Madagascar

In May last year I began working for ReefDoctor, an NGO in Southwest Madagascar that focuses on land and marine conservation, combined with social development and education. If we go by economic earnings, Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world, so how do the ‘Gasy’ people get by?
Easy! Flip-flops can be used as fishing floats, footballs are made out of plastic bags and lots of string, bikes can be ridden with one pedal, sails are made out of old rice sacks, earrings out of wire, 26 people can fit in a mini bus (bring your own plank to make a seat between the seats), the door is jammed closed with a screwdriver, and all else imaginable, including goats and cows (allegedly, but yet unproven), go on the roof.

Still very much in my European mindset of ‘so much to do so little time’, I’m finding it hard to adjust to the rhythm of life here, where phones are recharged by using scratch cards, 24 cents at a time, and power and wifi are generator based. Things we all take for granted back home don’t yet apply here; bicarb. is counted out by the spoonful, and you buy cable ties by the unit.

While many aspects of life are more complicated, in a fortunate twist, sometimes, without infrastructure, governments and regulations, solutions are more obvious and easily achieved- for 3.65e I have bought a mini solar panel, attached it to the roof of my hut with 1 individual cable tie (00000.1 cents), and now have 3 hours of free light of an evening, without paying any sun tax to anyone. Larger solar panels are used throughout camp and the nearby villages to power lights and annoyingly repetitive music at all hours of the night.

I’m NOT saying solar panels are ultimately a sustainable option for all mankinds’ power requirements, but merely want to highlight the simplicity of solutions when faced with no options (or governamental obstructions). Spain has recently been relieved of the obscene “tax on the sun”, which aimed to stop anyone bar Endesa supplying us with power. In fact, Madagascar seems to me the paragon of resourcefulness.

The burgeoning fast-food industry of Ifaty. Implanting a waste disposal programme

Folk here haven’t quite the trouble we have in Europe with fast food packaging and waste.

Reversing un-ecological practices is not such as issue, because silly needs as having straws and polystyrene food wrapping were never developed in the first place. We get our fish from food stalls plonked on a piece of paper from someone’s old school notebook, and get excited about weekend trips to the next village to visit ‘The Fridge Shop”. “The yoghurt lady” appears on camp some mornings to sell us homemade yoghurt, and returns in the evening to collect the pots. Bottle return schemes are firmly in place and all glass is returned to the pub. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were to reintroduce a milk round back home and use glass instead of plastic? Despite the colourful, querky, picture I’m painting, this is a place where there is rarely any food left over, and many small children die of malnutrition well before they are registered for school.
In contrast, in Menorca the large all-inclusive hotels throw away up to 6 wheelie bins a day of food leftovers, often untouched. Menorca, as a biosphere reserve, is heavily invested in recycling, because we have to be; such a small island, that sees its population more than double in the summer months, cannot afford to keep piling up landfill. We are currently generating over half a tonne of waste per person per year, of which we recycle only 19%. The rest does end up as landfill in Milà. We are very good at recycling glass, less so card and plastic, and worst of all, organic waste. Fortunately, the Consorci de Residus de Menorca is addressing food waste by working on door-to-door collection of organic leftovers from individual households, and has finally started a trial project with Hotel Capri in Mahón to see if collection could work with large hotels as well. This comes after extensive meetings with hotel management to find out how to best adapt the collection service to individual needs, within the framework of our infrastructure. Tailoring conservation effort to locally perceived needs, and providing relevant information on the topic, are absolutely vital steps. Failure to do so results in wasted time and money, with often embarrassingly unpredictable outcomes. As they found out in Madagascar; handing out mosquito nets to uninformed/unwilling fishing communities does NOT stop malaria, but does provide a new means of catching all but microscopic fish in these new free nets!
Joining forces with the village next door, Reef Doctor has set up a project to install a very much needed rubbish collection system in Ifaty. Currently, everything except glass is burnt, or dropped into piles on the ground, part of which is then inevitably blown into the sea. Reef Doctor met with the community elders and they themselves decided that they want a bin for each family, and a rubbish collection service. Bins would be delivered with information stickers explaining how to use them and what to put where. Bin men would also clean the surrounding beach and village streets. The rubbish would be sorted locally at the newly created waste management centre in Ifaty. ReefDoctor has been collecting data on rubbish from beach cleans and most of what volunteers find are land-originating clothes and plastics. These materials can be re-fashioned into purses and curios, hard plastics broken down into the infamous nurdles, and exported for re-use. Soft plastics can be squished into old water bottles to make Eco-bricks Further down the road in Belalanda, there is a recently-recovered rubbish plant that could receive our non-recyclable waste, and add it to their sealed landfill site. This is a one-year trial project, and if successful, the plan is to install it in other nearby coastal villages too. The project is in urgent need of funding and we have created a fundraiser page on Facebook.

Law and Order

While some countries don’t have bins, in es Pinaret and on many Menorcan beaches, the councils actually removed our bins in an attempt to save money on collection, and teach us to take our own rubbish home instead. Unfortunately, humans don’t behave when there are no obvious negative consequences, and rubbish is often now just dumped at the beach at the mercy of the seagulls. I imagine we are the same the world over; we work with prizes and fines. Where information and education are clearly not enough, I’m excited that we now have a substantial law that promises to sort our behaviour out. Thanks to the new “Ley de Residuos y Suelos Contaminados de las Islas Baleares”, single – use plastics will be banned throughout the Balearics as of 2021. The Balearic Islands alone produce around 800.000.000 kilos of waste per year, one of the highest amounts in Spain, largely from hotels and tourism. The ban includes throw-away party plates, cups and forks, cotton buds, lollipop sticks and lighters. As anyone who has ever done a beach clean will know, these items make up large part of what we find. Currently, thin bags like those we put fruit and veg in are still allowed, yet as of 2021 any type or size of bag must be at least 50% recyclable, the list continues…Bin inspections are set to see who’s complying, and hefty fines are said to be imposed. By 2021 organic waste MUST be recycled, and both the Consell Insular and GOB run programmes on teaching you how to make your own compost.
The challenge is to get us to feel good about stepping out of our comfort zone, making an effort to invent ways to recycle, maybe ask our parents and grandparents what they used to do (or check what they still do in Madagascar) and feel proud of ourselves for trying to make a difference.
Oh, P.S. On this ‘Great Mad Island’ you even have to take your own notebook to the doctor to get a prescription! (I wonder if we could ever beat that?)

It has been both sad and wonderful to write about my year working in Madagascar. I will be eternally grateful for having lived more simply, in one of the poorest countries on Earth. The excesses, waste, and crazy priorities in our western society often make me want to run straight back to Madagascar and dive head first into a taxi-brousse!

My journeys to acceptance

It was 6.30 am on Saturday the 7^th of December, I was sitting in the dust outside ReefDoctor camp waiting for a taxi-brousse, and about to depart on my much-needed holidays. A little girl I knew from the beach turned up, self-named Christina or sometimes Nicole, and this time introducing herself as Christina Nicole. Sometimes she’d help me carry my pirogue back in after cleaning the sponge farms. I felt less embarrassed practicing my Gasy with children, and she loved to chat.

