Independence Day, Malagasy Style: Celebrating 50 Years (6/25-6)

This year Madagascar celebrated 50 years of independence from French colonial rule – no small milestone. With this in mind, across the country, Malagasies partied accordingly. From an American perspective, coming from a country that’s already celebrated its bicentennial, it was really interesting to watch as well, and to compare the differences between le 26 juin and the 4th of July.
For one thing, the celebration began not on the 26th, but the day before. Most people had the day off from work, and many people took this as an opportunity to get completely wasted by midday. There was a carnival of sorts in the middle Fianar, with a little Ferris wheel and games like shoot-the-bottle and bingo. Children sometimes set off firecrackers, just as the French do for Bastille Day, keeping me on edge all day (have I mentioned that I HATE firecrackers?!).
Saturday the 26th I woke up late (tired from our return trip home from Ambohimahamasina the day before), and when I stumbled down to the kitchen I found that Ambinina had stopped by to visit and was chatting with Francesca. The three of us continued to drink tea and talk about cultural differences, world politics, and religion – what a way to start a day!
Sometime later our landlady, Madame Lulle (sp?) stopped by with “a favor” to ask. She wanted to invite us to have Independence Day lunch at her house as her guests. “Favor”? Hardly! Our pleasure!
I thought it rude to go over to their house without bringing something, so I grabbed the pineapple I had bought the day before and brought it along when we went over at around 12:30. Mme. Lulle led us to her living room, which took me by surprise: she had a large leather couch and huge wooden cabinet unit in the corner, filled with dishes and glass objects. I was impressed: despite the exterior of the house, it seemed like by Malagasy standards Mme. Lulle was quite well-off. She unlocked one of the cabinets to get out a pitcher and plates, and served us orange juice and cookies.
She was the utmost in welcoming, but seemed sad. She explained that her two sons were away, one studying in Tana, the other in Switzerland. “Je suis seule,” (“I am alone”) she said. En plus, she had always wanted daughters, so she was very happy to have us over. We talked a bit about what we were doing for Ny Tanintsika, what we were studying in the US, etc.
Soon (but not before I had eaten many, many cookies!) it was time to sit down to lunch. There were about ten of us total, if I remember correctly. One of the guests was the patissier and saucier from Tsara Guest House, a well-known restaurant in town; I’m pretty sure he brought some of the food, and it was indeed delicious.
Mme. Lulle explained that the meal was typically Malagasy. We started with some salad dishes: a lettuce salad, a dish of potatoes and green beans in some sort of creamy sauce, surrounded by grated carrots, garnished with tomatoes. And of course, bread! More orange juice, along with pineapple juice, Coca-cola, Bonbon Anglais (literally, “English Candy,” found only in Madagascar; actually a disgusting soda that most describe as tasting like Red Bull; I thought it smelled like cotton candy, not in a good way), and the strongest rum I have ever encountered. It burned my nostrils just sitting across from me at the table! But the Tsara Guest house patissier downed glass after glass throughout the meal! He takes his liquor like a Princetonian!
Next came the main course. I had warned them that I was a vegetarian, so a special dish of potatoes in a delicious orange sauce with onions had been prepared for me. Then, of course, there was rice a-plenty: two huge serving dishes full! Impossible to finish. Then, the main attraction: the turkey! The turkey from our yard, the one that’s been waking me up every morning! I may be vegetarian, but I’ll admit, I was glad to see him go. Francesca said he was delicious. He was cut into large pieces and served along with huge pieces of pork; I couldn’t tell which was which. Definitely not kosher!
One of the guests at the meal was a computer science student who lived in our little walled area. He’s seen us teaching English classes in the little room attached to our house, which is what prompted the most hilariously awkward comment from him (he speaks some English): “I’ve noticed you have a very beautiful laptop, I’d like to touch it sometime.” Priceless!
We were so stuffed by the end of the meal, we could hardly move. We thanked Mme. Lulle profusely and returned to our house to digest.
