Friday 7 May 2010

I arrived in Matasmudu today.Its a village by the side of the sea. The mountains tower up above it and the sides are steep, so the city is a kind of strip betwixt sea and mountain. it has 12,000 inhabitants and is the capital of Anjouan. There is a medina and many mosques, mostly built by the arabs. I'll probably go for a proper explore tomoz. Its quite a strange place here, whilst it is definaterly Africa, people are slightly richer on average, despite the rubbish everywere and all the buildings being built out of breeze blocks, (some) people have dvd players and tvs. this is possibly because there is a strong french connection so many people go to work in france and send money back. There is also no crime. This is a combination of high levels of muslim belief and a small tight community. this means that if anything goes missing it can normally be located by asking around. In fact there are stories of things being stolen and after asking around the stuff has been recovered a couple of towns along. Anyhoo I'm going to go for an evening stroll.
love to all
Sam

5 comments:

  1. Very informative - love it!
    Is the island mostly Sunni? Wikipedia seems to think so but methinks you'd be a better source of information....
    Have you found the one and only bar yet?!
    Love you x

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  3. sounds interesting i'd love to see some photos!

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  4. I have no idea if its Sunni tbh. I'm not sure I want to ask delicate enough questions to find out!
    for bar info see my next post!

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  5. also photos for fran!
    and everyone else.
    on a side note on my evening stroll I met some teenagers who insisted I allow them to present me to their families.
    It was bizzare

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