Now he is trying to rebuild the family home. Finding new building materials in Mayotte is incredibly difficult right now due to high demand, and he couldn’t afford a new roof for his house, so he found some corrugated iron sheets that were blown away by the storm and plans to repurpose them.
“I try to do what I can. Although I’m not a builder, I want to do it myself because I don’t know if the authorities will help us.”
Across Mayotte, others like Zinedine are trying to do the same, the sound of hammers late into the night.
But as resourceful as the people of Mayotte are, they are also angry at the lack of support they say they have received from the government.
During French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to the islands on Thursday, he was booed when he tried to give a speech. When he visited the hospital, frustrated staff complained that it was overworked.
Most of the people we spoke to in Mayotte had yet to receive any government assistance five days after the cyclone.
“We only got food from volunteers who also gave us clothes and water. The mayor’s office tried to help a little, but that’s all,” says Yasmin Musa, an 18-year-old mother of three.
She took her three boys, the youngest just three months old, to the nearest shelter, a high school in the Labatoire area, shortly after receiving a storm warning Friday afternoon.
“On the day of the cyclone, my children cried because of the noise. When we looked outside, we saw that corrugated iron roofs were flying everywhere. I was constantly asked what was happening, why everything was breaking,” she said.
“I told them it was just wind and rain, but the next day when they saw everything destroyed. They couldn’t sleep that night.”
When she returned home, she had difficulty recognizing her surroundings.
