Famadihana, again

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about Famadihana, the Malagasy tradition of exhumation, but it will likely be the last because, well, tis the season but once a year.  The season usually coincides with the winter months here in Madagascar, roughly July until late October or early November.  Outside of this relatively temperate bracket the weather can become wretchedly hot and rainy.  Not ideal conditions to be pulling mummified bodies from their tombs and exposing them to the elements.  Because Malagasy people are particularly hospitable I was invited to a slew of Famadihanas last year only a few short months after arriving at site.  It was an eye-opening experience but unfortunately I was about as green as they come at that point and my Malagasy was nowhere near good enough to feel like anything more than an audience member in some bizarre cultural theatre.

This time around I can talk.  Over a year and a half into my service here I’ve gotten a pretty good handle on the language, enough so that I can wedge myself into a social event and hold my own as a part of it.  In fact, during this round of Famadihanas I had the chance to tag along and work at one with a buddy of mine, Ras, who is a mpampandihy here in Arivonimamo, which translates to ‘someone who makes people dance,’ or, I suppose, a DJ.

Ras had been hired to work two different Famadihanas, over a 4 day period from August 11^th until the 14^th.  I was invited to work them with him and his partner Zo but had to miss the first day of festivities because I was once again with my good friend from out East, James and his partner in crime, Tahiry.  The two of them had been planning to visit some of Tahiry’s family in the capital so figuring they’d already have  to come pretty far West I made a plea for them to keep on the same trajectory for another hour and come spend some time in Arivonimamo.  They agreed and Monday, August 12^th James, Tahiry and I set out towards the town of Fonenana to catch the second day of celebrations and give James his first glimpse of this uniquely Malagasy custom.

The first day of any Famadihana consists mostly of preparations, the erecting of the tents, slaughtering of pigs, the arrival of the guests and what not.  By the time the darkness is setting on the first night much of the groundwork has been laid and people are ready to party.  By the time James, Tahiry and I arrived on the second day most of the people had been dancing and drinking non-stop throughout the night.  That, or they had managed to eke out a few hours of shut eye crammed onto straw filled mattresses or grass mats in dark corners of the mud house that served as the backstop of the Famadihana yard party.  Ras ushered us past bleary eyed merry-makers and crops of children clustered throughout the yard and up a rickety wooden staircase to a small balcony that housed the speakers through which he was running his mpampandihy operation. 

From up on high we could see Famadihana proceedings straddling the national road on one end, where people were congregating to get a look at the two vazah (foreigners) who had just arrived, and the red-earth house we were standing in.  Down in the yard there were the two dining areas off to the right, built from large branches or planks of wood stuck into the ground and encircled by colorful plastic sheeting. Inside people were being brought heaping portions of ‘vary be menaka’ which literally means, ‘rice with a lot of oil.’  What it is, is a Malagasy specialty, especially in the highlands, served at most noteworthy cultural events.  Because of that you might think it would be a big elaborate dish.  Unfortunately it is exactly what it translates to.  Guests are given a generous portion of rice while family members work the crowd with buckets and ladles, distributing chunks of pig fat soaked in oil.  The taste isn’t all that bad, but trust me, too much of vary be menaka will wreak havoc on a vazah digestive track.  Outside of the food tents there was an open space in the yard with ‘hira gasy’ musicians (traditional Malagasy music), arranged in a semicircle in the wings and people congregated in the center, dancing to the alternating currents of Ras’s music and hira gasy.

Once we’d gotten the lay of the land, Ras and Zo decided to lead James and I back down to the yard, to the outskirts of the party near the little tables stocked with booze.  ‘Up here,’ Ras suggested as he climbed into the back of an un-yoked Zebu cart that was pitched forward in a resting position. We clambered into the back of the slanting cart that was close enough to the beer stand that we could reach down and grab ourselves a round.  Ras, Zo and Tahiry, along with a few other Malagasy men that had gathered cracked the caps off the beers with the teeth and handed them around to us.  Now that we were settled we got to talking about the Famadihana a bit.  Knowing it was James’s first time around everyone wanted to pitch in their thoughts on what Famadihana means to Madagascar and Malagasy people.

