From Francophone “Establishment” to the Creole Capital of Seychelles
"If you can"
Reflection of Victoria's life in a city van.
Victoria Cathedral
Students walk at the base of Victoria Cathedral.
Golden Boy Marcus
Marcus Hollanda, in a semi-golden style of dress.
Jivan Imports
Resident walks in front of Jivan Imports store.
Talk
Victoria saleswomen next to the children's clothing store.
Way to Victoria Market
Sign indicates Sir Selwyn Selwyn Clarke market.
Capital Life
Passersby wait for a green light in historic downtown Victoria.
Rastafarian Fruit
Seller dressed in Jamaican fashion at Selwyn Selwyn Clarke Market
Silver Clock Tower
Silver replica of the existing Clock Tower at Vauxhall, London.
egg seller
Customers stock up on eggs from a street vendor.
Spices
Islamic seller takes care of a stall of spices and other Seychellois specialties.
Arul Mihu Navasakthi Vinaygar Temple
Gopuram tower of the largest Hindu temple in the capital of Seychelles.
Priests & Go Pro
Hindu priests examine an action camera.
Hindu Deities
Detail of the gopuram of the Arul Mihu Navasakthi Vinaygar Temple temple.
Offering Board
Flame of faith on a board of the Arul Mihu Navasakthi Vinaygar temple.
The French populated their “Etablissement” with European, African and Indian settlers. Two centuries later, British rivals took over the archipelago and renamed the city in honor of their Queen Victoria. When we visit it, the Seychelles capital remains as multiethnic as it is tiny.
Text: Marco C. Pereira
Images: Marco C. Pereira-Sara Wong
The fact that it is one of the smallest capitals in the world is often underlined.
If so, it should only surprise anyone who does not know that, even spread across 115 islands of the western Indian Ocean, the Seychelles is the smallest country in Africa.
Still, in its 20km2, Victoria is home to upwards of twenty thousand inhabitants, a third of the nation's population. It's enough to see you fall victim to one or another bottling sample. We see the first example around the local Clock Tower, a gleaming silver replica of the one that dictates time over London's Vauxhall Bridge.
Deciding to photograph the centuries-old monument, we crossed Independence Avenue. About. One time. Other. And another one. We abused and stopped on the middle of the asphalt, among drivers eager to get out of there, albeit without the almost angry eagerness of other parts.
For some time, the signalman on duty tolerates the crossings he considers to be extemporaneous. Moments later, fed up with seeing us spoiling his work, he leaves the post, decomposes us and warns us that if we repeat the shuttles again, he will fine us.
We submit to authority. We installed ourselves on one side of the avenue. We admire the ethnic and religious diversity of pedestrians, for some reason, especially women, plump, with assorted and uncompromising clothes that reveal different golden skins.
And, clumsily, a young mother who almost drags her daughter, outraged by our photographic approach.
The girl's indisposition, in keeping with her mother's elegant, much more reserved Muslim look, molded into a long hijab, partially covered by a pale red blouse.
Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke and the Market Economy of Victoria
We continued to wander. We walk to Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke Market, the city's central market, named after the military doctor and colonial governor of the Seychelles from 1947 to 1951.
At that hour, we found him in great hustle.
Those who don't have a place inside work next to the railing, as does Jeffe, an egg trader who sells them to boxes from the box of his truck.
We give market entry. We confirm the coexistence of the expected areas. Fruit, fish, drinks, spices and other regional products. In each of them, once again, an ethnic assortment of vendors.
Christopher, a fruit seller, is distinguished by his Rastafarian fashion, the pointed beard and the red, green and yellow tones of the striped bonnet, the strap t-shirt and the necklace around the neck.
Nearby, Bah Dalanda, with origins in Guinea Conakry, treat us with sympathy and open-mindedness for the portraits we ask of you.
Not that it was necessary, but in exchange we bought a kilo of their grapes. Already in the fishmonger, with a shy smile, Marcel Santache tries to foist us a scarlet grouper.
Admiral Vasco da Gama's Ignored Islands and Navigators That Followed
South of the Seychelles, the Reunion Island it bears the name that best reflects the meeting of peoples in the Indian Ocean. The Seychelles and Victoria in particular are not far behind.
In 1502, during the second expedition to India, Vasco de Gama passed through the archipelago. He named it the Admiral Islands.