‘Salaaama Christina Nicole’ lovely to see you – but I’m not giving you any money today either, I thought to myself.

‘Salaaaaama’ she sung back pleasantly. ‘Ho aiza?, or where are you going? ‘Vacanci’, I replied, using a word I take to have been adopted and adapted from French. She then cocked her head to one side and in a “come on let’s just get it over with” fashion, ventured ‘5000 Ariary?’

‘Aaaaa-ha (No) Nicoooole’, I replied affectionately.

‘Tsy mety?’ it’s not going to work?

‘Tsy mety’, not today, not yesterday, not tomorrow. Next thing I knew there were some pursed lips puckered up to mine! Then a cheek proffered at me for her return kiss. After this kind exchange, and realising a bus probably wasn’t coming anyway, I set off down the track in the best of moods.

A bit of background (Boring bit, feel free to skip)

Although crazy adventures happen everywhere and all the time in Madagascar, the “it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey” quote is never truer than on the Great Red Island! While many tourists use 4×4 and a hired driver to get around, I feel the only way to really experience the fun is by wedging myself into the back of something extremely uncomfortable with half a door and multiple goats strapped to the roof. You won’t see the half of it if you’re hidden behind tinted windows, your bum cosy on a plush seat all for yourself.

A quick glance at any Madagascar travel guide soon informs you of the state of their roads.  An old 2014 guide that I found in the office at work likened the rutted tracks of RN 10 & 13 to craters on the surface of the Moon. A 2017 copy stated they were now surfaced, safe and comfortable. By late 2019 though, I noted they were back to crater-state, and personally felt like I was being catapulted to the Moon, though even space travel felt less of a feat than trying to get from Toliara to Fort Dauphin!

Madagascar attempts to connect its cites by a series of “Routes Nationales” (RN), which were first laid out by French colonials at the turn of the twentieth century. The roads were largely built by Malagasy men that were conscripted into forced labour both before and during the S.M.O.T.I.G. (Service de la Main-d’Œuvre des Travaux Publics d’Intérêt Général) system. Due to persistent corruption and lack of funding, the dirt tracks have never really been properly maintained, and even when they are, rainy seasons and cyclones soon undo the work. They say that it is not in the interests of certain businesses to repair the roads, as the ensuing increase in traffic would also bring increased competition from other food and goods transporters. Construction companies are known to bribe officials to get contracts, and then are forced to make cuts in the building materials to pay for the bribe. This translates into thinner layers of tarmac that clearly don’t hold up very well in tropical rain storms, or under hilariously overloaded camion-brousses.

Luckily for Madagascar, or so the Chinese businessmen would have us believe, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), signed in 2017, is here to improve the road network and benefit the Malagasy by providing jobs and infrastructure. It is presented as a network of roads that aims to recreate the ancient silk trade routes, largely implanted in poorer countries and which Angela Merkel is having nothing to do with. It works for China by enabling them to ship out all our fish, spices, cocoa, sea cucumbers, seahorses, and whatever else they have added to their aphrodisiac wishlist. Though Chinese propaganda for their newly funded “egg road to Tana” was an amusing read, the BRI scheme has encountered widespread opposition and it is hard to trust that trade benefits will be fairly divided among both countries. Ethical perusals aside, from a practical point of view, the new “egg road” reduces travel time from 90 min to 15 min, for a 7 km stretch! The locals are very grateful because now 10% of their eggs are not broken by the time they arrive at the market. Travel time from Toliara to Mangily is now under an hour, whereas it had previously taken up to 6 hours for a 27 km stretch.

Basically, some bits of road do get repaired here and there, but maintenance is far from systematic and it is said that the government invests but 7% of its budget in infrastructure. A recent political scheme opted for building airports rather than roads, which was considerate, bearing in mind most of the population can’t even afford the bone-shaking terrestrial transport! To put it into context, the 12 e fee for my bus trip to Taolagnaro would be a quarter of the more fortunate Malagasy’s monthly wage.  Now back to my story.

Part 1 – Toliara to Taolagnaro (Fort Dauphin) by camion-brousse. RN 10 & 13, 594 km, 32 hours.

I had decided to travel from Toliara to Taolagnaro on the infamous camion-brousse. There were two options for this particular route, either a 4×4 pick-up with a private driver and costing 400.000 Ariary, or the infamous camion brousse, a Mercedes wagon with benches in the back, and costing 55000 Ariary. I wanted to do the real thing, with the real Malagasy people. Previously, stuffed on a collapsed bench in third class, sweating and stinking half to death, on a 26 hours train ride across Java, I remember feeling displeased at the rich white people emerging from their 1^st class wagon. I couldn’t help noticing how clean their clothes were, and how well rested they looked; in our wagon the aisles were lined with small children trying to sleep on sheets of newspaper that the mothers had put down to keep them from the grime. I didn’t want to be seen as those white people, through anyone’s eyes, if ever I had the choice. And so instead of paying treble for the front seat on this wagon, I took the back, the same as everyone else. After living in Ifaty for 7 months, I didn’t feel that weird about being the only white person around anymore. “Mon Fils” was our vehicle of choice. With their massive wheels, rough metal benches, open sides and a tarp for a roof, I found them much more fun than a normal taxi-brousse. I think there were quite a few “Mon Fils” around, and some of them came in Rastafarian colours. Just the sight of one, with everything from livestock to couches and canoes piled on the roof, made me wiggle with excitement. Large part of the fun was that they travelled at breakneck speed, their huge wheels and unwieldy cargo eating up the ground. Exhilarating is an understatement, (except, I hasten to add, when going along high cliffs like on the way to St Augustin, see part 7).

The trip itself was memorable, as everything always was in Madagascar. The floor was lined with sacs of onions, providing an interesting aroma and taking away large part of the available leg space, so that your knees sat higher than your hips. The benches had some remnants of cushioning in parts, but were still very basic, with nowhere near enough room for the amount of people that were crammed onto them.

Because they stuffed 9 of us into the space intended for 4 in a normal world, my hips were squeezed in like being the last one in a capsule of those hideous gyrating fair rides, but for hours. It was pure agony; I couldn’t believe they would put so many people in here for such a distance.

I had been suffering from diarrhoea prior to my holidays, and had taken immodium before climbing aboard. Feeling wobbly and weak, I planned to fast for the duration of the trip, just in case. It was like travelling on a rollercoaster, with but odd fragments of tarmac here and there. If you let go of the front seat you’d soon go flying, it was a miracle the canoes stayed on the roof. If you thought you could find a way to rest your head on your hand wrapped around the side bar, within a few seconds you’d loose half the skin off your arm, or be near blinded as bushes whacked into the side of you. It was much easier to climb under the tarp and down the sides of these things for toilet stops, jumping the last few feet to the ground, than over everyone else and out the back door. I looked forward to the stops in villages or at roadside stalls. Mangoes and bananas were easy to come by, and chicken drumsticks or samosas sometimes too. Sitting 6 foot off the ground, we had a great vantage point for choosing whatever was in the baskets on the ladies’ heads. The pickings were different depending on where we stopped, with vendors appearing seemingly out of nowhere and clamouring all around our wagon. I kept small change in my shirt pocket and restricted myself to mangoes only, for this particular trip.