‘There are a couple of important reasons for Famadihana that you’re going to want to remember,’ Ras began. 

James and I have both spent plenty of time hearing and reading about Famadihana and I’d been to my fair share so I was interested to hear his take.

‘First, you’re paying homage to those who have come before you, paying respect to the ancestors, or the ‘razana,’ he said.  So far that was something I knew, it was pretty much what I expected him to say. 

‘Second, it brings all of your family together, which is a lot of people in your average Malagasy family.  It’s a kind of reunion where you can catch up with those you haven’t seen in ages and celebrate the love of your family.’  That was also something that sounded in line with what I’d learned but it struck me as a little sentimental coming from him.

‘And third,’ he explained, with a coy smile spreading across his face as if he’d saved the best for last. ‘Thirdly, it’s a way for you to remember who exactly is in your family so you don’t accidentally date your sister.’

I can’t say the guy doesn’t have a sense of humor.  Like I’ve said before Malagasy families are enormous so maybe he has a point.

After James and I danced in the yard for some time to the hira gasy, intoning over and over again the repetitive yet somehow hypnotic melody, we were called out into the road for a photo shoot.  James and I had both brought our cameras along for the event, and since cameras don’t come around often for most Malagasy communities, and vazah come even less frequently, the entire community decided that it was imperative we take advantage of the situation.  For about 45 minutes James and I were shuffled around between different configurations of friends and family while Ras and Zo used our cameras to snap photos.  We staged dancing photos, were handed babies, and were the center-pieces in umpteen family portraits until it became time to make the journey to the tomb. 

At this point we were beginning to burn out of being the focal point and quite literally beginning to burn from the hours spent dancing in the sun.  As is quite usual here, the moment fatigue starts to set in is quite often the moment I’m thrust into the spot-light.  Right before the parade to the tombs began I was handed a t-shirt to put on.  It was the same one being worn by many of the family members who had organized the Famadihana.  It claimed that I was a descendent of a pair of brothers whom we were on our way to exhume, and I considered it quite an honor to have been included with the family.  I was given the t-shirt discretely by one of the family members and once the others saw it on me it set off a ripple of excitement through the ranks of the family.  I could tell from some of the furtive glances cast my way by some of the young drunk guys that one of their comrades had worked himself into a self-righteous drunken pout because a vazah was wearing one of the family shirts so I insulated myself with the majority of the family who had given it to me and were coaching me along.  I vowed to keep a low profile and a wary eye on some of the drunk guys. 

James and I floated along the edges of the march up to the tomb and slowly made our way towards the front of the cavalcade so that we could get some pictures of the flag bearer who was leading the procession.  At the head of the march, followed by a herd of hira gasy musicians and throngs of Famadihana goers, there is always one Malagasy man with the Malagasy flag strung up on a thin bamboo stalk and he leads the group of family and friends on the march to the tomb.  Upon seeing me taking pictures in my newly acquired Malagasy shirt, one of the family members had the idea to pass the flag off to me.  I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to lead a Famadihana but I was also wary of upsetting any cultural norms which might cross the delicate line I was already toeing with one of the hammered cousins.  In the end I decided to take hold of the flag and led the Famadihana across the grassy plain towards the tombs for about 15 yards until I was able to pass the flag back to its rightful owner.

Once we arrived at the outcropping of tombs the throngs of people gathered in a circle around the short, squat, cube shaped tombs, on top of which stood all the important male figures of the community.  A number of speeches were made in succession, extolling the virtues of Famadihana and joyousness of the occasion.  All the while, groups of young men removed large slabs of stone from the tomb’s entrances, sliding them off to one side to reveal a musty, cavernous darkness below. 

James and I had positioned ourselves near the entrance to one of the tombs with the hope of catching a glimpse inside.  A group of young men had already descended into one of the tombs and was emerging with the first ‘faty’ or dead body.  One of the older men from across the entrance noticed our fascination and asked emphatically, ‘would you like to go inside?’ 

