Bandits, breakdowns and bananas

After finishing an amazing few months at Akany Avoko, I'm now on holiday and seeing the most amazing sights of Madagascar. What an incredible place. And what adventures there are every day!

Four Akany volunteers hit the road a week ago. Taxi brousse journeys are known to be long, risky and tiresome, with the trip from Tana to Morondava last Saturday confirming this... Estimated time in the guidebook is 12 to 17 hours, and our timing was not bad considering we seemed to have the worst van on the road. There are bandit attacks on this route, so taxi brousses to Morondava leave Tana in the afternoon in convoy. Our van was being left behind the convoy by the other vans. It almost sounded like it was saying "I think I can" up the hills. There was almost enough room for your legs.  It's an overnight trip so breakdowns are dangerous. Police patrol the roads. So when we were woken by a loud clunking sound at midnight, we wished we were in a different car. Another car with a man and rifle pulled up and it wasn't until after the 5km per hour crawl to the next (very dark) village that it was explained that the man was accompanying us - yippee he was a policeman! So 2 of us naive vazahas needing a wee were heavily warned not to go out of sight of the group. It was cold. The clunking wheel and axel were pulled to bits by the light of our torches, the reconstruction didn't seem to contain all the same parts and some glue was used...but the clever driver come mechanic got us back on the road and we made it to Morondava in 20 hours.

10ish hours in a 4x4 gets you to the Bekopaka, the village at the entrance to the Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park. This road is only accessible in the dry season, which had not long started. It's a pretty rough road with 2 ferries across rivers and it's obvious why you simply would get stuck in mud in the rainy season. We were almost at Bekopaka when, upon rolling into a deep river almost up to the car floor, the car STOPPED. Our funny bastard driver Lulu waded out in his Timberlands and fixed the problem, a leaking radiator, well a band-aid fix probably, but it worked. 15 minutes wondering if we'd have to sleep on the shore and we hit the road again. Everyone helps each other though, the car in front stopped and waited to see we were ok and the 2 trucks whose road we were blocking offered help too. I guess we wouldn't really have slept on the shore...

But it really is worth the 3 days travel to get there. We felt like we were in a computer game for most of the time, it's so surreal! We explored the gigantic pointy rock formations, in and out of forests and caves, walked and climbed up and over more rocks, spotting lemurs, mongoose and gorgeous birds along the way. Food options are somewhat limited in Bekopaka, we got a bit tired of the "duck and pasta with butter" menu...but it is an isolated village, food transport is expensive, although the bananas here were the best I'd ever had! The honey for our breakfast was also incredible, drizzled on Malagasy moof gasy (rice bread) - like a crumpet and Denise-intolerance-friendly!

The children in Bekopaka are the sweetest, cutest, most interactive and least begging kids I have seen in Mada. I'd bought stickers before leaving Tana and was handing them out along the way. I gave 1 young girl carrying around her baby sister 2 stickers, which she kindly passed onto 2 other kids. We had Malagasy chats with them, taught them songs and took photos. They were adorable.

After a river trip, cave exploration and introduction to the Petite Tsingy on day 1, we planned to go on to the Grand Tsingy, a 1 hour squashy (taking a guide with us, we had 4 in the back) and bumpy ride. We fumbled about half awake after breakfast squabbling over the bill with the restaurant who seemed to think we were a bit rich and tried to charge us too much and thank goodness they did because we could have ended up in a sticky situation if we had left 3 minutes earlier.

As we started out on the road to the Grand Tsingy, another tourist car was coming back, eyes wide open and looking shocked. There was a man up ahead who had been shot by a bandit, a victim of zebu theft. They arrived 3 minutes after it had happened. They went back to tell the police, who never ended up turning up as they were too scared. A truck passed through carrying the man and apparently all his family, the wife wailing. They were taking him on the 10 or so hour trip to Morondava to hospital. The guides took a punt that the zebu theif would be concentrating on getting the animals out of the area rather than robbing the vazahas and we continued on our way. We passed 2 empty, broken zebu carts. It was eery. Then we got on with our crazy day in the Grand Tsingy, the creme de la creme of National Parks.

We delivered a football to the Bekopaka secondary school and watched their PE lesson, they were practising high jump and the teens thought it was hilarious that vazahas find them so interesting. They were very thankful for the football. We delivered 2 more footballs to schools en route, 1 school was about 20 kids in a shack the size of our large hotel room in Bekopaka.

Our trip back to Morondava was eventful. A car in front of us had a flat tyre and no spare, so we gave them ours. Hmmmm I guess someone would have to do the same if we also got a flattie?! The road is only wide enough for 1 car at time and our driver was flooring it (but safely) to get us back to the Avenue of the Baobabs in time for the sunset. A car coming the other direction on a bend wasn't so careful and although our driver braked fast, the other car wasn't so onto it and we ended up in a head on, as there was simply nowhere to go. There was only a broken light on the other car, and we had slowed enough for there to be very little impact so everyone was fine. Sooooo....insurance details exchanged? No such thing. They all know each other on this road and just decided to continue the day.

