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Turtle Day Festival
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The fourth of February was a special day at Public School B in Mayumba. All morning long, the students cleaned the courtyard, tied palm branches to pillars to decorate their school, and practiced their turtle dance. At three in the afternoon, they would have special visitors who had travelled a long way to come to their town. The classrooms buzzed with excitement. When their visitors arrived, the students took their places on the stage to perform the song they had composed. Each part of the song had movements to go with it. In one part they clapped in rhythm with their singing, and in another part, they swam like turtles in the ocean. The students were proud of their song, and sang loudly so that the movie camera would hear their voices clearly. Here are the words to their song: |
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In French and Vili: |
In English: |
La Chanson Mayesienne de la Tortue Marine On ne doit jamais tuer les tortues.Eviter la pollution dans la mer.Enfin de permettre la tortue de bien vivre.STOP !On va danser...Tortue ! singué singuéma...Ibonga ! singué singuéma...Nyamu ! singué singuéma...Tchintchesse ! singué singuéma...Mayumba ! singué singuéma...Mubana ! singué singuéma...Muvili ! singué singuéma...On ne doit jamais tuer les tortues.Eviter la pollution dans la mer.Enfin de permettre la tortue de bien vivre. |
The Mayumba Marine Turtle Song One should never kill marine turtles.Avoid polluting the sea.We must let the turtle live happily.STOP !We're gonna dance…Turtle (in French) swing it, swing it yeah…Turtle (in Vili, the local dialect) swing it, swing it yeah…Leatherback Turtle (in Vili) swing it, swing it yeah…Olive Ridley Turtle (in Vili) swing it, swing it yeah…Mayumba (our town), swing it, swing it yeah…The people of Bana (their neighborhood) swing it, swing it yeah…The Vili people (their tribal ethnicity) swing it, swing it yeah…One should never kill marine turtles.Avoid polluting the sea.We must let the turtle live happily. |
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After finishing their dance, the children played the turtle game with Miss Aimee and their other teachers. One lucky student got to wear a life-sized cardboard turtle costume while he and others acted out the different situations that the turtle in the game got into. With one toss of the dice, the turtle was caught in a big green fishing net and two students pretending to be fishermen argued about whether they should let it go or not. On another, the turtle was being photographed by tourists while she laid her eggs. On yet another, hunters were caught stealing eggs from a turtles nest and received a stern warning from a park ranger. Finally, one team's turtle overcame all the obstacles and made it to freedom in the open ocean! At the end of the festival, the winners of the art contest were announced. Two students were chosen as grand prize winners, and received a turtle poster, a t-shirt, and got to take a trip to Mayumba National Park as honorary park rangers to go on an overnight turtle patrol.
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| Mayumba Beach Club
If you go to the beach in Mayumba on a Saturday afternoon, you'll see a big group of kids cleaning up the beach. They're taking part in a meeting of Mayumba Beach Club, where primary school students go to play games on the beach that they've made safer by cleaning it up. Last school year, club members dug a large trash pit near the picnic area and put up a sign notifying picnickers to throw their trash there. Since that time, benches and a new picnic table have been installed and the picnic area is much cleaner! |
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