The Atandroy Ghost Serpent of Arivonimamo

Thus far in my writings I’ve been conspicuously silent on the subject of my beloved town, Arivonimamo.  In the beginning I listed a few of the essential statistics and peppered my writing with anecdotes from around town, but I’ve tended to focus on topics other than the daily deeds in the town of a thousand drunks (literal translation of Arivonimamo). Yet, in the past few weeks there has been an intruder amongst us in Arivonimamo causing quite the kerfuffle. Arivonimamo is now besieged by a menace so insidious, ghoulish, so outlandish, that the story must be told.

I first caught wind of our new interloper when the group of children who normally bumble around outside my house came knocking franticly at my door, ostensibly with some very urgent news. I ushered them inside, they hustled up my stairs and, once the door was securely locked behind them, launched exasperatedly into the tale of Arivonimamo’s Antandroy ghost serpent.

To paraphrase: A few days before someone had discovered a giant snake here in Arivonimamo. Now, this was no ordinary snake according to the girls, oh no. This snake, they told me, was six meters long (roughly 18 feet) and had a head the size of an ox cart.  What’s more, this snake was currently living down on the soccer field, located a couple hundred yards from my house, and the word on the street was that the night before he had eaten a drunkard and left only his head down on the field. 

Now I was incredulous at first, of course. I’m very much a ‘see it to believe it’ type of guy and mythic serpentine monsters have yet to cross my field of vision.  I played along with the children though and decided to ply what information I could from them. 

Allegedly the local police force (Gendarme) had bravely ventured down to the soccer pitch the day before only to come face-to-face with the slithery terror. The intrepid foot soldiers engaged the creature, guns a-blazin’ yet tragically, and bafflingly, came up empty handed.

I then pushed the children on where on earth this serpent may have come from, and what in the name of all that is holy, Arivonimamo could have done to bring this fresh hell down upon ourselves. To that they gave me two seemingly incongruent stories, which only thickened the plot. 

The first explanation was that an old vazah (white person), who lived up on a hill outside of town, was raising this snake as a pet.  The vazah supposedly skipped town a few years back but must have forgotten to fortify his serpent pens because one of the little buggers escaped and ate what I can only assume was a dozen cows to grow himself into the monstrosity terrorizing my soccer field.

Here’s where it gets weirder. The other story begins with an Atandroy man (one of the 18 ethnic groups of Madagascar), who had been living and working for a number of years in Arivonimamo. When this man suddenly died, he was laid to rest in one of the tombs on the high ridge to the Southeast of town. Sometime during the night, this Atandroy fellow broke free of his Merina burial shrouds (ethnic group in my area) and turned into a giant snake. The snake busted out of the tomb, but not before devouring a few of the other bodies around him. Sometime that night he must have slithered his way down to the soccer field where he was residing at the time the children told me the story.

My favorite part is that when the kids told me about the man turning into a snake they must have noticed a hint of doubt in my expression, because they gave me the, ‘Eric you’re so dumb,’ look that I’ve come to know so well. Apparently it’s common knowledge here that whenever an Atandroy person dies, they turn into an animal. I’m always the last to know I guess.

So it could be either story. We’ll never know.       

Anyway, I assumed that an active imagination had gotten the best of the children and I decided to investigate. Astonishingly, as I roamed the streets of town that morning, asking people to tell me what they’d heard about the newest resident of Arivonimamo, every single person I talked to knew about it. Every. Single. Person. 

The Gendarme shoot-out: most people had heard about that. The vazah with the pet snake: very plausible most people thought. The Atandroy thing: Oh duh Eric, of course, it’s definitely an Atandroy guy turned serpent, that makes sense. 

I did get a lot of variation on the story from different sources. Some people disputed the size, saying it was only a meter or so long. I later checked with the Gendarme who told me that they didn’t know anything about the shoot-out but that they had heard of the snake and heard it had moved down the hill where someone saw it drinking water. I even met a few people, notably younger individuals from the capital, who told me they had a hard time believing the story.

Nonetheless, I was advised not, nay forbidden, to head down to the soccer field by my neighbors and all the little kids that I basically run a day-care for here in Arivonimamo.

I did anyway though and low and behold, no 20 foot snake. After coming back from a run down at the field I stopped over at my neighbors to tell them I’d been down looking for the serpent but couldn’t find him.

‘That’s because he’s part ghost. When he sees you he can choose to hide and then strike when you’re not expecting it.’ They explained to me.

I was then informed that there is a very good possibility that this ghoulish creature can also take human form and may now be walking amongst us in the streets. At this point one of the ladies who was sitting and having coffee with us rolled her eyes and exclaimed how the whole thing had been blown out of proportion and how this kind of gossip is so typical of Arivonimamo:

‘If we had grasshoppers come into town by the time they got here, they’d be dogs, and by the time they made it to the bottom of the hill, they’d be people.’

