Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

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Football in Mauritius

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I know. I know. The state of football is not that great in Mauritius. And, to be frank, I don’t even know the names of the teams in the 1st division.

I’m writing this blog entry because I got a mail from someone called Piotr Chmielewski (he is from Poland) who writes about football on a website called Afryka. He is currently writing about Mauritian football and would like to have the following information:

  • What is the best Mauritian team?
  • Which team has the largest number of supporters?
  • Who are the stars of Mauritian football?
  • Who is the biggest star?
  • What is the current Mauritian national team?
  • Who are the national team players playing abroad?
  • Who are those playing locally?
  • What do you think of our chance to qualify for the 2010 African Cup of Nations?
  • Can Mauritius beat Cameroon?
  • Can Mauritius beat Cape Verde?
  • Can Mauritius beat Tanzania?
  • Anything else interesting about Mauritian football.

Please feel free to comment. I will consolidate the information I get and send it to Piotr.

My personal opinion

I don’t know anything about current teams and players. The biggest star might (still) be Jean-Sébastien Bax. I think we have a chance to qualify for the second round of the ACN 2010 qualifications as one of the second best. We will get beaten by Cameroon (naturally) and beat both Cape Verde and Tanzania at home. We will also be beaten by Cameroon away and we will draw with both Cape Verde and Tanzania on their home soils.

As for the “anything else” part, my feeling is that it’s a pity that football is in such a bad shape here. Football is (by far) the largest religion on the planet and I find it sad that most of us know more about Barnsley than the Mauritian National Team…

About the photo above

May I introduce to the world the next Liverpool striker, my son Kyan :-)

Urgently looking for a project assistant

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Christina and myself have embarked on a consultancy project which will last for about 6 weeks. We urgently need a project assistant to assist us in doing some surveys in some schools and colleges and to analyze the results obtained.

That person should preferably be a proactive and autonomous student of the University (we don’t really care about the year) who wants to earn some money. He/she will have to travel to the schools and colleges and will therefore have to be (more or less) free at least two days per week.

Contact us directly if you are keen:

We need to find someone by Friday so hurry up!

Being patriotic in Mauritius

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I’ve just finished watching Chak De India for the second time. And I have to say that I love this film!

I have a confidence to make: I normally don’t watch Bollywood films. A cousin of mine, Nishal, managed to convince me that Chak De India was really worth watching and I really don’t regret listening to him.

The film is about the women’s hockey team of India winning the world cup against all odds. That’s it. Nothing too complex. But it is excellent. It has pace and feels real (and this is exceptional for a Bollywood film which tend to be, ahem, surrealist). The casting is really excellent too with a good Shahrukh Khan and 16 fantastic (young) actresses (kudos to all of them).

I was watching the second DVD containing some extras including the UK premiere where Shahrukh Khan was asked his own definition of patriotism by a journalist. Without thinking, he answered (I’m paraphrasing here):

“Patriotism is when you do your best to succeed in whatever field you are. It has nothing to do with holding the flag of your country and singing glorious songs.”

Maybe our leaders can be inspired by this for the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the independence of Mauritius and come up with something that will really inspire our youngsters (and also the not-so-young) to achieve greatness.

Or maybe they wont and we’ll have to suffer yet another flag-raising ceremony followed by its usual “fête culturel”.

What do you think we should do for the 12th of March?