Random thoughts and moments (1)

Looking back on things I have written, I've been trying to keep up with the overall experience, the big events & moving from place to place. Yet I feel like there are so many small details, day-to-day moments that I've missed and will try to catch up on a few of them here.

"Ny Mandeha..."
I feel like I've mentioned travelling a lot, but a great deal of time was spent walking, waiting for cars, travelling by taxi-brousse. When we were living in Anosimparihy, there were many days that we trekked the 6 km round-trip to get to Bac Namorona, on the road, to buy supplies, eat breakfast, or sometimes just to mitsangatsangana, explore a bit. I also dug up my Malagasy handbook from my study abroad program in 2010, which had a number of Malagasy songs that we were supposed to learn (although mostly didn't). One of the songs I did learn this time around, more-or-less a children's song, is called "Ny Mandeha" (roughly translated as "traveling" or "going"). The song goes like this:

Mandeha tongotra...

ny mandeha                                   travelling
ny mandeha                                   travelling
ny mandeha                                  travelling
dia mahafinaritra                         it is enjoyable

ny mandeha tongotra,                    travelling by foot
tongotra,                                        by foot
tongotra,                                        by foot
ny mandeha tongotra,                   travelling by foot
dia mahafinaritra!                        it is enjoyable

(Repeat)- tongotra is interchanged with other forms of transportation, car, bicycle, plane, boat...

In addition to helping me some with my Malagasy, we ended up frequently singing this while walking, waiting for taxi-brousses to pass by, or otherwise to pass the time, although occasionally changed versions to reflect the situation- "tsy mandeha" (not going, while waiting for a car to pass by), or a change of adjectives, when walking wasn't so "mahafinaritra"(enjoyable) and rather tiring.

Mitsangatsangana...

Toaka

Pretty sure I've mentioned drinking rum, toaka gasy, and the like a fair few times as well. There's something about the way alcohol, especially rum is consumed, that seems a world apart from any sort of wine-tasting or bar-hopping you would do in the US. It seems like I have numerous memories of times, sitting around a table, dark except for flickering candlelight. There is a small plastic bottle on the table (or 2 or 3), small glasses. Honor is given frequently to the eldest present, to open the first bottle and splash out a small offering for the ancestors, before pouring into the flower-printed glasses distributed around the table. Time passes, the bottle(s) gradually empty, sometimes a salty snack (zebu kabobs, samosas, fried fish) is sought. There is little present besides the alcohol and the conversation, through most of which I spend trying to identify words in Malagasy that I know, although sometimes end up escaping into my own thoughts as the conversation whizzes by. Sometimes on occasions of less ceremony or while less stationary, only a small bottle is present. We pass it around, taking turns sipping from the bottle itself. Sometimes, if this has gone on long enough, singing, strange behavior, or questions directed towards me in incomprehensible French result. I start getting sleepy, a sure sign the alcohol is taking its toll. We say our goodbyes and slip off, while others remain, cracking open a fresh bottle and continuing late into the night.

Celebration in Anosimparihy

Te hihinana... Compose, mofo gasy, bonbon coco, akoho...!
For those you you who don't know already, I'm a big food person. I love trying new things, and love eating in general. Trying roadside food from vendors is a lot of fun, and I have found numerous things that I craved and sought out once we were properly introduced to one another.

 -Compose: describing it seems odd when I try and explain it properly, while in Madagascar, the word compose is so self-explanatory no description is necessary. An order of compose comes with pre-cooked pasta, mixed with oil, vegetables, sometimes meat- in one or two varieties. Then there are mashed potatoes, frequently mixed with vegetables, colored with beets, and/or mixed  with house-made mayonnaise. Added to these are "echards" a vinaigrette of shredded carrots or cucumbers. Each of these are spooned onto a corner of the plate to produce "compose", for about 25-50 cents, comprising a number of breakfasts and snacks for us while in various cities throughout Madagascar.

-Jus: One of the huge advantages of being in a "tropical" country, is the fruit, tropical fruit galore. With these fruits, fruit juices are often easy to find. While in Tana, a short distance away from the house there was a small roadside foodstand that made juice on the spot. Order a glass of lime juice for 200 Ariary (10 cents), a lime was sliced and peeled, several spoonful of sugar were added, and into the blender with cold water. We went back on multiple occasions for this refreshing pick-me-up, and while more exotic juices can be found, the fresh simplicity of "jus citron" was a delicious one.

