After last Sunday’s mass, while walking back home, one person came to me and asked if I were an Indian. I said yes and we exchanged our names. That is how I met Johnson. He said that there is a Malayalam mass held every month on the first Sunday. For august, it was moved to the 2nd Sunday and welcomed to attend the same. I said, no problems and we agreed to meet at Quatre Borne at about 1:30 on the 8th.
After getting up in the morning, decided to do some shopping at nearest hyper mart – Shop Rite. This was about 2 km from home. So it would give me a good exercise also. So went for the back, bought a few necessities for home and did a 4 km walk. Pretty good for exercise
So by about 1:45, I reached the Quatre Borne bus stop. Johnson joined me over there and we took the bus from there. Actually the church is close to my office and next to Shop Rite. So basically a 20 min walking distance from home :)
We reached the church by 2:00. Johnson and all had to set up the church before the priest comes in. The priest is from Kanyakumari and uses a transliterated Qurbana book to conduct the mass. He is well supported by the choir. Anyway a small community of about 30 people. There was a sendoff for a couple who had been in Mauritius for about 2.5 years. They also welcomed to me to the community. Felt very good to be part of the Malayalee community here. After the mass, there were some snacks for all. Nice time to meet up with people. I also discussed with the priest the importance of having English mass in Mauritius. In the island there is just one catholic church in Rose Hill where English mass is conducted on Saturday evenings. Told the priest that with more number of people coming to Mauritius, it is important to conduct English masses. Else the catholic would turn towards the protestant churches which hold mass in English. He said that he would take this up with the priest.
After the mass, there was a meeting to plan for the Onam program to be held on September 12th. So next month also, the mass would be on the 2nd Sunday. So I stayed pack for the session. Met a lot of Malayalees – many were working in the hospital (Apollo and Fortis), met fellow banking colleagues, and then some having own business. There was a Dy CEO of SBI and a manager in Risk department of Bank of Baroda.
Anyway stayed back in the church till about 6. While returning back, one of the church members, Andrew came with me to my house. So we had a nice time talking about life in Mauritius and other generic chat.
So that was the end of a nice weekend in Mauritius
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