Under instructions from my four nephews, I have ordered a half-baguette with roast chicken at a snack bar in the town of Beau-Bassin. The vendor asks 'Mayonnaise and chilli?' and waits for my answer from behind his glass counter and displays of stacked banana tarts, hot pink napolitains and lime gâteaux coco. In two otherwise foreign condiments and a question mark, he has captured an entire nation and the portent of flavours to come.
After eight years, I'm back visiting Mauritius and struck by a maze of overlapping cultures, religions and customs. On my first night, my mother wished me goodnight with a warning, 'Remember the muezzin will wake you up at 5:20 and our church bells at six o'clock'. But jetlagged, I found myself listening to the mating calls of a lizard hiding behind the curtains. Everything is the same. Everything is different.
On my previous visit, my father was dying at our family home. Four nurses, Mr Cannoossamy and Mr Armoogum, Tamil Hindus, and Mr Nepaul and Mr Angateeah, Indian Hindus, were taking turns caring for him. They spoke of English soccer while eating lunch under the verandah. Serving them, my mother was mortified, 'Only one piece of chicken? Did you eat before coming here?'.
I like to refer to Mauritians as the Italians of the Indian Ocean. We are emotive, loud and obsessed with family and food.
Now, the family home is sold, and from her apartment, my mother calls on Mr Joypaul, Mr Nazhir and Mr Bagby as her favourite taxi drivers. Mr Joypaul, the oldest, has known my mother — now a great grandmother — from their childhood. He picks us up in a comfortable air conditioned sedan, a far cry from the stifling black Morris Minor cabs of my youth with vinyl seats that would get so hot they would burn my thighs.
Mr Joypaul reminisces about a picnic my maternal grandmother invited his family to at Mont Choisy beach in the early '40s when he tasted Tête de Maure cheese for the first time. Through his reflection in the rear view mirror, his smile to us carries the memory of a delight that dates more than 70 years.
On the way to my father's grave, we stop at the bazaar to buy flowers. My mother bargains briefly in Creole with the florist who laughs and offers a special family price, 'Enn pri fami akoz ou'. On the way out