A Complex History

Tourist season is starting. Some places here in Fianar, don’t look much different during the tourist season and the off-season, but my neighborhood is drastically different.

I live in the Old City. It’s the tourist destination in Fianar. It’s a nice walk up to the top of the hill where the city of Fianar began. During the off-season there were groups of tourists every so often. Now, large groups of vazahas (foreigners) are there daily.

I use this as entertainment, mostly. I try to guess if they are French, American, Norwegian or something else. It also reminds me of how much I am a part of my community here, but also how much I am not. It’s a reminder of how I am in the middle, again.

The tourists coming are also a reminder of the history of Madagascar. Tourism is expected to be up this year because the political situation here is calmed down from past years. When this comes up in conversation with people who haven’t been to Madagascar they say, “Political situation? What happened?”

I don’t have an excellent understanding of what happened either, but I have done some reading and would like to invite you to do some reading as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Malagasy_political_crisis (I know, Wikipedia, but it’s the best detailed summary that I could find in English)

So, the uprising is over now. But, the tourism here is a reminder of the consequences of the uprising. Aid from governments around the world was cut. Tourism went down drastically because of an “unstable” political situation. This caused hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions to close or suffer. Now, the tourism is coming back. But, slowly.

The situation with tourists also reminds me of the complexity of Madagascar’s relationship with France. Madagascar was a French colony until 1958, when Charles De Gaulle granted Madagascar it’s independence. You can read more about the colonization here:

http://www.air-mad.com/about_history.html

http://www.content.eisa.org.za/old-page/madagascar-early-french-colonialism-1896-1945

The two cultures are still very visible here in Mada today. French architecture is everywhere in Madagascar, there are still roads, gutters and other infrastructure that was clearly built by the French government. Now these pieces of the infrastructure are falling apart, and the Malagasy government does not have money to fix it.

French language is everywhere here. Most Malagasy people (at least who live in cities) are fluent in both French and Malagasy, and some children learn French before they learn their own language of Malagasy. French numbers are used more often in the market than Malagasy numbers.

French food is also a very common thing here. Crepes, delicious pastries, French bread, etc. are very common here. These things I don’t mind. Sure, I wish that people would address me first in Malagasy considering that I don’t really speak French, and I wish that the infrastructure had more upkeep. But, these things aren’t bad.

But, it’s complex too. What does it mean to be a visitor here? How can we, as people from other places, be sure that we are honoring and respecting the Malagasy culture? How can I, as an English teacher, be sure I am teaching a skill but also honoring the Malagasy language? How can hotels, restaurants and other tourist places help visitors to feel comfortable, but also educate and help visitors participate in Malagasy culture?  Tourism and having foreign visitors here in Madagascar, brings in a lot of money and support to the country, but it also furthers the process of losing Malagasy culture through globalization, how do we value both things? And so many more questions.

I don’t have the answers to these questions. I can’t have the answers to these questions. But, as the world becomes more interconnected, as more people travel, how do we travel responsibly? And, how do we tell their stories respectfully?

Newsletter!

I recently sent out my most recent newsletter. Here it is, if you don't already get those e-mails!

An Easter Monday

Easter is a big deal here in Madagascar. Schools get two weeks of vacation or more, people spend time traveling to see family, and having big parties. For the Lutheran church here, there was worship each night of Holy Week for about 3 hours. Then on Sunday, Easter is pretty similar to how I am used to celebrating in Minnesota. Go to church in the morning (except extend the service to four hours), then have a good meal (except replace ham and potatoes with rice and chicken).

The one big difference for Easter celebrations here is Easter Monday. Everyone picnics. People pack up their rice and loaka (the meat or vegetables that you eat with the rice) and find someplace outside of town to have a picnic. I celebrated Easter Monday with Solofin’Davida, the choir at Masombahoaka and Skouts (similar to boy scouts but based in the church and pronounced skoots).

We met the bus just outside of church at 8:00am, and finally headed out around 8:30. Everyone came with their rice and loaka and lasary (like a cucumber or carrot salad with a vinegar dressing) and me with my salami and veggie sandwich, trail mix, and raw cucumbers (very strange food that we eat in the US.) We packed tightly into the bus, making six people fit in every four seats (in true Malagasy fashion) and thankfully, arrived quickly to our picnic spot.

When we arrived we found a good picnic spot and all laid out lambas (I guess one of the Malagasy versions of a picnic blanket). We spent the morning doing various activities. There we different games of pass the volleyball or other things happening, some people just chatting, but my favorite was the guitar. A few people brought guitars and I had my phone with all the lyrics to our choir songs. So, we spent hours and hours singing songs together.