~
Later, unfortunately, we had to go out to the bank; Gaia had called us to ask if we wanted to go to Ranomafana National Park with her tomorrow, and we needed money for the trip. We knew we didn’t want to be out in the streets that day because of all the drunkenness, but we had to make the quick trip.
It was a weird feeling: we were stared at even more than usual. The men hissed at us, called out to us. One punched Francesca in the arm in passing. Every child we passed laughed and pointed at us and yelled “Vasa! Vasa!” Why all the laughing? What’s so funny? Do you not think I know that I’m a foreigner?
It was very disconcerting. I realize that this was the day they were celebrating their independence from the vasas, from the French, but still – WE weren’t French! Strange to see how old animosity dies hard when it comes to national independence. I wonder if Americans were rude to Englishmen visiting the US 50 years after the Revolutionary War.
~
That night there were fireworks. Francesca went over to the office to use the internet, but came back because she said the night guard at the office was completely trashed – he could barely speak and walked into a wall three times! Later, he disappeared – no one was there to guard the office!
Francesca and I cracked open a THB over dinner, safe at home – no need to go out. Let the Malagasies have their fun, we’ll stay here safe and wait for our own Independence Day!

Ambohimahamasina, Part 4: Trek with FIZAM – The Cliffs of Angavoa and the Weavers of Adoharano (6/24)

We had decided that Wednesday we would take a trek with FIZAM, the local association for tourism; after all, the marketing of this ecotourism association was part of our project, so we might as well experience firsthand what we were trying to convince others to do!
We had told the guide that we wanted to leave around 8am Wednesday morning. We showed up somewhere around 8:30, thinking our guide would be running late as well, given the nature of “Malagasy time.” To our surprise, he said he had actually been waiting there for us since 8! Apparently Romain had worked really hard with the guides to drive home the point that when vasas say a certain time, they mean it! So we apologized for being late, but we were also quite glad to know that Romain had been able to get over at least that cultural hurdle, to the benefit of the association.
Our guide’s name was Solo, which is (for some reason that I cannot understand) pronounced “Shool.” He spoke good French, and a little English, so we had fun going back and forth a bit between the two.
Leaving that early in the morning turned out to be a great idea – it was cool and damp, as our trek was fairly physical we were able to beat the heat. The cliffs of Angavoa, which we hiked up to, also looked beautiful veiled in silvery mist, and watching the mist clear to reveal a panoramic view that stretched for miles was stunning.
Along the way we passed traditionally-dressed Betsileo (the name of the tribe group that occupies the Fianarantsoa region; Gaia says they’re the “most gentle” of the Malagasy peoples) men, with their woven straw hats, colorful blankets draped over their shoulders. A lot of people go barefoot here, and it’s not necessarily a sign of poverty.
We also passed a traditional Betsileo tomb: a structure made of piled stones with a white cross on top of a huge boulder.
Our destination was the village of Andoharano (“ahn-doh-AH-rahn”) home to one of the best-run basket-weaving ateliers of the Soamiray association (see previous posts for a description of how all this works). We were greeted by the chef d’atelier and her husband Jean-Pierre, who is also the village hebergeur (hebergeur is really annoying to translate from French into English, but essentially means the one who offers lodging; in this case, he is the homestay host for the FIZAM tourists who choose to spend a night in one of the villages). Jean-Pierre spoke limited French (surprising, with a name like that? But this is Madagascar, after all!), but our guide translated. They were very happy to have us and welcomed us warmly.
First we were shown the weaving atelier. It was a smallish room with mud walls, a window at either end, a ladder going up to a loft where raw materials were stored. On the wall was a handwritten schedule drawn out on a large piece of paper in Malagasy, and a sheet that showed samples of the different colors that could be produced using natural dyes.
In addition to the chef d’atelier, there were four other weavers, who were crouched barefoot (so as not to dirty their work) on a large mat with a pink and green striped pattern. The mat was already quite substantial in size – we were told that they had just started it that morning! Apparently weaving, or at least weaving something flat like a mat, doesn’t take as long as I’d thought!
