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The Collet Family Yard

The Echoes of Burned Rice:
A Return to Her, to Them

During the stillness of the COVID lockdown, when the world softened its pace, a deeper vision began to unfold. In solitude, through journaling, poetry, and reflection, one memory kept resurfacing, the Collet family yard. What a sacred chaos. Every evening, women gathered after long days of work. Some sorted rice in the van, fingers moving in quiet rhythm, while tea was poured and the pressure cooker sang nearby. They came together to laugh at themselves, complain about their bosses, tease their bad-mannered husbands, and share the beautiful mess of daily life. And in those moments, no one cared.

In those precious moments, before the arrival of their bossy husbands, they were free. Stories spilled out, joyful, bitter, absurd, painful, until laughter rose so wildly that sometimes the rice simply burned.

They often smiled as they compared the character of us grandchildren to that of our grandmother and grandaunts , women who were anything but quiet. Women with fire in their veins, fierce love in their chests, and emotions too vast to stay contained. The Collet women, they said, had good hearts… but damn hot tempers. Women who fought loudly , with life, with men, with fate, and often within themselves.

For a long time, I wondered about this fire that runs through us. And then I understood: it is inheritance. Our character is not ours alone , it is our grandmothers and grandaunts still speaking, still rising, still asking for space. Their unfinished stories, silenced dreams, and unspoken truths now moving through our voices. What once felt like too much slowly revealed itself as ancestral strength.

A legacy of women who refused to disappear

While my mama, Rose worked late, these women became my village. They bathed me, fed me, combed my hair, cared for me, and wrapped me in warmth. In their presence, I learned safety, belonging, and resilience. I learned that healing does not always happen in silence sometimes it happens in laughter, in storytelling, and in shared presence.

Years later, this living memory became a calling. And in that quiet inner listening, I heard my grandmother and grandaunts, as living echoes within me, asking for liberation. Their voices stirred something deep. I began to explore my own voice, the small, trembling voice within, the one that had waited so long to be heard.

Through that journey, expression became medicine, and truth became prayer.

From this awakening, our women’s circles were born, from the knowing that when women gather, something ancient awakens. A space opens where masks fall away, truths emerge, and transformation begins. Here, modern women step out of performance and pressure, and into authenticity, softness, and strength.

Rooted in the spirit of Mauritius and infused with deep intention, our circles offer a sanctuary, a place to rest, reconnect, release, and rise.

Without fear of burning the rice.

Wild Regards,
Hondoline

Between Faith and Belonging

Being a Mauritian Muslim woman means living under a constant gaze.

A gaze that observes, questions, and often judges before listening. My identity is frequently broken down into labels, assumptions, and expectations shaped by both religion and society. Long before people know my story, or my values, they often already have an opinion about me. Within my community, women live their faith in different ways. Some wear the hijab early in life, others choose it later, and some may never wear it at all. This choice is deeply personal, spiritual, and evolving. It reflects where a woman is in her journey, not the strength of her faith. Unfortunately, society does not always see it this way. A woman who does not wear the hijab at a young age is too quickly judged, whispered about, or labelled. This judgment ignores a simple truth: faith is not a uniform, and devotion cannot be measured by appearance alone.

Outside my home, I am regularly reminded that society feels entitled to question me. At university, in the workplace, and in social settings, I am asked the same unsettling questions over and over again. “Do you drink alcohol? Not even a glass? Are you allowed to go out at night? Were your parents very strict? You never eat pork?” These questions may sound harmless, but to me they feel intrusive, reducing my identity to a list of assumptions of what I am restricted to do.

One question, however, stayed with me more than the others. I was once asked, in a professional context: Are you a Mauritian Muslim woman or a Muslim Mauritian woman? It took me a while to feel the weight of doubt placed on my belonging, as if my faith somehow made me less Mauritian, less suitable, less acceptable. As if I had to choose between my religion and my nationality to be taken seriously.

Very quickly, I am labelled, the non-drinker, the non-smoker, the “conservative” one.

The one who doesn’t quite fit. The one quietly excluded from certain social circles, certain conversations, certain invitations. This is prejudice; soft, casual, unspoken, yet deeply isolating.One question, however, stayed with me more than the others. I was once asked, in a professional context: Are you a Mauritian Muslim woman or a Muslim Mauritian woman? It took me a while to feel the weight of doubt placed on my belonging, as if my faith somehow made me less Mauritian, less suitable, less acceptable. As if I had to choose between my religion and my nationality to be taken seriously.