When 12:30 came around we decided it was time for lunch. I got out my strange lunch and my Malagasy friends became terrified that I didn’t have any rice, so they made sure that I ate rice too. I was very full. Then they saw the trail mix that I brought with me (and that my parents brought from the states in December, thanks!). You know, a delicious mix of almonds, cashews, craisins. Pretty normal, right? This mix of strange things got passed around the group and each person timidly took one thing from the mix and usually responded with something like, “it tastes good but looks weird.” They said that you can find cashews in the south of Madagascar, and almonds are available here but just very expensive and raisins are available here but craisins are very strange.  Overall, lunch was delicious and we all got to share what we brought, they their rice and loaka with each other and me some trail mix.

For the afternoon, we spent some more time singing. Then, there was a group of us that played many icebreaker type games which mostly involved being super silly and dancing and singing. Of course, having a vazaha (foreigner) singing and dancing with a group of people is a site to see. So, there were huge groups of children that came to watch us play games.

Around 5, we started to make our adventure home. We decided to walk home without really realizing how far it was. We finally completed the 6 kilometer walk around 8pm. And I immediately fell asleep.

Easter Monday was a great day to spend time with my community. As my time here in Madagascar gets shorter and shorter these are the types of days that I am so grateful for. The days that I will remember fondly for years. 

Also, I apologize for the lack of pictures! Internet has been a struggle today. They will come soon!!

One more also, I would like to request your thoughts and prayers for my community here in Fianar. This past Friday, the 15 year old son of a Pastor in my community passed away. Please keep the family, the community here at Masombahoaka in your thoughts and prayers. Also, please remember the others here in Madagascar suffering from diseases that are preventable and treatable but often cause death here because of a lack of resources.

Spoiled

I’m spoiled. It’s official. I’m spoiled with fruit. I’m spoiled with fresh and awesome vegetables.

The amount of food processing that exists in Madagascar is drastically lower than in the states. Malagasy, and often me too, go to the market daily to buy the food that they will cook that day. Sure, they keep some things around the house, a little sugar, some salt and of course, rice. But with most Malagasy having no refrigeration and little storage in their kitchens, they buy what they need that day.

I don’t follow this lifestyle completely. I do have a fridge, and I buy things at the supermarket here as well as the market. I buy strange things that Malagasy would never know what to do with like baking powder, canned chickpeas and peanut butter! But, I do my best to buy as much as I can at the market. I know that when I buy things at the market, I am helping to pay for the food of the family of the seller that I bought from directly. As I wrote about in a recent post, I have become friends with many of the sellers at my nearby market, and I know that the tomatoes that I bought today directly help them as well as helping me make fantastic guacamole.

Fruits and vegetables here are also much fresher than what most people eat on a regular basis in the United States, especially in the winter of Minnesota. You can see this directly at the market, when you see potatoes still caked in dirt or when the seller takes the white beans out of their shell as you come to see how much they are. Also, it’s common to have fruit trees in your yard that you can pick fresh fruit off of. Mostly, these are just plants that grow and the only work that the people nearby have to do is pick the fruit when it’s ready. I have banana trees in my yard, avocado trees and grape vines nearby as well as some other things. I picked some fresh bananas in December and just the other day helped my neighbor pick some avocados, and got to take a few home for myself.

You can also taste this freshness. It’s especially true with fruit. Mangoes, pineapples, bananas, guava, litche. I have been so spoiled. I’m not sure that I will ever be able to eat these fruits again when I return to the states. Mango and litche seasons are finished. But, there are always pineapples and bananas and guava season is just starting. Today I bought five guavas for ariary zato, or about 3 cents. A zato can buy you a lot street foods here, but I’m definitely going to go nuts of eating lots of guavas until the season is over. I always tell people, “tsy maintsy mihinina voankazo rehetra izao satria ratsy any Amerika!” “I must eat all the fruit now because it’s bad in America!” This always gets a laugh.

This freshness is true about the butcher too. Most chicken here is bought live and you butcher, pluck and all at home. Sometimes at restaurants in the states when the food is taking a long time to arrive, sometimes we joke that they had to kill the chicken first. Here, that’s actually quite a good possibility. If you walk around the big market here in Fianar early enough on any given morning, you will see the newly butchered pigs being carried into the market.  This used to gross me out, but at this point, I have accepted it and am just glad that I don’t have to wash the laundry of the men that do the butchering.

I currently have half a chicken cooking (I didn’t actually butcher it myself, but it did come with more parts than expected still attached), tomatoes and cilantro are soaking in bleach water to make sure they are clean. Soon, I will make chicken flavored with Mexican type spices and tomatoes and some guacamole to go with it. I will make sure to have to lots of guava for dessert. I’m making the most off all of these fresh things that grow so close to my house.