A year of Mauriciana
We haven't had an easy year, to say the least, but here's a silver lining: it's been such an exciting time for Mauritian art, memes and online communities!
It’s wrapped season y'all and @satinicoco set the tone. After many years of shrinking my Mauritian identity in favor of my Canadian one, I've uncovered a new sense of national understanding and pride, one that I couldn't find myself in prior or maybe one that's only recently taken form.
What it looks like is taking photos of Flamboyant trees in December. It’s having a favorite beach (or five) and hundreds of pictures of it on your phone. It's a transnational sense of worry over a terrifying COVID-19 wave. It’s mobilizing online and offline to try and halt a rapidly autocratizing government. It's understanding memes about chatwas and Shakeel Mohamed’s hair. It's being part of a Facebook group called Anou Partaz Nu Mine Bouilli. It's buying cute tote bags that read Sousou Dan Dal and Divin Leksi. It’s seeing tremendous beauty and value in things I used to see as uncouth.
It's also understanding the legacy of indenture and the Brown hierarchy that comes with it. It's experiencing colorism and fatphobia within your families. It’s finally seeing the extent of our internalized anti-Blackness and the neocolonial structures we partake in.
It's speaking in a blend of Kreol, English, French and sometimes Bhojpuri and Hindi. It's punctuating all of your sentences with ayo or *expletive expletive*. It's scorning bobo events but sometimes going anyway. It's feeling seen and validated in groups of Brown women whose stories and complicated identities you share. It’s crossposting content from all your faves on every platform imaginable.
Here’s a round-up of some of my favorite Mauritian content and creators as well as some of the things I've written this year about my experiences in Mauritius.