My friend James stopped into Arivonimamo around the time this was all going on and over lunch, while we were contemplating taking my Tsimahety sword (another ethnic group) down the field to hunt snake, we came across an article in one of the national newspapers that we had bought to read:

‘Arivonimamo: Bibilava hafahafa hoe? Toy ny olona ny lohany,’ meaning, ‘Arivonimamo: A strange snake? His head is like a human.’

 So thanks to the hard hitting journalism of ‘Gazetiko’ I found another piece of the puzzle. Supposedly the snake has a human head.  The article did mention that there were a number of rumors flying around town and nobody seemed to know the true story.

Unfortunately, there isn’t some dramatic climax to this story. Somehow the snake never re-surfaced, Arivonimamo wasn’t stormed by hordes of zoologists looking to document a new species of man-snake, and the buzz around town seemed to fizzle out. A week or so ago a little shop owner across the street told me that a Gendarme officer had stopped by his store and mentioned that the Gendarme had seen a few-foot long, harmless snake somewhere in the rice fields outside of town and decided not to bother with it. So at this point it’s beginning to feel as if Arivonimamo is finally safe from the Atandroy ghost serpent.

But then again, who knows, maybe he’s still walking among us.

Until next time,

Veloma.

Counting the votes in Ankeniheny (a town in Arivonimamo)

Politics - Madagascar's Recent Election

News may have trickled back to America that there was recently an election here in Madagascar.  Though Madagascar is just the tiniest little blip on America’s diplomatic radar and the country has about as much influence in the international community as Sarah Palin does in the Obama administration, in this corner of the world, in this part of town, it was a big deal.

I should actually clarify that, it was sort of a big deal, but I’ll go into that more later on.  First, the CliffNotes version of Malagasy political history since independence:

In 1960 Madagascar gains its independence from France and Philbert Tsiranana becomes President of Madagascar’s First Republic (they had French overlords for a long time so they do the multiple republics thing). The Malagasy people had given independence a shot back in 1947 when they attempted to rise up against their French colonial masters but France, fresh from getting licked by the biggest bully of them all, Nazi Germany, stroked its wounded ego by kicking the bejesus out of the Malagasy people. On June 26^th 1960, when independence finally was granted Mr. Tsiranana was elected and was in power for a full twelve years. He was considered by many however to be a stooge for the French government and be beholden to the will of France.

In 1972, tensions had mounted and though Mr. Tsiranana was declared the victor in another round of elections, popular protests percolated to the point that his administration was deposed and power handed to his successor.  This changing of the guard failed to appease the public and demonstrations continued. The turmoil persisted until 1975 and the interim period witnessed the deposition of yet another leader, the assassination of a President and rule by a military directorate.  A new government was finally formed and the crisis was ended when Didier Ratsiraka came to power.

Now Ratsiraka is an important name to remember because he became a pivotal figure in Madagascar’s political history, ruling for nearly twenty years, though not consecutively.  Since this is a brief over-view of the political goings-on in Madagascar I won’t delve too much into the machinations of Ratsiraka’s regime but it is important to know that Ratsiraka’s rule was characterized as Madagascar’s revolutionary socialist period.  In response to deteriorating socio-economic conditions towards to the end of 1980’s Ratsiraka began to institute a number of economic and political reforms, not unlike Gorbachev was attempting in the Soviet Union, and not surprisingly the reforms had similar effects in both locations. 

After a protracted period of power jostling, elections were held in 1993 during which the opposition, led by professor Albert Zafy (I imagine this is probably the shortest Malagasy name ever), took power.  Mr. Zafy ruled for 3 years, ending with his impeachment, was succeeded by a short interim government, and elections were held once again in 1997 to return Ratsiraka to his familiar role as head of state. 

Enter Ravalomanana.  A man of Merina descent, the central highlands tribe that unified the island, Marc Ravalomanana boasted that home-spun American dream-esque backstory that would make David Plouffe salivate.  Purportedly Mr. Ravalomanana began by peddling around his town as a young man selling yogurt off the back of his bike and with a little ingenuity and elbow-grease transformed himself into the dairy mogul of Madagascar whose dairy dynasty made him one of the richest men in Madagascar.  This power was leveraged into political clout and he made a run at the Presidency in the 2001 election cycle against Ratsiraka. 

The results were contested and the ensuing struggle eventually vaulted Ravalomanana to the Presidency in 2002 and sent Ratsiraka fleeing into exile.  It should be noted that the struggle was violent and turbulent enough that Peace Corps suspended operations and pulled all of their volunteers out of the country (we came back obviously)

Ravalomanana is considered by many to be a friend of the Americans.  One important gesture he made was making English one of the official languages of Madagascar, but trust me, someone forgot to clue in the Malagasy people because as far as I can tell that official decree has yet to translate into English language competency for the majority of the population. That aside, he instituted a number of important economic and political reforms and could boast 5% annualized GDP growth during his time in office.  In fact, during the Ravalomanana years there was buzz of Madagascar being a model for development in Africa.  It is important to note however that the coastal/highlands socio-political divide was still a very large part of the political fabric at the time and many coastal ethnic groups had mixed feelings towards Mr. Ravalomanana.  Amongst their grievances were alleged corruption, racism, and exploitation by Ravalomanana’s Merina-dominated government. 

