Living in Anosimparihy

It’s pretty obvious that I fell behind on blogging a bit, I don’t know quite where to start… but how about some stories about the village where I’m now living? Our staying in the village of Anosimparihy was arranged with the help of Hope for Madagascar but also with coordination of the regional school director, so it wasn’t a complete shock when we arrived in the village, welcomed with speeches in Malagasy and a lunch in one of the school’s classrooms. After spending the first night in the office for the local schools, we walked the 3 km route back to the main road to buy supplies before moving into what is our house for the time being.

 

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.

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.

Fetching water

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!

Classroom where I've been teaching English, just behind our house

Foret Humide!

Visit to Bac Namorona