Notices in French about the plague outbreak.
The only one I saw in English.
Thanks Patrick!
Here
are my random observations, reflections and facts about Madagascar.
Some are from what I learned from Patrick and other local people and
guides, some I sourced from the internet and the rest is general
observations.
The
diversity of the island is seen everywhere. Madagascar is home to
more than 25 million people with a wide array of faiths and customs.
The Malagasy are descendents of settlers from Borneo and East Africa
and draw their cultural heritage from Southeast Asia, India, Africa,
and the Middle East.
More
than 20 ethnic groups coexist on the island. Their common language,
also called Malagasy, is most closely related to a language spoken in
southeast Borneo. The other major language and the one tourists use
is French from the colonial days. A majority of the population—80
percent of which is estimated to live below the poverty line—depends
on subsistence farming for survival.
Located
off the east coast of Africa, Madagascar is the world’s fifth
largest island; at 144 million acres, it’s almost the size of
Texas. Madagascar’s climate is tropical along the coast, temperate
inland, and arid in the south. The island harbors lush rain forests,
tropical dry forests, plateaus and deserts. Its more than 3,000 miles
of coastline and over 250 islands are home to some of the world’s
largest coral reef systems and most extensive mangrove areas in the
Western Indian Ocean.
A
dizzying range of plants and animals make their home on the island.
More than 11,000 endemic plant species, including seven species of
baobab tree, share the island with a vast variety of mammals,
reptiles, amphibians, and others. From 1999 to 2010, scientists
discovered 615 new species in Madagascar, including 41 mammals and 61
reptiles.
People
visit different countries for different reasons, some for history,
culture, natural diversity, or geographical features. Most people
come to Madagascar to see the lemurs and chameleons and see the
natural beauty of the island. We saw lots of lemurs and chameleons
and found that the vast majority of them are now in national parks.
The natural beauty of the country in the form of its rainforests and
forests are being cut down at an alarming rate to make room for the
waves of people. The population is growing by leaps and bounds and
the people need places to live and cleared land on which to grow
their food. Although it is discouraged the people practise slash and
burn agriculture. The island is covered in many hills and highlands
and many have been reshaped by people into terraces on which to grow
crops. From the air it is easy to see how the land is used and how
there are few forested areas left.
Poverty
in the country is not as ugly as poverty in the city. Patrick told us
that Tana used to have and should have a population of about 500000
but in recent years it has grown to three million. There is no space
for all the people and many are living in slums in flood plains where
they shouldn't build and they get flooded out every wet season. As in
much of the developing world the people are coming from the
countryside feeling that there is more opportunity for them in the
big city. But there are few opportunities for uneducated, unskilled
people. As a result they live in shanty areas or on the street. In
Madagascar when someone goes to the city they are supposed to send
money back to their village to help others, but when they fail they
are ashamed and cannot go home as they would lose face.
The
nickname of Antananarivo is Tana which is just so much easier to say
for everyone. Many of Madagascar's cities and towns start with A
'which means in the place where' as most names tell something of the
place. In the place of the big rock, or in the place of the great
river.
There
are 18 different tribes of people on the island. 55% of the people
practise the traditional religion, 40% are Christian, and about 5%
are Muslims. The people look more like people from the east rather
than Africa. They are small in stature and brown as opposed the
African black. There is very little obesity and people tend to be
very fit and thin from all the hard labour they do in the fields or
fishing.
Patrick
spoke to us at length about the population. He said that talking
about sex or birth control is taboo. He said some of the rural
uneducated poor don't realize that sex and birth are related, they
believe that babies are gifts from God. Therefore, birth control is
tampering with God's will. Many of the rural areas of Madagascar have
no electricity, so there is no TV, or internet or video games to keep
people occupied. So when it gets dark there is nothing to do. As he
said all they have is a mattress. The people believe that their
wealth is visible in the number of children they have. People judge
others by the size of their family. Patrick is 31 and has one child
and is content with that, but he has been told, even by his own
family, that he and his wife are selfish for only having one. But, in
reality a new baby is another mouth to feed that is unproductive for
a number of years. So with the population of Madagascar already at
40% below the age of 15, you can see the pressure this puts on the
country in terms of resources and space. It comes back to the biggest
problem the world faces, simply too many people.