We were dumb-founded; I was under the impression that it wasn’t proper practice to let just anyone tour the inside of a tomb, a most sacred places in a culture that holds its ancestors in the highest regard.  Still, I looked at James, who gave me a look of, ‘well if you’re game, then I am,’ and we both quickly agreed.  He pulled the two of us around to the front entrance and showed us down a small set of stone steps that led down into the tomb.

Inside the ceiling was just tall enough for James and I to stand up, having ducked through the small stone doorway to enter in.  The chamber had a dank, musty smell and the air felt warm with the faint, stale humidity of air that had ventilated through and around death for years.  We stood in the center of the cavity which was ringed by three levels of carved stone shelving on each wall and on the far side across from the doorway.  Our new friend explained that the most recent bodies are put into the tombs on the lower shelves and the ‘faty’ slowly graduate upwards the longer they’ve been in the tomb.  Having seen the tomb James and I quickly excused ourselves, not wanting to overstay our welcome, and rejoined the crowd of Malagasy people dancing with already extracted bodies. 

As things began to wind down, James came over to me and said that he and Tahiry would have to take off so that they could make it back to the capital before dark.  At that point I was worn out and happy for an excuse to take off.  Not to mention that the young drunk guy who had previously been giving me the evil eye had seemed to have settled himself and I wanted to take off before my luck changed.  The matriarch of the family also appeared to be looking for an excuse to take a little break and walked Zo, Ras, Tahiry, James and myself back to the main road so we could pack up our DJ equipment and send our two friends to Tana. 

I said goodbye to James and Tahiry and parked myself on the opposite side of the road with Ras, Zo and all of our equipment to wait for a taxi brousse (the local bus transport) to take us back towards Arivonimamo.  All of the sudden I hear a chorus of voices shouting from behind the main house, on the pathway that led from the tomb.  A hoard of men and women, all wearing my same Malagasy shirt that says we’re all from the same family come storming out from behind the house and at the center of the throng I saw a young woman balling her eyes out, held up by another young woman and a young man.  On the edges of the fray there were two young guys, veins bulging from their necks in anger and eyes the same blood-shot, cloudy hue that happens only when someone’s far gone on ‘taoka’ or Malagasy moonshine.  The whole family was screaming and failing their arms while some of the women cried hysterically and young drunk men circled the yard provoking each other. 

I quickly pulled a sweatshirt I had brought over the top of my family t-shirt at which point one of the older Malagasy men saw me and tried to explain the situation to me.  Unfortunately he was as lost in the haze of moonshine as the young men and couldn’t exactly piece together what he was trying to explain away.  He gripped my hand tightly and with eyes bulging from his head implored me to understand how sad it made him to see what was happening to the family.  How much it hurt his heart to see these young men acting this way. I assured him that I understood and he stumbled back in to mediate the dispute/provoke the young men.  I wanted to fade as much into the shadows as possible so I asked Ras to figure out what was going on. ‘Apparently that girl’s husband said a swear word which upset her and then her brother got upset with the husband,’ Ras explained.

Wait? That’s it?  This woman was wailing as if she’d just lost her first born child and the half the men at the Famadihana were strutting around like they might slit each other’s throat.  ‘Yea, that’s it, I guess,’ Ras said and shook his head.

The fight began to cross the street and the pack of angry men swung in front of me and veered off to the right.  For a moment I thought it had calmed down and then out of nowhere one young guy bolted across the street and head-butted another so hard that it knocked him off his feet and sent him sailing into a ditch 5 yards to my right. 

At this point I didn’t care to fade into the shadows anymore and just wanted to get back to Arivonimamo so Ras, Zo and I flagged the next brousse we could find, quickly threw our gear on top and hitched a ride back home.

