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

28 mai 2012

Sunday best.

People here do dry their washing in the most extraordinary places. Public railings, pavements in front of schools, bridges, even fields full of water buffalo. It makes for very colourful displays. Most people can't afford washing machines. They wash the...

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

Tags: mayotte, clothes, bridge, dry, pavement, railing, washing

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30 mars 2015

Dictionaries in an English lesson.

This is what happened when I asked some of the girls in my class to give out the dictionaries. They walked all round the classroom with a couple of dictionaries on their heads, handed the dictionaries out to the other students, went back to the cupboard...

Posté par calligraphy à 01:34 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: girl, pupils, school, teacher, students, work, dictionary

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12 août 2013

Consuegra

South of Madrid lies Consuegra, where Don Quijote's windmills stand on a ridge. Twelve windmills, some of them broken, allegedly by Don Quijote himself. Spain is obsessed with Don Quijote, as there are picture and sculptures everywhere, every village...

Posté par calligraphy à 04:06 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: emily, philip, trip, spain, consuegra, visit, windmills

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22 avril 2013

Musical Boats

It's name is the M'zouazia. Its construction started in 2006, and it was put into water for the first time in November 2011. Built by a man called Nicolas Hilly and his family, the construction took place in the village of M'zouazia in the south of Mayotte....

Posté par calligraphy à 02:45 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, teacher, boat, music, concert, bao, mzouazia

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18 février 2013

Yoğmak: "to be curdled or coagulated; to thicken"

This is what I have come to recognize as one of the most essential kitchen appliances in Mayotte. Fresh milk does not exist here, as there are no cows and it is too complicated to import via container. French long-life milk doesn't have the nicest taste...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:03 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: food, expensive, yoghurt, appliance, kitchen, maker, milk

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9 avril 2012

Present and Perfect.

I'm teaching my Year 10s the meaning of already and yet at the moment. In order to accomplish said feat, I asked them questions and got them to talk to each other about what they'd already done or not yet done that morning. Their morning activities aren't...

Posté par calligraphy à 18:33 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, school, cake, present perfect, shimaoré, yeti, rooster

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18 mai 2015

Mamoudzou By Night

I was sent on an espionage mission the other day. A friend of mine suspected his wife of cheating on him, and had asked me to go to a Senegalese party which she was planning to attend in order to check if the new boyfriend was there. When I got there,...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:45 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mamoudzou, photo, rain, night, scene, senegalese

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1 octobre 2012

The Motorbike Saga Ends Here.

Good morning. Just to say that I passed my motorbike licence last Wednesday. It's a test which is in two parts, half on a quiet track, half on the road. On the track, we had to manoeuvre the bike around cones and sticks, first very slowly around cones...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:08 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: motorbike, road, track, exam, slalom, test

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4 mai 2015

Carnival commemorating the Abolition of Slavery

Slavery Abolition Day was on April 27th, and brought with it a bank holiday, a closed exhibition, a time-wasting conference and a small carnival. These photos are of the participants in said carnival. There weren't very many groups, only about six or...

Posté par calligraphy à 01:20 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, april, abolition, carnival, slavery, 27

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4 novembre 2013

Chicken wings again

Mayotte is a French department and therefore receives all the French adverts. The TV adverts stay exactly the same, advertising things that haven't made it as far as Mayotte yet, but the paper adverts are tailored to local taste, one might say. You might...

Posté par calligraphy à 03:33 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, chicken wings, mabawas, advertising, telephone, orange

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16 décembre 2013

Idiots

I read an article the other day which began like this : "When you’re driving, everybody else on the road is an idiot and it’s your job to watch out". In Mayotte, driving is more than just a daily occurrence aiming to get a person from point A to point...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:55 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, car, road, driving, idiot

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12 juillet 2012

A few days later...

The men's dance, chigoma, followed a few days later. Naturally enough, being a Mahorese event, it started an hour late, but it was interesting. To dance chigoma, you stand in single file and shuffle forward, first one foot, left, forward, then the other,...