Coconuts in Manakara

-Bonbon coco: This candy was a discovery waiting for me in Manakara, on the Southeast coast, a city lined with palm and coconut trees. Going to the beach, you can find a touristy attraction of fresh coconuts. First the top is sliced off and you are given a plastic bendy straw to drink out the fruity coconut juice. Then once you've managed to suck all of the liquid that you can from what seems like an immensely over-sized cup, hand your coconut back to the vendor, she will chop it in half with a machete, and chip of a hard piece of the outer rind so that you can scoop out the coconut meat within, to your heart's content. While that was the coconut itself, there is also bonbon coco (coconut candy) to be found on the streets, sold by old ladies and young girls. The candy is a small flat pancake of shredded coconut, golden in color, that snaps and then melts in your mouth when you bite into it. Eating the whole candy leaves your mouth on sugar overload, craving a sip of water, while simultaneously wanting to keep the flavor on your tongue.

-Akoho: Akoho is chicken. This was an especially good road snack, while travelling in taxi brousses, driving through villages we'd sometimes slow down or stop and be swarmed by vendors holding up trays of various foods to the windows, where we'd negotiate our purchases. In addition to fruits, triangles of bread steamed in banana leaves, and hard-boiled eggs, choice pieces selected from plates of cooked chicken were a frequent choice. Sometimes in the city late at night, restaurants were closed, but roadside vendors were set up and going strong next to the bar and nightclub, we'd seek out "akoho" as a last resort dinner, licking the bones and our fingers clean of the salty oil afterwards.

-Mofo gasy: There are a wide variety of Malgasy breads, including mofo gasy a sweet rice flour bun itself, but also banana beignets, round sweet balls fried in oil, loops of bread containing a square of yesterday's baguette inside, and my personal favorite, ramenonaka(no guarantee on the spelling there), a savory oily rice-flour bread. I could never keep track of the names correctly, and eagerly tried the spectrum from various vendors. Interestingly there did seem to be regional differences in types of breads, and availability, size and form, but made the exploring all the more interesting

Hotely & Mofo in Mangily

 *Disclaimer, while I clearly enjoyed a great deal of street food, I can't necessarily recommend it for all travelers.  While I rarely suffered problems, there aren't any guarantees that digestive discomfort will not occur. That being said, no risk, no gain?

Mandeha en brousse! Day treks into the countryside

Well, this is a post of a couple of experiences, one during my first month in Madagascar, while I was still in Tulear, and other during my last month in Madagascar, based in Fort Dauphin. 

Our trek in in Tulear was a trip out to the village of Miary, which means "bend" based off its location near a bend in the river, and linking to its history of a tree site we visited as the main objective of our trip. The first part of the trek involved walking to the other end of town, along sandy roads, and we also passed by Maninday, the campus of the public university in Tulear. We trekked most of the morning, snacking on bananas, and then a few squares of a dark sugar-based candy bought from a vendor in a village we passed as we neared our destination. We were faced with some dark rain clouds and winds about half-way through our trip, which ended up being a boon, keeping the hot Tulear sun at bay.

The tree of the legend

The destination of our trip was the site of a fascinating species of tree, whose root system generates a virtual forest of trees, while being part of the same plant. The site is linked to a local legend about princess who's life was sacrificed in order to save the village from flooding. I can't remember specifics, but the princess was transformed or became this tree at this site, and as a result the river developed a bend, protecting the village from flooding & the risk of being destroyed. The actual site had a low wall built around it, with a charge for entering and sitting on benches amongst the tree's many trunks. We continued further down the road however, to a site where another tree of the same kind was located, before turning back. On a hill above this site, a water tank, feeds the water supply for the city of Tulear, also notable by the large pipes that mirrored our path along the road for the last few kilometers.

Tulear water supply

After a pause, and a side mission of obtaining some toaka gasy (Malagasy moonshine rum- one of the big plusses of being in the countryside), we began our trek back. I think in total, the trip was at least 22km round trip, so needless to say, lunch, a shower and a long sieste were much appreciated once we finally arrived back home.

toaka gasy!

Zebu-pulled cart transporting sugar-cane

We had another trekking adventure while in Fort Dauphin, with it's own objective: litchis. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned litchis a few times before, but the small bumpy thin-skinned fruits are utterly delicious, and right about in the peak of their season in November and December. A friend had family who lived in a village about 12 km from Fort Dauphin, with a litchi tree overflowing with fruit, so we took up on the invitation to go out and pick some.

We got off to an early start, around 6 a.m., stopping on the edge of town for some coffee, and various choices of roadside food for breakfast (fried bread, pasta, fried fish). Beyond that, spent most of the morning trekking along the roads, which become rutted and potholed once you leave the city limits. I love the views in this part of Madagascar, as it is lush and green, but most of all accented by the steep mountains of the region that seem to tower nearby. 

