NOTE: This is going to be a long one.
One week ago today, we boarded another TATA bus for a 10-12 hour journey to Faux Cap, which is the far southern tip of Madagascar. Sailing straight south from Faux Cap, the closest landmass is Antarctica, so you see a whole lot of open ocean. Up until now, all of our excursions had been contained within the Anosy region, which is in the far southeast and is predominantly peopled by the Tanosy ethnic group (there are many more ethnic groups in Madagascar than I could possibly name and many of those are further divided into other distinctions, but I have at least figured this much out). Fort Dauphin, which is where Iâve been this whole time (but where I only have one more week!), is the capital of the Tanosy region. However, this excursion finally took us across the border into Androy, the southernmost region, peopled by the Tandroy people, with capital at Ambovombe.
The Tandroy were the last group to be brought under unified control by the French colonials, having resisted the efforts of the dominant Merina ethnic group to do the same thing. Their dialect of Malagasy is very different from all the others and their lifestyle is markedly different as well. The dominant Malagasy in the highlands fear them as wild and fierce, but more impartial observers (anthropologists, SIT staff, ourselves) have found them to be quite warm and welcoming. Probably the chief reason theyâre seen as uncivilized is that they live in the Spiny Desert, which is very hot, very dry, and very remote. They generally have to travel very long distances to find water and they subsist on much less than many other Malagasy. This fact also means that Androy is Madagascarâs poorest region (Madagascar already being one of the poorest nations in the world), almost completely lacking in infrastructure of any kind.
That lack of infrastructure means that the road from Tsiombe (the next city after Ambovombe if youâre driving east-west) is entirely made up of sand, so itâs pretty slow going to Faux Cap. What the sandy roads also meant was the really fun but progressively less fun necessity to get out of the bus and push. We had to push the bus several times on the way to Faux Cap, on the way to the market the next morning, and on the way to Fort Dauphin from Faux Cap. So I got plenty of exercise using most of my leg and arm strength pushing that bus up sandy hills, digging out the log that they were using as a runner from beneath several feet of sand, and running and jumping onto the moving bus (this wasnât necessary, it was just fun, and it only increased the similarity to Little Miss Sunshine).
Despite all of our sand-related troubles, we actually got into Faux Cap with plenty of time to spare. We set up camp at the Cactus Hotel, which is really just a few bungalows, so we were sleeping in tents. We went to the beach shortly thereafter, where we first experienced the incredible wind for which Faux Cap is known. The water is nice enough, but the wind is so intense that it kicks up the sand and you get hit with a million tiny little bullets. That wind also meant a lot of fun for our tents, which had fun tendencies to partially collapse or go for a tumble before being fully set up.
These travails aside, we survived the night and went to market the next morning. Upon my first arrival in Fort Dauphin, I thought the big market there was overwhelming, but it has nothing on the market in Faux Cap. While Tanambao (the Fort Dauphin market) is certainly different from what I'm used to, it still follows a lot of the same patterns and organization. The market in Faux Cap is much more reminiscent of Renaissance fairs than anything else I've experienced. Thankfully, Ainsley and I had two students from the Centre Ăcologique de Libanona (CEL) to help us figure things out (both for this particular market visit and for the week in general). Natacha and Eddia shepherded us around to various stalls (mats, really), the highlight of which was that we got our first taste of raketa, or prickly pear, which tastes like the juiciest apple or pear I've ever eaten, but with a lot more seeds, and a danger of constipation if you eat too many. You also have to cut off the outer shell to get to the edible portion, which is why it's a fruit we're allowed to eat.
After our lunch on Monday, our home stay family from our village, Tanantsoa (which was really just our family), came to pick us up with the sarety, or ox-cart. So we got to take that to the village. By which I mean, we rode in the sarety half the time and walked whenever the zebu just weren't having it, which was honestly nicer aside from the lack of breeze. Whenever we were on the cart, I had to hold on for dear life and quickly move my feet from time to time to avoid getting swiped by prickly plants or zebu butt. Once we arrived, we set up our tents in the village square, which was still quite windy, so therefore quite the task. Dinner that night was where I truly realized that we were in a significantly different place. In the village stay more than anywhere else, my male gender was very important. There was a specific place I was supposed to sit and I was supposed to start eating before anyone else could (aside from our host father, who being several decades older than me, obviously commanded the most respect). We also got our first of many much-too-large dinners of rice and beans (lentils in this case), of which I could never finish more than a third. It's hard to feel guilty about not finishing the food though, because whatever I didn't eat went to the children, who definitely needed the protein.
The next morning, I was woken up by my host father lifting up the rainfly of my tent and saying my name. We then sat down to one of many plain potatoes that I would be eating (thankfully, I brought some crackers and peanut butter to supplement these potato meals). After our breakfast potato (bageda in Malagasy for this specific kind), we had a conversation with our host father about our chosen research themes for the week: wild sources of protein (my topic for my Environmental Issues paper), general health, and mythology surrounding animals (Ainsley's probable topic). It was certainly an interesting conversation, but it did not leave me feeling uplifted.
None of the children go to school and our host parents explained matter-of-factly that they know their food is insufficient. The smallest children have bloated stomachs and the older ones are rail-thin. The problem isn't that they're not eating enough - there's plenty of manioc, corn, rice and potatoes. But they're getting almost no protein or other important nutrients. They get beans sometimes and meat or fish very occasionally, neither of which are in sufficient amounts for growing children. I felt even more uncomfortable with all of this when at the end of the week, our host father gifted us two of their eight chickens, which deprives them of a substantial amount of meat and eggs. However, they did get some additional food and money for hosting us, as well as a sheep.Â
On Wednesday, we went to a different beach, which was overrun with zebu, thanks to the fact that there were a few very deep wells and some water troughs located there. It was also extremely windy, as per usual. We swam a bit, but mostly we got attacked by sand. Wednesday was also the second day that dancing started seriously in the evening. There were several extremely bossy little girls from a neighboring village who demanded that we learn everything perfectly, both in terms of moves (of which there weren't really any) and in terms of lyrics (of which there were many). This was much more stressful than the soccer games which my host brothers had pushed me to play with them, particularly as I had a key role in many of them, that is, I had to jump in the center of the circle and shout when the dance was done, which was supposed to be up to me, but which they kept ending before I could or prodding me at some point they all seemed to recognize. This was all in preparation for the fĂȘte on Friday, which took place in the middle of the cyclone, and in which we did almost none of the things that had been drilled into us.
On Thursday, we went to see the local ombiasa, who predicted our futures but didn't really tell us much about what he did that we didn't already know from the other one. He was especially big on telling us how many children we would have (one boy and one girl in my case). Then on Friday, it was the fĂȘte, and time to say goodbye to our village with the gift of a sheep. They gave us each a coconut and two chickens for the four of us and then we went on our way.
I did have a very valuable and enjoyable experience the whole time, but this was also when the homesickness hit at its worst. Everything was very different and I was lacking in a lot of my favorite comfort things (refrigeration, a bed, food that was familiar), so I must confess I did devote some amount of time to self-pity. However, I seem to have conquered those feelings and am happily back in Fort Dauphin, ready for the next two and a half months here in Mada. Sadly, this is our last week here, as I said earlier, so it will be sad to say goodbye to my host family and everything that's become so familiar, but I look forward to the next parts of the adventure in Tuléar, Tana, and various national parks along the way.