Whatever the case may have been, tensions escalated once again. Ravalomanana was deposed in a 2009 military coup which installed former disc jockey and mayor of Antananarivo, Andry Rajoelina, as head of the High Transitional Authority and sent Ravalomanana into exile in South Africa.  I should mention that this coup also sent Peace Corps packing once again (and once again we came back shortly after).

This was the situation when I arrived in Madagascar in March of 2012.  Madagascar was 3 years deep into the political crisis. Foreign aid, which had previously comprised more than 40% of the government’s budget, had been cut off and the Malagasy economy had stagnated.  As I mentioned previously, we did have an election here so I sort of spoiled the ending, Madagascar eventually got itself out of political limbo.  However, the two years that I served here as a Peace Corps Volunteer were set against the backdrop of the final two years of the crisis and were some of the most desperate years in Madagascar’s history, with more than 90% of the population living below the poverty line on less than $2 a day.

During Madagascar’s nearly 5 year political crisis a number of provisional election dates were batted around, with schedules and terms negotiated, decided upon and invariably delayed. The crisis had its share flashpoints and drama as well.  In fact, one particularly tense standoff occurred right as my Peace Corps cohort was flying into country. Mr. Ravalomanana had chartered a plane and attempted to return to Madagascar from exile, crossing the Mozambique Channel right around the same time as I was, only to be informed that if his plane were to land he would be arrested immediately.  Since Ravalomanana was barred from returning to Madagascar and Rajoelina, the head of the transitional government, was barred from running, the presidential election battle between these two titans of Malagasy politics had to be fought through proxy candidates.  There were a number of false starts including Ravalomanana’s wife sneaking back into Madagascar under the pretense of visiting her ailing mother only to declare her candidacy for President, Ratsiraka returning from exile to stake his claim as a candidate and Rajoelina flirting with the idea of saying to hell with the law and running for President anyway.  All three were emphatically rejected by the international community as well as Madagascar’s special election court, and when the field of a whopping 33 candidates was officially codified, those three names were left off the list.

The two most prominent candidates ended up being Hery Rajaonarimampianina, the Finance Minister during the transitional government who became the official candidate of Rajoelina’s team, and Dr. Jean Louis Robinson a former Minister of Health in Ravalomanana’s administration who was chosen to represent Ravalomanana’s party.  Now as I alluded to earlier, Madagascar has its own version of the red state/blue state divide, but based upon ethnicity and geography, more so than ideology.  Here in Madagascar the division is predominately between the coastal tribes and the Merina ethnic group, located in the central highlands.  Much of the animosity stems from a history of tribal wars that culminated in the Merina king Andrianapoinimerina defeating the Sakalava kingdom and unifying the island.  To this day the majority of coastal tribes allege that they continue to be slighted by the Merina and that during the rule of Ravalomanana a number of reforms and infrastructure changes were made to benefit the Merina populations in the central highlands region at the expense of the coastal people.  Due to the fact that Robinson was in the Ravalomanana camp and Rajaonarimampianina was attached to Rajoelina, another Merina administration, many on the coast felt disenfranchised and generally apathetic about the whole electoral process.  In fact, back in October when I was in the North of the island in the Antsiranana region I asked a few people about their impressions of the political situation and the upcoming election. Most responded that all of that political stuff was just Merina business and it didn’t really concern them up North.            

Consequently, when the final Election Day arrived voter turn-out was a modest 4 million roughly out of a country of 22 million.  Coastal apathy likely contributed to the depressed turn-out but it is also important to consider that further out in the rural areas of Madagascar, which constitutes much of the country, people are living at a very basic subsistence level and state authority is virtually non-existent.  It would have been very difficult to convince a poor, illiterate farmer to disrupt his daily life to participate in a process that is of no tangible consequence to him.

There was however the nearly 4 million individuals who did cast votes and in what has been verified as a free and fair election by the international community Madagascar elected Hery Rajaonarimampianina with 53% of the vote to be the new President.  This was a historic moment for Madagascar, a nation that has been disrupted by coups and assassinations and which has been plagued by systemic corruption in its brief history of political independence.  This election, this stable and democratic election, could be a pivotal moment for the Malagasy people who have, despite the many challenges yet to be overcome, made a strong showing of political self-determination, just over 50 years after their country shook off the yoke of French colonial subjugation. 

With the results officially declared an inauguration ceremony was held for Rajaonarimampianina on a sunny Saturday afternoon at the Mahamasina stadium in the center of the capital city Antananarivo.  Looking poised and Presidential, Rajaonarimampianina approached the podium to give his first speech as the President of Madagascar.  Tragically what came out was a nearly verbatim recitation of Nicholas Sarkozy’s inaugural address when he was elected as the President of France in 2007. 

It turns out Madagascar may still have a ways to go. 

Until next time,

Veloma.