On the way back the three of us re-hashed the situation.  Zo and Ras were both having a pretty good laugh at how out  of control all the drunkards had gotten but both of them were a little unsettled by how dark things had turned.  Of Ras’s three reasons for Famadihana, I could see he was definitely right about how important Famadihanas are for honoring the ancestors.  It also made sense that it would probably keep you from dating your sister. At least helps you remember who exactly makes up that gigantic Malagasy family of yours.  As for strengthening the love within a family?  I wasn’t entirely convinced.  Or maybe the take home message is that taoka gasy is a fierce drug not to be trifled with.  Either way, been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

Until next time,

Veloma.   

Family

I was living in Milan, Italy at the time, second semester of my Junior year of college and my family had just come to visit.  We took a day trip up to the Lake Como area, a short jaunt North of Milan, and as we strolled along cobbled streets that traversed the hills surrounding the lake I got to thinking how bizarre life was at that moment.  I was living in a beautiful apartment, provided by my abroad program, in downtown Milan a few block from the famed La Scalla opera house. It must have been incredibly expensive.  Reflecting upon my circumstances a bit I started musing aloud, ‘isn’t it odd that I may be living in the most expensive apartment that I’ll ever live in and I’m probably the poorest I’ll ever be?’

To which my brother replied, ‘No man…. I could see you being poorer.’

Turns out he was right.

So here I am, a Peace Corps Volunteer in Madagascar.  It certainly wasn’t the promise of reaping great financial reward that drew me.  I’ve had to justify my life here over and over to perplexed Malagasy friends who grapple with the reality of a young American man leaving the land of promise and opportunity, forsaking family and friends, to come and subsist in Madagascar on the necessarily meager Peace Corps stipend ($4 per day).  I tell them that what I forgo in wealth, I make up for ten-fold in experience.  It could be that individuality and independence are hallmarks of American culture and create a certain restlessness in people, a proclivity to, or a need to strike out on one’s own and find life through experience.  But what gets left behind? 

I spoke with a friend the other day who, after hearing that I taught about business here said that Madagascar needs more technicians from countries that have ‘lasa lafitra’ or essentially, ‘gone far.’  Ok, fair enough I told him.  The phrasing of having ‘gone far’ implied for me some beginning point, which supposedly Madagascar is closer to, and conjured up the image of a linear progression, some road that the US is conceivably much further along.  I explained to him that if it’s the case that the US has ‘lasa lafitra’ then what I want to find out by living here is what we in America may have lost along the way.  To come here and live life as a Peace Corps Volunteer I’ve had to temporarily sacrifice family and my relationships at home, which turns out to be the great irony of my life here.  The most significant thing that I’ve left behind in order to learn what may have been lost on the road to prosperity ends up being dearest to the heart of Malagasy culture: family.          

Malagasy families are undeniably large.  If I were to quote an average number of children in a Malagasy family I would just be guessing, but judging by the number of little rascals I have running around my block, I would guess five or six to be a fair estimate.  It’s quite the jigsaw to try to puzzle all these little buggers to their respective ‘ray-aman-dreny’ or ‘parents,’ but I’ve gotten a pretty good handle on it over the past year.  It’s true that many of the demographic trends playing out all over the world are also creeping into Malagasy culture, so the average number of children in a single family is decreasing, but from what I can tell it’s still stubbornly high.  I asked a child earlier today how many brothers and sisters he had? ‘umm..betsaka,’ was all he said after a moment’s hesitation, deep in thought. ‘Lots.’  I also had an enlightening conversation about the number of children running around town with an older woman I often talk to when we pass on the road. 

‘So what do you think of Malagasy families?’ she asked.

‘They’re great. You guys sure have a lot of children,’ I proposed in order to see what she had to say about family size.

‘We sure do, that’s what Malagasy  people do.’

‘Doesn’t that get expensive, feeding everyone and sending them to school?’ I thought myself pretty clever, hoping I could slowly implant the notion in her that there was some economic link between poverty and inordinately large family sizes.

‘Yea, that’s why we’re so poor,’ she exclaimed matter-of-factly.

‘Oh.’  

