French and Creole are the most common languages and I'm happy to report that my French is getting much better! Most people used to switch to English on me when they heard how bad my French was, but now I'm getting away with some short conversations in French.
The Mauritian rupee is not worth as much as the US dollar. One thousand Mauritian rupees are worth close to 30 US dollars. I have to do a lot of math every time I buy something. If I want to buy a meal at a restaurant for 250 Mauritian rupees, I have to quickly calculate in my head whether or not this is an amount I am willing to spend. It gets very confusing sometimes.
I've been buying six-packs of 1.5 liter bottles of water for about the equivalent of three US dollars. Unfortunately, the water in Mauritius is not quite safe enough to drink directly from the faucets, so we have to drink bottled water. This results in a lot of plastic waste, so we make sure to take all of our old bottles to the big recycling bins located here.
