AN EVENTFUL WEEK

Bonjour, What started out as an uneventful week, with little to show for it.....(see last blog entry), has really turned around in one sense opening more mystery and yet another lead in another unchartered territory. This is the challenge of Research, so I am finding.....it just pulls you in deeper and deeper, with more twists and turns, more questions, more intrigue. I hinted yesterday that there are signs now showing how Grampa may have become the man he was, in fact he may have come from a man as great if not, dare I say, greater than he? No I can't bring myself to say greater, but certainly as great. It's looking like a great story there to be told, but I will save that full story for the time when research is complete, all facts gathered, and the book is written. Said my goodbyes to the family today...very sad because we have become so close and some are so elderly that there is fear all round that we may not meet again. But tomorrow, my car is returned and I am hotel bound for my last day, so thank goodness I finally get a rest day, will be at that beautiful beach above, ALL DAY. I am really looking forward to that. Have been taking pics, but iPad isn't allowing me to load to blog for some reason....sorry! I will get them on though, even if it's not til home. Hope u r ALLGOOD. Take care and luvyaguts's Me xox

WOW!!

Bonjour Mon Ami, sorry it's been a few days since I blogged....I actually wrote one two days ago but have been having trouble getting online since. It's been a huge week; I am staying opposite the beautiful white sandy beach and have barely been on it for actual sun n swimming...just morning walk before head off each day to work. yes WORK. Have even traveling an hr each way every day to meet with researchers and go to every research dept in Mauritius. We have been searching for some evidence of our ancetors lives here in Mauritius...to births, deaths marriages but no luck; property ownership records...nothing....shipping records....nada.....funeral and burial records.....you name it we have searched it....but nothing. VERY INTRIGUING. AND FRUSTRATING. Then today we had a breakthrough which has now led us in a new direction, which will take some time and continue on for a bit of time, so fingers crossed. This new path is pretty huge and gives some indication of how Grandpa James came to be the man he was..... Anyway head off again tomorrow, and see what comes about. Other than that Mauritius traffic is like you wouldn't believe. Cars trucks, buses, motorbikes crowd the roads and highways, And within the madness everyone seems to know where they are going.....they cut in front of each other and common courtesy sees them let each other cut in with a certain ebb and flow that just seems to work. But once there's a traffic jam no one is going anywhere fast. But this being my third trip here, I find I am ripping around like a local now up and down back roads, taking shortcuts, n cutting in just like the best of them. Heading off for dinner tonight...yes finally staying awake long enough. Besides, its CURRY NITE! Bonsoir (LOL) xox

BACK AGAIN

Hi there, Here I am in sunny Mauritius. Arrived this morning after a 20 Hour. Now I am buggered, trying hard to stay awake all day, go to dinner tonight then go to bed on Mauritius time, so I get into their routine. Not like the last trip when I was operating on home time zone.....not a good look!! See how I go but don't think I am Gunna make it! Spent a couple of hours on beach today while waiting for Hertz car to arrive. unbelievably beautiful. Had two hrs there on the beach above...and browned up quick....and spent half that time in swimming. The water must be ATLEAST 25 degrees...really warm. Magic! It feels so warm and cleansing on the body, mind, spirit! Just what I need right now. Will try and have a couple of hrs every day while here. But back to that hire car! they hit me with an additional deposit fee of 18,000 rupees, for IF anything happens, and they lock that deposit up for 15 days. 15 days!!!! Who can afford to have money locked up for that long? NOT ME! But had to do it to get car and can't 'do' Mauritius without one. By the way, someone tells you you must pay 18,000 rupees, it's a heck of a fright......OMG! Turns out its $650 aust, which is still an OMG, but not quite as bad. I am now back in room relaxing, trying to stay awake by prepping for tomorrow when I go to meet with Marie-France Chelin-Goblet a lovely French Mauritian lady who is the President of the Mauritian Historical Society, researcher, historian and author. She has gone 'out of her way' to help in the search and I am spending two days with her going to every archive place in Mauritius. THE REASON THE SEARCH HAS TAKEN US SO MANY YRS IS THAT PREVIOUSLY, these types of records were just in boxes in warehouse style buildings, but over the past couple of years they have really moved along with digitizing. So FINGERS CROSSED!!! With her again Thurs too. Wednesday I am with Mr Abdool CADER KALLA who is renowned for his work as a Historian, researcher, teacher and author.....and he is very knowledgeable about Indians from India to Mauritius.......I have a good feeling about all this. This will be our chance to finally get what we need to finish the book. 3 fifths is written, but 2 fifths is waiting on key info that will we hope clear up mysteries. And the more we look, the more mystery unfolds. gee research is very intriguing aye!? I can see why people get hooked on it. Once you get started its like being in the Twilight Zone......you go in, but never come out again...just keep going deeper and deeper and deeper.....Lol :) Ooh, just had my motel doorbell ring with a delivery of magnificent looking fruit platter. DEADLY!!! Don't know why, but I took it. But better not rip into it just yet, in case they got the wrong room.....mmmm......I wonder! Well that's it for now. Will I hope, have lots to tell after each day out n about. Luvyaguts's Me xox

A NEW JOURNEY TO MAURITIUS

Hi there,

this is my  new blog set up specifically for our continuing journey regarding our family research. I have separated this from my other blog relating to my journey with the Ancestral spirits.

Tomorrow night I head off, back to Mauritius, for the third time since 2006. I was there again in 2010. I go this time with some trepidation, given that the last time I went, my darling mum died one week exactly, after my return. So it's with mixed emotions that I go now. It's time to start winding up this project, and completing our book. It has been held up, with our lass of mum, which set us back greatly, but dad has come back keener as ever, to get it done. 

Since 2006, we have had a researcher attached to the Mahatma Gandhi Institute in Mauritius, searching for any record of our family heritage in Mauritius. This has been a real challenge, with nothing to show for our history in Mauritius, except for our family members living there today. 

In 2006, when I visited Mauritius with dad, we were told of the resting place of Grampa Thomas' father, and visited  his grave, his headstone, and this was unreal. But when I returned alone to Mauritius in 2010 to check his burial records, I found that it was not him in the grave afterall. The grave that our Mauritius family have visited for many years. The grave that the family know IS his, ON RECORD, is not. Therein lies a new mystery to add to all the others.

I have  a couple of wonderful people waiting for me in Mauritius to attend to the search even further than before, and they are key Mauritian historical researchers and authors in their own right. They know the systems in archives and have a list of places to take me every day next week. So it's going to be a busy week. And need to spend plenty of time with our family, who I now feel so close to, since we first met in 2006. Dear Aunty Priscilla who was 93 when we met her in 2006, passed away late last year, and I am so very glad we video recorded her storytelling of her knowledge of our family history, then. Priceless!! But it will be sad to visit there without seeing her this time.

Anywho, I hope you will follow my journey with me this week, as I share more of our search and my experiences in my great great grandfathers homeland/land of his birth. This is our final effort to seek this information, for the BOOK....mainly because we have been waiting 6 years, and now it's time to draw a line in the sand, and get it completed with what we know after this trip. So please come along on my journey, and I will show you the sites, and do a little storytelling along the way.

Luvyaguts'

Rob xxooxx