C comme Corneille

Cornelius Nyungura (Corneille) was born in Germany to Rwandan parents but spent most of his childhood in Rwanda. However, his life changed after the genocide in 1994. His father, Émile Nyungura, was a leader of the political party (PSD); as a result, his parents and some of his relatives were killed in the massacre. Corneille fled to Germany, where some of his parents' friends took him in. He is now a Canadian Citizen and sings in French and English.
Source: Wikipedia

My favourite Corneille songs so far, Avec Classe:

Official Website.

Afrigadget

"Afrigadget is a website dedicated to showcasing African ingenuity. A team of bloggers and readers contribute their pictures, videos and stories from around the continent. The stories of innovation are inspiring. It is a testament to Africans bending the little they have to their will, using creativity to overcome life’s challenges".

Extremely cool blog!

African Art

Daniel Akortia Painting

I chanced upon this website, AfricanArt.com which features all kinds of authentic hand-crafted African Art for sale. From masks to musical instruments, from wild animal miniatures to walking canes, they sell it all.

From the Website: AfricanArt.com was created to share with you the magnificent art and crafts of Africa for your joy and for the benefit of artists and craftsmen and their families in Africa. We source our artwork directly from Africa from countries like Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa to name a few.

Cape Town by Osei Anim

Their paintings section is beautiful and features art by Daniel Akortia and Osei Anim from Ghana. They also have a wonderful photo gallery. Check it out!

Vieux Farka Touré

Ali Farka Touré was one of the greatest African musicians. His son, "Vieux" Farka Touré decided to follow in his father's footsteps and is an acclaimed singer and guitarist. Here he is performing the beautiful number 'Ai Du' at Joe's Pub in New York.

More of Vieux's music on MySpace and check out his official website here.

Mauritian Moments

Quatre Bornes Sunday Market


Baie Du Cap


Shallow Beaches


Trou Aux Cerfs


Black River Gorge Viewpoint


Rochester Falls

I love the way a waterfall sounds. This one was noisy and beautiful. There were lots of people swimming and diving and one local fellow wanted me to pay him to watch him dive! Fat chance! :P

Dholl Puri, Gateau Piment and Alouda

I loved Mauritiuas for its blend of influences, the strongest of which are French and Indian. The fresh baguettes tasted wonderful. One of our frequent meals in Mauritius was a baguette with a stuffing of our choice; the one you see here has chicken curry cooked in a chinese style. Another treat was the rare flavors of ice-cream, my favourite being Coconut and Tamarind!

One afternoon, we took the bus from Cybercity to Rose Hill at noon (cost us Rs.6). Rose Hill is one of the nearby areas (the other being Quatre Bornes where I was staying). Rose Hill reminds me of Jayanagar 4th block in Bangalore - it has a main market and is always busy and bustling with life. It's also noisy and there is plenty of traffic.

We got off at the bus station and walked through little streets to make our way into the market. Here there are little stalls (much like the Gola/Pav Bhaji stalls you can see on Juhu beach in Bombay) lined up one next to the other, with customers patiently waiting for what they ordered. I was really eager to try some local cuisine - things I've been hearing about for months now from my Mauritian colleagues. A lot of these specialties have an Indian influence and you will soon see what I mean. (Read more about Indo-Mauritians here).

The first thing we tried was "Dholl Puri". Dholl Puri is basically a kind of bread (Poori) which is stuffed with crushed pulses (dal) before it is cooked. The result is a sort of double-layered-non-sweet-Obbattu-Poori which is soft and filled with sprinklings of dal inside. When you order it and specify how spicy you want it, it is filled with this amazing red sauce which is spicy and tangy and the Dholl Puri is given to you folded in half. The right way to eat it, is to fold it further in one more half and hold it with your finger tips on one corner and eat it from the other end, so that none of the sauce spills out. Now, my dholl puri was steaming hot(which is how it should be eaten, I was told) and I had a hard time holding it like that and eating it. So I dug into it in full masala-dosa style and had a ball getting my fingers all dirty while the locals "tsk-tsk"ed at me. :)

I also tried a "Gateau Piment" which literally translates to "Chilli Cake". What is it? Ever tried a "Paruppu Vada"? I was most amused to eat a little Vada with SUCH an exotic name. It was deep fried and tasted extremely good!