Despite the honor (their own honor), neither the navigator nor the Portuguese Crown considered them a priority.
Throughout the XNUMXth century, they remained unclaimed for the European colonial powers that already disputed the world.
In 1609, a disoriented English ship docked for a few days on the North Island. Once again, the Admirals continued to complain. Only Indian pirates considered them theirs and from there attacked the wealthy European ships that traveled between Africa and Asia.
In the middle of the XNUMXth century, the French, who had already colonized the neighbors Mauritius (then Île de France), landed on the island that navigator Lazare Picault called Île de L'Abundance (now Mahe). From that base, they explored the surrounding archipelago.
Shortly thereafter, the Admirals finally complained. As a tribute to the Minister of Finance of Louis XV, Jean Moreau de Séchelles, they were called Séchelles.
Finally, the Pioneer Seychelles Settlement Attempt
In 1770, Brayer du Barré, an entrepreneur validated by the French Crown, set sail from the Île de France at the head of a retinue of fifteen white settlers, seven African slaves, five Indians, and a black woman.
Barré left the settlers on the island of St. Anne, opposite the present city of Victoria, in charge of consolidating the settlement and returned to the Île de France with the mission of obtaining more funds.
In vain. In the meantime, the island's authorities had concluded that it would be impossible to supply the new colony with the necessary regularity or obtain provisions from it.
Barré returned to St. Anne. In desperation, he tried to resolve the Crown's blockade. Frustrated, he decided to abandon the project. He left for India, where, shortly thereafter, he died.
The people who landed in St. Anne, these, were left for two years to their fate.
In 1772, a part had left the island. Another had moved to the coast opposite St. Anne, to the northeast coast of the largest of the Seychelles islands, Mahe.
O Etablissement Repopulated with Slaves from Mauritius
Informed that, despite the abandonment, the colony survived, emerging colonialists took up Brayer du Barré's project. They arrived with ships laden with Creole slaves from the Île de France and consolidated what they would come to call the Etablissement.
The newly arrived slaves became the genesis of the present almost one hundred thousand Seychellois, gradually anglicized from 1798, when the English took over the almost defenseless archipelago.
Today, more than 90% of the population of Seychelles remains Creole or creole.
Even if the natives abhor the term they consider pejorative and do everything to make them consider them only and only Seychellois (Seychellois). The rest are British, French, Chinese and Indian migrants.
Instead of Seychelles or Séchelles, the natives call their nation Sesel.
Since 1976, Citizens of the vast Commonwealth of nations but independent, they express themselves in the dialect seselwa, a prolific mix of French, English, Swahili, Indian and even Malagasy.
Even aware of the colonial hardships suffered by their ancestors, they have an untouchable esteem for their tropical and paradisiacal nation.
The Francophone Anthem of the Band “Dezil”
That's how we felt when, a few years ago, we were dazzled by an almost artisanal and unpretentious video clip on the French music channel MCM. It was “Sans Ou (La Riviere)” by the band, at the time, little more than a teenager, Dezil, who is like saying “from the islands”.
The theme, which has a French refrain, sung with a thick accent kreol
“One minute je suis à la rivière Une heure et je pleure la mer Un jour sans toi baby c'est trop beaucoup Je will pleurer un ocean Toi que j'aime infiniment "
it can apply both to any flirtation and to the relationship of the Seychelles with your homeland. Oddly enough, the heart of the Seychelles is in the tiny and peculiar capital that the British were quick to rename Victoria.
We stayed there, wandering its streets and alleys, discovering a little of everything, places and characters, some of which were unlikely.
Through the streets and alleys of Diminuta Victoria
In the vicinity of the garish colonial building, almost made of Lego, which houses the Jivan Imports business, we come across a native taken from some cartoon: Marcus Hollanda long ago, with his leg bent back, against a wall crowned by a Refreshing hedge.
It has one of the smoothest black skins we've found in Victoria.
His complexion highlights the gold of the cap and the yellow of the polo that he wears to match, with a thick Argentine thread hanging from his neck.
At first intimidated by our sudden interest, Marcus quickly assimilates the reasons we explain to him. Poses proud, haughty to match. For some reason, we still call him Golden Boy.