I asked if it was alright to take pictures, and was given an emphatic yes. I still felt a bit awkward snapping away at the women working so intently, but I guess any publicity I can give to them through my photos is great, right? The lighting conditions were a fun challenge for me, and I’m really proud of some of the shots that I was able to get! I will upload everything to flickr once I’m back in the States with a faster internet connection.
We were shown how the raw materials are prepared: the reeds are cut into three pieces using a knife, then tied into a bunch and pounded with a mortar-and-pestle-like rock and wooden mallet combo.
Having seen all the steps, our guide asked if we’d like to give it a try! So we took off our shoes and crouched on the mat next to the women to learn their craft. “Prend deux, laisse deux, prend deux, laisse deux…” (“Take two, leave two…”) until the edge, then pass a perpendicular piece through, then let the bunch in your hand go. Begin again. It wasn’t difficult, as long as you didn’t accidentally start with the wrong two or miss one of your two, but it took us such a long time compared to the swift fingers of the weavers! They also showed us how they tighten the weave by pushing it with a smooth black stone, then pulling the fibers back with their fingernails.
Every so often a wandering chicken or duck had to be shooed out of the atelier, which made me laugh.
Even Solo, our guide, did some weaving! He said his mother was a weaver, and so he knew how to weave quite well - he was proud to show that Malagasy men could weave, too!
A girl, maybe eleven or twelve years old, came in carrying a baby to its mother who was there weaving. He was crying, but calmed down pretty quickly. The girl posed the baby (who I assume was her little brother) with a cahier (French notebook with tiny little lines for writing; any American who has gone to a French-American school knows what I’m talking about!) and a pen for me to take pictures. He had the biggest, most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen. The girl and I had a sweet little exchange, despite our language barrier (I can say “hello,” “how are you?” “thank you,” and “very beautiful”), and I took some great photos of her and the baby, which she loved looking at on my camera’s screen.
Next one of the weavers led us with our guide to where the raw materials are grown. Along the way we passed an angry zebu protecting its calf, a huge fat pig, and countless chickens and ducks. Took a narrow winding path up the hillside to a spot that overlooked the stream that spilled down on the valley over huge boulders. A few women were washing clothes in the stream, and laundry was laid out over bushes to dry.
When we got back to the main part of the village it was lunchtime. We were taken to small, dim room with woven mats covering the entire floor, and even attached to the bottom part of the walls. Our place settings were on the floor, and there were woven “poufs” for seating. Two giant pots of red rice; small, shallow tin bowls with des breds, chicken in broth, and a vegetable soup for me! Our guide and Jean-Pierre the hebergeur ate with us (his wife had cooked the meal and served us), and piled their bowls high with a mountain of rice; they laughed at how little rice we ate comparatively! A pot of ranon'ampango to drink arrived not long thereafter (having been prepared in the rice pots by boiling water); this one was very weak, hardly changed color at all, although there were little bits of rice floating in it. When we had finished this, a basket of bananas (short, fat Malagasy ones) was brought out as dessert, and then a pot of excellent coffee, which we drank out of tiny tin cups with sugar.
After bananas and coffee we continued to sit on the poufs and chatted (with the help of our guide as translator) on subject ranging from where we were from, cultural differences, why Americans speak English (we were once a colony, too!).
We then returned to the room where we had all first met, paid for our meal (5,000 Ariary each – about $2.50 – and paid for half of our guide’s meal, as previously agreed upon), signed their guestbook with heartfelt messages of thanks, looked through some albums of photos that past visitors had taken there and had sent to them – we promised to send them copies of our photos, too! They said they we would return another time and spend the night.
