Anu Gosai: From Mauritius to South Africa, Merging Cultures & Creating Home

What would it be like to live in South Africa? What if you were moving there from the tiny country from Mauritius?

In Episode 5, Season 2 of Creating Your Happy Place, Anu Gosai shares her story of leaving her tiny island home at 18 to study to be a pharmacist. She's now a happy dual-culture woman raising two girls with her hubby in a free-standing house with a big garden in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

Professionally, Anu is the founder of Red Butterfly and works as a menstrual health coach, helping women who have menstrual health challenges and who want to learn how to live in sync with their cycles.

- - Where to find Anu - -

For those interested in learning more about Anu's work:

Instagram: @anugosai.redbutterfly
LinkTree: linktr.ee/redbutterfly
Facebook: @redbutterfly.menstrualcycles
Website: redbutterfly.co.za/

- - About the host - -

Rebecca West is a business coach for ambitious residential interior designers who are determined to become the only designer their clients and contractors call.

She's also obsessed with creating happy homes, so if you need some advice for your home you can check out her book Happy Starts at Home or sign up for a via-Zoom Design Helpline. 

Rebecca can't resist a costume party or a cat video, and has a weakness for Oreos, Taco Bell, and Scotch whiskey. 😁

🙏 If you like this podcast, make sure to review, subscribe, or share! 

Transcript

Rebecca: 0:01

Welcome to Creating Your Happy Place, a podcast that explores what it takes to create your happy place and then empowers you to do whatever it takes to make your home seriously happy. I'm Rebecca West, host of Creating Your Happy Place and author of the book, Happy Starts At Home and I'm so glad you're here today. This season we're having fun exploring the idea of becoming an expat and setting up a home outside of the United States. Today we're chatting with Anu Gosai. She lives in a single family house with a big yard in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Now, unlike most of my guests this season, Anu isn't from the United States. She came to South Africa from her home country of Mauritius when she left at 18, when she moved to South Africa to study to be a pharmacist. Today, Anu has kindly offered to share with us her story of leaving home and creating a new one in a new country. In her real life, she's the founder of Red Butterfly and works as a menstrual health coach, helping women who have menstrual health challenges and who want to learn how to live in sync with their cycles. If you wanna learn more about her work, of course you'll be able to find her contact information in the show notes. Before we meet Anu, just in case you didn't know where Mauritius is, don't worry I didn't either. Picture a map of Africa and look for the island of Madagascar off the southeast coast, and then keep going further east about 80 more miles, and you'll find a tiny tropical dot in the Indian Ocean. It's an island that's about 788 square miles. And for context, that's almost the same size as the city of Jacksonville in Florida. South Africa, on the other hand, is a country just under twice the size the state of Texas, located on the very southern tip of the African continent. And Port Elizabeth where Anu lives is a city of 1 million people, the sixth largest city in South Africa. So I'm very curious what it means to Anu to set up a happy home and how she's found it different to have a home in South Africa from one she might have had in Mauritius, had she had her adult life there. So I am delighted to welcome to the show today Anu. Welcome, and thank you for being here.

Anu: 2:13

Hi, I'm so excited to be here. Thank you.

Rebecca: 2:16

I am absolutely delighted and I thought to kick it off, since most of our listeners won't really know how to picture a home on a tiny island like Mauritius, can you describe the home you grew up in and a little bit about what it's like there? Is it really developed and urban? Is it really undeveloped? No plumbing, no electricity. Like where are we at on Mauritius?

Anu: 2:38

Oh, Mauritius is beautiful and where my parents home is it's, uh, it's a city, so you do get parts of the island that are more village, where my parents' home is very close to the city. So w e have electricity and water, wifi, and and uh, my parents' home that I grew up is a two story, so you have downstairs and a floor above. On the top floor there's a balcony and we used to just sit there and relax and watch the moon and the stars. That's one of the features in Mauritius people like to spend time outdoors in the evenings, and a lot of Mauritian homes, the big thing is the garden with the tropical fruit, like coconut tree, mango tree. So yeah, a big feature is a fruit, fruit trees in the yard.

Rebecca: 3:26

So it sounds like living on Mauritius, you kind of have the best of everything. You have this paradise of an island and most western conveniences.

Anu: 3:33

Yes, it is. I think the only challenge we have is the island is small. We are very fortunate that the property that my parents have, it's a very nice size property, but new development coming along now, maybe it'll be smaller. I don't know.

Rebecca: 3:46

Sure. Yeah. Well, urban development and density is a challenge in every city, isn't it? What was your first impression of the homes and buildings when you moved over? Was there a big difference from what you'd grown up with?