It was kind of fun noticing some landmarks and locations visited from my study abroad experience two years before. We passed by the intersection leading to Manantantely, and the old boarding school location where my first week in Madagascar in 2010 was spent for an orientation. Also passed by some signs notating the route to Malio, where I conducted my research project in 2010 as well. Close to the end of our route, we turned off on a side road, just as we reached the fruit market that my study abroad group had frequented to practice our market Malagasy and snack on the various fruits the region had to offer.

Litchis galore!

Once in the village, we were quickly led to a small orchard of litchi trees, and the collection process began, as branches upon small branches were brought down to add to our stock. An interesting revelation about litchis, which I think you could only come across in the country side, was that there was more than one kind, one of which remains green even when it's ripe. I'm assuming that these don't sell well in town, because most people seeing green litchis will assume they're unripe and refuse to buy them. We gathered an immense stockpile of litchis, stuffing them into backpacks and my purse, snacking on them all the while, leaving our hands sticky from the fruit's sugary juice.

Once the litchi collection was over, we were invited for lunch, which included a preliminary meal of cassava and mango echards, while we waited for the main dish of chicken and rice. We also wandered, visiting the village church, were treated to incredibly ripe mangoes, and spent some time napping on tsihy's (grass woven mats).When it was time to head back, we were all pretty worn out already, but slowly began the march back along the roads towards town. 

About a third of the way down the road, we had some luck flagging down a passing car to hitch a ride, shortly after we got in, our driver agreed to help out another pair of men along the road struggling with a scooter that had apparently died. The trip back to Fort Dauphin was made quicker, albeit rather interesting due to the fact that we had a scooter tied to a rope being pulled by our car, while the scooter's rider attempted to steer and keep himself upright behind us.A small bottle of "Carte Noire" a vanilla scented dark rum, was passed around the car as we drove, and was emptied before we arrived. Luckily everyone made it without any mishaps to the edge of town, and made our way back home to sleep the rest of the afternoon. 

Southbound! Adventure in the Southeast

Train Station in Manakara, one of the only rail networks in the country connecting Fianarantsoa & Manakara

Vanilla! Near the Taxi-brousse Station

Glimpses of Manakara

It looks like a real road on the map...

After leaving Anosimparihy & catching a conveniently timed Taxi-brousse headed South, we continued are trip into the familiar coastal town of Manakara (which we visited several times during our stay in the village). We almost immediately found another taxi-brousse connection continuing South, to a town called Farafangana and eventually Vangaindrano. The roads were for the most part great & paved, except for a stretch of the last 20 km getting into Farafangana, which must have taken a painstakingly long hour to go through and around all of the potholes and puddles present, a stretch made all the more difficult due to a long overdue need to eat lunch. 

After Farafangana and lunch in a little Malagasy restaurant with the name "Texas" (although the food was nothing like Tex-Mex), we continued the road south with almost the entire taxi-brousse to ourselves with the except of maybe 3 other riders. (usually they're filled to maximum capacity of 18 passengers, with the occasional additions crammed in beyond the number of seats as well). I was very curious about going into Vangaindrano, my guidebook failed to mention any towns further south than Farafangana, except for it being notated as a dot on the map.

Market at Vangaindrano

Kilometer Marker for "Vang"

The town itself seemed almost like a blend between a village and a town, many of the roads were dirt or cobbled stones, although there was a few pousse-pousse's around to help us find a hotel and carry our luggage. After getting into Vangaindrano we tracked down a car going on the route to Fort Dauphin and made a reservation to start our journey the next day at 8 am. 

Another usage for large vehicles-clothes line- spotted while waiting at the station

Waiting...

In the end we left the taxi-brousse station at about 1pm the next day, after a lot of time waiting at the station, wandering through the street markets, and coming back to wait again, undergoing a discussion with the driver about the possibility of taking a different car, the luggage was finally loaded onto the roof of a 4x4 and we set off.

The road

Unlike the roads further North, south of Vangaindrano, were very slow going, and sometimes questionable as roads. Looking at a map of Madagascar there's a line that shows a road running down the east coast. What this line does not tell you are the side paths, puddles, streams, sand and deep ruts that will be your route as you make your way South. 

Another interesting feature about the route South is that route contains total of 10 ferries ("Bacs"- from which the name Bac Namorona, the village on the road near ours comes from, it used to be a ferry station before a bridge was built over the river). We crossed 3 ferries our first day of travel, and stopped for the night at a small rural hotel/restaurant at the edge of the next crossing. It was actually a bit of luck that we stopped where we did, as there were rooms with beds to sleep in for about $5, and the alternative had we stopped for the night elsewhere, would have been sleeping crammed in the car. 