Once back in motion, the views were amazing; spiny Diederaceae plants and prickly pears lined the track, grazing goats whizzed by in a blurr. While never loosing speed, we’d bray our horn and scatter zebu and their calves from the road in front of us. Bucketing over bumps and smashing through crevasses was soooo much fun! If I gaged oncoming bushes well enough, I could poke my face out and smell the wilderness. Sunset was fantastic.

I had brought my lamba, a bright gold coloured cloth with lemurs on it. It is my prime possession, and it was all I had handy to keep me warm that night. The driver dropped the roll-up tarp down the sides of the vehicle after dark, encasing us is a zooming black tent. It stopped the wind and spiky bush onslaught, but I was still chilly. There is always music on public transport in Madagascar, blasted at top volume from household stereo speakers, it goes on all through the night and drives you almost insane. Because you had to constantly hold on for dear life, sleep was impossible, the moment you drifted off to sleep, your body no longer able to handle the exhaustion, you’d be jolted awake when your face impacted the metal bar on the backrest of the seat in front of you. I soon found out that earplugs or trying to listen to my own music were pointless. No amount of earplugs, pillows (with nothing to rest it on I soon lost it out the side), or even Valium made this 32 hour ordeal any less truly horrendous. It was hard to decide if this particular trip was worse than the worst time of my life on that train across Java. I decided the latter was still actually worse because the people weren’t as friendly and they also chain-smoked the whole way. Fortunately for me, people couldn’t even afford that here.

Funnily enough, I had renewed energy the next day and, as we eased into comfortable companionship borne out of sharing such a trip for so long, I began to get excited about life again. The day went by as fast as the Diederaceae and sisal plants. At couple of hours before we stopped (I felt on the verge of death again by this point), a few teenagers boarded and sat in front of me, smoking and swigging rum. I immediately felt intimidated. One of them vomited out the side of the wagon. As his friend comforted him, my initial apprehension turned to sympathy. They got a laptop out and put some videos on, then started singing gently. They actually seemed much nicer than the locals back home. They had turned out to be quite cosy company. I was squashed in next to a lady in a green felt hat. Intrigued, we settled ourselves across the back of their seats in front of us, and watched their videos as they sang. We were elbow to elbow, heads almost touching. It felt great not to feel like a white outsider or a vazaha, anymore. It was overcast and approaching nightfall again as we neared Taolagnaro. The low mist cleared, everything was green and lush, no more dust and spikes. We could finally see the big mountains and lush rice paddies. We took in our new surroundings as one, and one of the lads patted me on the shoulder and said how nice it was; tsaaara! – he smiled, tsara be!- I agreed back. When we arrived in Taolagnaro the boys again turned to me and said “welcome to Taolagnaro”! It felt like a small victory to have done such a trip on my own and get a formal welcome too. I felt silly for having mistrusted them in the first place.

In the shower at my pink and purple guest house, ‘Chez Anita’, I realised I was black and blue; I had a black eye, sore temples, and my legs felt weird even days afterwards, it was as if they had rods running from my lower back into my thighs. Lying in bed, for about 15 minutes after I arrived, I just felt odd; how could I be lying down flat? Why was it so quiet?? What was this lush thing against my cheek?? Even back at my job in ReefDoctor the pillow feels like agglomerated golf balls. In just two days, (relative) comfort had become an alien thing of the past!

Funny how, after recovering from the experience, I couldn’t ever wait to do it all again! I remembered all the fun bits and forgot the bad, maybe like mothers do with childbirth.

9^th Dec, “Room service with the national anthem”.

Though not strictly to do with transport, I just couldn’t leave this nugget of madness out. Having arrived late Sunday night in Taolagnaro, I spent most of the following Monday in bed recovering. I had ordered tea to be brought up to my room, as I was too ill to sit downstairs. A while later, the obliging waiter doddered up the stairs, and shyly knocked on the door. Every conversation in Madagascar started with “I’m sorry to disturb you”, and Gasy manners are extremely polite, bordering on reverential. He was a small man and seemed terrified of me, at just 5.5”, I was a good half a foot taller than him. He hung in the doorway then tentatively asked if I was American? I hastily informed him that I was English. Next he drew the English flag on my notepad, and, to my horror, drew himself upright, puffed out his chest, and started humming the national anthem! I burst out laughing! – then realised he was deadly serious and going to go through the whole thing! Did he do this to all his English guests?? I struggled to compose myself, what was I supposed to dooo?? I adopted what I hoped was the most ceremonious and respectful of postures; I sat on the bed and, holding a hand on my chest, tilted my head to one side and looked at my feet. I tried desperately hard to keep a straight face, and to not squirm onto the floor and away off under the bed. It’s not like you get any practice of how to prepare for that one…then he left, I shut the door and went to sleep.

Part 2 – Taolagnaro to Sainte – Luce by 4×4 and a pirogue. RN 12, no idea of the distance, beyond caring, 8 hours.

10^th Dec. My friend Anna from Ex-aqua had come to Sainte-Luce to survey the bays’ potential for setting up a sponge farm. I invited myself along and she seemed pleased to have me. I was picked up early in the morning by Filana Reserve employees that were down in Fort Dauphin collecting supplies. Travel time back up to the reserve was expected to be around 4 hours. It was a drizzly day and my bowels still hadn’t sorted themselves out, despite fasting on the camion-brousse for 2 days and spending another whole day in bed. They gave me the front seat and the plush leather upholstery felt like heaven. The company was pleasant and relaxed as the two guys talked among themselves. I dosed and watched the world go by. We stopped to collect two women wrapped head to toe in awful synthetic blankets. They looked like they were on a polyester-clad expedition to the North Pole whilst I was in shorts and t-shirt. They were the kind of blanket that make you cringe to touch, and very partial to a match! My newfound comfort was to be short lived, as we soon left the tarmac and hit a flooded dirt track through the jungle; my first ever experience of what a 4×4 can really do! Even though I was feeling rotten, it was very exciting! We went through huge puddles that came up over the bonnet, engulfing half the windscreen with red sludge, the car rocked and lurched more than Mon Fils! We went through rivers and over very precarious looking bridges, up mountainsides and down washed out banks, while all the time more rain fell and we worried we’d get stuck. We later found out it was cyclone Belna. Needless to say, sleep was impossible and, even on a plush chair, I was gone; utterly exhausted, bashed black and blue, away in some sort of out of body trance. I listlessly marvelled at the variety of Madagascar; out of one side the scenery reminded me of home, with misty cypress trees drooping in the drizzle, out of the other there were ravenalas and banana palms with huge bright green waxy fronds…the rain pouring off each glistening blade. I soon started noticing large machinery by the side of the road, Caterpillars and rollers, how on earth had they made it so far up here?? A few bends later we came across a trailer wagon strewn right across the road and bogged down in the mud.