After a nice round of Dholl Puri (which cost all of Rs.5 by the way) and Gateau Piment (Rs.1 each), it was time for some "Alouda". What is Alouda? Well, Alouda, is more or less, Falooda! So for Rs.10 you can get a tall glass of Alouda - which is made with cold milk, jelly, some other ingredients that I could not recognise and the glass is topped with a few delicious spoonfuls of ice cream (which was the same colour as the Alouda). Now this Alouda, is really very, very tasty. After his first sip, my colleague Debjoy's eyes opened really wide and a big smile covered his face! To wash the spicy Dholl Puri down with a giant glass of cold Alouda is a total treat - and such a delicious meal - all for Rs.16!! Fantastic lunch, I thought.

After this, we walked around in Rose Hill for quite a while trying to find something vegetarian to take back for our boss. This is no easy task, I tell you. If you are non-vegetarian, you are bound to have a good time here and if not, you are bound to be hunting for your meals (no pun intended!! :P).

Finally, we managed to find a place that would stuff a baguette with Potato and Long Beans curry and we walked back to the Bus Station. On the way, I saw two Dholl Puri vendors who were in an argument and I stopped to take a picture of the huge pile of Dholl Puri. They stopped arguing, looked at me like I was from outer space and said "errr....mademoiselle???".... I grinned and ran off to catch up with the others. I dozed through most of the afternoon.

Windows XP

A large part of the Mauritius looks like the Windows XP Screensaver. Green grass (sugarcane fields) and clear blue skies. From Wiki: Sugarcane is grown on about 90% of the cultivated land area and accounts for 25% of export earnings.

Soweto Blues

Soweto Blues is a beautiful number written for Mama Africa by Hugh Masakela. Soweto (South Western Township) is an urban area in the City of Johannesburg, in Gauteng, South Africa. The song is about the Soweto riots of 1976 which started because of a language decree.

I had a hard time finding the lyrics, so I thought it would be fitting to save them here:

The children got a letter from the master
It said: No more Xhosa, Sotho, no more Zulu.
Refusing to comply they sent an answer
That's when the policemen came to the rescue

Children were flying bullets dying
The mothers screaming and crying
The fathers were working in the cities
The evening news brought out all the publicity:
Just a little atrocity, deep in the city
Soweto blues (4)

Benikuphi ma madoda (where were the men)
Mabedubula abantwana (when the children were being shot)
Benikhupi na (where were you)
Abantwana beshaywa ngezimbokodo (when the children were throwing stones)
Benikhupi na (where were you)

There was a full moon on the golden city
Knocking at the door was the man without pity
Accusing everyone of conspiracy
Tightening the curfew charging people with walking

Yes, the border is where he was awaiting
Waiting for the children, frightened and running
A handful got away but all the others
Hurried their chain without any publicity
Just a little atrocity, deep in the city
Soweto blues (4)

Benikuphi ma madoda (where were the men)
Mabedubula abantwana (when the children were being shot)
Benikhupi na (where were you)
Abantwana beshaywa ngezimbokodo (when the children were throwing stones)
Benikhupi na (where were you)

Soweto blues (3)
Soweto blues - abu yethu a mama
Soweto blues - they are killing all the children
Soweto blues - without any publicity
Soweto blues - oh, they are finishing the nation
Soweto blues - while calling it black on black
Soweto blues - but everybody knows they are behind it
Soweto Blues - without any publicity
Soweto blues - god, somebody, help!
Soweto blues - (abu yethu a mama)
Soweto blues

Another beautiful version of Soweto Blues:

Port Louis

Taxis are extremely expensive in Mauritius and so, I took the bus as much as possible. One weekend, I went to Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius.

If you take the motorway, the ride is simply breathtaking. After a few miles of road, all of a sudden you will see the sea in the distance and it looks marvelous! Also, in the frame from the car, you will see the road below (heading downhill) and the water looming above it and this really makes it special.