Child
labour is still an issue here and we saw kids working in brick
factories, shops and fields. Technically it is illegal but the
government knows that if families cannot afford to send their kids to
school (which they legally have to do) they have to do something, so
they are put to work wherever they can. It is a really catch 22.
The
people of the Bara tribe in the south are polygamous and supposedly
related somehow to the Maasai. They have very different views of
women's place in their society than the other tribes. They say that
the men in other tribes are weak because they treat their women more
equally. The Bara people are also rustlers. The cattle of the island
is zebu. Shipping the cattle by truck from the south to Antananarivo
is expensive and most cattle are still driven by 'cowboys' 800 km
from the south to the city. This is part of their culture and it is
normal to see zebu in small herds regularly walking along the roads
and through the valleys on the way to market. They sell for about 300
Euros per head. This makes them an irresistible target. Patrick says
that up to 40% of cattle in the country are stolen. For some reason
they do not practise branding. He told us that the government built a
large meat processing plant in the south which they had to close, at
least temporarily, because the people were upset because it gave the
rustlers a place to sell the stolen cattle and they would be
processed and disappear. There are two major zebu markets and they
are crazy chaotic venues where cattle are bought and sold. Many rural
people still judge their wealth by the number of Zebu they have. It
is their form of money in the bank. Patrick told us the city of Tana
uses about 800 zebus a day, (which is not a lot for 3 million people)
so there is a never ending procession into the markets.
The
lady in the house in the village where we had lunch with the family
(on Nov 12), told us that her village was robbed by rustlers the
previous month and they took all the village zebu plus their geese
and chickens. Patrick says that the cowboys put there lives in danger
because if they resist the rustlers will shoot them. So most cowboys
simply run away when rustlers arrive.
He
also told us most Malagasy don't eat eggs, they prefer to let them
hatch and eat the chickens. Chickens are more valuable than eggs. We
saw zebu, chickens, ducks and geese everywhere. Very few sheep or
goats and no donkeys, which is strange because this is often the
beast of burden in the third world. There are some cats and lots of
dogs, but they have the homogeneous look of the generic mongrel.
The
houses in the highlands and the drier areas tend to be made of
locally made mud bricks, whereas the houses in the wetter areas and
along the coast tend to be up on stilts and made of wood and plant
leaves. We saw many local businesses making bricks from clay along
the road. The brick houses don't seem to have any internal structure
and supports and I saw many that have fallen apart. Some are two or
three stories tall and tend to have small footprints and very small
rooms inside. There is virtually no glass in any windows or
screening, except for more affluent houses in the cities. They use
wooden shutters, which make the houses dark and don't protect them
from mosquitoes and malaria.
The
schools I saw are very basic with few materials in the way of
furniture or supplies. There are so many children and they can't
afford to build more schools or hire the teachers, so the kids go in
shifts. Many children do not go to school at all because their
parents cannot afford to pay the school fees. They keep them at home
to work on the farms. The country has a 50% illiterate rate and only
1.7% of students go to university.
The
average Malagasy person eats between 400grams to 1 kg of rice per
day. As one of our local guides said: a mountain of rice per day.
They eat it as soup, boiled or fried and mixed with meat or
vegetables. The price of rice keeps going up and the poor people are
having trouble affording it and have to supplement it with cassava
and corn. Apparently they are exporting good rice, which drives up
local prices, and importing inferior rice from China.
60%
of houses have no water. The average person in the rural areas walks
6km average per day to get water. Toilets are often just outside,
especially in the rural areas and we saw men relieving themselves
everywhere. When we were driving there were no places that Patrick
felt we would be comfortable using, so we always had bushy bushy
stops and judging by the paper laying around, so did many other
people.
They
majority of households cook using charcoal, very few have gas. Making
charcoal is a whole other labour intensive local industry that
requires burning down trees. Burning charcoal adds to the pollution,
global warming and burning it inside adds to respiratory health
problems.
There
are no stop lights anywhere. I saw a few stop signs, but no traffic
lights, even in Tana. Traffic is chaotic and congested but somehow
they get around. Sometimes you will see a policeman with a whistle
trying to organize the flow.
