Articles populaires – Tales of Tyre-racing, Makis and M'zungus.

4 février 2013

It's a hard knock life.

Last Sunday, the music group (as always oh-so-elegantly named The Blue Mango) and I went to a barbecue on the beach, organized by the Bretons of Mayotte. An excuse to get together as much as anything, go swimming, have some fun and have something to eat....

Posté par calligraphy à 02:39 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: banana, breadfruit, food, papaya, water, mabawas, beach, bretons, music, kebab, dance, mahorese

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3 décembre 2012

Saying Goodbye to Philippe

Before P left, we had a party with the music group and the dancers to say goodbye. Every two weeks, the main dancer holds a dance workshop at his home, where anyone who so wishes can turn up and learn a few traditional dancers. Usually, a couple of musicians...

Posté par calligraphy à 04:35 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, food, accordion, music, recorder, philip, dance, violin, percussion, bamboo, mahorese, seed, wine

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2 juillet 2012

Tyred flat out.

On Saturday, there was the Grand Tyre Race in Mamoudzou. Hundreds of people had come to race and to watch, as this is THE big event of the year in Mayotte. The idea is to race for 2.2km through the capital city, driving a used tyre in front of oneself...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:20 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mamoudzou, mayotte, girl, tyres, boy, grease, race, run, tyre racing, yoghurt, face paint, prize, soap

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28 novembre 2011

What Not To Wear

Before coming to Mayotte, I’d looked them up in books and on websites, talked to people about them, looked into what was available locally. I’d looked into the materials that went into making them and how said materials would stand the test of time, humidity,...

Posté par calligraphy à 06:13 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, clothes, dress, salouva, t-shirt, shop, advertising, british telecom, december, jeans, summer, tesco

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6 août 2012

Population Study episode 1 : Bouénis

Bouéni means "madam" in Shimaoré. It's the name given to all married women, or those who look old enough to be married. It's more than a name, though, it's a way of life. Bouénis are the ones who have all the power in Mahorese societies. They're the ones...

Posté par calligraphy à 01:16 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, salouva, women, chicken wings, beautiful, bouéni, market, wedding, children, hair, m'biwi, married, poverty

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11 mai 2015

Market Day Has Gone Forever

There used to be two markets in Mamoudzou. The official one, and the clandestine one. The official one is under cover, in a fairly recent building where sellers rent out spaces the size of your average garage for 120€/month. Pretty expensive by Mahorese...

Posté par calligraphy à 01:14 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mamoudzou, mayotte, fruit, clothes, dark, market, clandestine, smell, damp, destroy, hygienic, official, vegetables

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14 juillet 2014

Hiking around Saziley

Sunday was a rather hectic day. First, it was the day two of the musicians from the Blue Mango were leaving Mayotte, one forever, the other for a holiday. The one who was leaving forever hadn't been able to come to our last going-away party and I had...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:22 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: island, mayotte, food, water, black, white, beach, sand, friend, walk, stones, hike, saziley

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2 juin 2014

Wenka

I'm currently writing a lesson plan on graffiti and street art, the idea being to teach the kids what the point of each is and how to tell the difference. As there are a lot of tags here, I wanted to start off with pictures of graffiti around their home...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:42 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mamoudzou, mayotte, box, house, kawéni, mzungu, car, photo, village, kids, letter, street, wenka

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27 janvier 2014

Cyclone Alert

Last week, we had a cyclone exercise at school. Much more interesting than your average fire drill, where everyone just lines up under the big tree in the playground, and not as awkward as the earthquake simulation, where they all have to fit under the...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:33 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, school, teacher, quiet, lessons, test, kids, activity, alert, cyclone, exercise, instructions, vice-rectorate

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23 septembre 2013

National Horse Day.

Yesterday was National Horse Day. No, I hadn't heard of it before either. The one and only horse-riding club in Mayotte had put balloons up everywhere and was having a field day, showing off its good pupils and taking kids for rides on small ponies. It's...

Posté par calligraphy à 04:50 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: blue, accordion, guitar, music, recorder, mango, lunch, children, horse, lagon, national horse day, pony, équitation

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9 septembre 2013

Scientific Minds

I've been teaching English to an adult student for about a year and a half now. He's the director of the local branch of an international building and public works company. He has individual lessons twice a week with me, so he's been teaching me all about...

Posté par calligraphy à 03:37 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: teacher, lesson, english, work, group, building, bitumen, director, hazard, individual, pothole, public, soil

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6 mai 2013

Salama Djema

Mayotte is made up of two main islands, Grande-Terre and Petite-Terre. Between the two islands, the only means of transport is the ferry, known as the barge. There's even a verb for it: barger. Barging costs 75 centimes for a pedestrian, 2€ for a 50cc...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:53 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: island, airport, lagoon, car, scooter, people, petite terre, barge, euro, ferry, grande terre, pedestrian, salama djema

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24 août 2011

School has started.

School started today, with the teachers getting together and meeting the heads. Quite an exotic-looking school, with coconut trees and banana trees growing in the playgrounds. The rooms themselves are pretty run-down, with flaking paint, windows that...