The 2 men with us got out and cleared off, for 3 hours! It reminded me of when I was a little girl and my uncle left me sitting in a freezing tractor for what felt like 10 hours. It must be a common feature of men the world over in any un-expected car situation- they just rush off to save the day/get help/probably the pub, without telling us women anything. Some other men were busy poking pieces of branches under the wheels to increase traction, of a trailer wagon 2 foot down in the mud! Not though, that you can just call the AA here, I couldn’t believe the wagon had got this far anyway. I really couldn’t see how they were going to get us out of this one, nothing big enough could come and drag it out, there was no room to manoeuvre, and cyclone Belna was still hammering away at us relentlessly. Every attempt at driving made the wagon slide into a worse angle, and deeper into the mud. It seemed like we would have to wait for the dry season to get any sort of traction under those wheels. Still, I had the utmost faith that the Gasy folk would find a way eventually, they always did. My rear seat companions didn’t seem in the least big fazed, and so I reverted to near death and concentrated on holding my bowels and hoping they couldn’t hear my creaky plumbing.  The two ladies produced big thermos flasks of tea, and something that sounded very mushy and slurpy; I guessed it must have been mangoes. Suddenly, I heard a baby cry! I was astonished! After such a rocky ride, how had it not made one single squeak? What else did they have hidden under their blankets?  I turned around and smiled at them, giving a little squeak of my own to show my joy at discovering their surprise. They beamed back up at me as he or she suckled away. I always find the Gasy people to be so softly spoken and gentle. Being exposed to public transport from an early age is one heck of a way to cultivate a patient human being! I’m sure these traits are instilled in the babies from birth, or perhaps even from conception as the mothers pregnantly endure bus rides. Bodily noises didn’t seem to be any cause for embarrassment, as these two happily munched on their boko bokos and slopped at their tea. Burps and small farts punctuated their quiet conversation, and I couldn’t have felt cosier, out of the rain and amongst the friendly backseat concerto. I felt like I too, was swaddled in their blankets!

I awoke a while later feeling mildy curious to see how Malagasy resourcefulness would get us out of this one. I was not to be disappointed, of course. three hours after we stopped, a man appeared with a spade-like implement, and promptly cut away the cliff so that we could get around the foundling wagon…!!

The pick-up finally deposited us next to a river, with some baskets full of vegetables, and a chunk of meat wrapped up in newspaper. It seemed like the final step of this 4 day trip, was to be by canoe. I had my own pirogue in Toliara and was pleased at the prospect, though wondered how I’d ever muster up the strength to paddle. Unlike our high-sided, sea faring canoes on the west coast, these ones had no floaters and very round bottoms, it felt like we’d tip at any minute and the water would come gushing over the sides, sinking us and, most importantly, killing my laptop. Then again though, I knew that the boatmen were the best of the best and that only a Vazaha would tip a canoe. They erected the silliest of sails, it was just one single cement sack on a stick, even by Gasy standards it was hilarious, and didn’t seem to work much.

It took an hour of paddling through mangroves to arrive at…. a muddy trail through the jungle. By now I must have been running on adrenaline alone, I thought to myself as I took my shoes off and threw my bag on my back yet again to hike through the waterlogged edges of the jungle. It was still raining and the scenery was fantastic. This was one of the few parts of Madagascar where primary rainforest still exists, from the mountains down into the sea. Every part of the journey was worth it.

After 10 unbelievable days spent walking miles along deserted beaches (found a turtle nest!), snorkelling, exploring the jungle and mangroves, and paddling our pirogues up and down the river, it was time to leave. We had a quick stop at a workshop to feast our eyes on all the extremely beautiful work of the ladies at Stitch. This small NGO teaches women how to sew and embroider, and earn a wage for themselves by selling their pillowcases, purses, bookmarks and tablecloths to tourists. We bought as much as we could afford, and then had a quick cuddle with a huge chameleon before getting back in the 4×4, as one does in Madagascar.

The way back down to Taolagnaro was as uneventful as the way up had not been. We came upon a flooded part of the road that we couldn’t get through, and set off up a grassy hill and behind some bushes, hoping to get around it. There we came upon a makeshift roadblock with some kids sitting next to it. They had driven a few branches into the ground and were demanding money from us. Our drivers went wild, shouting at them to get rid of it. It worked. I didn’t realise at the time but that must have been one of the ways people get into serious trouble on the bigger roads; I had read that bandits intentionally damage roads so that you have to make a detour behind some bushes…

I was in a much healthier physical state on our route back towards Taolagnaro, and looking forward to trying to get my first ever surfing lessons. All of a sudden I spotted a woman standing by the side of the road with a giant frog on her head. I did a double check. It truly was! With yellow spots and four pendulous legs hanging down past her ears. That couldn’t be right, surely? Had I really lost my mind this time!?Madagascar is uncomfortable and raw, quite often you will be feeling like hell, and then something silly like this will happen to make you burst out laughing and realise all the agony was worth it.

P.S. It was a teddy bear, and God alone knows why she thought her head was the best place to put it. Maybe she thought it would stop the rain? That is where Gasy ladies carry their belongings, – though this one just looked very funny indeed.

Part 3 – Maximus and the turkeys. RN 13 & 7, 644 km and 12 hours according to Google Maps- real time 36 hours.

Yet another fearsome camion-brousse, this time up from Taolagnaro to Ambalavao, where I planned to go walking in Andringitra. The only other way to get there would be to fly to Tana then take another 10 hour bus anyway.

21^st Dec 5.30 am

Most taxi-brousse stations are foul, yet this one wasn’t so bad. I spent a fun (ish) 2 hours watching all the other hilarious modes of transport wobble off down the road, being repaired and cleaned, or disintegrating on the spot (with the people already in!) .

The most important thing on these long trips is to not drink anything as toilet stops are unpredictable. I had been warned back at ReefDoctor that the RN 13 was dangerous, and certainly not to be attempted at night. The guide books were no less pessimistic, yet I didn’t have any options. I asked at the tourist office and the police office and was assured that there weren’t any bandits around there anymore and that it would be fine. I booked at ticket.

Ours bus was called “Maximus”, and this time it was a TATA 900 instead of a Mercedes converted-cattle-wagon. It has “weapons-r” written on the front windshield. I thought it at least sounded scarier than all of the usual God propaganda scrawled across every available surface. It had sides and windows, and a big black turkey tied to the rear bumper, plus a little pile of corn at its feet. The seats looked comfier, and they were. The windows meant that it was warmer, though at the expense of ventilation. I was a bit alarmed when despite the tourist office’s reassurance; we still had to travel in a convoy of three. I’m sure it was also to help each other out of breakdowns.  I’m still alive anyway.