This is the Caudan Waterfront at Port Louis. There are lots of restaurants at the waterfront and my friends Swaroopa and Unish took me to "Tandoori Express" for lunch. Before they arrived, I watched Akshay Kumar and John Abraham (famous Indian Movie Stars) dancing away at Caudan with a bunch of hot European women dressed in sailor suits. Same dance step, 4 million takes. *Yawn*. :P. But gosh, you need patience to make a movie. Mauritius is one of Bollywood's favourite destinations, especially for romance sequences.

After lunch, I dragged Swaroopa and Unish to the Klassic theatre to watch the "L'enfant au Grelot", which was, by the way, one of the most lovely animated movies I've ever watched. It's such a treat to watch a French movie in the theatre - how could I not make use of the opportunity? I enjoyed myself completely and was quite thrilled that my friends enjoyed it too!

At about 4.30 in the evening, at Port Louis, I went on a harbor cruise with Swaroopa and Unish. The cruise lasted about 45 minutes and the sun decided to disappear behind the clouds during that time. The cruise takes you around the harbor and then goes out into the ocean for a little while. It was extremely windy out there and that made it all the more enjoyable. The ride costed Rs.40 - too little for that much excitement, if you ask me! When the ride started, we turned around to look at the Caudan Waterfront and Swaroopa noticed two of our friends Raju and Sathish (they live in Mauritius and work for the Mauritius Radio Telescope) standing at the entrance to the Klassic theatres. I started waving wildly to get their attention and I was quite kicked when they spotted me and waved back. Raju called me on my cell and said "YenRee? Full Enjoy Maadtha Iddiraaa??"(Roughly translated from Kannada: "What?! Having a ball, huh?"). I certainly was!

Pamplemousses

In the district of Pamplemousses, which is in the north of the island, there is a beautiful botanical garden. It is peaceful and serene and provides a welcome overdose of fresh green!

Here is some info I found: "Famous to naturalists for its 500 species of indigenous and exotic plants of which 80 are palms, this garden is located in the proximity of Port-Louis and spreads over 60 acres.

Among the plants growing there, there are the giant Victorial Regia water lilies and the talipot palm, said to flower once every sixty years and then die. The garden was created by Pierre Poivre in 1767 in the Estate of the French Governor Mahé de Labourdonnais. The latter's Chateau de Mon Plaisir, built in 1735, is found there."

Grand Baie

The first beach I went to in Mauritus was in the Northern region of the island - Grand Baie. This place is a definite must-go for any tourist. The area is filled with delightful stores (all of them look like they were picked out of five star hotels and laid out neatly). Definitely the kind of place you can shop at if you've got bank accounts in Dollars and Euros.

Just behind these pretty stores, I caught sight of the blue-green waters and it gave me such a high! I sprinted all the way to the beach and pulled out my camera and clicked away!

The sand on the beaches is white and SO soft, I cannot describe it! It almost felt like talcum powder! And it felt SO good under my feet, I kept running to and fro between two trees just to feel the sand under my feet and I'm pretty sure I scared a couple of kids with this behaviour.

And the water! Gosh, how can this be sea water? It is so soft and smooth and (somebody please throw me a thesaurus here). It feels like the whole ocean is a giant swimming pool. There aren't any waves - the sea is extremly calm and relaxed - probably where the Mauritians get their laid-back and relaxed attitude from!

It's heavenly to sit on the benches under the trees and look at the beautiful, calm waters - I could've stayed there for hours!

At Grand Baie, I really wanted to go on a Glass Bottom Boat ride. Quite self-explanatory, but anyway, a glass bottom boat is a regular boat with a large portion of the bottom made of glass. Initially, this doesn't matter of course, but a few miles into the sea and you start to see all sorts of exotic marine life. Beautiful, large corals - some as big as cars, I tell you! And in such brilliant colours, shapes and patterns. I couldn't stop ooh-ing and aah-ing. And then the fish start appearing. Nasser, who owned this boat, pointed out all sorts of wonderful fish. The ride lasted about an hour and on the way out into the ocean, we passed by several five start resort beaches, where we saw cartloads of foreigners bathing in the sun and the water. Lots of people were enjoying different kinds of water sports also.