Posté par calligraphy à 09:52 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mamoudzou, clothes, kishali, salouva, black, canteen, class, holiday, kawéni, mzungu, pupils, school, teacher

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27 avril 2015

Voulé à Musicale Plage

I was invited to a company voulé the other day, a barbecue on the beach with the company I work with giving English lessons to adults. The rainy season is reaching its end now, but there are still some strong bursts of rain occasionally, and I was caught...

Posté par calligraphy à 01:06 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: banana, food, chicken wings, beach, english, barbecue, kebab, voulé, meat, company, eat, full

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25 juin 2015

First Moon of Ramadan

Seen from Mayotte, the moon looks like a smile. This is the first moon of Ramadan this year. Ramadan, or a period of roughly one month when Muslims do not eat or drink between sunrise and sunset, but gorge themselves on fried food and sugary treats at...

Posté par calligraphy à 03:07 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, school, night, ramadan, muslim, day, arrive, cadi, fast, leave, miradji, moon

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30 juin 2014

Graffiti in M'Gombani

These are the resulting photos of my graffiti project around M'Gombani, a small village to the south of Mamoudzou. I took photos like these around three villages in total. The idea was to show my kids the difference between artistic graffiti, street art...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:41 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, stadium, street, court, art, basketball, degradation, graffiti, seahorse, symbol, tag, vandalism

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17 mars 2014

Hey to the Ferry.

P came over during my half-term holidays to spend a week in Mayotte with me. During that week, we played a lot of music and we ate out several times. It was on one of these times that something rather interesting happened. The restaurant we wanted to...

Posté par calligraphy à 03:25 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: dzaoudzi, mamoudzou, mayotte, holiday, emily, boat, philip, restaurant, ferry, salama djema, delay, engine

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28 janvier 2013

Training the Future

Just before the Christmas holidays, the company I work for outside school asked me to teach English to a group of students training to become computer technicians. A group of ten to fifteen people aged anywhere between 16 and 40, whom I would be teaching...

Posté par calligraphy à 03:55 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: pupils, teacher, saturday, students, computer, group, daesa, infrared, keyboard, morning, printer, vocabulary

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10 décembre 2012

Mont Combani

The day P left, we had a concert planned in the evening at the Gîte du Mont Combani. We were all rather shattered, as we'd all had fairly long days, but we got together in the late afternoon and went up to the gîte together. It's quite a trek, even in...

Posté par calligraphy à 03:12 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: blue, accordion, music, recorder, mango, mont, combani, dance, play, violin, gite, group

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18 juin 2012

Black and White

Last Friday, we went to a painting exhibition by two artists, one we'd heard of, one we hadn't. Exhibitions are extremely rare in Mayotte, as are any forms of what is pompously described as "culture". No theatre or drama representations, no cinema, very...

Posté par calligraphy à 07:22 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, water, friend, abstract, artist, baba, exhibition, figurative, marcel, mbaye, painting, sejour

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10 août 2011

Numbers

Mayotte, Maoré or Jazirat al Mawet (the Island of Death - very reassuring) is the 101st French department, as from May 2011. It's a collection of several small islands in the Indian Ocean, north of Madagascar. Its total population is 209 530 mostly spread...

Posté par calligraphy à 17:37 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: department, dzaoudzi, flight, france, humidity, indian ocean, island, jazirat al mawet, mamoudzou, maoré, mayotte, temperature

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21 novembre 2011

It's raining, it's pouring...

View from the flat. The rainy season started in the middle of last week. Tropical rain is quite interesting. It goes by short blasts of heavy rain followed by great lengths of nothing. But in the wet season, it rains at least a little every day. These...

Posté par calligraphy à 05:35 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, rain, april, change, climate, holes, mum, november, puddle, road, season, wet

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28 septembre 2011

Never ask a question if you don't want to know the answer.

Emily and the Car Saga 20th August. Search for car and scooter on used car newspapers and specialist garages. 23rd August. Find white 3-door air-conditioned 206 HDI through newspaper. Visit car two blocks away, test-drive car, the odd funny noise and...

Posté par calligraphy à 04:14 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, 125, 206, battery, car, emily, five minutes, garage, light, newspaper, scooter, tyres

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8 mai 2014

Salouva Deba

Most Mahorese women dress in a salouva, which is a big cotton tube knotted around the chest and which falls down to the feet. Underneath the salouva, they usually wear a sparkly t-shirt, or one with artistically cut-out pieces made to resemble flowers...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:39 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, kishali, mbiwi, salouva, music, traditional, dance, sing, stick, deba, prophet, rhythm

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23 juin 2014

Les Bigoudènes En Folie

It's tyre-racing time. The Bretons of Mayotte have two teams, one all-female, one all-male. The leader of the Bretons works in the police station and usually manages to rope in a team of policemen/women. He'd managed it last year, and had seemed to manage...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:33 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: girl, t-shirt, tyres, bretons, tyre racing, soap, flag, stick, sport, team, five, headdress

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