Landing in Madagascar I was again struck by its sheer size.
This endless expanse of land, stretching on further than my vision allows, is
something beyond the imaginings of a girl from an island 16 miles long. Having
waved goodbye to the lush green and uplifting azure of Mauritius it was almost
a violent wrench back to the blood red soils and patchy vegetation of this
beast of a country. The cyclone had swelled the rivers and kicked up the mud
and as we landed I had the vivid image of Madagascar as a living organism, its
blood red veins coursing outwards from the capital toward the sea. The haze of
cloud and rain made the landscape seem to pulse like a beating heart and the
sheer magnitude of the mass appears to breath life into the hills. I swear if
you listen closely enough you can hear Madagascar breathing, and it would not
be the light breathy sounds of Mauritius, jewel of the Indian Ocean, it would
be the deep, laboured rasping of an old man, weary from his travels and
impervious to the ant forms of humanity which scurry across its surface.
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| Not My Photo!!! |
This is how I felt when I touched down in Ivato, comforted
by my own insignificance and happy to melt back into life on the face of this
endless island. I breezed past the waiting porters and taxi drivers, confident
in my safety in anonymity and melted back into my life as though I had always
been here.
I arrived at Akany to find it empty. All the girls had gone
to Andasibe to see the Indri, largest of all the lemurs the Indri gave rise to
the legends of primate-men which survived well into the colonial period in the
hills of the East coast. I have always wanted to see the Indri and hear their
haunting songs at dawn and was sad not to be with everyone sharing this
experience with them. But I simply reminded myself that I have plenty time to
experience all of these things and that for me there is no rush to devour as
much of the island as possible in a single gulp. So I settled down to a quiet
weekend with Binh and Chad and we went for dinner in the neighbouring village
and I sank back into my new comfort zone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5iqzSBGb6Y Link to Indri video by Attenborough
The next week passed quickly. Sunday was Chinese new year
and, desperate that Binh should not miss out simply because none of us happened
to celebrate it, I set about decorating the house, fulfilling as many
traditions as I could and helping, along with Chad and Bing, to prepare a
Chinese feast for when the girls returned that evening. It was a roaring
success and I think Binh was happy we put in the effort for her and even Puce,
the dog, enjoyed a special themed dinner with us.
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| Everyone at Chinese New Year |
The working week went past fast as I caught up on work from
the time I was away. Nothing of note really happened until Friday morning when
I must admit I experienced something rather unsettling. I was lying in my bed
reading and having my morning cup of tea, it must have been around 6am, when I
heard another volunteer moving around in the next room. The room next door to
mine is a sort of living room, this leads up, via 5 or 6 steps onto the landing
from which the other bedrooms and staircase to the downstairs lead off. It is
normal for me to hear the other girls moving around in my little living room as
they prepare the days activities or try to connect to the internet through the
neighbours wall, so I thought nothing of the fact that they were there. After
about 10 minutes though a figure past by the crack in the door. They was she
moved caught my attention, it was slick and slow, almost as though trying not
to attract attention. Then slowly the figure sank to the floor- by this time
she had my undivided attention and I watched through the gap in the door as the
figure began to crawl, on hands and knees, up the stairs toward the landing.
I panicked. Unsure whether this was a member of staff or an
older child or whether anyone else was up, or even in, I went into automatic.
In my pyjamas I pulled myself up to my full height and marching into the living
room. I was met with a Malagasy woman between 18 and 25 years old dressed in
old tatty clothes. When I demanded to know who the hell she was she began to
move toward the open window, which is how she must have gotten in in the first
place. I moved toward her and blocked her path, grabbing her arm with the
intention of marching her out to the monitors, but I immediately reeled back-
the smell coming off the woman was horrific, the sour smell of stale sweat and
the musk of perpetual damp. When she pulled away from me my hand was wet and I
realised she was wet from head to foot. When I reached out a second time to
guide her out the front of the house she hit the deck, curling in a ball and
making herself a dead weight. At this point I was scared, confused, unsure of
myself and getting angry. I must have lost my focus for a split second and she
was gone, throwing herself back out of the window into the bamboo below. I raised the alarm but she was gone, leaving
behind only a trail of damp, a lingering smell and a house full of frightened
volunteers. The security guards patrolled onto the next door neighbours
property but she was already gone, they did find a man in his late 20s to early
30s though, waiting in the bamboo. They arrested him and questioned him, at
which point he admitted to be the woman’s friend. They took him to Gendarmerie
and that was the last we heard of it. We boarded up the back windows that
afternoon and it will take me a few days before I no longer jump at the sound
of the dogs running behind the house or a colleague walking into a room behind
me. No harm done but still, the image of her crawling up the stairs through the
crack in my door is not one I will forget in a hurry.
The next day one other volunteer and I were accompanying the
children on a field trip to the King’s Palace. The palace is outside Tana, built
on a sacred hill. It was not high on my list of must dos before I left but I
have to say I was pleasantly surprise. Isn’t that so often the way that high
expectations are met with disappointment while a shrug of indifference precedes
the most worthwhile of experiences?
Our guide was friendly and well informed and the palace was
largely unchanged from the early 17th century. Unlike the elaborate
and ornate palaces of Europe and Asia this practical and sturdy structure was
built for practicality- one big room, raised sleeping platforms and a cooking
area to greet visitors was the extent of this great king’s residence. The focus
of the palace was outside, great gardens, farming areas and a huge courtyard in
which to address the people were where the gardeners and landscapers had shown
their worth. Also built on site was a more modern house for the later queens
and statesmen, bursting with gifts from European dignitaries and royalty. Our
your ended at a viewpoint at the far end of the gardens where your ramble
through the land was rewarded by a panorama stretching from the 12 sacred
hills, past Talatamati and Abohdratrimo and well into the mountains in the
West. After the tour we stayed for a
picnic and the children played in the grounds till past 4pm when we piled into
the vans and headed home for a well-deserved sleep.
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| The girls doing my hair |
I am hoping for good news at the Ministries this week and request as many good vibrations as possible from all of you back home! Love to everyone. Always. xx