Then there was the policeman who waved us down. He needed a lift to Belo, the village 3 hours away. We had a seperate compartment in the car with all our luggage and where the spare tyre should have been. Would we mind if we take him? Of course not, he's a policeman, and he has a rifle, but that will keep us safe, right? Then another guy appeared and climbed in as well. Why were there 2 rifles in there with them? It must have been a super uncomfortable ride for them, lying on empty water bottles on that bumpy road. We were about to offer them a banana each when Katherine, our French speaking comrade, scared us with her eyes wide while Lulu told her about the men in the back. The policeman had arrested a bandit, and had confiscated his gun, that's where the other gun was from. The other guy was the bandit. We had a bandit in our car for 3 hours. Under arrest of course, but still... He had been arrested for zebu theft but it wasn't the guy from Bekopaka. The policeman and the bandit seemed to be having a right old good chat in the back, while we kept suspicisously looking around. We dropped them off and I felt more than just their physical weight lifted from the car.

Guitar heros

Andy White – I have some news for you. Not only will Madagascar be the next big thing in football due to the generous donations from my friends, colleagues and family, but they might also become the best guitarists on the planet and sweep up all the folk awards – whatever awards there are for folk…or maybe they’ll be more interested in rock, but whatever the weather, they LOVE the guitars I bought for Akany. Locally-crafted in Tana, I got a nice deal on two beautifully toned guitars. Now every kid at Akany wants to be a rock star. Some are keen to get technical, learn the chords and build up their callouses – others ignore my instructions on chord formations, but have excellent natural strumming technique so they just sit back and imagine themselves sounding really really good. 

But to build up those callouses takes time and I remember what it was like ie. HURT LIKE HELL and it still does if I don’t pick up a guitar for a while. So it’ll be slow going and there may not be time for everyone to have a go, but I’m so happy to be making some of them feel a wee bit rock star. Even before the formal lessons, I’d take the guitars onto the lawn in front of the volunteer house and leave them with their audience of each other, strumming away tune-lessly but all eager to have a go “Because I’ll DEFINITELY sound better than her” and then not sounding any better but loving the five minutes of fame.

A mighty good investment for the entertainment and happiness of the children at Akany. Thanks for your donations everyone!

Redemption

Teaching teenagers can be challenging, as you may imagine (or in my case, remember what a nightmare I personally was at school!). There are the academics and the non-academics. I categorise myself in the latter, so have sympathy for the vocational training girls who were a little raucous in class and were asked to think about their actions. Fair enough, study sucks in my eyes too, but I didn’t come to Madagascar to raise my voice at children. Eight very solemn girls waited in the evening for me to finish teaching guitar to the boys and upon my exit, grabbed my attention to read out an apology, so thoughtful, sweet and genuine I almost cried. “Dear Denise, we are terribly sorry for being wrong in class. We wont do it again and we are very sorry Denise. The CAMS girls.” There was a sincerity I have never seen before. Needless to say, they were most obliging when I taught them guitar today, all very patient and helping each other with learning chords and strumming. And they made some beautiful pressed flower paper for me. A mutual respect seems to have developed – now that’s what I call redemption..

The wilderness and the wildlife

Madagscar’s national parks have many different landscapes and terrains. There’s also the most incredible fauna diversity; when it comes to figures, I can never remember, but it was pretty evident just walking through the tropical rainforest and dry national park over 4 days that chameleons are plentiful, lemurs are something to behold, and frogs are, well, just everywhere. Lemurs aren’t that shy in these parks as they’ve become accustomed to the human invaders, so it is quite a sight to see them jumping about less than a meter away from you through the trees, stopping occasionally when they find a good leaf or two to nibble on. Our guide said they like bananas, then walked on ahead, so being the naïve lay-people we are, the thought of enticing a lemur down from the trees with a banana on a stick seemed like a good idea. The lemur thought it was a great idea – until the banana (via stick) MOVED DOWN THE TREE!!! “How did that banana do the that? Bananas don’t move! I don’t like this at all. But that banana does smell nice. I wonder if I could just grab- OW it moved again! This is not usual. I’m abandoning banana mission, I think it must be controlled by aliens or something, hey other lemur, watch out for that moving banana. There’s something very suspicious going on here.”