So it’s true that people are aware that a large amount of kids running around can exacerbate economic hardship.  Yet kids in Madagascar don’t just eat up a family’s resources, they’re often an integral part of keeping the house running.  As soon as they’re physically old enough to handle it kids often help the mother take care of the house hold chores.  The young guys, not quite as much, but it’s incredibly common to see young girls responsible for taking care of a baby sibling or called by an overworked mother to tackle any number of chores.  Every day I see little girls, scarcely twelve years old, parading up and down the streets with a little baby swaddled in a blanket and cradled on her back.

Malagasy people also marry considerably younger than Americans.  This isn’t an official number but I’ve been told by friends that 17-20 is a pretty average marital age for Malagasy girls, whereas men wait slightly longer, maybe 22-24.  As I edge towards 25 you can imagine how obsessed my adoptive families here have become with finding me a wife. 

Once they are married gender roles are fairly prescribed, though things have begun to shift in recent years with the exposure to Western norms of gender equality.  Traditionally men go out and find money, however that might be, and the women stay home to take care of the house and tend to the family.  Farm work seems to be something that both genders share in equally which plays a substantial role in the life of most families in this predominantly agrarian society.  I’ve been told that in recent years it isn’t unheard of for women to be the ones who work and for a man to play the stay-at-home dad.  Yet it’s not quite common, and gender still plays a significant role in family dynamics.  One particularly interesting aspect that stood out to me is that though the husband often brings home the money, it is quickly relinquished to the wife, who then manages the family finances.  I was told a couple of times that this is very much a distinctive characteristic of the Malagasy family dynamic.

Something else that differentiates the practices of an average Malagasy family from those that have become commonplace in American society is the approach to old age.  Nothing will appall a Malagasy person more than hearing that in many cases, people in America are carted off to a nursing home, as opposed to moving back in with a son or daughter’s family, once they’ve grown older and lost the ability to take care of themselves.  I asked a friend the other day if grandparents often lived with their kids and got a very definite,

‘No, not usually. They often live on their own.’

‘Really?’ I asked.

‘Well yea, until they’re older and can’t take care of themselves. Then of course they do.  Where else would they live?’       

It’s been awkward before when I’ve watched a mixture of shock and befuddlement wash over the face of a Malagasy friend as another friend tries to explain what he’d heard we do to our elders in America.  For most Malagasy people the practice of spending your final years in a nursing home is ignominious, and sending your loved ones there sins against the backbone of Malagasy society, the family.     

I want to leave off with a short section of an email I sent to my parents nearly a year ago, three or so months after getting to Arivonimamo.  My dad recently thought to send it back to me after finding out I was planning to write about family:

“I have a story I’ve been meaning to tell you guys.  So I had just gotten back from the In-Service Training and was walking around Arivonimamo visiting some of the artisans and delivering some money from scarves I had sold, when one of the ladies invited me into her house.   Malagasy people are incredibly hospitable so I get ‘mandrosoa’ all the time, which basically means, ‘come on in.’  So I was delivering this lady her money and caught her just as she was slaughtering a chicken for lunch.  I sat with her for a while and watched her cook and clean the chicken.  We chatted some more while she spun some silk thread and then when the food was ready they invited me to eat with them.  She told me during lunch that her son is studying in Indonesia right now and he’ll be home in just under two years, which is crazy because he has a remarkably similar time frame to me.  Anyways, I think all the talk about her son and my situation and living abroad, and the fact that I was living a sort of analogous life to her son, got her thinking about how this must be for you guys.  So she asked me if I missed you guys.  I told her I did but that I was lucky because there were so many people like her to take me in and make me feel at home.  At that point I turned back towards her and noticed that she was teary- eyed and had been crying a bit.  The whole situation just really struck me because no matter how independent and individual I feel here, and no matter how strange my situation seems, there’s something so common about it too, or at least it speaks to how transcendent of culture the emotional ups and downs are for both me and the people I left in the States.”- August 2012

Who knows, maybe we’re not so different after all.

Until next time,

Veloma

Urbanization

Everybody has a hometown.  For Americans, independent and migratory by nature, the word hometown smacks of antiquity.  Not necessarily a place you are right now, but rather a place you were.  The American predilection for striking out on one’s own has been aided and accelerated over the years by transportation networks becoming more extensive, modes of transport getting quicker and global connectivity making it so that that even though I may be thousands of miles away mom, I can still ring you up or shoot you a text as I please. 

