The schoolteacher and the Virgin Mary statue

In the olden days there was a statue of the Virgin Mary located on the hillside in the grounds of Port Mathurin Government School (It may still be there) . I actually have a very old picture of the school children helping build the statue dated from the late 1940s. Back in the days school teachers used to take their students to the statue to pray. Maybe they prayed for good grades! One of these students told me the following funny story.

On this particular day a school teacher took his students to the statue to pray. The teacher in question was Monique Plaiche (sadly no longer with us but very well known as a teacher). As he and his students knelt before the statue and started saying their prayers a man on the roadside by the school yelled out, "Monique!!!!! Arete fer to couyon!! Ca statue la, ciment ca! Levayan ki ti faire ca!".

Kreole --> English translation: Monique!!!! Stop being an idiot!! That statue is cement! Levayan made it. Basically the moral of the story is, "why the hell are you praying to a piece of cement".