Mauritius | Day Nine

“There’s an ancient parable about a farmer who lost his horse. That night, the neighbors gathered around to mourn his loss. “We cannot believe this. What a terrible thing to have happened to you,” they said. The farmer responded, “maybe.”

Days later, the farmer’s horse returned with seven wild horses in tow. Right away, the neighbors exclaimed, “what an unexpected good fortune!” The farmer shrugged, “maybe.”

The next day, the farmer’s son rode one of the wild horses, fell off and broke his legs. The neighbors cried, “what terrible fortune to land on your son!” The farmer replied, “maybe.”

Weeks later, the army came knocking on doors drafting men for the looming war. When they saw the farmer’s son and his broken legs, they passed him by. The neighbors rejoiced, “what great luck for you and your son!” The farmer simply said, “maybe.”

Sometimes “bad” things happen to bring us to where we are meant to be.” – excerpt from ‘Good? Bad? Maybe… ‘ by Ismail Elshareef for Medium.

Today was a metaphor layered in a metaphor layered in a metaphor layered in a bit of an adventurous disaster.

We went at 8 to retrieve a package that had been sent here but was held up at customs. As the package was at the airport, we decided to make a day of it and spend time at Blue Bay on the East coast of the island. We got the package, quickly celebrated, and then continued on to the beach. It was incredibly beautiful. Picturesque white sand, clear blue-green tropical waters, swaying palm trees – the whole deal.

We played pro kadima, swam out into the bay with tropical fish all around us, and lay in the sun. It was the perfect beach day, until… one friend lost the blue gem stone from her ring. This we chalked up to Blue Bay wanting the gem as sort of an offering, so we let it be. But then we came across some old ceramic pottery in the water of the bay. One member of our group took them out of the water and cleaned them up a bit. Then she decided to take them with us. However, when we went to get food from a street vendor nearby, the old woman warned us that pottery is placed in the ocean when local people die as a memorial to them and that it’s bad luck to remove them.

Cue the ‘bad luck’.

We were late getting back West to drop off the deposit for our weekend camping trip so we were hurrying to get there. As we were driving along, the driver mentioned that it felt as though the car were pulling to the left like as it would if there were a flat. Sure enough, we had a flat. We pulled off to fix it but there was a custom lug nut key we needed that we didn’t have. So, we slowly drove down the road to a gas station and were lucky enough that they found us a key and swapped the tire for us.

We were back on our way with the spare/donut tire and things were going well. We were doing car karaoke with the microphone and singing Disney tunes, etc. I gave a rendition of Slide Along Side by shifty. Not great, but fun.

But then, as we were just 20 minutes away, boom! huge pothole came out of nowhere and we had a flat spare now. It was getting dark so we carefully drove the car off the road and waited for help. Luckily another member came to get us and the car rental guy came to deal with the car.

Then I got back and cooked a big dinner of noodles and chicken substitute patties.

Anyway, the reason this day was a metaphor in a metaphor, etc. is because, when things go wrong, they can be leading you to what’s right for you. We got to see an incredible sunset over the mountains today because we got the flat tire. We got to bond today because of those flat tires and/or the bad juju from those pottery pieces . Luckily, we all started positive and had a great day regardless!