Supplies needed for living in a Malagasy village? Beyond our
bed, pillows, a stove and a few dishes we’re able to borrow, the essentials
include: buckets (used for water uses everything from showers, cooking, washing
dishes, and drinking), a basin to wash dishes, pots for cooking rice and loka
(basically whatever is eaten with the rice for that meal), kopys (large
plastic cups for using water in smaller quantities), charcoal for cooking, and
food.
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| Home for now- shower, bedroom, kitchen |
Anosimparihy is not too small of a village, in addition to
being the location of the primary and secondary school of the local area, there
are also a few epiceries (small shops selling the essentials- rice, beans,
dried fish, oil, cookies, with a rotation of availability of spices, onions,
eggs). There is also a local village hospital, which I have thankfully had no
need to make use of as of now. The village and the region is known as being
friendly and honest- there is not too much concern about theft in the village.
(Someone said that the biggest threat was probably the mosquitoes.)
There are a number of local beliefs and stories that call
for caution, no matter if they seem fantastic to foreign beliefs. For instance,
according to local stories, there are “pygmies” with long hair, long nails that
may enter in houses at night to eat the leftovers and rano’ampongo left
in the pot. If they are confronted and annoyed they can turn against the person
and do some injury. (However, it is said that they can also grant wishes if
they so please as well). To prevent the pygmies from entering , a doll at the
entrance of the home will prevent them from entering, as it is almost the same
height, which the pygmies don’t like. We went ahead and found a small doll to
install in our kitchen to guard against this risk after spending a night
hearing rustling pots in our kitchen (although it was most likely a rat).
There are other stories as well, about “living dead”, about
spirits who may cause problems which mainly call for caution traversing the
road at night, without taking precautions. Additionally there is a fady
of sorts for me to swim in the river, as supposedly the river dislikes white
skin. I was happy to hear that there is a potential antidote to this by wearing
a bronze bracelet, hopefully I’ll be able to find one somewhere.
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| Fetching water |
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| Namorona River |
With all of these it’s not difficult to follow along in
local beliefs, and believe them myself to some degree. It’s nice being slightly
less of a novelty, although I still get plenty of “Bonjour, vazaha!”,
especially amongst children when I’m out. Spending the last of two nights in
Manakara, about 3 hours south of Bac Namorona, for a bit of vacation from
village life and to profit from an opportunity to charge phones and computer
batteries.
Oh, and I also got the opportunity to see a few movies in
the village last week too. There are some families with generators that they
turn on at night, play a movie and charge 200 ariary (about 10 cents) a head to
watch. It’s not exactly the cinema experience, in a small room packed full with
children on the floor, all available seats and benches otherwise filled, but
its an additional distraction. Both films were American, but the first played
in French, and the second, dubbed roughly in Malagasy and some odd changes to
the soundtrack. Surprisingly for me, I understood the two about equally, but
that may have been the nature of the films and an inability to understand true
rapid French.
Ok, I think I’d better stop it there… but until next time!
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| Classroom where I've been teaching English, just behind our house |
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| Foret Humide! |
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| Visit to Bac Namorona |