The trending topic on this particular trip seemed to be turkeys; there were turkeys, turkeys, everywhere! Every village we stopped at saw women frantically stuffing more into woven baskets and flinging them up to the roof of our Maximus. Oncoming traffic bore similar burdens. At one point we were overtaken by a van with a duck on the front of the roof. It had been strapped into some sort of travelling bag with only the head sticking out. My position was such that I couldn’t really see anything other than a lone, very regal looking duck’s head hurtling sedately along the road beside us. It’s all these funny stories that I love so much about Madagascar!

It wasn’t until 500 km later that I thought to ask my neighbour what was going on with the all this poultry?? He explained to me that they’ re half the price in the south and that they were on their way up to the capital for dinner. That’s when it dawned on me that it was Christmas Eve!

Needless to say, we did break down, and of course it was in the middle of the night. What a blessing that turned out to be! – I copied the women and immediately lay down in a field, wrapping my own lamba tight around me. It was pitch black, we were miles from anywhere, and the stars were beautiful. Lying in the dirt with the other ladies, I felt I’d never been so comfortable in all my life, and soon drifted off to sleep. Whatever it was got fixed way to soon and we grumpily sulked our way back into the boneshaker. I remember seeing sisal plantations out of the window as the sun rose. I had no idea that string came from a cactus!

I bought some bread for breakfast; they sell nice small baguettes in the southeast region. Unfortunately the bus honked for us to get back in and I couldn’t eat it because, once pinned in by the shoulders, you can’t move your arms. I might have managed to nibble the end of a very long baguette though I hadn’t really thought this one out in time. I did learn very quickly that, because of the inhuman way they stuff humans into these buses, there isn’t enough room for everyone’s shoulders AND hips. It’s either one or the other, or a combination of alternating people perching on the edge of the seat and resting their heads on the backrest of the seat in front, while the others sit back. You could also overlap shoulders, falling-domino-round-a-corner, style. I found that getting in first and refusing to budge means that you get your shoulders firmly pinned in place by your neighbours, which prevents most movement. Thus, this is both the safest and least energy consuming mode of travel-provided you don’t want to eat a sandwich or check your Google Maps to see how much bloody longer the ordeal is going to last!

Stopping at villages was always exciting, and fellow passengers would helpfully negotiate me a price for a bunch of bananas (the least sticky option), screeching numbers out of the side of the bus, while my money got passed across the bus via many more helpful hands. It was good fun and we’d often share our goods; ‘I’ll give you a couple of my bananas from this half a branch full I have if you’ll give me on one of your 10 mangoes?’

For the most part though, you do lapse into a catatonic state on these long trips, as there is nothing you can do but endure the noise, the heat, and the dust. You can’t reach inside your pocket as there’s no room to, you can’t listen to your own music as the Gasy pop onslaught would drown it out. Earplugs are beyond pointless. You can shut your eyes and do breathing exercises, and marvel at the resilience of the human body. I also discovered that you don’t really need a head rest in order to sleep; there comes a point were your head just hangs down in front of you (as long as you sneakily got the shoulder-pin position). There was a little boy who did most of the trip standing between his brothers legs-there was nowhere for him to sit. Sometimes he disappeared and then I’d realise he was asleep with his head on my feet! There was a granny sitting sideways on the doorway steps, clutching the pole, her forehead fast against it, as if in a trance. I wondered how on earth governments could do this to people? How the hell can a country get on its feet if its inhabitants can’t even move around it effectively? I was doing it for fun and the experience, not out of necessity. Wonderfully, everyone was always still able to joke on and laugh. I got off after 36 hours but most of the others still had 500 km to go (to Tana and to roast their turkeys) that would take at least 11 more hours. Dervla Murphy wrote about how accepting the Gasy folk were back in 1983 (Muddling through in Madagascar), and I fully agree. But then again, they have no other choice, it’s all they know. I doubt many of them will ever be able to hop on a plane or recruit a private 4×4 and driver. I hope they get some decent roads soon.

Finishing this chapter, I wondered if the cruising duck was the main highlight of the trip? Then I remember the zebu incident; woozily regaining consciousness as we bucketed down a tarmacked road, I looked out of the window and saw a black and white zebu wearing a schoolbag on its hump! He didn’t seem at all bothered and was contentedly cropping at something. The shepherd’s stick was driven into the ground nearby. Had he perhaps gone to the loo, I asked myself? Either way, I couldn’t think of a better place to leave your valuables unattended, than dangling around a big bull’s hump!

Part 4 – Vohitsaoka to Ambalavao and back. Dirt track and RN 7, not very far, 2.5 hours.

This chapter covers the walk from Camp Catta to the bus and on to Ambalavao. I did this route twice. “Them” and “Us” were terms that I was uncomfortable with at first,  and I’d go out of my way to say “the Gasy people” or the “locals”. I soon found out that even my Gasy colleagues used these names though, or referred to each party as “us” and “you”, and so it just became easier when needing to make a distinction between groups.

Much as we may try to integrate, and to learn Malagasy, the fact is that most Vazaha visitors use posher transport and nicer accommodation that the average local can afford. No matter what we say Malagasy believe we are all miles richer than them and have unending funds that grow on magic trees in our European gardens. Though, what do we expect when the only glimpses they get of us were when we’d zoom past in black pickups with tinted windows and air conditioning, with a personal guide hired at the airport for the duration of our stay, our route all mapped out, every day and every hour detailed down to the last cent. These were my thoughts as I headed back to Tsaranoro valley and Camp Catta. Note my hypocrisy in slamming Vazaha for not travelling locally, while treating myself to a very nice lodge in the mountains for Xmas.

I was initially led to believe that the only way to access the Andringitra mountains, and Pic Boby, was by the ever present 4×4. It felt like they were just lying in ambush ready to pounce on the unwary. It took over an hour of holding my ground and sticking to my budget for other options to materialise at the “travel agent’s”. Independent travel is not easy in Madagascar, yet I left victorious having secured a lift from a man on a motorbike at 4 am the next morning. The guide would get me as far as the valley, and I’d be able to continue alone to the lemur camp. From there I could walk to some village and get a bus…

I absolutely stank. I was late for the taxi brousse, despite awaking early to the grunts and pitter-pattering noises of lemurs running all over the roof of my hut. It was 12 km to Vohitsaoka from Camp Catta, I sped along and got there in under 2 hours, just catching the red cronk as it turned to leave the village. Both times it had the same amount of people hanging off the sides and on the roof. It was the only bus a day and so I was lucky to have arrived in time. Sometimes I worried about my safety as a lone woman in Madagascar, especially when I was out in the country. Country folk there carry spears, machetes and axes, yet whenever I did encounter groups of men, they always called out Salama! – with big open smiles that immediately put me at ease. I wondered if not being acquainted with Streetfighter 2 and Hollywood’s finest chainsaw murderers meant people’s minds were less perverted.

