Before anything else let me just say that this post is mainly the bad experiences I had on the island. So to whoever reads this I hope my explanation is clear enough so you can see the world through the same lens I did.
So, imagine being a 13 year old kid and with a pretty decent childhood, you know, living in a normal household with mom, dad and the siblings. Having a bunch of cousins and extended family, no drama and bullshit, fairytale lifestyle type shit you feel me. Then one day you just pack your bags get on the plane and take a trip to the beautiful island of Mauritius, YAAAAYYY see through water at the beach.
First few years
The first years were probably the worst, going from loaves of bread to baguettes, liquid milk to processed powder, tea bags to no tea bags, and that’s just breakfast.
Other major things were obviously the language, environment, meeting new family, culture, tradition, food and the list goes on. In my opinion, to anyone moving to a country where a different language is spoken id say learn it and learn it well, coz once you got the speaking part down the rest comes pretty easily, communication is a life skill which does wonders.
School was where a lot things took a turn for better and worst. So, I finished primary school in South Africa and went to high school in Mauritius which meant I would have a fresh start either way, but this one was fresh fresh. Parents managed to get me and my bro into Aleemiah College Boys where our academic skills would be put to the test. And yeah, high school is called college on the island, don’t ask why just is.
Anyway school was everything you imagined for a kid like me and my bro, everyone instantly knew who we were and was curious about us. Big bro had it easier than me, at least that’s what I would think, there was another South African dude in his class whereas I was stuck by myself. If it were a game, he had the cheat codes and I was playing on hard mode.
Being the odd one out meant I got made fun of in the classroom since I didn’t understand the language, knowing shit was being said about me but not understanding it left me helpless, BTW best part of a new language is the swear words just saying. Break time was where I took my revenge on all the shit talkers in my class, compared to me and my bro everyone was dogshit at soccer and I mean DOGSHIT, to all the high school friends reading this, ” you were my bitch on the field and you know it” . I went from being total weirdo to cool kid instantly after break since whoever was on my team when playing meant they won. I leveraged soccer as a way to find out stuff I wanted to know and obviously made friends in the process. Life became a bit better after that.
Even though I was kinda cool and made Soccer look easy, I was still the quiet kid since I couldn’t speak the local language. In addition to that there was still hundreds of other things to learn about. As a teenager I remember having alot of resentment towards my dad for the whole moving thing, asking myself why would he do this to me, for what reason, I guess it was a way to get all my frustration out, blaming someone for the shit I had to face. When I got older I realized he was just looking out for us. To my dad, im grateful for everything youve done in my life and for always making ends meet no matter what.
Acceptance of the island life
At the time of writing this post I experienced brainfog, so TO BE CONTINUED.