Anu: 3:58

So prior to traveling to South Africa, we had gone on a family holiday to Scotland, so I got to see just like a different culture and we had traveled to other countries as well. So I had an idea, but coming to South Africa, it was apartment living. So for me that was an adjustment because we were used to an independent home.

Rebecca: 4:18

When you first moved over you were young, you were a student, and obviously student living is very different from being an adult and setting up a home. So when did you first make your transition to saying, okay, now I'm responsible for creating a home here for myself?

Anu: 4:33

Mm. That was when I got married. And, um, my husband and I, before we got married, we bought a property. I was trying to think now what do I want? I wanted a place that had stairs because my parents' home had stairs and because I've seen how you have a lot of responsibilities with a free standing home. I thought, no, let's have homely, but still easy to manage so we bought this two bedroom flat, which had a nice kitchen and stairs and a smallish garden because at that time we didn't feel that we wanted to get into that. That was my, um, transition into buying a home. And we really like our neighborhood. I've been in the same neighborhood since 2011 when we bought our first property. This is the third property that we have. The house that we have is very similar to my parents' home, the garden is a big thing. During Covid we like to be outdoors more, but because of the restrictions, we started utilizing the huge garden space that we had. We had a fire pit installed where we can light a fire. We just sit around it and relax with the girls and put up a small play tent, and we can sit on the camping chair and just relax. And we started noticing things in our gardens, that there's lots of birds so we've put bird feeders. So now we've been like watching the birds. That for me links to one of the things I remember from my childhood and my parents home of sitting on the balcony at night watching the stars and chatting. So that's been my version of it.

Rebecca: 6:04

I love it. You know, this is not always true, but very commonly it tends to be the females who are very interested in nesting and setting up home. And the guys are kinda like, I have some opinions, but mostly they're about the tv. Is that a similar family dynamic in your household?

Anu: 6:21

I think to some extent, yes. I thought it was mostly because I left my parents home when I was 18 and I've been living independently since I finished high school and came to study. So my husband, when I met him, was still living with his parents. Because they're very different culture here in South Africa. Many, even adults, they still stay with their parents. And not many people stay independently. And I think that's just a culture thing. So for me, when it was our time that was one of the things I told my husband, I'll marry him, but I'm not staying with in-laws because I've been an independent person since I'm 18. And for me, that's a bit going backwards in my life. He respected that and supported me on this. So, yeah.

Rebecca: 7:03

So you're saying that, um, within Mauritian families, it's more common for people to stay in their parents' homes all the way up until they're married? Is that true for both men and women and that your story's a bit different?

Anu: 7:14

Yes. In Mauritius, my cousins many of them are university graduates, have good jobs that they could afford, I would think. But it's very much like, you kind of stay with your parents until you get married so for me that was, very important to set up my own um, I had to kind of create that environment that nourished me. Yeah, that's been quite an important aspect for me.

Rebecca: 7:39

How influenced are you by the expectations of your parents? Of his parents? Are there certain things that you feel culturally that are expected of you when it comes to taking care of the home, decorating the home?

Anu: 7:53

One of the cultural things for us, when we buy the property, we will consult our priest because we look at astrology, the planets, and we ask, when is a suitable time? When is a auspicious time to move in? Before we live in here, we will get a priest to come and do a prayer. It's just like welcoming, almost like acknowledging those who lived in this home before, but now it's like a cleansing and it's our home now. So even though I'm an educated person, we still follow these traditions and that's something they do in Mauritius and my husband's family do here.

Rebecca: 8:32

How formal is this ceremony and how many people are present? Are we talking about ceremonial robes and candles? Or is it just a quick prayer and we're out? Like how how formal is it?

Anu: 8:43

It can be formal. It depends, you know, maybe the first property, it was a big thing, but our third property, it's just my, my husband's parents and then me and my girls, like just the immediate family. We do dress up in our, um, Indian attire, our traditional attire, and then usually it's a couple of hours prayers and celebration. So this is what is expected of us from our parents or culture. But then our personal beliefs, we also get somebody come who does Reiki or an energetic cleanse. I believe in doing that because I, I believe we all energy so. So yeah, that's what we do.

Rebecca: 9:27

It's interesting how many cultures you're bringing into the conversation. So Mauritius is very close to Africa, but it sounds like it's very closely related to the Indian continent culture. Given that it's closer to Africa, how did Mauritius become to be so heavily informed by Indian traditions and culture?

