Thursday, February 24, 2011
My Sound Of The Day
Back in the day when R&B was a music worth listening to, there where R&B girl groups like SWV, Jade, Total or Allure. Allure is now back with a brand new song, welcome back girls: Allure - Proud To Be.
La suite!
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Birthday
My birthday came up at the beginning of this month. I celebrated the occasion with a nice little gift: an airplane trip over the two islands.
La Passe en S
I won’t bother you with chit chat, just look how beautiful Mayotte is.
L'ilot Bandrélé
Le Mont Choungui
Mbouini
La Plage de N'Gouja
Le Nord de Grande Terre
Les Ilots Choizils
L'ilot Mtsambro
Le Terminal de Barge de Petite Terre
Le Lac Dziani
Les 2 Plages de Moya
La suite!
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Lets Go To Boueni
Last week-end I went to a small town on the south-western part of the bigger island of Mayotte called Boueni. As I live on the smaller island of Mayotte, this trip gave me the opportunity to see the difference between the two islands.
A few minutes after exiting Mamoudzou and the cities filled with poor people that are the suburbs you get to see some nature. The smaller island is not as green as the bigger one because a lot of trees have been cut down to build roads and housing. You don't get the pleasure to drive under the trees. The bigger island doesn't have a lot of inhabitants so you can drive for a while before seeing any house. It is always quite fun to think about the life of the people you pass by, some of them have never been to the smaller island even though it is so close. Whenever you start to be hungry don't hesitate to stop when you see some boueni (woman in the local language) selling some food on the side of the road, you will find some local vegetables and fruit and they will be cheaper than in the city even though they come from the same place. In a way the smaller island is quite urban, I really like what the bigger island offers in comparison.
I stayed in a small hotel called “Le Soleil Couchant”, the owners were very welcoming and for 30€ I got a nice wooden bungalow. I had to share the toilets and the bathroom but for such a cheap price there was no reason to complain. I didn't forget to spray some mosquito repellent because I didn't want to fight with mosquitoes when I was having diner or when I was chilling on the terrace of the bungalow. There was no need to go far to have diner, the hotel was also serving food for an excellent value for your money; I ate a great crab cari that filled me up real nice. To be fair I mostly concentrated on the crab and left the cari on the side. I really enjoyed myself when opening the crab without the tools because there is no better noise when I am eating crab than the sound of shell breaking under my teeth. I took my time to eat this crab that had claws as big as three of my fingers. I would have gladly eaten a second one but one had to be reasonable and the home made chocolate mousse was a great way to fill what space was left.
In the morning I tried the home made mango-vanilla jam for breakfast and then went for a walk on the beach. Boueni doesn't have the most beautiful beach in Mayotte thus it is not packed with people but it is still worth a look, I was almost alone on that pretty beach. Close your eyes and think that you are on a sandy beach with colours varying from brown to light yellow. There is no one around you, the only sound you are hearing comes from the wind and the waves, the water temperature is 28°C and the sun is gently heating your body. I don't know anyone who wouldn't want to be there and the people living there know that very well. It is a great place if you want to be alone with nature.
Scuba diving was my end of the week end activity. On the way to the diving site we saw what looked like a fin. We first thought it was a guy snorkeling but no one was convinced. Everyone was curious so we headed the boat were the weird shape was, it could have been a dolphin or a shark. It was neither, once we were close to the shape we found out that it was a turtle or to be more precise it was a dead turtle with no head, no legs and no tail. The poor one had probably been eaten by a shark who couldn't eat what was in the shell because its mouth was too big. The diving instructors knew someone who was studying turtles and they wanted to bring the shell back to the shore but where could we tie something with no head or legs available. We then tried to get the shell out of the water but it weighed a ton and with nowhere to properly grab the thing it was almost impossible. We decided to keep the shell steady for a few seconds so that I could take some pictures to bring to the one making the study. This dead turtle didn't stop me from having a great dive because I forget everything when I am underwater.
La suite!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
My Sound Of The Day
I listened to this song yesterday evening and it brought back a lot of memories: Prince And The Revolution - Pop Life.
La suite!
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
No Water
I am now in Mayotte! I have been here for almost a month now and it is a real change compared to La Reunion because Mayotte is like Africa.
It doesn't look like it when you step out of the plane but Mayotte is a part of France and it will soon become the latest French county. I soon got the same feeling I used to have when I was spending my holidays in Africa. Everybody is staying and living outside as it is extremely hot. There is no cafeteria in the schools so the kids all go home at lunch time and they meet again in the streets in the evening while waiting for dinner time. Everything is slower around here because of the heat, even the locals who drive don't go faster than 40kmh; you wonder sometime if they are afraid of going faster to not disturb the way things are. It is quite common to see women lying on the side of the road: why move around when it is so hot?
If you do not have a lot of money, your house will be made of metal sheets and the fence limiting your property will either be made of braided palm leafs, metal sheets or straightened recovered oil barrels. If you have more money, you will build your house room per room; it is quite common to see houses where each room has an external door because the use of the room will vary over the time. In this case you will find on the roof the metallic rods that strengthen concrete ready to support the extension of the house and on the side the stairs which will one day lead to the first floor once it is built. You have to be very careful when you settle close to those houses because one day you have a great view of Grande Terre and the next you only get to look at the neighbour's bathroom. Whatever the house you can always count on one thing: there will always be a satellite dish on the roof.
There was a water shortage for a few days two weeks after my arrival. We were surprised the first time it happened when we came back from work, we told ourselves that we would be able to take a shower in the morning but there was also no water in the morning. It is always nice to go to work smelling like yesterday's sweat and I can tell you that thinking that you are not the only one in the neighbourhood in this situation doesn't help much. In any case we told ourselves that it would not last long but it was the exact same thing when we got back to work the next afternoon. It lasted almost a week, we would be checking the tap in the evening not to miss the moment when we would be able to take a shower. It is funny because the schedule for the water shortage would be printed in the newspapers but it would never be followed. The company in charge of the water released a statement saying that there was a problem with a water pipe when in fact they were replacing the old ones with new ones. This is what they call communication in Mayotte.
I am a m'zungu, it means foreigner in the local language. Most of the m'zungus living here are either doing peacekeeping work (military, police, customs), health work (doctors, nurses, child doctors) or teaching work. Each time you will meet someone you will be part of the guessing game: You're military? No? A teacher? No? You're a doctor then? No? So what are you doing here are you on holiday? It seems that their imagination stops once the obvious choices have been exhausted. The m'zungus and the locals live in separate worlds but thankfully school is where all the kids interact. The m'zungus who work in the law enforcement often act as cowboys even when they are not on the job just creating some aggravation for the locals. Most teachers come here for the money, depending on their pay grade one teacher can get up to 100000€ incentive for a 4 years stay here thus Mayotte doesn't get the most skilled teachers nor the most motivated by their work. Thankfully some people understand that Mayotte is a special place and don't expect everyone to act the same way we act in France; of course those people are the one who have the best life here.
La suite!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
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