The trademark ravanala (traveller’s tree) spans itself across the skyline like a rising sun, canyons hide the most beautiful treasures of delicate, picturesque waterfalls, a boa constrictor curls motionless next to the entry point of the swimming hole, and tiny frogs jump out right from under your feet as you tramp through puddles. And then there’s the beach. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I at least expected a clothes shop. Mangily is an hour’s 4x4 drive from Toliar, on the south west coast. The lack of fresh vegetables on this sandy village was made up for by the steady supply of meaty fish called Margarette andd langoustine. Fish at least twice a day and I didn’t get tired of it for the 4 days of beach bumming we did after 4 days hiking through those tough trails which rewarded us with their incredible diversity and beauty. 

Even the animal parks in Madagascar are excellent. The Lemurs Park near Tana is a lemur refuge where they aren’t in cages, they have territories and run wild, great for getting up close and personal with them. Lemurs do bite though, so there are guards to shoo the ones with reputations away from the paying tourists and there really is no way to contain them within the park except to chase them, so there are also guards for that. We saw several dancing Sifakas bound over the high wall with ease, the road is not too far away so I hope they have at least learned the road rules ie. Don’t dance in front of a truck!

Factories but not as we know them

I had a tour of an aluminium smelting factory which I thought might be a bit boring, but was astounded at the skill and precision required to create all sorts of cooking pots and utensils. Moulds are made out of sand in boxes followed by pouring of recycled melted aluminium into the mould, where it cools rapidly and is finished on a spinning wheel to smooth the edges. These guys work so fast, I always thought that stuff was made by machines...

Then I went to the popcorn "factory"...

Small metal containers are spun at top speed by one person while another stokes the fire underneath. This happens for exactly 7 minutes, after which the lid is pull off and the popcorn literally explodes into a little wooden shack. Trying to get a photo and cover my ears at the same time didn't happen, it was so loud I thought the corn was popping inside my head! The product is then swept up off the floor and packaged into bags for sale... a bit of dirt never hurts.

Akany Avoko - village life

At the moment I am the only volunteer living at the centre, although the lovely Paulina and Patty from Poland live down the road for the next week and a half. There are other volunteers coming, but it's nice to get settled in on my own to start with. Also nice to be able to have the big bright double room until it's next required by a couple! The volunteer house sleeps 6. The first week I did spring clean with the help of the fabulous Lorna and the gorgeous CAMS girls (6 vocational training teens). The kitchen is a little dark but that's made up by the fact that the there is a balcony with a hammock on the first floor, overlooking some buildings and tropical plants, palm trees and bright flowering hedges. The sun setting behind the main office building is a beautiful way to watch the day end.

I wake up around 5am with the sounds of people stiring and getting ready for the day ahead, kids playing, showering, washing clothes...they are day people, night time is for sleep! So I read or doze for a couple of hours and my alarm goes off, I make porridge with banana, have a glass of vazaha-priced juice and go to the market, or riding. I go up to the childcare centre and play games and read to the babies, who are just soooo gorgeous. It's a bit like being in a house full of crazy people, they way they act sometimes, there is a lot of jealousy and grabbing going on for adult attention, undestandably, as there are about 10 or so of them. My second visit there I encountered Sanja, 4 or 5, I'm not sure, Malagasy kids are smaller than Vazaha kids, she was rocking on her feet with a big grin singing "Od Macdonal adafar E I E I O Moo moo here adamoomoo dere hereamooderamooevewhereamoomoo". The sweetness of children.

I start lessons at 11.30 with the on-site primary school, 4 classes. I will next week be allocated activities with different age groups, then at 4 I teach teenage boys from the boys home down the road. 6 of them help around Akany, kind of vocational training, and they seem to really enjoy the lessons. After playing English word Bingo with them the other day, they yell out "Bingo!" when they see me. Teaching the older girls and staff with songs seems to be the way to go, thanks to my wonderful mate Ali for giving me those ace songs sheets!

Equestrian happiness :)

Centre équestre du Rova d'Ambohidratrimo is an amazing horse facility, expertly run with quality horses and fabulous staff. Andre the owner speaks good English and wants me to try all his horses. We went for a long ride on the weekend with Zu, a VERY good rider, who doesn't speak English but gives me excellent instruction through Andre's translation. I can't believe I've found somewhere in Madagascar with a menage and well trained horses in dressage and jumping. I jumped a 2ft double for the first time since I was a teenager yesterday! I know, only little stuff, but maybe I'll go bigger next time.

After my 7.45am Preschool English lesson, I stroll to the centre in 20 minutes, through cobble-stoned villages, picking up some rice cakes along he way. There are a few "Vazaha" callouts, but mainly people politely say "Bonjour Madame". They are used to us whiteys in Ambohidratrimo (pronounced Amboodatrim) as Akany usually has up to 8 volunteers at one time, so it's mainly the children being sweet. Refreshingly, there are very few beggars here, which is probably down to the fact that it is a fairly affluent area.