Anu: 9:46

I think it's got to do with, um, uh, we were a British, how do you say that? Before independence a lot of people came to Mauritius so that's how it's got a lot of Indian influence. A lot of our, um, ancestors, grandparents, I can mean my grandfathers from India, so we don't have a lot of African influence per se, but more Indian culture. And then you get uh, a big Chinese population as well, so Mauritius is a combination of different cultures. So we have like a Mauritian culture as an umbrella. My husband will say, it's a very Mauritian thing to do, for example, in Mauritius, we have shoes that we wear outside the house and then when we get home we have our inside shoes. Mm-hmm. So for me, for example, that was a culture shock when I came here, that we could use the same shoes throughout the whole house. Like these are the subtle things that I've have to learn. Even a simple thing as in Mauritius in our home, your outside clothes, when you get home, you change into your house clothes. But here it was like, oh, you can stay in the same clothes in your home the whole day. The same clothes that you wear outside and inside. That's amazing. So, so those are some of the things in terms of culture, the similarities, but differences as well. We have cultural things that we will do, for example, around Diwali, which is a celebration of light, in Mauritius, we just light lamps everywhere. Whereas here in South Africa, there are a few things that we need to do. For example, I need to wash the front of my home. It's an expectation, you know, this is what we are told, okay, this is what we do, but it's been nourishing for me because it's an important to bring the Mauritian culture and South African culture in my home so my girls are exposed to both.

Rebecca: 11:34

I love it. One of the things I like to ask is, when I've lived in other countries, little things surprise me. Like how the garbage is collected or not collected, or how the light switches work or the buzzer to get into my home. These things that we take completely for granted because they're so common in whichever culture we're living in. So when it comes to like the utilities, the garbage, how electricity works, have you noticed anything that's particularly unique to South Africa?

Anu: 12:03

Yes, the switches look different. Um, and the garbage was also different. Like here we have recycling, so I'm very much into everything eco-friendly, organic... and so when I found out I can do recycling here, ooh, I was so excited and I'm very strict about that at home, and the kids know as well, we're trying to teach'em. So those are some of the things that are different.

Rebecca: 12:26

How does garbage collection work? Is it shipped off the island? Are there landfills? Is it burned? What, what happens? You're such a contained country.

Anu: 12:34

I honestly don't know. Um, I don't think it's shipped off. I think they are landfills. It goes somewhere, don't go where.

Rebecca: 12:42

You said your parents have come to visit in South Africa, are there things that you notice that you're like, oh, yep, that's a very Mauritian thing to do.

Anu: 12:49

A simple example would be tea, in South Africa everything is teabag. Whereas in Mauritius, the way my mom, for example, would make tea, is you would boil water in a pot with loose leaves and then strain it and add milk. Um, even simple things like here in South Africa it's more liquid cow milk, whereas in Mauritius it's more powder cow milk. And with the shoes, like the inside shoes to have those sandles ready for her because I do know those are some of the things that are important. And appliances, appliances a big thing for my mom at least. My mom's a great cook and I find that when she travels over time, she brings utensils that she wants to use. Cuz sometimes when they come, they come for a month or three months. So my mom would bring things. But during my day-to-day life, when they're not there, I would say, do I really need these things? So unfortunately I sold donated, and then my mom comes, she was like, oh, I'm looking for this thing. And then, oops, maybe I kind of like got rid of it.

Rebecca: 13:58

You mentioned that there's a lot of outside living in Mauritius, and you'd shared with me that you used to be a person who did not like to spend time at home, you preferred to always be on the go, and that when Covid hit, you spent a lot of time at home and started converting your house into a home that better meets your needs. I'm curious, what kinds of changes did you make?

Anu: 14:18

For example, an interior designer gave us this brilliant idea of using two cupboards to create like a separation in our room cuz we had this, uh, massive space in our lounge. And we actually did that. And now that little space is my husband's, uh, kind of, I won't say man cave, but his computers there. He can do gaming. So we've actually feel like we've extended our home without much a renovation just moving things around created more space for everybody. And that's been good for him as well, you know, if he needs a break from, from the kids and me just like to compress from work, he can know he, that is his space and he has that. Also this room that I'm in now has become my little home studio office, a space for me. This is next to the kitchen, and we had initially wanted to use this as a pantry. The idea was long, long-term to break walls and have it like a walk in huge kitchen open space with a lounge. But through Covid actually realized that yes, that's a nice idea, but it is not what I want. I wanted to have a space for myself, like a mini home office. Yes, maybe I need a moment away from my kids, and this is a space I get to have. So for me, my kids know they're welcome here, if you come here you'll see there's a lot of kids pictures, but they cannot move things around because this is a area of the home that I get to be tidy, cuz with small kids, it's very difficult to have the whole home tidy all the time.