We don’t tend to tend to think of a population being transitory as a hallmark of growth but there does seem to be some correlation between increased movement and certain vectors of development.  Malagasy people are becoming more mobile.  Unfortunately, as history has proven time and time again, without other fundamental benchmarks also improving, a country urbanizing and people moving around more could in fact exacerbate hardship.   Such may well be the case in Madagascar.

For much of its history, and in large part persisting to present day, Madagascar’s infrastructure network left large swaths of the country disconnected from the outside world.  The meager patchwork of paved roadway that exists nowadays scarcely connects the nation’s largest population centers.  For much of the nation’s history communities across the island were desperately detached from one another.  Because of this families and communities developed a co-dependency and a fierce attachment that is characteristic of Malagasy culture.  I am often told of the primacy of family in Madagascar and more specifically how heart-wrenching it is for an average Malagasy person to be separated from their family.  Looking closely you can even see this undercurrent manifesting itself physically in the way Malagasy people interact.  Siblings will often walk around holding hands, friends, both guys and girls will hang on each other’s arms or shoulders, and the characteristically large Malagasy family will, often times due to economic necessity as much as culture, cram into a single room or two for sleeping, with many members packed into each bed. Separated from much of the outside world Malagasy communities developed unique traditional belief systems and practices or ‘fomban-drazana’ that remained insulated from any number of homogenizing forces that could have wiped them out.  I’ve gathered a good deal so far but there is still much more I have to learn before I could accurately write about some of the traditional beliefs and do them any justice.  One particular custom though, just as an example, that I’ve already touched on is the ‘Famadihana,’ or exhumation, or ‘turning of the bones’ ceremonies that are a large part of Malagasy culture in the highlands.  

This however, is the starting point of Malagasy culture.  This is the condition of life and culture in the ‘ambani-vohitra,’ or the rural countryside. What I want to stress though is the effect that urbanization appears to be having as it’s puzzled on top of this mold, both on the character of the country and the culture of its people.  Madagascar still is one of the world’s few remaining agrarian or predominantly rural nations.  This is undoubtedly sustained in large part by the abysmal condition of the nation’s roads and transportation networks.  The state is however, ever so slowly experiencing a major demographic shift as an increasing number of people move from their rural hometowns towards the larger urban centers.  A World Bank study published in 2011 notes that every year since 2005 more than 200,000 Malagasy have moved their lives from the countryside to the city and notably the number of large cities (those with more than 5000 inhabitants) has grown dramatically from 33 in 1960 to 172 in 2007. 

So the question becomes, what happens to a culture that was incubated in the rural countryside, when it is suddenly thrust into the spotlight by increased urbanization that accentuates all modes of foreign influence, be it music, fashion, film, business practices or politics?  To begin with, it starts to relentlessly emulate foreign cultures.  As with any broad observation, the generalization doesn’t hold true for all parties but a striking number of people in this country, once exposed to a foreign trend, are quick to discard their past and whole-heartedly adopt the new norm. 

I’ve asked many of my Malagasy friends to explain to me where this obsession with Western culture came from and why those with money who live in larger cities bear little resemblance to their fellow Malagasy citizens in the countryside.  I’m told that the most significant factor is that culturally Madagascar has a crippling inferiority complex brought on by the nature of French colonization here.  Decades of being treated as second-class citizens in their own country deeply imbedded the notion within Malagasy culture that they are inept, incompetent, uneducated and uncouth.  Even now, when people here discuss the French colonization and foreigners in general there is often simmering animosity tinged with a tragic capitulation to cultural envy and self-deprecation.  As an average Malagasy is distanced from life in the rural countryside, they tend to copy all things culturally Western, absorbed through increased exposure to media in larger cities, while simultaneously spurning their cultural roots.

