Holed Up and Hanging Out

Street scenes around the hotel neighbourhood.

The beautiful jacaranda trees.

A beautiful little park in the median of the main road, fenced to stop people from spoiling it?

Wednesday, October 25^th.

I had the included breakfast in the hotel and then returned to my room. I am happy to have some time to myself to relax and get caught up on the blog and photos. So that is what I did for most of the day. From my initial observations I feel that the people in this country have more in common with Asians than Africans. Just like the animals here have been allowed to evolve in isolation and are not like anywhere else in the world, I feel that this island drifted down from Asia rather than separating from Africa and the people have developed far from other countries too. The culture owes more to Asia and the people have that Indian, Sumatra, Bali look. There is lots of poverty here and many people appear and smell dirty and unwashed.

I also did some research about Madagascar and here is some of what I found out:

Madagascar is the world's fourth largest island at 587713 sq km, which is 5 times larger than Newfoundland. The fifth largest is Baffin Island. Vancouver Island by comparison is only 31285 sq km, which makes Madagascar 19 times larger.

Today it has a population of almost 25 million people. The population of the capital Antananarivo was 2.61 million in 2015. Life expectancy is about 64 years and the literacy rate is also about 64%. The major language is French, followed by Malagasy and then English. The country is largely Christian. The people appear short in stature and have more of the brown Asian coloration than the black African.

The history of Madagascar is distinguished clearly by the early isolation of the landmass from the ancient super continents containing Africa and India, and by the island's late colonization by human settlers arriving in outrigger canoes from the islands around Sumatra and Borneo between 200 BC and 500 AD. These two factors facilitated the evolution and survival of thousands of endemic plant and animal species, some of which have gone extinct or are currently threatened with extinction due to the pressures of a growing human population.

After the 1880's Britain recognized France's authority in Madagascar. In French Madagascar, the Malagasy were required to to fulfill forced labour on French run plantations, which generated high revenues for the colonial administration. Opportunities for Malagasy to access education or skilled positions within the colonial structure were limited, although some basic services like schools and clinics were extended to the coast areas for the first time.

Militant nationalists led an unsuccessful Malagasy Uprising (1947-1948), during which the French military committed atrocities that deeply scarred the population. The country gained full independence from France 1960 in the wake of decolonization.

Since then, like many other African countries that were European colonies, the country has had a succession of leaders from different political directions and has struggled to find its identity. In 2009 the mayor of Antananarivo seized power in what the world characterized as a coup d'etat and aid and trade with the outside world ground to a halt, but then in 2013 elections were held and a man with the impossible name of Hery Rajaonarimampianina became president and the world was happy about the democratic process being restored and funding resumed and the economy picked up again.

The economy of Madagascar is a market economy and is supported by Madagascar's well-established agricultural industry and emerging tourism, textile and mining industries. Malagasy agriculture produces tropical staple crops such as rice and cassava, as well as cash crops such as vanilla and coffee.

I had a chicken curry dinner in the hotel restaurant and then retired to my room.