There are no words...

As I sit at my desk this Monday morning, I bear the battle scars of my weekend - a siginificant sunburn on my face and shoulders and aches and pains in places I didn't know existed. Allow me to explain.

On Friday afternoon when I was still normal, I left work to go and meet up with Hugo for happy hour. We decided about an hour later that we were famished and left to go and eat chinese at the local place near where we live. We ended up closing the place down and went home. We chatted with Audrey late into the night until we went to bed.

I woke up Saturday morning at the crack of 10 o'clock. I had breakfast with Audrey and a family that had stayed the night who were from the south but stayed with us as they did not want to have to make such a long drive at night. I relaxed for awhile afterwards and then took my shower and headed out to go to the north to meet my coworkers.

I was the first one to arrive and I wasn't sure if I was at the right place. Luckily, after I called a few people, it turned out that I was at the right place. Everybody rolled in at once and unloaded an enormous amount of stuff from the cars - food, paper plates, beer, soda, water, stereo system, etc. After we finished unloading everything, a few of us changed in our bathing suits and made a beeline for the pool. There was sort of a diving board and it was my grand idea to dive in - everyone else quickly followed suit.

As it got darker, we blasted the music louder, ate, drank, and were merry. I am one of those people that whenever I hear music I feel that I have to at least move to it. I am often the crazy person dancing in my car at stoplights. A lot of the music that we were listening to was sega (no not the handheld video game device circa 1995 but a traditional mauritian dance that dates back to slavery). It sort of reminds me of hula. Anyway, my friend Carol showed me how to do it properly as it requires hip movement but it is slow and smooth as opposed to the rap video girls - very pretty i'm sure when done properly.

My friends Jean-Francois, Kannen, and I were the last ones still up. While the three of us were still in a festive mood, everyone else decided against it. Unfortunately, there was no more sleeping space in the house as everyone was crammed onto couches, beds, etc. So Jean-Francois suggested we sleep in his car. I took over the backseat and stretched out as much as I could while the two of them were upfront. We woke up due to the sunrise a few hours later and went inside and grabbed empty chairs and couchs and passed out again for a few hours. We were certainly a sight as I kept feeling the flash of a camera in my face as my head was lying on the arm of the couch.

All of us spent the rest of the day chatting and swimming in the pool. We had a delicious lunch of something in between soup and pasta - it had chicken, vegetables, and white balls of something. It was great but incredibly tongue and my tongue is still burned today.

We all packed up and left at around 4. Carol rode with me as she lived just on the way. I got home at around 5, showered, and rested for awhile. Audrey's friend Rosaline came over for dinner and we all sat around and discussed the weekend. When it was time for bed I feel right asleep.

It was a struggle to get up and come to work this morning. Luckily, I had taken a shower before bed so I dragged myself out of bed at 7 and was out the door by 7:15. Emmanuel returns today from visiting his wife and children in Reunion this weekend so there will be a lot of us tonight. Other than that, I expect today to pass quite uneventfully.

Some little things:
-a lot of the guys I work with absolutely love the horse races that happen on saturday - there was a race on the tv that included a horse named "Hold My Jacket" - just imagine a group of people screaming "HOLD MY JACKET" all at once at a tv - hilarious
-somehow my coworkers and I got on the topic of my american accent and they wanted me to pronounce the names of everyone that we work with like an american would - they had a good laugh
-Kannen and Jean-Francois had never heard of Miley Cyrus while Carol had - when I explained that she was the guy who sings "Achy Breaky Heart's" daughter they quickly caught on
-i don't understand creole and this is the language that many mauritians speak amongst each other. Luckily, I someone would translate into french what they were saying every now and again
-Alex had a party at his place on Saturday night and Hugo told him all that we did on Friday night - he said he just laughed and said knowing kallay, that doesn't surprise me at all
-there is a hindu goddess named "Kali" and it is pronounced exactly like my name - people are very educated about religion here so they caught on quickly - when I tell people "Cali like California" it doesn't have quite the same effect

More later...