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

22 juillet 2013

The Blue Mango Strikes Again

On Friday, the musicians had a party at one musician's house including all musicians and dancers. I think everyone had a good time, there was certainly a lot of dancing going on. On Saturday, we planted ourselves in the middle of the monthly farmer's...

Posté par calligraphy à 03:58 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, beach, blue, accordion, flute, guitar, music, recorder, mango, violin, sakouli, rehearsal

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26 mars 2012

Dziani Dzaha

One really nice thing about Mayotte is that the distances are short, so you don't need to travel for a long time to go anywhere. The beaches are very close to the towns. Our nearest beach can be reached on foot. It's not a terribly nice one, so we usually...

Posté par calligraphy à 04:09 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: island, mayotte, green, lagoon, water, walk, dziani, lake, buffalo, eye, petite terre, randonnée

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2 décembre 2013

On the Art of Little Pots

In Mayotte, one of the most useful things you can buy in the local supermarket is a Tupperware (or similar) container. Here, the brand is Eda, so they're Eda containers. They come in all shapes and sizes and are absolutely wonderful. The reason for this...

Posté par calligraphy à 03:30 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: food, rice, supermarket, pasta, sugar, cockroach, flour, fridge, insect, spices, tupperware, weevil

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21 février 2013

Things students say...

I was happily teaching my students all about various states, cities, monuments and cultures of the United States of America. Then I gave them a test... and as usual, I didn't recognize my original lesson at all. I have now learnt that... Per year, Yellowe...

Posté par calligraphy à 12:27 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: house, pupils, school, teacher, lesson, white, students, work, america, barack, obama, usa

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20 octobre 2011

Opting out

Mad at CRS riot police. This morning, while setting off for school, a colleague rang to say that he'd heard that there weren't any lessons today. Once there, some said that lessons should continue as normal - public service - whereas others said that...

Posté par calligraphy à 08:16 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mzungu, school, strike, supermarket, death, demonstrator, injury, lesson, opt out, ransack, riot, white

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23 mars 2015

Dictée Bolé

This weekend, I took part in a quintessentially French way of spending a fun Saturday afternoon. As part of the Language Week, a local association had organized a Grand Dictation in order to promote language awareness among schoolchildren and adults....

Posté par calligraphy à 03:00 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, teacher, saturday, french, afternoon, dembeni, dictation, lecturer, text, university, write

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22 décembre 2014

It's a beautiful place, really.

There have been a couple of rather pretty-pretty series of photos of Mayotte around recently. Two projects, in fact. The first was the Vanilla Islands project: an effort to put forward Mayotte, Reunion and the Seychelles on the touristic scene. We did...

Posté par calligraphy à 01:40 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: island, mayotte, beautiful, coral, photo, vanilla, turtle, dolphin, tourism, tourist, drone

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16 juin 2014

Music

I've been playing quite a bit of music recently. On May 31st, I was roped in to play "film music", which was a new one for me. Mostly cartoon themes such as Some Day My Prince Will Come, Popeye or The Bare Necessities, but the odd tune from films such...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:12 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: food, school, blue, bretons, music, mango, concert, dance, folk, pancakes, film

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16 novembre 2011

The English girl and the Motorbike

I wonder if Papi remembers teaching me to drive... 31.10.2011 The driving-school instructor who taught me how to ride a scooter had asked me for English lessons, so I gave him his first lesson this evening. In return, instead of payment, he is going to...

Posté par calligraphy à 19:19 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: english, motorbike, lessons, code, driving school, mistakes, prefecture, rousseau, saturday, theory, time

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16 février 2015

What do you want to be when you're older? Dunno, miss...

Saturday was Job Forum day at school. Some well-intentioned and better-organized-than-the-others teachers had been collecting people for a few months now, people who came from different job horizons and who had agreed to come to our school and talk about...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:34 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: class, pupils, school, teacher, security, photo, group, job, aquaculture, forum, nurse

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29 décembre 2014

A Family Christmas

This year, the Cooper Christmas commenced, continued and ceased in a rather categorical fashion. We had moments of present-giving and new clothes... Smiles and silly hats... Moments of intense concentration... Games... Screens... Arty-farty photos......

Posté par calligraphy à 01:29 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: english, mum, christmas, family, camera, nanny, england, present, papi, accent, sewing box

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16 septembre 2013

A European In Mayotte

In my opinion, healthy food is the best. I don't think junk food is better, because it's too fatty and unhealthy. Personally, I like healthy food because it's full of vitamins, it's more natural. I wouldn't say it's the cheapest or quickest but nevertheless,...

Posté par calligraphy à 03:52 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: food, class, school, teacher, english, students, test, euro, european, section, strict

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8 avril 2013

Makis and Turtles

While P was here, we went down to the south of the island to one of the most beautiful (and most touristic, unfortunately) beaches in Mayotte: N'Gouja. Twice. The first time was during the school holidays, the second time was on the Monday when everybody...

