mauritius

i was watching a documentary about mauritius the other day and by the end added it to my list of places to visit. if you don't know mauritius is a group of small islands about 900km east of madagascar. the country of nearly 1.3million people is made up of african, indian, creole, french and chinese cultures practicing predominantly hindi, roman catholicism and muslim. citizens speak either english, french, hindi or mauritius creole and there is no designated official language. children typically learn in both english+french and public education+transportation are free. all of this is to say that mauritius is an extremely diverse country, and celebrates that diversity instead of mashing us all up into the same culture. in the states we've become nothing more than a culture of consumers; sheep. we are simply a part of the herd, here to help drive the machine and push the economy. they will take our wool time after time and when once we get too old we'll be killed or abandoned to make way for the new lamb. we've been sheared of our individuality and left with no stories, no history, no memories of who we are, what we believe and where we came from. there was a great quote in the documentary i was able to find later to share with you that speaks beautifully of the way mauritius embraces diversity. a cardinal from mauritius, monsignor bargeau is quoted as saying "we should consider each group, racial or cultural as a fruit: an apple, a pear, a mango. we want to make mauritius not a marmalade, where we mix up everything and grind everything and end up with one marmalade with one taste. but we would like to have a fruit salad, where in a fruit salad each one retains its individual flavour and taste." talk soon.