to me).

Reginald Braithwaite comments: “[T]he negative folks are the most vocal, while the positive folks are trying […] instead of whining”.

We should really focus on those real but overlooked problems in our country. One example is communalism. Of course, everyone agrees that communalism exists but so many of us think that it is a feature of Mauritius instead of being a problem.

Another problem area is education. The world is now a knowledge society. And those with knowledge have power and wealth whereas those who don’t are modern slaves. Transforming our education system into something that is “world-class” will take 10 years at least and I’m not sure that we have that kind of time left. But we really should try.

We should really stop wasting time with “problems” that are not really important. The best example I can think of at this time is the democratization of economy. As explained by Paul Graham, the pie fallacy is a fallacy!

Mencius Moldbug points out that the world is full of “bureaucrats [who] build empires which churn out meaningless solutions to irrelevant problems”.

Paul Graham says that “if you deliver solutions informally, you (a) save all the effort you would have had to expend to make them look impressive, and (b) avoid the danger of fooling yourself as well as your audience.”

If you know me, you’ll know that I am a big fan of informality. Tomorrow, we’ll have very formal flag raising ceremonies everywhere in the country but I’m afraid most of us (including myself maybe) will focus more on the Coca-Cola and the small cakes…

Antoine de Saint ExupÃ©ry, the famous writer and airplane designer, once said: “You know you’ve achieved perfection in design, Not when you have nothing more to add, But when you have nothing more to take away.”

Happy 40th birthday to all of you, my dear fellow Mauritians.

Football in Mauritius

10 March 2008 By Avinash Meetoo 63 Comments

I know. I know. The state of football is not that great in Mauritius. And, to be frank, I don’t even know the names of the teams in the 1st division.

I’m writing this blog entry because I got a mail from someone called Piotr Chmielewski (he is from Poland) who writes about football on a website called Afryka. He is currently writing about Mauritian football and would like to have the following information:

What is the best Mauritian team?
Which team has the largest number of supporters?
Who are the stars of Mauritian football?
Who is the biggest star?
What is the current Mauritian national team?
Who are the national team players playing abroad?
Who are those playing locally?
What do you think of our chance to qualify for the 2010 African Cup of Nations?
Can Mauritius beat Cameroon?
Can Mauritius beat Cape Verde?
Can Mauritius beat Tanzania?
Anything else interesting about Mauritian football.

Please feel free to comment. I will consolidate the information I get and send it to Piotr.

My personal opinion

I don’t know anything about current teams and players. The biggest star might (still) be Jean-SÃ©bastien Bax. I think we have a chance to qualify for the second round of the ACN 2010 qualifications as one of the second best. We will get beaten by Cameroon (naturally) and beat both Cape Verde and Tanzania at home. We will also be beaten by Cameroon away and we will draw with both Cape Verde and Tanzania on their home soils.

As for the “anything else” part, my feeling is that it’s a pity that football is in such a bad shape here. Football is (by far) the largest religion on the planet and I find it sad that most of us know more about Barnsley than the Mauritian National Team…

About the photo above

May I introduce to the world the next Liverpool striker, my son Kyan :-)