This is not to say that a Malagasy person in an urban center wouldn’t attend a Famadihana.  As I said before, everyone has a hometown and in Madagascar that means that those in the new generation of city-dwellers often have a rural town to come back to where they can go through the motions of their ‘fomban-drazana.’  According to a friend of mine it is just that however, going through the motions, for many of those who have migrated and made their home in the city.  I was told that much of the depth and spirituality that used to accompany the noteworthy cultural events has dissipated, becoming more an opportunity for family and friends to gather together and re-unite and less a reverent homage to a traditional system of worship.  If anything many of the more significant Malagasy cultural events have adopted Christian rhetoric, as Christianity has been, and continues to be a formidable countervailing force to the fomban-drazana.          

It is not as if this shift is happening unbeknownst to the Malagasy people.  If pressed on the subject it’s apparent that they are acutely aware that urbanization is both a prominent phenomenon in Malagasy society and moreover that it’s having a tangible impact on the culture.  I spoke with my friend Jean Claude about the matter to get the opinion of someone who grew up and continues to live in the ambani-vohitra.  I was first curious if my suspicions about the cultural rift between the countryside and the city were correct.  ‘Yes, absolutely,’ he said. I wanted to know if he thought those in the city regretted the disconnection from traditional Malagasy beliefs. He didn’t think so.  And how do those who still live in the ambani-vohitra feel about the impact urbanization and its effects are having on Malagasy culture as a whole?  He told me that he felt that traditions were slowly eroding and slipping away. It worried him.

Shortly after speaking with Jean Claude I had a very enlightening conversation with another good friend who now lives in the capital city. While he elucidated for me many of the factors that have catalyzed urbanization here and the numerous consequences now manifesting across the country, it was his answer to the question about the traditional beliefs that struck me most.  When I pressed him to elaborate on the new urban population’s impressions of those in the ambani-vohitra who still hold traditional beliefs, he very diplomatically responded that though there is a segment of the city population which looks down upon those who hold onto the fomban-drazana, he feels strongly that each person is entitled to their own opinions and beliefs. Though he is a product of an urban environment, he explained to me, he feels that those in the ambani-vohitra are free to believe as they please and there is no judgment passed on his part.  This is a very positive mindset indeed, but what’s worth noting is the subtle detachment implied in the way the answer was framed and how reflective it is of the dichotomous society that urbanization has produced.  Rather than lament the loss of a set of cultural values he associates as his own, or deeply connected to his culture, my friend rather approached the issue by intimating that those who hold traditional beliefs should be afforded equality, much the way any enlightened individual might approach  a different background or ethnicity.    

More than my day to day conversations, what really triggered my thinking on the nature of urbanization here in Madagascar was my recent trip to the Morondava area.  Following my Mid-Service Conference I headed West with 9 volunteers from my training group.  It was week-long vacation that included a three day trip down the Tsiribihina River in dugout canoes, hiking in the Tsiny, Madagascar’s spiney limestone canyons, and a trip down the avenue of baobabs.  Our tour operator brought along a family member under the guise that she was our cook, not that we minded, she was great to have around, but I’m convinced she was just along for the ride.  She was a city girl, living in one of the larger, more developed urban cities, Antsirabe, roughly 3 hours south of the capital.  Her mannerisms, her clothes, her general disposition all lent the feeling that though she was Malagasy she could have easily been cut from any Western culture.  She was with us throughout the trip which included stops in a number of ambani-vohitra towns along the rivers-edge.  We would hitch our canoes along the edge of an embankment that held a small collection of huts with walls made of sticks and palm frond roofs.  We would be swarmed by half naked children who would stare wide-eyed as they tried to puzzle our blazingly white skin into an existence that had never stretched beyond that shoreline.  My favorite moment came when one of the children asked, because we were speaking Malagasy, if we were Antandroy, a Malagasy tribe based in the Southern regions of the island.  Right there and then it was perfectly encapsulated.  A perfect picture in that moment of the cultural gulf that exists in Madagascar with the two disparate ends of the spectrum coming into contact.  I wish I could know what they thought of each other.

Until next time,

Veloma