Everything
is done by manual labour – sawing logs, plowing. I saw very few
machines for anything. Grass cutting at the hotels is done by people
squatting and using machetes. Even road construction is mainly
manual. We saw a few people trying to repair potholes with shovels
and dirt or hot asphalt that was heated right on the side of the
road. I only once saw a steamroller. Mixing of cement is done in
buckets.
There
are vendors everywhere selling everything and anything. I saw one man
sitting by the road selling used dirty and rusty car jacks... where
did he get them? Did he steal them, are they from the wreckers?
Everything is recycled, nothing goes to waste, except waste which is
everywhere. They don't seem to have pride in their environment and
there is litter, especially plastic and glass everywhere. I never saw
any government run garbage collection.
There
are many stalls selling used clothing imported from other countries.
This is much cheaper for the local people and explains why so many
people are wearing western clothing and with brand names and sports
teams logos that they probably know nothing about. I saw a little boy
wearing a lacrosse t-shirt. Patrick even said that he buys all his
clothes and shoes used, as they are still good, much cheaper and will
last a couple of years.
Madagascar
has problems with invasive species too. Europeans and Asians have
brought many different plants here and some have caused problems just
like we have at home.
Malagasy
currency is the Ariary. One Canadian dollar is worth 2525 Ariary. The
largest note they have is 20000, but we saw very few of those. We
always got 10000 Ariary notes ($4), which made for a very fat wallet
when you took out 300000 or 400000 from the ATM. Gas is about the
same price as back home, around one to one and a half dollars, but of
course the income here is much less, so it is very expensive for
locals. I watched Henry fill up the van one day and pay 350000 Ariary
for the fuel. They do have coins, but they cost more to produce than
they are worth. Graham managed to get a set from one of the guides. I
got a 50 Ariary coin because it has baobab trees on the back.
There
are many modes of transportation in the rural areas, but the main one
is still by foot, carrying whatever you need on your head. People are
often barefoot or in flip flops. There are a few bicycles and some
scooters but not many. In the towns or surrounding areas there are
whole fleets of rickshaws, some pulled by men and others peddled by
bicycle, to move people around. In larger towns they also have tuk
tuks, the three wheeled little vehicle famous in Asia. To move goods
they use carts pushed and pulled by men, or larger carts pulled by
zebu. In the cities, there is all of that plus taxi cars and some
private cars. As there is no public transport they also have hundreds
of privately owned taxi 'brousses' which are vans that they cram with
people and take over designated routes. Add to that mix a huge number
and variety of beaten up old trucks and you have some idea of the
chaos of the traffic.
The
National Roads (NR) are the Malagasy highways, but really they are
just country roads with no shoulders and plenty of potholes. They are
never two laned and some are dirt. They have no official speed limit
and there is only posted limits when there is an especially dangerous
section. So driving anywhere is daunting as you have to dodge people,
animals, motorcycles, trucks, carts and potholes as you negotiate the
roads.
This
whole trip for the last three weeks, not counting the west coast
portion, was about 2500 kms. But there were hours and hours of
driving because the roads are terrible and very slow. The average
speed was probably about 30 km/hr.
When
I arrived in Antananarivo the air pollution in the city was evident.
Vehicles have no emission controls and people are burning charcoal.
The poverty is in your face. The poor people are filthy and dressed
in rags. They look at you with hands out and expect help. Many women
use their kids as a means to try to soften you up. It is very hard to
see and there is nothing you can do to help.
All
through the countryside that we drove through we saw small fires as
the people continue to slash and burn the forests. Most of the
countryside has be stripped of old growth forests and the only trees
that remain are short, young, stubby ones or bushes. They burn the
undergrowth in order to generate new grasses for their zebu, or to
make room for new crop land. When we saw the extent of the forests
and the biodiversity within it made us realize what Madagascar must
have looked like before the hordes of people. There is simply no
forest left in much of the country for wildlife and the iconic
lemurs. Birds are mostly absent as well as they are hunted and eaten.
I was
talking to Patrick one day and asked him about if he'd like to travel
and although he said yes he would love to visit England, he said it
would be difficult and very expensive. Plus he has started a family
and has a three year old daughter, Patricia, to take care of. He told
me the life expectancy here is 56, so at 31 he has to think of the
future. There is no social safety net here so he has to prepare.
