Getting Around and About - the start of our explorations

(note Pictures to come)

Weekend One was a busy one. We had the privilege of being invited to a Malagasy wedding. We prepared ourselves for an all day affair and looked forward to  an interesting time. The process started with a civil ceremony at the Town Hall at 9.00 a.m. We were not able to get to this part of the ceremony because of traffic density in town, but were in time for the church service at the FJKM (The Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar) one of the Reformed Churches; the other is the Lutheran Church. The FJKM is an outgrowth of the London Missionary Society, whose missionaries were responsible for giving the Malagasy a written language and for translating the New Testament into Malagasy around the 1840’s.

The service was similar to a Christian Marriage service anywhere. One point of difference: an offering was taken during the service. The singing was especially good and How Great Thou Art  sounded as splendid in Malagasy as it does in Maori or English. After the service the bridal couple and both sets of parents processed out of the church to the Wedding March, They all then stood outside where they were greeted by each guest in typical French style with three kisses.

The reception started at 1.00pm in a school hall. The bridal couple welcomed their guests and received their (mostly monetary) gifts. Then started the five hour reception.  A four course meal, each course interspersed by singing and dancing, European and traditional, in which everyone was expected to participate. Singing comes naturally to the Malagasy people and it is loud and joyous. It is a tradition that anyone can get up and sing and many did, adding to the entertainment. Another tradition, new to us, was the sharing of one layer of the cake with the parents of the bridal couple. The layer was halved, the groom giving one half to the bride’s parents and the bride doing the same to the groom’s parents. A nice touch.

To sum up: a wedding with many similarities to what we’ve experienced  elsewhere, with added special local touches typified by the warmth, spontaneity, the welcoming of “vahazas” (foreigners), the food and especially the singing and  dancing.

As the wedding was in the capital, about 15 kms from the village we are living in, and with transport difficult, we spent two nights in a city hotel. This was something of a learning experience. Our room was small but clean, with a toilet and shower (each about 1m square) in two corners of the room. From the people in the foyer, we guessed that some of the rooms were hired out by the hour. We were on the fourth floor, the last flight of stairs being a spiral staircase which hardly accommodated us and our rather skimpy overnight cases. The real concern was that the whole building was lined by slats of wood, with no sign of any fire escapes, smoke alarms or sprinklers;  and ashtrays  provided for smokers in the rooms. The staff were very friendly and caring, warning us very firmly that it was unsafe to walk in the street outside after dark. We took care to use taxis for nocturnal transport.

On the Sunday morning we went to the only advertised English church service in Tana, in the Bible Society building. It was well attended (about 100), of whom only about 20 were vazahahs. Amazingly, the first European person to welcome us there was a German woman who had worked in East Africa for the Missionary Aviation Fellowship with Bill and Angela Harding; Angela is the granddaughter of our first next door neighbour in Dunedin. Good service, once again with hearty singing by the locals.

The weekend was rounded off with lunch at the home of one of the long-term Malagasy volunteers whose sister supports her so that she can work at Akany Avoko. It was good to meet a local family and have more traditional food.

Our second week of work at Akany Avoko flashed by (see the entry on the Akany page) and we were preparing for our second weekend in Madagascar. This was a weekend away, travelling by car with driver and guide to Ampefy about three hours west of the capital. Despite a 7 am start the streets were already thronging with people

The somewhat slow drive was worth it: the hotel was really good, right on the edge of Lake Itasy comfortable and clean, with a good restaurant overlooking the garden and the lake. Clearly this resort hotel, being within easy reach of the capital is a popular place for the well-to-do locals, diplomats and other expats who live in Tana.

Nearby were geysers (cold water), a picturesque waterfall and many interesting villages selling good fruit and vegetables. Of special interest were huge paw-paws, avocados, pineapples  and guavas. We came back well stocked up.

The weekend was rounded off with a visit to a lemur park where six species of lemurs roam freely and are easy to view.

This is truly a land of contrasts!