Temples Serving the Faiths of the Seychelles Capital
Also nearby, Victoria Cathedral fulfills its functions of Christian evangelization, reinforced by an Anglican ally. Despite their imposing architecture, both temples lack the tropical and Indian exoticism we were looking for.
We walked, from one end to the other, to the Arul Mihu Navasakthi Vinaygar Hindu temple, the unavoidable and unmistakable place of worship for the Hindu inhabitants of Victoria and the surrounding area of Mahé.
Built in Dravidian style, its ornate tower (gopuram) groups dozens of figures of deities in a bright communion, above the faithful in sari and other typical costumes of the Subcontinent.
We took off our shoes. We entered.
We examined the distinct details of faith inside, under the gaze of two priests clad in orange dhotis with bare trunks, one with his chest, arms, and forehead adorned with a white-streaked sacred painting.
Welcome us. They invite us to sit down to talk and examine some of the equipment we were carrying. Ten minutes later, armed with a small action camera that we lent them, they rehearse rounded selfies.
They discuss the benefits and artifices of the device.
When we return to them, still on the fringes of any expected spirituality, they ask us technical questions that we have fun clarifying.
We took pictures together.
Again, as it had been for days, in the multi-ethnic coziness of Victoria and the Seychelles.
For centuries, Arab and European sailors believed that the largest seed in the world, which they found on the coasts of the Indian Ocean in the shape of a woman's voluptuous hips, came from a mythical tree at the bottom of the oceans. The sensual island that always generated them left us ecstatic.
Beaches hidden by lush jungle, made of coral sand washed by a turquoise-emerald sea are anything but rare in the Indian Ocean. La Digue recreated itself. Around its coastline, massive boulders sprout that erosion has carved as an eccentric and solid tribute of time to the Nature.
Mahé is the largest of the islands of the smallest country in Africa. It's home to the nation's capital and most of the Seychellois. But not only. In its relative smallness, it hides a stunning tropical world, made of mountainous jungle that merges with the Indian Ocean in coves of all sea tones.
In the XNUMXth century, the French and the British disputed an archipelago east of Madagascar previously discovered by the Portuguese. The British triumphed, re-colonized the islands with sugar cane cutters from the subcontinent, and both conceded previous Francophone language, law and ways. From this mix came the exotic Mauritius.
Not all tropical coastlines are pleasurable and refreshing retreats. Beaten by violent surf, undermined by treacherous currents and, worse, the scene of the most frequent shark attacks on the face of the Earth, that of the Reunion Island he fails to grant his bathers the peace and delight they crave from him.
Cilaos appears in one of the old green boilers on the island of Réunion. It was initially inhabited by outlaw slaves who believed they were safe at that end of the world. Once made accessible, nor did the remote location of the crater prevent the shelter of a village that is now peculiar and flattered.
Vasco da Gama opened the Indian Ocean to the Portuguese empire. In the XNUMXth century, the Zanzibar archipelago became the largest producer of cloves and the available spices diversified, as did the people who disputed them.
Fianarantsoa was founded in 1831 by Ranavalona Iª, a queen of the then predominant Merina ethnic group. Ranavalona Iª was seen by European contemporaries as isolationist, tyrant and cruel. The monarch's reputation aside, when we enter it, its old southern capital remains as the academic, intellectual and religious center of Madagascar.
Out of nowhere, a colony of baobab trees 30 meters high and 800 years old flanks a section of the clayey and ocher road parallel to the Mozambique Channel and the fishing coast of Morondava. The natives consider these colossal trees the mothers of their forest. Travelers venerate them as a kind of initiatory corridor.
We depart Fianarantsoa at 7a.m. It wasn't until 3am the following morning that we completed the 170km to Manakara. The natives call this almost secular train Train Great Vibrations. During the long journey, we felt, very strongly, those of the heart of Madagascar.
In the middle of the XNUMXth century, it remained uninhabited and ignored by Europeans. The French Ship Expedition “La Curieuse” revealed it and inspired his baptism. The British kept it a leper colony until 1968. Today, Île Curieuse is home to hundreds of Aldabra tortoises, the longest-lived land animal.
Gorongosa was home to one of the most exuberant ecosystems in Africa, but from 1980 to 1992 it succumbed to the Civil War waged between FRELIMO and RENAMO. Greg Carr, Voice Mail's millionaire inventor received a message from the Mozambican ambassador to the UN challenging him to support Mozambique. For the good of the country and humanity, Carr pledged to resurrect the stunning national park that the Portuguese colonial government had created there.