~
Doesn’t that sound like a really cool experience? We certainly thought so! So since we’ve been back we’ve been working on ways to get the word out about FIZAM’s ecotourism opportunities – marketing is definitely not their strong point! I’ve been looking at various travel sites: posting testimonials to sites like TripAdvisor and VirtualTourist, contacting other sites to see if they’d be willing to post information. I also translated the existing FIZAM brochure into English and Francesca redesigned it using photos we took that day.
FIZAM gives you a choice of treks in varying levels of intensity (from 3 hours to 3 days) with the chance to be completely immersed in local cultures, welcomed with open arms. Not only that, all the money you spend (which is not much at all – these treks and meals are such a good deal!) goes to the local community, no middlemen, and to support their efforts to protect the environment.
If you’re planning on coming to Madagascar anytime in the future, please don’t miss out on this awesome opportunity!

The Rhythm of Life in Fianar: Mornings and Evenings

I awoke before 5am on Friday, but not just because I was jetlagged. The rest of Fianar was starting to wake up, too. From our tiny, thin walled house (which is walled on a little plot with two other houses, three families) I could hear a rooster I hear everything that goes on outside with incredible clarity. Roosters crow – they roam unchecked through residential areas, and it’s not uncommon to come across a hen with little chicks cheeping as they hurry along behind. There’s an enormous turkey that lives in our yard, being fattened for Malagasy Independence day on June 26th; that first morning his “gobble-gobble” sounds kept catching me off-guard, but now they’re just part of the soundtrack of life here. Two calico cats live in the yard, too, and sometimes meow loudly. The family next door has a little furry white dog, but he’s pretty quiet. The father in one of the families is himself a taxi-brousse driver, so sometimes you’ll hear his van coming or going late at night or early in the morning. Just outside my window, between our house and one of the others, a woman starts a fire and boils water either for breakfast or for washing laundry (an all-day affair). If I spoke Malagasy, I would know a lot about our neighbors, because you can hear every word that anyone says outside!
So why is everyone up so early? Well, for one thing, the sun starts to rise around that time; we are, after all, in the Southern Hemisphere. It gets really dark early here, too; dusk begins around 4:30 and it’s quite dark by 5pm. So things quiet down here early, other than not infrequent dogfights that erupt in the middle of the night.
But Sunday night was an exception. Starting around midnight, I heard singing. At first I thought it was drunken singing (drunk in Fianar on a Sunday?), and it was sporadic enough that I was able to fall back to sleep. But by 2am it was relentless and unending singing of hymns – and badly, I might add. It was coming from the house just behind ours and it went on all night long! Cranking up the iPod didn’t even help. I lay awake for hours listening to untrained two-part harmony, the same song, over and over. It was a hellish, sleepless night.
The next morning I asked the office guard (one of the two office guards is always in the little shack in the office yard, every night) what that was all about, and (I think – his French isn’t the best) he said that there had been a death.
From my pre-trip research I knew that people in rural areas have very elaborate funeral rituals (including the exhumation of bodies by the family a year after to re-wrap dead relatives and to “tell” the corpses about recent family news and gossip; this is actually a celebratory event, not meant to be sad), but I guess that night I got a taste of how death is dealt with by Christian Malagasies in the cities.
Since we're talking about the rhythm of life in Madagascar, I should also talk about afternoons. Everyone in Fianar, businesses of all kinds, all have a two-hour lunch break from 12 to 2pm. Everyone goes home from the office, children come home from school, to cook and eat together. For Francesca and I, this makes shopping difficult. Produce and such are still sold on the street, but when it comes to little grocery stores, they are all closed during the only free time we have during the workday.
As I said in an earlier post, there is a different sense of time in Madagascar. A lunch break from 12 to 2 does not mean that everyone is back at their desks at 2pm on the dot, ready to work. Punctuality is flexible. Our afternoon English classes for the office staff are supposed to start at 4:30. People filter in one at a time between 4:45 and 5pm. It can be incredibly frustrating, but, as we were cautioned back at Princeton in the "Living and Working in the Developing World" meeting, it is something to to accept and get used to.