Dominica

Hey everyone !

Today I would like to talk to y'all about another beautiful  Island, Dominica. This article is dedicated to one of my best friends who is from there. Love you Marcia :).
So first of all let's talk about its location. It is located at the south of Guadeloupe and at the northwest of Martinique. Their official language is English but due to the fact that it was a former French colony and also due to it's location (between the French islands Guadeloupe and Martinique) the Dominican Creole French is widely spoken. The Capital is Roseau.
                                       

   Dominica Flag   

Now let's talk about Food. Dominica's national Dish is Callaloo Soup.  It is a combination of leafy vegetables such as spinach or dasheen mixed in with seasonings, provisions, meat and coconut milk. Moreover, we can find more food in Dominica such as cornmeal porridge for breakfast or plantains such as the ones we find in the neighboring islands Martinique and Guadeloupe and especially local foods  like saltfish, or codfish and of course brown stew chicken. 


                        Callaloo Soup

Concerning Music and Events : Just like many caribbean islands, the kinds of music widely spread  in Dominica are calypso, reggae, soca, kompa. Dominica is even influenced musically by the genres found in Martinique like bèle or zouk love.  However Dominica developed its own genre called bouyon, which is a mixture of several genres along with a group called WCK (Windward Caribbean Kulture) Other  local artists represent the other genres like for reggae we can talk about Nasio Fontaine or Lazo or for another style from Dominica like kadans we may listen to Exile One or Ophelia Marie. The major events in Dominica are  firs of all the Dominican Carnival, which takes place on the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, where we can listen to a lot of calypso and steel band music. The other major event here in Dominica is the World Creole Music Festival.  It is an annual three day music festival hosted on the island of Dominica during the final weekend in October, as a grand conclusion to Creole heritage month.WCMF is the premiere festival of Dominica, and is widely regarded as the world's most prominent stage dedicated to the advancement of global Creole culture and music. 


                                                    Members of the WCK Band


 The World Creole Music Festival which will take place in October, so if you are in Dominica and interested by this event, you can stop by :)

Last but not least we will deal with Sports and Literature. Cricket is a very popular sport in Dominica. Dominica competes in test cricket aspart of the West Indies cricket team. Other sports like Rugby, Basketball or soccer are very popular. Sadly we have not much info concerning literature.

That's it for today ! Hope you like it tho ! Stay tuned for another article. Peace and love, Meli PINEL

My Instagram Page

Hey everybody! 

I just made an Instagram page for the blog so y'all can see when I'm going to post and what I plan on doing exactly with it. Feel free to follow it to stay updated 😁I'll post a picture of it so y'all can see it 😊 

That's all for today Thank you once again 

Peace and Love ❤️Meli PINEL 

 

Guadeloupe

Hey again everyone !

Today I'll talk to you about my second favorite Island which is Guadeloupe. A special article to all the amazing people I've met from there :)
Guadeloupe, just like Martinique, in an Island from the Lesser Antilles  which belongs to France. They are the French West Indies.  It is located at the North of Dominique and this department  also includes the Dependencies of Guadeloupe which are the small islands called La Desirade, Marie-Galante and the Iles les Saintes. It's official language is French but in fact the people there speak their regional language a lot which is Creole.
Comment : The Creole from Guadeloupe and from Martinique aren't exactly the same, but the people manage to understand each other.

                               

Map of Guadeloupe 

So as for their culture,we will first talk about Guadeloupe Food.  The National Dish of Guadeloupe is Porc-Colombo (is like a stew made with pork, chicken, lamb or goat) originally from India. This island has varieties of food as well such as "accras" which is a kind of fritter made of codfish or shrimp, often eaten before the meal. Concerning Desserts we have the homemade Coconut Ice cream which we call here "Sorbet". Last but not least we have the unavoidable Cake "Mont Blanc". 

                                                        

                                                                        Chicken Colombo 

Then we are going to deal with Music. The kinds of music here in Guadeloupe come from Africa, France and India, All those mixtures created the local genres such as biguine, kadans, cadence-lypso, zouk and gwo ka. The same local genres are performed by artists like Kaasav (if we include Patrick St-Eloi) and Gilles Floro, or Francky Vincent. In terms of Events and Dance, Guadeloupe host each year the Creole Blues Festival at Marie- Galante and of course the Guadeloupe Carnival. 

I'll finish this part by talking about the dancers called  Les Twins, dancers originally from Guadeloupe who are internationally known now. They even danced with Beyonce on the Mrs Carter's Tour. 

Patrick St Eloi (1958- 2010)                                              Guadeloupe Carnival 2017 

We will finish this article by talking about Literature and Sports as usual. 

About Literature we will of course talk about the winner of the Nobel Prize of Literature of 1960, Saint- John Perse. He is known for his Poetry but he was also a Diplomat. We can also talk about Maryse Condé who wrote Tree of Life in 1992 or Ernest Pepin who wrote Lettre ouverte à la jeunesse in 2001. Concerning Sport we will certainly talk about Teddy Riner who  became the youngest world champion in the history of judo when he won the world title in 2007 aged 18 years and five months. Football being very popolar in Guadeloupe we may talk about Thierry Henry, originally from Guadeloupe who was a star of the French national Team. 

                                             

Saint-John Perse (1887- 1975)      


                         

                                                                       Teddy Riner

That's all for today I hope y'all enjoy it :) See you next week. 

                                                                                                                   
Peace and Love, Meli PINEL

I came back/ Je suis revenue

Hey everyone !


Sorry that I took so long to come back I didn't have the time to post anymore but now I'm ready to post again !
For now I'll post about the Caribbean and then I'll post about the rest of the World.
I don't know if I'll write the French version since most of y'all ready are from English Countries. Moreover It's way easier to post in English because it enables me to improve my English Skills.
A little reminder : I'm a french blogger so feel free to correct me if my writing in English isn't good.
I hope y'all will enjoy my next articles and Thank you if y'all are still here to read it I truly appreciate it.

Last but not least I'll leave y'all with a picture of my town which is Vauclin, in Martinique.

Peace and Love, Meli PINEL