When I got in the bus I hadn’t had time to take my purse out of my rucksack before they threw it up onto the roof and pushed me through the back door. I went with my instincts and told myself that these people weren’t going to rob me as I could tell by their faces, and I banished bad thoughts from my mind unless I attracted them. It felt great to trust the Gasy people, after all, their good nature is tangible, especially in places where beach and sex tourism haven’t yet got a hold.

This was probably one of the most knackered vehicles I’d been in yet, but the company was the best. After being offered a 10 cm stretch of rice sack to sit on and managing to wedge half a buttock onto it, I took my bearings. The man in front had 3 matchstick-like pieces of wood to stretch across the aisle and sit on. I could see it wouldn’t last, and it didn’t! We all laughed. The girl next to me had the lady in front of her almost sprawled across her chest, as there seemed to be something amiss with her backrest and it was lying at about 160 degrees. There was a young girl next to me giving her baby a drink out of an empty sweetcorn tin. There were feet in flip-flops at the windows, dangling from the roof. 

The roof did look like it was going to cave in. The mood was jovial. Once the other 45 people behind me had clambered back in, I got a big whack on the back and an “Où est ton mari?” from a grinning old man with about one tooth, that then reached over and shook my hand. I couldn’t decide if the issue was me being a white person amongst over 60 black people, or me being the only girl without a husband amidst it all? It was all meant good-naturedly so I just selectively turned off my French-speaking ability. Et voilà! I felt confident no one else aboard was able to speak Spanish. Smiles, a laugh and hunching your shoulders work in all languages. This turned out to be the slowest moving vehicle I’d even been in too, and I was glad because I didn’t fancy the flip-flop owners coming through the ceiling. I spent some time examining everyone’s great braided hairdo’s and brightly coloured, wide brimmed hats. Colours don’t seem to be gender specific in Madagascar, and many of the men were sporting pink ones with bows. How refreshing, we could have been on our way to transvestite Ascot! I love the close human contact in Gasy transport, the odd shy smile. Hands over knees over arms, heads on shoulders and even on chests as the owners drift off to sleep.

At the start of any journey the locals always seemed a bit curious about me too, and this time, after the usual inspection, they seemed pleased and called me “Vazaha-Malagasy”, or Gasy-foreigner, my heart soared! It gradually dawned on me that the men hanging from the side mirrors were there because they didn’t really have anywhere else to go. It was funny how whenever we came to bushy areas they ran along to the back of the van and hung off the back bumper instead, lest they got swiped off the sides, then they’d creep back up again as the path cleared. I marvelled at how seamlessly they glided from mirror to rear bumper on a moving lurching bucking vehicle. Later in Ambalavao, I checked and discovered there were tiny runners all around the van. A-ha!! I was almost sorry when we arrived in Ambalavao, the nicest small town I found by far.

Getting back to Tsaranoro the second time had been harder than I expected; I got stuck in Fianarantsoa over night and had to get another bus the next day. I set off to the station early and was immediately latched on to by yesterday’s creep. He assured me his bus would get me there first but I refused to give him any money. I did sit in the bus as others were already inside and so it appeared likely to go somewhere at some point. This was bus number one and as the drunk lout continued to irritate me I eventually asked the driver for my bag back off the roof and set off to find bus number two. Bus number two charged us all and after a further 30 min took us for a drive to the petrol station and then back to the original stop. It seemed unlikely the driver hoped for more customers, as we were already jam-packed, even by Gasy criteria. We were eventually all made to swap busses, ‘oh well, it’s not in my hands!’ Bus number three looked to be in better nick than most -until they tried to shut the door and I realised that one shouldn’t be swayed by a shiny coat of paint and a more or less complete set of wheel arches. 20 min later saw us finally leave the bus station, and as we passed fuel stations without stopping, and the city gave way to winding hills, I gradually dared myself to think we might be getting somewhere. Silly, really. Suddenly there was a bang and we were down on the verge with a flat tyre. How or why were beyond me, but I could see it being a slightly more complex issue when they prised the brake callipers off and took the pistons out to wash in a stream. We just sat on the grassy verge and watched, perplexed. Luckily our fleet included many farmers, and they were carrying long sticks, I say luckily because the strangest thing ever happened next. A pickup came past and made to pull over in front of us. The farmers bounced up off the grass as one and charged at the car waving their sticks and howling. It was all so sudden and I still have no clue what was happening but the car left in a hurry. Fortunately we had about 6 men with sticks and I do think perhaps the car would have tried to rob us. Sigh, ‘what next?’ – I wondered to myself in incredulous resignation. After another while a red bus (number four) came and collected us, and our men didn’t chase it away with sticks.

Vohitsaoka lies to the southeast of the RN 7 down a dirt track. It is the last village on the way to Tsaranoro valley and the ring-tailed lemurs at Camp Catta. After extracting myself from the van, it was a 2 hour walk through winding valleys lined with mango trees and rice paddies. I couldn’t wait; I wouldn’t have hired a guy in a 4×4 for anything in the world! It was the most picturesque place I had found during my time in Madagascar, and, having been there only a week before, the familiarity of the place felt like I was going back home. I stocked up on mangoes and set out on the trail, feeling elated.

The first thing I encountered was a grandmother and her grandson, walking over a bridge herding a group of ducks. She was wearing a wide brimmed hat and an orange lamba. It was the kind of picture opportunity money couldn’t buy, the colours of her clothes and skin contrasting with the green valley, brown muddy river, and red soil of the track. I feel uncomfortable taking pictures of people going about their daily lives, as I imagine I wouldn’t be too impressed either if some tourists came along the street and took photos of me mowing my lawn.

Still, I wished I had some kind of secret camera in my hat. A few kilometres further down the track I came across some small boys herding zebu. There are three tourist camps in the valley, each with their own private shuttles. One of them chose that precise moment to roar past us, barely allowing the boys, zebu and myself time to scrabble into the bushes out the way. I remember looking back at the car as it disappeared in a cloud of dust, and feeling utterly bewildered, who were those aliens in that shiny fast thing??

I pushed on past rivers and waterfalls and finally got to a well-earned beer in the early afternoon. Utter Bliss.

 A few excerpts from other trips to encourage others to visit this fantastic country

Part 5 – Antsirabe to Fianarantsoa. RN 7, 242 km, 6 hours.

This trip felt a bit like I was cheating. It was New Years day and I was in a pousse-pousse to the bus station, hoping to catch a bus South but not entirely sure there would be one. The guys who drove us into a petrol station and tried to stuff me in their treble the price (60000 Ar) bus assured me that they were my only option that day- which of course immediately made me suspicious. We managed to extract ourselves from their clutches at my insistence and got to the real bus station where I got front seat in a pretty tidy bus manned by a lovely older couple for 18000! Husband drove and wife did the tickets. They chuckled and tickled each other’s arms through the window whenever we were stopped. They were the most endearing driving companions to have and the peaceful camaraderie between them was palpable. Perks of having the front seat were that the view was spectacular. This was the nicest route I’d travelled, winding through a hilly, close valley past picturesque adobe huts and rice paddies flanking a river.

