Wishing for cyclone(s)?!

Who in their right mind would look forward to a cyclone ‘visiting’ their country?

Dr R Neerunjun Gopee

Who in their right mind would look forward to a cyclone ‘visiting’ their country? As daft as that idea may sound, practically everyone I have been coming across in the past couple of weeks – and that includes some in their late teens too – has expressed the hope, if not the wish, that this or that cyclone being announced may actually come to Mauritius! Close enough to bring plenty of rain, but from a safe enough distance so as not to cause any major damage.

Though, in my experience coping with cyclones both domestically and while being on duty in hospital over several decades, I would say that we have gradually developed a reasonably well-honed system to cope with them at all levels. Post-Alix and Carol in 1960, citizens took to building houses in bricks instead of the colonial type constructions made of wooden frames and iron sheets, which those two cyclones battered down to heaps of tangled metal and wood. Improvements in our warning system, affordable supplies of essential items that can be stocked in advance because of the overall better economic situation, and rapid assistance by the SMF and Fire Services both during and after the cyclones – all these have helped us to cope better with these dreaded calamities.

And, ironically, we have reached such a level of (relative) comfort in the face of cyclones that we are even praying to have them but, as pointed out above, not too intimately near!

Willy-nilly, we find ourselves talking more and more about the weather. In the past, the conversation was mostly about Curepipe: “Letan ki manière Curepipe la?” (“How’s the weather in Curepipe?”). Why we talked so much about the weather was likely because of the predominance of our British or English colonial environment, with the Westminster parliamentary system, and English as the official and administrative language. We naturally, in a manner of speaking, ‘looked’ towards England where, we gathered, much of the talk was always about the weather.

Much later, when I went to do my specialist studies there, I came to understand why. Landing in London on an oh! so cold morning at the end of January 1976, what immediately struck me was the drab, grey overcast sky, which I just as promptly compared to the azure, blue canopy of the Curepipe I had left behind: masses of fluffy white cumulus clouds gaily and leisurely sailing across it. I was so tired from the flight that my heart didn’t have time to sink, which it severely did when I reached Dublin two days later on a late Sunday afternoon. Dark, bitterly cold despite my thick coat, the saving grace was my cousin picking me up from the airport and driving me to the family who were to host me as a paying guest, and who treated us to ‘tea’. That was the other surprise – but it’s also another story!

But let us come back to our local terra firma. Given our ongoing dire context of drought, and water scarcity, a good place to start is Mare-aux-Vacoas, the largest and principal reservoir of our small island. On the eve of Maha Shivaratri on Tuesday last during my walk to Ganga Talao in the late afternoon, I got a first-hand view of our major source of water supply. The thought that came to my mind was that I had seen worse.

Let me explain. That was over 40 years ago in the summer of 1982 or 83. It was about 2 pm when I and my fellow walker and guide were returning to Curepipe. We had reached Mare-aux-Vacoas, the circumscribed volume of water in the centre was surrounded by a large rim of caked earth, lunar surface like and definitely quite firma! – and across which we walked. And that’s where it becomes more interesting.

A decade older than me, my friend knew more about our island’s geography and topography: there, he exclaimed to me, you know what we’re walking on? That’s the old boundary walk of the reservoir! He had quite obviously seen it earlier, and we crossed it to reach once again the baked and caked bed of the lake until we reached the edge.

Well, unless I am sorely mistaken, I thought I could see a part of this wall surfacing above the meager water pool that was visible.

But 40 years ago, our population was much smaller, and our second industrialization had only just begun, so the water supply coped. Today clearly the situation is vastly different, with a larger population, and much more development having taken place.

We are in deep shit, sorry for the expression, but that’s the truth about our water situation. I feel that the restrictions ought to have been imposed even earlier, as was done in the England of 1976, shortly after the beginning of the hottest summer that the country was experiencing – and I too – after 40 years.

Our leaders like to compare us with Singapore. Just over one third our size but with more than five times our population, and having no rivers as I understand, that country doesn’t have water woes, being able to provide its population with water 24/7 all the year round.Read More… Become a Subscriber

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 28 February 2025