Out and about

Our third week has already passed. On Thursday Gil went in to Tana to meet the local head of Gastroenterology, Professor Rado Ramanampamonjy. Thursday is the day when the rotating local market finds itself in that area. It is a huge market, selling virtually everything from vegetables to cloths, jewellery, car parts and furniture. It was difficult to find the gate of the Med School for stalls all over the footpaths. Taxis and traffic weaved their way between the stalls and pedestrians. My host was a charming young man who trained locally, and did his postgraduate speciality in Paris. We had a good discussion, and it is clear that they have major funding and resource problems; they only have one CT scan for the whole of the country, no MRI, and even in their hospital he is struggling to set up a basic endoscopy service. For those who say New Zealand has a third world medical service, we invite them to experience a real one before passing further comment. Gil was invited to give a morning seminar to the residents and students in early June.

On Friday evening we celebrated the anniversary of 30 years since we arrived in Dunedin at the local restaurant, La Fourchette, almost across the road from us. We had a good meal, eating fish (capitaine); it had a very firm, almost rubbery texture, but was very tasty. Wyn wondered, after our activities the following day, whether capitaine was perhaps crocodile.

On Saturday morning we set out with two other volunteers on a walk to the local crocodile farm. Within five minutes we were off the tarred road, and walking along progressively more dusty roads across the countryside. We walked past local villages with their shops and stalls, tombs,and many houses all with chickens on and off the road. Some very upmarket houses were surrounded by walls and closed gates. We reached the crocodile farm in 90 minutes. It was a very interesting place, well maintained, and with displays of chameleons, snakes, lizards, tortoises, and frogs as well as a few thousand crocodiles, some enormous. Some of the tortoises were huge (growing to 120kg) and the chameleons very brightly coloured. Wyn and Paulien (the Dutch volunteer) were brave enough to hold some snakes, one of them a boa constrictor which could be seen and felt to curl and tighten around Paulien’s hand. We had lunch at the farm.

Late Saturday afternoon, we were taken by a Malagasy woman to her “English Club” at her local church. She had  invited us to talk to her group on New Zealand. We had to catch two taxi-bes to reach our destination; always an adventure as that despite many people getting off and on at each stop, there always seemed to be between 32 and 36 passengers in what is really a van with seats in it. There were two groups in the English Club, the first of children aged about 6 to 12, few of them speaking much English. We had our lap-top to talk to some pictures, and all went well. They sang for us at the end of the session, always a pleasure to hear. The second group were young adults aged about 16 to 25, mostly students who  spoke very good English. They asked very good, perceptive questions, including many about the All Blacks and NZ rugby, and about the politics, environmental issues and social aspects of our country. We were given a memorable lift to our next destination; our driver drove at speed like a true ‘local’ on roads with very little lighting, and pedestrians and bicycles all over the place.

The next activity was to attend the birthday celebration of Simon, Akany Avoko’s project development manager. All the volunteers met at the Hotel Colbert, a landmark hotel in town, for drinks before moving on to a nearby Japanese restaurant for a delicious meal. After the meal, the young ones went on to dance away the early hours, while some of us elected to take a lift back to Ambohidratrimo. It was already “pumpkin time” by the time we arrived back home.

Sunday morning saw us going to the local FJKM Church for their second service of the day at 9.30. It was attended by about 300 people, most dressed in their fineries, and the near fifty strong choir in smart red jackets and bow ties. The deacons all wore shiny angelic white robes. The choir started the proceedings with an anthem from Handel’s Messiah, and delighted us with two other excellent anthems. The singing was wonderful; some of the eight hymns were Malagasy versions of well known hymns, while most were catchy tunes sung with great gusto. There were three scripture readings, three collections, very long announcements by two people, a children’s talk, congratulations to a young newly married couple, birthday wishes  and blessings to all those (about 30) who had a birthday this month, special reading with songs and blessings as it was their Mother’s Day, and a 30 minute sermon for a total time of just over two hours. Although everything was in Malagasy, it was nevertheless felt as a warm time of fellowship. A communion service would be much longer!

Photos below: Hysteria in the snakepit! and bottom Chameleon