It was a manicured and tame view, almost reminding me of British countryside and making me somewhat homesick. For once, there was no music and so I could listen to my own for the first and only time on my whole Xmas trip. Watching the huts fly by reminded me of my guide in Andringitra telling me how the Betsileo tribe use adobe and dung to make their more elaborate, stout, rectangular, multi-floored houses with thick walls and neatly thatched roofs. The Bara tribe’s homes, she explained, were generally much more simple affairs, hastily thrown up any old how in case they occupants had to escape if someone tattled on them for cattle rustling. The two tribes can intermarry now, and there would be smaller huts in the villages especially for the rice. Doors, windows and even the position of the sleeping quarters were supposed to be set according to cardial points.

I didn’t need to worry about food on these trips as the best part was buying bucketloads of plums, sweetcorn, chicken drumsticks and bananas. Vendors clamoured at the sides of our vehicles and sometimes we’d just empty the fruit into our laps then throw the hand woven baskets or buckets back out through the window as the impatient drivers roared off. 1000 Ar., or 20p., could get you half a kilo of maracuyas, 30 mangos, or a pousse-pousse ride around Toliara if you’re good at negotiating. At times on this most pleasantest of trips, it felt like our driver didn’t seem to know where he was going except into every pothole he could find, and I eased back in my front seat and nibbled away on my 30 plums, feeling like the Queen of Sheba.

Part 6 – Toliara to Ifaty, via salt pans, taxi-brousse and pousse-pousse. RN 9, 27 km, 2 hours.

This was the least pleasant of trips, though for the ReefDoctor crew, it was also the most common as it connected us to Score, nice restaurants, or other deathtraps to ongoing destinations. We shouldn’t have complained, as nowadays the whole enterprise takes around 1 to 2 hours, whereas it used to take up to 6! Score was the supermarket, built in 2013, where we would go notably for peanut butter and milk powder. It wasn’t until the very end that we discovered they stocked the most delicious Corsican rosé on the planet, and were finally able to desist from Gasy wine, which is just NOT good. We could start our journey by either walking along a dust track to a flaking ReefDoctor sign on the main road, or slither and slide our way along salt pan dikes to the road, where we had the luxury of sitting on a palm tree trunk. We flagged down taxi-brousses, and made sure we had the right amount of cash, as we were invariably asked for more. I soon learnt not to hand over the money if they said they had change, and to withhold the bill until they showed and offered me the correct change first. Once inside the battered remnants of the Mazda vans, often via the window, it took around 45 min to get to Toliara. It was equally impractical to exit via the door, as the vans would be so jam packed that no one could really move. There were sometimes goats on the roof.

One of our worst trips involved a goat falling off and dangling from the windows by a leg, with folk trying to take her weight by holding her belly up through the window until she was hoisted back into position. A few metres down the road she’d fall off the other side. And so on until Toliara. The luckier ones were those that just travelled inside. Once there was a tuna dangling from the runner of the sliding door. Doors that did close were often jammed in place by screwdrivers. The people were always pleasant, if shy. I loved being squished in among them. Babies always found us interesting. It would actually be quite enjoyable if it weren’t for the music, though some of my colleagues enjoyed it. Most of these semi-mobile heaps were kitted out with screens and a huge household speaker. The music videos all invariably featured scantily clad women with shitty bling and large hoop earrings. The guy would be dressed up like a rapper, and would be very sad when his girlfriend left him for another fake rapper driving a convertible Peugeot 206. There would be wads of money thrown around and many a tearful phone call. The videos per-se were relatively entertaining, despite the repetitive theme. The problem was the volume! The ear-splitting racket went on for hours and I readily understood how it could be used as a form of torture. It would take me hours to recover from the onslaught once back at camp. I was saddened by how some of the silliest Western values had also been copied by the music scene in Madagascar, and were being fed to even the poorest locals via bus screens; how can anyone ever find this farcical behaviour and dress code attractive?? I hoped that they were as mystified by the whole thing as I was.

If you could manage to numb out the music it was a nice enough trip, though you had to be prepared for arrival at the station in Toliara; pousse-pousse drivers had the uncanny ability to detect a Vazaha no matter what you did! I did wonder about investing in a Burqa though. The bus station was around 4 km from the town centre and so the quickest way to get there was by Pousse-pousse, or a cycle-rickshaw. Drivers would almost rip you out of your seat in their haste to stuff you on the back of their bike. I always put my head down and legged it to the outskirts of the station, choosing the quiet drivers who would address you calmly. I hoped one day they would realise that hassling and jostling wouldn’t bring customers, but maybe manners would. It was worse if you had a bag on the roof of the taxi-brousse, and I tried to distract some drivers by looking at the wrong bag so that they all ran to the back of the bus, then swiftly ran to the front for my real bag before they could get it off me. Even though it sounds hectic and was undeniably wearying at times, if you were in the right mindset it wasn’t so bad. The drivers never got angry and once, when they were all surrounding me and jumping up and down as if I held the last cent on the planet, it became so ridiculous I burst out laughing. And so did they! The best way to approach the scene was with joviality; on the way back in the pousse-pousses to the bus station, men would grab the side of your bike and try to slow you down to stuff you in their minibuses. I used to be ready with clenched fists and bang their hands off the sides of our pousse-pousse while roaring “tsy mijanona, alefa alefa!” at the driver. They just used to laugh and so did I.

Part 7 – A weekend away to St Augustin. RN 9 by coal wagon and dirt track in Mon fils the third, 60 km, 4 hours.

5:30 am, we were assured and reassured by our volunteer coordinator, was more than early enough to be waiting outside for the taxi-brousse. Of course tell-tale tracks in the dust showed us it had already been. We all sort of knew this would happen, and that extra adventure was teetering on the horizon. We set off along the dust track with extra extra excitement in anticipation. We needed to be in Toliara before the once a day camion-brousse left, and thus couldn’t afford to wait around for any other transport. This led us to wildly flagging down a big wagon that had a lot of feet poking out of the front of a tarp. The 3 of us scaled up the wheels and snuck in too, though our legs had to point to the back. They didn’t seem keen on us being seen. It was a wagon carrying sacks of charcoal and beans, the latter, we found, made excellent pillows, as due to the lack of headroom we also had to lie down. Now we understood the feet sticking out of the front. We were very pleased with ourselves at having secured such interesting new transport, and laughed all the way to nearly Toliara.

We only calmed down at the road blocks where our fellow freight flapped frantically at us and told us to keep low-(er). Eventually we stopped altogether, for what was too long if we were to make the camion-brousse to St Augustin. After a lot of dilly dallying about being seen,..we snuck out the front, dived into a pousse-pousse and were off before the police could stick their oars in. Alas there was only one pousse-pousse, so the smallest of us got inside the two-seater and our 7ft friend clung on the back! It was all very merry, yet the average Gasy man is not very big, and progress on a pousse-pousse can be painstakingly slow, especially when you know you are heavier than the driver and your wrists are wider than his thighs. Nevertheless, at least we were moving somewhere and much fun was had by all, including our roadside audience.