Rebecca: 15:52

Right. With Covid, a lot of people realized the, the, um, usefulness of a door and being able to close a door between spaces can really save the family's sanity.

Anu: 16:03

Absolutely. That is my cocoon, this is my space. I don't let anybody in here. So closing the door is a great thing that I can do so that, um, I have this privacy. And I think also for the switch, I feel when I can close this door and go in my kitchen, like I'm leaving what is here, here, right? If I have visitors and I've been in the middle of a sewing project or some creative something, I can just close the door. It's been good to realize the difference it makes.

Rebecca: 16:35

The ability to say, I'm going into my cocoon, or I am now leaving work, even though technically you're still in the same physical house, the ritual of closing a door is part of starting and stopping things so that you can give your full attention to your work or give your full attention to your kids and you're not always trying to be all the things all at the same time.

Anu: 16:57

Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely.

Rebecca: 16:59

So tell me a little bit about remodeling. Sounds like you've done quite a bit of renovation work yourselves?

Anu: 17:05

Renovation is a big thing I see in the South African culture. South African people take a lot of pride in their homes and maintaining their homes. We've done quite a lot of projects over time and I love it. I know with our first property, we renovated our bathroom. It was a very, very small bathroom. We just made strategic changes. When we sold the place, I know it was that selling feature. And I miss that bathroom because we spent a lot of, um, time and energy on it. In our last property, we redid the, the kitchen. It's a very funny story. The house that we came to love here was on sale. We gave an offer to purchase and that the old lady that stayed here decided she doesn't want to sell it anymore. And I was very upset. So I told my husband, you know what? I'm very upset. The lady did this. She decided to sell and decide not to sell. It's okay. Let's just renovate our flat. Then we were renovating our home. And the agent phone and said, uh, do you still want to buy this house? Like we're busy renovating our flat. Um, the one thing that I really want to do is to add a bath like an ensuite to our current home that overlooks the garden and that's related to living in sync with my cycle, like bath time is very important. That's something I want to actually mention. Here in South Africa where we live, we have a lot of water restrictions and we've had a drought. So many properties add water tanks to save water, rainwater tanks that connect your gutter, that collects all the rain from the roof, goes into tanks that you can connect to your water supply, to supply your home with water so that you're not reliable on the municipal system.

Rebecca: 18:50

Are these barrels that are like on the side of your house, are they buried in the ground?

Anu: 18:55

Yes, so they are huge, like 5,000 liters, close to the house kind of out of sight. It's not something you see immediately when you are like in the garden up and about. The gutters are connected and then there's a pump that pumps the water, from the tank through our piping system. The other thing that's trending in South Africa for homes is inverters and basically being able to be off the grid. We have a lot of power outrages. Like at least two, two and a half hours, or even sometimes four or five hours a day where we don't have electricity. It's a daily thing. That determines a lot of things in our home because when we bought appliances, we've bought gas. Like our stove is gas. In Mauritius gas stove is very popular. That was a change when I came to South Africa. Everything is electric stove. So when we had an opportunity to come to this home and buy new appliances, we tried to do gas for a lot. Our kettle, we've changed over from an electric kettle to one that boils on the stove so that if there's a power failure, we can still cook, we can still have tea. My husband and I, we've been researching to get solar panels So yeah. So that's some of the differences.

Rebecca: 20:07

It's so interesting. Generally speaking, across the United States, electricity's almost always there. It's a big deal when the electricity goes out, especially for anything longer than, you know, half a day. And you are dealing with that on a daily basis and yet running a business... Have there been times when you have had a meeting set and you haven't been able to take it simply because you didn't have power?

Anu: 20:29

Yeah, that was last week trying to be connected and then eventually I had to reschedule for the next day. That's been challenging but in a way I am prepared for it. In Mauritius we also used to have these outages, but for water. So, so it wasn't something new for me that we don't have something for an amount of time because in Mauritius we grew up, there's, uh, drought. We can't have water, so the municipality will cut water between this time and that time. So we grew up like that. We knew, for example, my mom will do washing or, everybody must have bath before this time, or the water is coming back this time, the water pressure's gonna be low. It's been an inconvenience to some extent, but I've learned to adapt and have some things in place to prepare. Sometimes I have to take calls outside of home so I have a mobile, for example, mobile internet that I take with me and maybe take calls in my car because I know that when I come home there's no, there's no electricity. My mom taught us to just be prepared. So for example, she used to store water to be self-sufficient. So I kind of translated that into my current situation now in South Africa to just be prepared because that's how I've seen my mom do it.