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

Tags: music, dance, men, chigoma, washing-machine

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5 août 2013

Pádel

Pádel is the most popular sport in Spain. When Philippe chose his flat in Madrid, the guy renting the flat was especially pleased to tell him that the flat was right near two pádel courts. P didn't really know how to answer that, never having heard of...

Posté par calligraphy à 01:15 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: spain, Pádel

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13 août 2012

Population Study episode 2 : Mognés

Mogné means "sir" in Mahorese. The men here don't have the most important role to play. They don't own the houses, they don't get much of a say in what goes on in the house. However, they do get to do some things that the women aren't allowed to. All...

Posté par calligraphy à 04:08 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

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3 septembre 2012

Ahhhhh, ewa !

"Ewa" is Mahorese for "Yes". Depending on the tone of voice, it can mean anything from a basic "yes" to "I understand, light has finally dawned!". The kids at school always say "ewa" when they understand something, and finally getting them to say "ewa"...

Posté par calligraphy à 03:14 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

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23 décembre 2013

Going Swimming At School

The rainy season in in full flow now. This is a short video taken by one of my colleagues at school, a day when 9.2mm of rain fell in two hours accompanied by a pounding thunderstorm that made the headmistress decide to cut off the school's electricity...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:48 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: water, kawéni, pupils, school, rain, students, rainy season, swimming, pool

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28 octobre 2013

Dipé Chaoula

A restaurant menu in Mamoudzou's main shopping street. Kebab Today's Special Panini Sandwich Salad Hamberger (complete with spelling mistake) Round Thing Find the odd one out. (And no, the restaurant was closed, so we didn't get to taste it).

Posté par calligraphy à 03:49 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mamoudzou, mayotte, food, restaurant, dipé chaoula, hamburger, menu, panini, sandwich, shopping street, special, thing, today

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17 septembre 2012

Daytime Fireworks

In a tropical country, I have just found out that this is the single most important item to have in the house. It's light, it's colourful, it plugs in and it produces fireworks. It's wonderful. Buying a mosquito racket does strange things to the mind...

Posté par calligraphy à 02:47 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, electricity, bite, boom, fireworks, mosquito, plug, racket, scratch, tropical

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15 décembre 2014

The teacher is in the hammock.

A colleague used to draw these cartoons about Mahorese women, known as bouénis. This is one he drew for me, turning the bouénis into English teachers... hard at work!

Posté par calligraphy à 22:56 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, women, colleague, school, teacher, boueni, work, mahorese, cartoon, hammock

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11 juin 2012

Vhat do iou dou?

Posté par calligraphy à 03:08 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, water, teacher, boat, sun, swim, feet, turtle, work

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1 juin 2013

Bigfruit

I just thought I'd show you the rather large papaya I bought at the market in Coconi this morning. It measures 42 cm, the size of a smallish baby, and it's about the same weight at 3.3kg. It's not ripe yet, but you're welcome to come and share it in a...

Posté par calligraphy à 12:31 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: mayotte, fruit, papaya, emily, market, big, coconi

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8 novembre 2011

Good morning all.

A quick hello from underwater, when I went diving with a colleague's husband !

Posté par calligraphy à 00:10 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: water, diving, mask, oxygen, underwater, bottle

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6 juillet 2015

La Mangue Bleue

The Blue Mango now has t-shirts.

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

Tags: mayotte, t-shirt, blue, music, mango, traditional

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7 juillet 2014

HLM

This is a Mahorese multi-storey building. There seems to be just one on the island. I don't think anyone actually lives there: I see it as more of an attraction than anything else, for the following reason. A sign in front explains that photographs cost...

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

Tags: mayotte, house, photo, banga, curious

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28 janvier 2014

Happy Birthday Papi !

Happy Birthday Papi ! Lots of love, Em xxx

Posté par calligraphy à 01:03 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

Tags: emily, birthday, happy, papi, love

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