[Dietmar]

Hello Eunice,

nice to hear from you again.

"For people like me, who has never been to Mauritius, what's the culture like? For example, which country/countries is/are similar to Mauritius, in terms of standard of living, population, race?"

Thats a big question! And I'm sure a big topic discussion as well.
What the culture is like ? Lets go through some short history. Mauritius was once an uninhabited island populated by birds and the now extinct bird Dodo and there were many indigenous animals and plants that unfortunately have dissapeared now. Mauritius was discovered by Arabs and Portuguese but they didn't settle. The ones to settle the first were the Dutch. They came here around the 16th century and stayed here
for nearly a 100 years, bringing slaves, Deers, and sugar cane. They practised deforestation of the great ebony trees and killed all Dodos which must have been yummy! So they planted sugar cane here, made some sugar and rhum and practised some trade. Mauritius being on the trade routes played an important role for trade ships to stop by and replenish their stocks of Water and food and was also an important military key strategic place thus Mauritius is also called the key of the Indian Ocean which is also found in its national emblem. Due to cyclones the Dutch left Mauritius and left behind some slaves. Later on the French came, must be in the 17th century, who took over the island, settled down and developped the whole island and also brought their slaves along. In 1810 the British took over the island after a battle that they won in bringing lots of battle ships, but they let the French stay as they were already settled, so the british took over the administration. As slavery got abolished in 1836, the british then brought workers from india to come and work here and a small group of chinese came as well. As Mauritius was being developed, it also attracted traders, merchants, skilled craftsmen, skilled businessmen, skilled accountants, clerks and secretaries from France, India and the UK predominantly to come and work here. This, thus brought different kinds of people, with different backgrounds, religions and cultures to this one little island. And it has never stopped. People from all over the world have kept on moving to Mauritius since the time its economy has become attractive for investors and a new community here has emerged which is called "the expats". In the past when times were tough, many mauritians also left Mauritius to live abroad, especially France, UK, Australia, South Africa and Canada. Some of them have returned, some will never come back. So from this historical background has emerged our new mauritian culture, which is still new, fragile, and being formed. National awareness is slowly growing and progressing. The society is really mixed. In different places you have different communities living next to each other in peace. Some places have some predominant communities, and some new town outskirts are more mixed. The new generations, with better education, communication and media is melting more and more together into being one nation. So the culture here is really a melting pot and often an example to many countries of the world. People respect the differences like race, culture and faith in different believes. And the creole language unites us all, its a language spoken by most people on the island. People here usually speak up to 3 languages, most often one language of their origins and then the international ones such as French and English plus creole so some people also speak more than 3, some speak 4. 5 or even more... Well, this "short" answer doesn't really answer in its complete form how the culture is, but you can maybe get a slight picture, I mean we can go in depth on this topic with the next postings. First of all I'll let you assimilate this bunch of information first, maybe you can in the meantime read some history of Mauritius that you can find online and in wikipedia.

Countries that are similar to Mauritius ? Difficult to answer, in its way, Mauritius is unique. I've not been in any country that ressembled Mauritius though. Maybe people that have been in Singapore might say there is some ressemblance ? But definitely Singapore would be way more advanced! Maybe some places in India might ressemble Mauritius to. And some people even have gone that far to say that some spots look like california

"Basically, what should I be expecting to experience?"

An experience worth experiencing live! We can talk more about that later.

"Are there places where I can continue to watch my favorite football league games and UEFA Champions League games while holidaying there?"

Sure, you have cable TV and satellite TV, should be possible. Depends on where you stay, if they offer you those channels.

"Or do the hotels provide in-house channels for the broadcast of football matches?"

Yes, but you need to ask them before.