What's in a name?

[wayfaringwordhack]

When we first arrived in Mayotte (almost a year ago!), there was not a street sign to be seen. However, the city council decided to rectify that and put up airplane-adorned plaques. As in mainland France, the signs are affixed to garden walls, houses, and buildings some 2m from the ground, rather than placed on poles. Not very handy if you are traveling north and the sign is fastened to the southern wall, but that's a gripe for another time.

When we first rented this house, we were told our address was 10 ruelle Tchora. However, the rental contract stated the house is located at 14 rue de la Mosquée. Yet, when I went around trying to get the utilities switched over to our name, the water company said I lived at 14 rue des Réfugiés. Ok.  Now that they have put up the street signs, I see that we are now residents of number 14 rue Sabili.  Heaven help me. I now have no idea what address to use on mail. Luckily, though, we got an easy to pronounce name, as you will see from the two signs here:

cokehouse This is a house, not a store (though sometimes it is hard to tell the difference).	Isn't that a mouthful?
How about this one?

Comments

[patchwork-prose.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting the house photo. That's quite out of the ordinary. Why do you suppose the sign is there?

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

They sometimes have odd ideas what constitues decoration. :P It isn't the first house I've seen with an advert plastered to it. One of these days, I'll post some pictures of bangas. Those are interesting.