BBCOn the night that Hurricane Chido struck the French Indian Ocean province of Mayotte, Zinedine was at home, a small house made of corrugated iron and wood where he lived with eight relatives.
Zain Al-Din had received a warning from the authorities about the hurricane, but he did not take the matter seriously.
“I thought it was like in previous years when they warned a hurricane was coming but it would just be a little rain. So we stayed home.”
But this time the island was about to be hit by winds of more than 124 mph (200 km/h) — the strongest hurricane to hit the island in nearly a century.
So far, 31 people have been killed, according to French officials, and thousands more are feared missing.
When another, more urgent cyclone warning was issued, Zaineddine was quick to act.
“I told my mom they've never sent a letter like that before, so I think it's serious this time.”
He suggested they go to their neighbour's house, a brick-and-mortar house not far from his own, in a slum high up in the Petite Terre hills on Mayotte, the smaller of the two islands.
But his mother didn't want to go, and he felt he should stay home with his family. The 20-year-old tourism student is the eldest son in his family and feels responsible towards them.
When the storm started, he and his mother hid his younger siblings under the table. Then there was a loud noise.
“The iron roof of our house was blown off. We panicked and looked for shelter. There were iron sheets, wood and other large objects flying everywhere.”
He took his brothers to the neighbor's cabin when he turned around and noticed that his mother had not followed him.
“I decided to go back outside to get my mother even though it's dangerous because of the wind and everything. I would rather die than let my mother die.”
His mother stood in the middle of their destroyed home, holding a one-year-old child. She was terrified and did not let the child go. Zain al-Din snatched it from her arms and ran to give it to the neighbors. He eventually had to get his mother out of the house.
“Fortunately, we are all safe but we lost everything. The only thing we were able to save were our papers and certificates.”
Now he is trying to rebuild his family home. Finding new building materials is very difficult in Mayotte at the moment due to high demand, and he was unable to afford a new roof for his house, so he tracked down some corrugated iron sheets that were blown down by the storm and plans to rebuild them. Use it.
“I'm trying to do what I can. Even though I'm not a construction worker, 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, as hammers ring out late into the night.
But despite the resourcefulness of Mayotte residents, 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 while trying to give a speech. During his visit to the hospital, frustrated staff complained of being exhausted.
Most of the people we spoke to while we were in Mayotte had not yet received any government aid, five days after the hurricane.
“We only received food donations from volunteers who also gave us clothes and water,” says Yasmine Musa, an 18-year-old mother of three. “The mayor’s office tried to help a little but that’s all.”
She took her three children, the youngest just three months old, to the nearest shelter, a high school in the La Pattoire neighbourhood, shortly after receiving the storm warning on Friday afternoon.
“On the day of the cyclone, my children were crying because of the noise,” she said. “When we looked outside, we saw corrugated iron roofs flying everywhere. They kept asking me what was happening, why everything was broken.”
“I told them it was just wind and rain, but the next day when they saw everything was destroyed. They couldn't sleep that night.”
When she returned home, she couldn't recognize her neighborhood.
“The mango trees fell during the storm and were blocking the roads. My neighbor had to direct me towards my house because I couldn't even see it. There was water everywhere, the toilet was broken, my TV, everything was destroyed. I tried to salvage what I could.
“I was in tears. I never imagined this would happen.”
Now she has nowhere else to go. She says conditions at the shelter are good but she needs a home to take her children to. They are now sleeping on mattresses in one of the school's classrooms with dozens of other families.
“It's not normal for me to sleep like this. The doors don't close, and sometimes strangers come in. I'm worried about my children's safety and that they will try to steal from us.”
The Red Cross told the BBC that there were at least 100,000 people in shelters around Mayotte.
President Macron has promised to compensate uninsured people, who make up the majority of the population, but did not say how much they would receive.
The needs are enormous: almost all the islands need to be rebuilt. But some on France's political right say spending too much money in Mayotte will only encourage more illegal immigrants to come to French territory.
Back in La Fiji, Zinedine says he understands their objections but doesn't agree with them.
“We are human beings at the end of the day. We need help.”