Rebecca: 21:48

I love it. Um, before we finish, I did wanna come back to what you'd said about how you use the different moon phases and your own menstrual cycle to optimize when you're organizing or decorating your home as part of managing your own energy levels, do you wanna share what that means?

Anu: 22:06

Yes. It's been four years that I've been doing this. For me, when I'm menstruating, the big thing is not moving things around. I make sure I'm in my own space resting. If I really need something big to be moved around, I'll ask my husband or somebody to help me move things around. It sounds counterproductive, but If I rest the first few days, I have much more energy the rest of my cycle. I also get to sit down and write my intention. What is it that I want to achieve? Not just in home, but anything in life. Having that sense of direction it really helps. It's important to know where you're going so that it contributes general happiness and alignment and upliftment.

Rebecca: 22:49

We know from all kinds of different teachings that we need to have rest periods and at least in the US culture, we don't tend to rest. And it's important.

Anu: 22:58

And for me my home is my happy place and there's such a relationship between our menstrual cycle and our environment. I've got clients who have something with a menstrual cycle, a stagnation or whatever and I'll be like, are you feeling stagnated in your home? Are you feeling stagnated in your life? Yes. Okay. Maybe you don't think it's related. What about you start tidying up maybe like a drawer at home, because I believe everything is chi, everything is life, you spend so much time in your home Just try, even if one drawer, just do a little thing. Just to move that energy. The connection with home and menstrual cycles been like a journey, a amazing one.

Rebecca: 23:40

It's interesting to hear you talk about this cause it's a new concept to me, but there are seasons to everything. The big seasons of summer and winter, we wear different things, we crave different things and we certainly are impacted by the hormonal fluctuations in our body, including obviously our menstrual cycle. Why wouldn't we pay attention to the season we're in on a both microscale and macroscale and accommodate that...

Anu: 24:06

For me, I know I'm in my premenstrual phase when I start moving things around. It's like I want everything to be cozy and comfortable. The plant must be here and and everything must be more whole. I'm in nesting mode. That's because in that particular phase, a phase just before our menstruation starts, the main hormone it's more of the hormone progesterone that's a nesting hormone. During the pre ovulation phase that's a time when I feel I might be more homesick, so like I do some of the things that I used to do when I was in Mauritius or go to the beach. Going to the beach is a big thing for me. During ovulation time many women have shared with me that they find they have this outbursts of energy. So I use this time to kind of optimize my projects at home. If there's things that needs to be done maybe like a spring clean or like a big project that requires a lot of energy. That is the time that I'm going to do that, to just optimize, because we just naturally have that energy. Some women maybe they don't have a cycle, maybe people who are menopausal or like, I'm postpartum, I don't have a cycle that's back. I follow the moon cycle.

Rebecca: 25:20

That's so counter to modern day living. Now that we have electricity that keeps the light on 24 7 we kind of demand of ourselves to barrel through every single day as if we always have the exact same amount of energy but that's not true. I've never paid attention to my own energies in that way, but it would be a curious exercise to track one's energy and see if there is that correspondence to when you feel like nesting, when you feel like clearing everything out. It does make sense what you're saying just from a biological perspective, when you think about when birds would feather their nest, obviously it's going to go hand in hand with their reproductive cycle.

Anu: 26:00

That's exactly what it is called cyclical living. We call it the inner summer, inner spring, inner autumn, inner winter. So that's how we talk about our cycles. The pace changes, even the clothes we are wearing, everything it's a different energy vibe. What advice would you like to give someone trying to create their own happy home? Do something that makes you feel good and not necessarily what others expect you to have in your home or what they want you to do. Your home is your sanctuary, create it and enjoy it.

Rebecca: 26:31

I completely agree with that, obviously. Where is the best place for people to find you?

Anu: 26:37

Instagram and I do have a website, uh, but Instagram is quite good.

Rebecca: 26:42

Excellent. Thank you so much for being here.

Anu: 26:45

Thank you so much for having me. It's been such an amazing conversation.

Rebecca: 26:48

To our listeners, I hope you've enjoyed this episode of Creating Your Happy Place and that you feel a little bit more encouraged, empowered, and excited to make your home your happy place. If you are feeling less than happy in your home, remember that my book, Happy Starts At Home, is here as a resource for you and it's full of exercises that are meant to help you figure out how your home can be better supporting you and what changes you might wanna make so it does make you seriously happy. That's it for this episode of Creating Your Happy Place. Until next time.