After several days of preparation in Pokhara, we left towards the Himalayas. The walking route only starts in Chame, at 2670 meters of altitude, with the snowy peaks of the Annapurna mountain range already in sight. Until then, we complete a painful but necessary road preamble to its subtropical base.
From the grandiose tombs of Novodevichy, in Moscow, to the boxed Mayan bones of Pomuch, in the Mexican province of Campeche, each people flaunts its own way of life. Even in death.
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On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima succumbed to the explosion of the first atomic bomb used in war. 70 years later, the city fights for the memory of the tragedy and for nuclear weapons to be eradicated by 2020.
Few countries employ cereals like Uzbekistan. In this republic of Central Asia, bread plays a vital and social role. The Uzbeks produce it and consume it with devotion and in abundance.
Russia dedicates the last Sunday of July to its naval forces. On that day, a crowd visits large boats moored on the Neva River as alcohol-drenched sailors seize the city.
Although played since 1841, Australian Football has only conquered part of the big island. Internationalization has never gone beyond paper, held back by competition from rugby and classical football.
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Nantou is Taiwan's only province isolated from the Pacific Ocean. Those who discover the mountainous heart of this region today tend to agree with the Portuguese navigators who named Taiwan Formosa.
At the gates of PN Tayrona, Santa Marta is the oldest continuously inhabited Hispanic city in Colombia. In it, Simón Bolívar began to become the only figure on the continent almost as revered as Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary.
Until the early XNUMXth century, man-eaters still feasted on the Vanuatu archipelago. In the village of Botko we find out why European settlers were so afraid of the island of Malekula.
Long discriminated against by Scandinavian, Finnish and Russian settlers, the Sami people regain their autonomy and pride themselves on their nationality.
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Lost among the snowy mountains that separate Europe from Asia, Sheki is one of Azerbaijan's most iconic towns. Its largely silky history includes periods of great harshness. When we visited it, autumn pastels added color to a peculiar post-Soviet and Muslim life.
Two stone mountains have created a border dispute between Argentina and Chile. But these countries are not the only suitors. The Fitz Roy and Torre hills have long attracted die-hard climbers
The top of the Debed River Gorge hides the Armenian monasteries of Sanahin and Haghpat and terraced Soviet apartment blocks. Its bottom houses the copper mine and smelter that sustains the city. Connecting these two worlds is a providential suspended cabin in which the people of Alaverdi count on traveling in the company of God.
Alexander Pushkin is hailed by many as the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. But Pushkin also dictated an almost tragicomic epilogue to his prolific life.
A sudden longing for Indo-Portuguese tropical heritage makes us travel in various transports but almost non-stop, from Lisbon to the famous Anjuna beach. Only there, at great cost, were we able to rest.
A mere year into the first millennium, a Viking missionary named Sigmundur Brestisson brought the Christian faith to the Faroe Islands. Kirkjubour became the shelter and episcopal seat of the new religion.
Neither the steep slope of some stretches nor the modernity stop it. From Siliguri, in the tropical foothills of the great Asian mountain range, the Darjeeling, with its peaks in sight, the most famous of the Indian Toy Trains has ensured for 117 years, day after day, an arduous dream journey. Traveling through the area, we climb aboard and let ourselves be enchanted.
She sold burguês to GI's in World War II and opened a hotel that hosted Marlon Brando and Gary Cooper. Aggie Gray passed away in 2. Her legacy lives on in the South Pacific.
From 1954 to 1983, Gérard Pierre screened many of the famous films arriving in Martinique. 30 years after the closing of the room in which he worked, it was still difficult for this nostalgic native to change his reel.
A patch of the Kalahari Desert dries up or is irrigated depending on the region's tectonic whims. In Savuti, lions have become used to depending on themselves and prey on the largest animals in the savannah.
A geological quirk made the Fiordland region the rawest and most imposing in New Zealand. Year after year, many thousands of visitors worship the sub-domain slashed between Te Anau and Milford Sound.
Deciding to photograph the centuries-old monument, we crossed Independence Avenue. About. One time. Other. And another one. We abused and stopped on the middle of the asphalt, among drivers eager to get out of there, albeit without the almost angry eagerness of other parts.