Because he has a good job with Intrepid he made enough money to built
a house so that if he dies his family will have a roof and not have
to live on the street. He hired people to build it, but there is no
credit, so they build as much as you can pay and then they wait until
you have more money.
He
talked about a disease called bilharzia which is caused by worms in
stagnant water that invade your body and cause illness. They can also
invade the brain which is especially dangerous. Many people have it
from being in infected water while washing clothes or bathing or
working in rice paddies. It can be treated by strong anitbiotics and
Patrick has received such treatment where he had to spend a few days
in hospital because the drugs make you really dizzy.
This
country is cursed by many different diseases and very little medical
care. They have malaria, yellow fever, typhoid and seasonally they
have the plague. Yes the plague. There are two varieties, one spread
by fleas, bubonic, and the other like a cold, pneumonic. Every year
during the rainy season there is an outbreak of plague. This year
there was an World Health Organization alert as the outbreak started
sooner than normal and seemed to be spreading. Reportedly there was
an infected person on a local bus and that spread it further and
faster than normal. I became aware of it through a notification by
Intrepid. Denise and I waited to see what would happen but WHO did
not ban travel and Intrepid did not cancel the trips. Therefore if I
cancelled I'd lose my money. I figured that if Intrepid didn't cancel
they must have felt it was safe. So I went. But all of us were aware
and slightly apprehensive. Intrepid said they would not go to really
congested areas like markets where there could possibly be infected
people. All of this added an unwanted sub plot to the trip. We were
all a little on edge. Some of us wondered if it would become more of
an outbreak as we travelled and if it would create problems for us
when we went to leave Madagascar.
When
I arrived at my first hotel there was a group of aids workers staying
here who were dealing with the outbreak. This was a funny mix of
alarming and reassuring. I talked to several of them and the feeling
was that it was under control and the trip would be safe.
We
got stopped once by health officials as we were driving in one of the
national parks in the south and we had to get off and have our
temperatures checked by an ear thermometer and we all passed. But
that was the only time. When we went to airport there were advisory
signs but they were all in French. Thankfully nothing came of it. I
just checked now on the internet and apparently the WHO and the
Madagascar Ministry of Health have confirmed that there have been 195
deaths. They are still very concerned, but remember that is out of a
population of 25 million. The countries surrounding Madagascar have
been on alert as no one wants it to get out off the island. But, in
my opinion health checks and security were pretty lax on our
departure. On arrival at Johannesburg we stood in front of an
electronic heat sensor to see if we have a fever. That was it.
He
talked about the lack of freedom of expression in Madagascar. He said
he loves to talk to tourists because he can freely air his opinions
and ideas, whereas he cannot talk to Malagasy people about the same
things, especially his political views, without fear of reprisals. He
said people sometimes disappear if they speak against the government
or the president. So talking to people is dangerous because you don't
know who you are talking to and who they know or who they will tell.
I
also talked to the young woman who was the manager of Les Lemurien on
Isle Aux Nottes. She is educated in tourism but would really like to
get out of the country. She is disgusted and frustrated with the
government which she says is very corrupt. She says that the
government is granted millions of dollars for road improvements by
foreign countries, but they build inferior roads for less money,
pocket the rest and the roads only last a couple of years. She does
not feel that the country is headed in a positive or progressive
direction and would like to immigrate to Australia. But even getting
a visa has to be done in Mauritius and requires an expensive flight
to get there. She does not make enough to afford that flight or the
visa or the flight to Australia. She feels trapped with no future.
The
people we saw at the hotels work very long hours and most seemed to
be there from early in the morning until last in the evening. They
worked both shifts. But, they all felt lucky to have jobs in the
tourist industry which pays better and they don't have to do the back
breaking labour of the farmers and the labourers.
We saw no sign of any recognizable western style fast food restaurants.
And
finally, the Malagasy cannot differentiate between tourists, they
don't know if we are Canadian, Australian, British, French, etc., so
they simply call us 'vazaha' which means foreigner. We had that
called to us or at us numerous times by people, particularly
children, as we drove by in our van.
Again,
if you made it this far, thanks for reading and I welcome your
thoughts.