Posté par calligraphy à 01:11 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: indian ocean, mayotte, water, coral, beach, sand, sea, maki, swim, turtle, ngouja

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3 juin 2013

Mahoraid

On Pentecost week-end, like last year, all of the sailing boats in Mayotte who wished could embark on a tour of the island. My musician friend Franck, who owns and lives on a sailing boat, wished. He took a few of his friends and me on his boat with him,...

Posté par calligraphy à 01:54 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: island, food, fish, boat, sea, tour, race, 2013, drink, mahoraid, barracuda

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29 avril 2013

Before coming to Mayotte...

Before coming to Mayotte, I didn't know that temperatures could be so constantly hot, never going lower than 27°C even at night. From the first rays of sunlight to the last, the temperature is between 28°C (dry season) and 34°C (rainy season), and it's...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:58 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: island, mayotte, temperature, colour, sun, skin, mosquito, tropical, nationality, paradise, sweat

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1 mars 2012

What Emily Did

Several things have happened at school recently. The second term has just finished, so we’ve been having conseils de classe, end-of-term reunions of all the teachers for each class plus two class-elected students. It’s a time to see how each student’s...

Posté par calligraphy à 08:52 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: indian ocean, mayotte, death, boat, sea, inspection, students, anjouan, clandestine, immigration, kwassa

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25 juin 2012

Drama Queens

The end of the school year was on Friday, June 22nd, at twelve o'clock. For a while, a French teacher called Salima and I had been preparing a short drama show with the same class, each of us blithely unknowing of what the other was doing. It was one...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:10 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: girl, school, teacher, boy, english, music, traditional, dance, french, play, pregnant

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29 octobre 2011

Sandy Islands

Yesterday, the school closed at midday to avoid taking any risks linked to demonstrations, road-blocking, car-burning or stone-throwing, which seem to have become rather fashionable local pastimes. Faced with a long week-end, as Tuesday – 1st of November,...

Posté par calligraphy à 09:37 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: white, beautiful, coral, diving, fish, beach, blue, boat, oxygen, sand, sea

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9 juillet 2012

M'biwi Contest

On a Sunday at the end of last month, there was the 2nd M'biwi Contest. M'biwi is a ceremony which is generally practised during weddings or other big occasions. It's a women's ceremony. They sit on the floor and bang two pieces of bamboo together to...

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

Tags: mayotte, ceremony, girl, mbiwi, salouva, women, traditional, dance, contest, sing, wedding

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12 février 2012

Madame, la pluie, elle tombe!

Talk about keeping things for a rainy day. There are so many rainy days here – and so much rain – that I don’t know what to do with most of them. Some do, though. There’s construction work outside at the moment – just underneath our flat, actually – where...

Posté par calligraphy à 17:01 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, flat, water, rain, philip, crepi, curtain, rainbow, table, television, wall

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28 avril 2014

Carnival Week-End I : A Motivated Zebu

Sunday 27th April is Slavery Abolition Day in Mayotte. This is usually commemorated by a carnival, comprising various dances, an exhibition of some sort at the Tourist Office and possibly another event. On Saturday, something was planned to start at half...

Posté par calligraphy à 03:13 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mamoudzou, mayotte, zebu, mahorese, abolition, carnival, corrida, day, republic, slavery, square

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14 février 2013

Hot Blushes

I started drama lessons with the kids this afternoon. The first task was an improvisation sketch in small groups: you have just received an anonymous Valentine's card. How do you react? One girl beckoned me over and said: "Miss, I can't do this." "Why...

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

Tags: black, school, white, students, valentine, kids, blush, drama, improvisation, theatre, red

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20 août 2012

M'lima Choungui

Last Sunday, we did a very touristy and rather stupid thing. We decided to go up the Mount Choungui, known as M'lima Choungui. We'd seen it plenty of times from a distance, we have friends who've gone up it, and it was starting to seem as though everybody...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:05 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, food, water, root, choungui, friend, stones, down, mountain, up, view

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30 juillet 2012

It's cold outside.

Winter has arrived, the shortest day of the year has come and gone, and it's getting cold outside. This said, being Mayotte, cold is an entirely relative notion. We're not talking sub-zero temperatures and snow. We're talking twenty-five degrees, cool...

Posté par calligraphy à 04:45 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: t-shirt, water, beach, tree, leaves, wind, towel, cold, cool, tea, warm

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22 mars 2012

My Granddaughter Went To Market And She Bought...

We went to the market the other day. The big, covered market in the Place de la République in Mamoudzou. We'd never gone inside before, never really gathered that there was actually something in there, just seen the big pink building from the outside....

Posté par calligraphy à 07:32 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mamoudzou, banana, breadfruit, cassava, clothes, chicken wings, brochetti, market, kebab, leaves, placenta

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