Midway through the ride, Nasser stopped the boat and gave us pieces of bread to throw into the ocean. All of a sudden there were hundreds of fish everywhere, hungry for bread, crowding around our boat. It was so exciting. I held pieces of bread a little under the surface of water and got a total high from feeling the little fellows nibble at my fingers. While feeding the fish, it was a treat to look through the glass and get a clear view of all the fish.

Blue-Green happens to be my favourite colour combination. To get such an overdose of it was simply overwhelming! Miles and miles of calm, blue-green waters with the sun dancing all over in little gold patterns. Sheer bliss!

Obuswandi

I'm taking a quick break from Mauritius to bring you this catchy number from Baby Joe. He was born and raised in Kampala, Uganda and now lives in Finland. His music is unique in that it seems to have found a connection between the African and European sound.

Although I'm not entirely sure, I read somewhere that "Obuswandi" is a 'Ganda' word. From Wiki: Luganda, sometimes known as Ganda, is a major language of Uganda, spoken by over ten million people mainly in Southern Uganda which includes the Ugandan capital Kampala. It belongs to the Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo language family.

Gris-Gris

One weekend, we decided to explore the Southern part of the island. So we rented a Toyota Corolla and off we went. All along the Southern Coast you will see large boards that read "Bain Dangereux, Dangerous Bathing". At first this made me grin a whole lot (following the mental image of a sexy vamp in an action flick soaking in a bath tub).

After the calm seas of the North, I met the angry seas of the south. There are lots of rocks and high cliffs along the coastline and the waves crash upon them with all their fury. The first spot we went to is called "Gris-Gris" which is Kreol for Black Magic. It is believed that at some point, Black Magic was practised here (which is probably why my hair was flying all over the place and I felt like a Golliwog-Voodoo doll). :P

Papillons

One Saturday in April 2005, we spent the entire morning at La Vanille Crocodile Park. The park is well maintained and much of it is like a nature walk. We saw plenty of crocodiles, some interesting fruit bats, lots of geckos, monkeys, and mongooses.

They have here an amazing insectarium where thousands of insects are beautifully displayed. An entomologist who lives in Africa worked on these exhibits for 30 years. All of are neatly labelled in his beautiful handwriting. There were bugs and creepy-crawlies of all sorts. The butterflies were beautiful and the spiders scary!

Casela Bird Park

In May 2005, I visited the Casela Bird and Nature Park. Casela is a mini-zoo with a fantastic collection of birds (and plenty of other animals including tigers, zebras, javan deer, etc.). The aviaries are well maintained and have many exotic birds including some of my favourites - the Toucan, the Makaw and the Bleeding Heart Pigeon. If you come to Mauritius, you must meet the famous "Pink Pigeon". Luckily, they've saved this one from extinction (and a lot of the hard work was done by Gerald Durrel and his team). I saw many amazing photo opportunities but the I had a really hard time taking pictures because of the cages! :(

The Casela Park entrance ticket costs Rs.150 but they have a superb safari ride through the mountains for just Rs.30. I spotted these beauties while we were heading towards the mountains.

At Casela, I had the privilege of meeting Lori, the cockatoo. She is 30 years old. She can talk, dance and whistle a variety of tunes. She loves meeting new people. I had read about her and was eager to meet her.

At the petting zoo Lori was in her cage and as soon as I saw her I said "Hello" at least 10 times and she wouldn't reply. I kept wondering why until the sweet lady who takes care of her (and who took this picture) said "Oh, Lori speaks only French"!! She responded to my first "Bonjour" and happily climbed onto my arm to have a nice conversation with me and whistle some tunes for me. She was fascinated with my camera. I took a picture of her and showed it to her and she was amazed with it - she kept touching it with her beak. She also liked my bag and had a nice time walking all over it. So adorable!