On one occasion a friend got a tuk-tuk all the way from ReefDoctor to Toliara, which was definitely cheating, though if 6e meant bypassing the taxi-brousse and the pousse-pousse, who could blame her? Her sneakiness was dealt with by karma anyway as said tuk-tuk then left her at a remote village quite a few miles away from Toliara and she still had to catch a pousse-pousse , or rather was caught by one herself, and dutily delivered to her final destination over an hour later. For some reason the tuk-tuks were not always allowed to carry people over the bridge that crossed the Fiherenana river…and you would be deposited on the road in no uncertain fashion while tuk-tuk did a u-turn and vanished. Within seconds someone on a pousse-pousse would ride up and rescue you, so there was never any need to worry.

Once we all got to Toliara we then had to find the St Augustin bus station, which turned out to be one corrugated roof shack with a pile of humans stacked up in front of it. Our boat captain was sitting at the bottom of it all with his small daughter! I loved how after being in Madagascar for a few months I started to know people wherever I went. We were the first to clamber aboard our sturdy steed, a welcome respite from being on the ground with unwanted leather sandals and tatty bracelets being constantly thrust in our faces. There being no one else in the bus gave us time to play around deciding which bench had the best combination of remains of a back rest and any leg room at all. The floor was covered in crates and sacks of cement, rammed under the seats. The space between benches wasn’t wide enough for femurs and you had to sit diagonally. There was a chicken tied to my bench leg by its own leg. Which side of the bus to sit on was ultimately decided for me by a bloody sheep’s head hanging from a pole on the left; I quickly scooted back to my chicken and indulged in watching the tat-stall view instead, while my friend wrestled with a bag of baguettes that kept falling out of a rack on to her head.

It was silly of us really, at that point in our travels in Madagascar, to imagine we’d get much of a choice of where we’d put anything on the bus! As more and more folk climbed on I climbed almost onto my friends lap. A stroke of luck, really, as once underway, we had the scariest trip of our whole year. There was a steep and verrrry long hill on the pot-holed dust track to St Augustin, the sea at the bottom of the cliffs on the right. A man got out and ran in front of the wagon to head off any oncoming traffic. We held our guts in our mouths, daring not to breathe as we inched up the never ending climb, terrified the wagon would stall, panic-stricken when it rolled back before engaging first gear. Brake, or any type of car maintenance, wasn’t really a thing in Madagascar. We heaved and rocked our way up the hill, and then along a very high-up cliff crest, as Sarah gradually climbed her way up my lap and onto my shoulders. I wasn’t sure where she was trying to go but the guys behind us thought her very funny. I tried to look cool as a cucumber for her sake though was secretly crapping myself too. In retrospect, I think she thought she might manage to jump out of the other side if we went off the cliff to the left. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on my breathing. As the track widened and we descended into our destination, the stress lifted off my shoulders in waves. Though this trip had not been anywhere near as much fun as riding the rollercoaster RN 10 & 13, it more than made up for the adrenaline kicks with that bloody hill! As soon as we arrived in St Augustin we ordered two big (rua labiera Bevata!!!) beers.

Part 8 – Evacuation. ReefDoctor to Tana in relatively-posh-minibuses. RN9 & 7, 960 km, 26 hours.

After the Covid-19 breakout, the staff and interns at ReefDoctor were swiftly evacuated. The small NGO we’d been working at over the past year had become our home, and we were a close-knit group living on a camp in the poorest region of Madagascar. At 9 am on Monday morning the bombshell was dropped, as did our jaws. Many of our’s eyes welled up in shock. It has taken weeks to recover, and writing up these stories definitely helps the process. We were given a day to pack our bags, wrap our projects up, have a last skinny dip and a big bonfire. We were picked up at 3 am in two busses and set off in convoy, feeling hungover, sleepy, and distraught. As the initial excitement and incredulity wore off and we drifted off to sleep, I realised that this was the first time I had travelled anywhere far enough to warrant a pee-stop with a single white person, let alone two minibuses full. For almost a year I had enjoyed communal roadside peeing, and discovered yet another practical use for the quintessential Gasy garment, the lamba. “Lamba” means material in Gasy and the ladies all wear these brightly coloured sarongs wrapped snugly around their wastes.  Toilet breaks on the road are usually very short and you pretty much squat where you drop. The tent effect of the lamba comes in very handy, though even without your frock, the fastest option is still just to pee right in front of everyone. I found this practice endearing and wondered yet again about the folly of our Western prudish customs. Needless to say, this Western pee-stops took an awful lot longer and involved all kinds of high-tech bush-altering operations in order to conceal a few more or less white buttocks. We also asked to turn the music off to be able to sleep. Travelling without ear-splitting Gasy pop music pounding out of a household speaker tied to the roof is unheard of in Madagascar, and I was shocked at our audacity to ask, but beyond relieved at the same time. Thus, this was my most silent ever trip, a blessing as it was the longest in kilometres travelled. You may have noticed already that kilometres and time elapsed to travel anywhere have no rational correlation in Madagascar..  The reason I included this relatively sterile and sane trip in the article was because, …well nothing ever is sterile or sane in Madagascar! I say sterile because the only thing on our roof-rack were bags, and the only thing inside the vehicle were humans. I digress,.. Bus number two, also carrying most of the goodies, ( crisps, oh the chilli saltos! bread, bananas and boiled eggs), had developed an oil leak early in our travels. Thoughts of fixing it clearly didn’t make any sense to anyone and we pushed on regardless, in true Gasy fashion. Needless to say, it did get to a point where all the oil had ran out. And of course this was at 2 am in the middle of nowhere. There comes a time in Madagascar where some of us Westerners do eventually stop pushing against their system, and surrender to God’s will, at least on public transport anyway. I personally preferred to repeatedly “thank providence”, as Alanis Morissette often did whilst enduring similar hardships back in Canada. So, 2 am, pitch black, empty road, what to do? Well nothing, eat another packet of Saltos and wait for the most obvious solution, which was hijack oncoming traffic and get some oil off them. It worked! I may sound blasé but real attacks on night traffic (remember the men with sticks in Ambalavao) do happen in Madagascar, and we were all relieved to be moving again.

Though I’ve done a few stupid things by now, a year in Madagascar was definitely the biggest adventure of my life, and doing it alone made it even better. A working knowledge of French was very useful. The ability to selectively turn it off is sometimes even more useful.

Sharp, A. Lesley 2002, The Sacrificed Generation: Youth, History, and the Colonized Mind in Madagascar, University of California Press.

Xinhuanet 2019, Chinese-built road meets needs of Madagascar egg producers, Huaxia, viewed 24 April 2020, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-11/28/c_138589702.htm>

Madagascar-Tribune.com 2013, Routes en piteux État… Ndimby A, viewed 22 April 2020, < https://www.madagascar-tribune.com/Routes-en-piteux-Etat,19018.html>