First Ferry experience in Madagascar!

Bac Crossing at Sunset

Began the second leg of our trip early the next morning, for a while we were treated with stunning views of mountains with clouds hovering below them, to the West, and a sparkle of the distant ocean to the East. For much of the stretches in between water crossings there was nothing but grassland, making me wonder as to how long ago there had been forests there. 

Some of the views along our trip

 Besides a stop for breakfast, our second leg of the trip traveled without stop (with the exception of the 7 remaining ferry crossings). We bought fried fish, and cassava from villagers at the ferry crossings, and snacked on the parting gift of litchis that the Mayor of Anosimparihy had given us. The last 4 crossings were hand-cranked instead of motorized, amazingly enough, with a cable to keep the platform in line. 

Waiting for the hand-cranked ferry to get back to our side so we could cross (it took a little while)

It was interesting getting close to Fort Dauphin, I could sense the changes in the landscapes and communities that we were getting into the Anosy ethnic region, (where we spent much of our time during my study abroad program in 2010) although I couldn't really put my finger on what about the landscape seemed so familiar to me. Those last few hours stretched on, not helped by the fact that additional passengers had been picked up along the road and crammed into the car alongside us. We finally made it into town at about 8 pm, I ate a dinner of sweet potatoes and peanuts, and was very happy to sleep that night in a bed in a familiar town. I think all this time travelling via taxi-brousse has improved my travelling stamina; after this trip even the 36 hours of travelling to get back home seemed relatively bearable, although a lack of fried fish, litchis, and the views, do take away a bit from travel by air. :)

Long overdue continuation of the story- Return to Anosimparihy

As I have been reminded, my posting on my experiences in Madagascar kind of fell short after being in Tulear the second time. I'll try and catch up a little at a time, since I don't think I'd be able to fit it all in one post.

Hailstorm in Fiana

We left Tulear at the beginning of November with a couple days stop in the city of Fianarantsoa in central Madagascar. In Fianarantsoa we spent our time looking for a bed sheet to replace a deteriorating one we had on loan from our neighbors in the village (surprisingly enough looked all over and didn't find any, found some other towns as soon as we no longer needed one). We also visited the Peace Corps office located in Fianarantsoa, to look into the possibility of getting a Peace Corps volunteer to work in the village, as I hope someone else would be able to work longer term than I was able to with the village. We also had some crazy weather, including lightning, sheets of rain pouring down & even a few moments of hail. Before the hail, walking among street markets I couldn't figure out why all of the vendors were closing down until the skies opened up. Obviously locals were a lot more used to this kind of weather shift than I was.

We escaped the weather of Fiana, took another taxi-brousse on windy roads to arrive back at the village. People were very excited to see us back, and I was happy to be back as well, excited to see trees everywhere covered in litchi fruits.(The last time I had eaten a litchi was two years ago my last time in Madagascar & they are delicious). Much of our time in the village the second time around was to wrap things up, and present the materials for obtaining a peace corps volunteer.

Litchis!

Litchis!

Hope for Madagascar visit, inspecting the river

 Hope for Madagascar visited before we left, to discuss the possibility of continued projects with Anosimparihy as well as planning for the construction of a well. The day before the Hope for Madagascar team arrived there was a total deluge, so much that buckets put under holes in the gutter were filled within seconds. Because of this, the water level was extremely high, and the water was extremely muddy in the river, giving a good idea of some of the worse conditions for water supply that the village faces.

After we left the village Hope for Madagascar dug and installed a hand pump for the well in the village on two separate visits. I was very happy that this happened- if nothing else, the villagers of Anosimparihy now have a good water supply, which was one of the things they stated they needed most. Before leaving the village we gifted the school, the village doctor and our neighbors with several of our supplies including my English-Malagasy dictionaries. I feel like it's not much, but at least there's something as far as materials go to helping the school.

Well Construction-Photo Credit: Hope for Madagascar

Well & Pump complete!- Photo Credit: Hope for Madagascar

It was sad leaving, especially those who we had gotten to know and had been especially kind to us. The day we left some students from the school helped us haul our luggage the 3 km back to the road where we were lucky enough to catch a taxi-brousse passing by the moment we arrived. Strange thinking back to it now (especially here in the US) that I lived in a village for about 3 months, and after leaving the village we embarked on a new adventure heading down south along the east coast to Fort Dauphin. (to be continued...)