Madagascar '97

Way before Dream Works came up with the idea for the movie, there was a country, with the most generous and most graceful of people. The movie promotes the idea that it is an uninhabited island colonised by a lemur population led by King Julian [if I had a dime for every time people talked about animals running wild in Africa....]

Mummy seems to have made a lot of friends in life, including a Malagasy couple who lived in the town of Toliara, in the south of Madagascar. Until then, I knew it as the extra bit that I had to draw in my Africa map. No one thinks or says much about the islands [Madagascar, Seychelles, Mauritius, French Reunion etc]. There were no expectations. None. Zero. Zilch.

Just before we left, I decided that I was no longer interested in having pierced ears. I think I had finally decided I did not want to be like the other girls so I "lost" my ear pins, perhaps hoping it would be a relief. I carried the guilt of my silliness throughout the trip, wondering if mummy would notice. You see, the pins I lost were not cheap, or easy to replace [or at least that is what I was told]. This trip had sprinklings of darkness on it from the start.

We flew from Entebbe to Nairobi on Kenya Airways and then boarded Air Madagascar. I think Daddy mentioned that Madagascar was considered part of East Africa, so we did not need a visa, or was it that we could get visas on arrival or something of the sort. In any case, I remember that we did not have to change the time on our watches.

We arrived in Antananarivo. I soon learnt that long, almost unpronounceable names were a great part of the Malagasy culture. We waited for our bags at the carousel [was there a carousel? Je ne me rapelle pas.] They did not arrive. It seems that somewhere in the deep abyss that is the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport baggage/sorting area, the 3 bags that we had packed had vanished. Several hot french words later [between Mummy and the airport staff] we were told to wait in the city for a few days. Maybe our bags would show up. In the mean time, they gave us little cases with t-shirts, those tiny airplane toiletry sets and tiny towels. It's almost like the knew this kind of thing happens often enough for them to prepare the cases well in advance. 

My mind refuses to remember the city. I think I was too worried about my ear pins to notice much else. I know that we went shopping at some point because there is a picture of us wearing the matching shirt-short sets. I think Mummy took that photo. Hers was the only camera we had. We were holding hands, laughing and walking across a plaza of some sort in the midday sun. We visited a historical site of some sort. I remember running down stairs in a palatial-like place, like the scene in Jungle Book with the apes. I remember being told to be careful.

A few days later, we were packed into a car and off on a journey across the country, to mummy's friends in Toliara. Yes, we saw the raccoon-tailed lemurs. Yes, they do spend their days swinging from tree to tree. We went to one of the world's oldest forests and saw one of the forest's oldest trees. It's so old that it's grown up and down and back up again. It's woven all over the place. It is apparently the site for some traditional religious ceremonies. It was the first time I saw a double storied reeds-wattle-grass hut, complete with a ladder to access the top floor.

                                             

We did not find our clothes until the end of the trip. Mummy's friends were very gracious about it. They did not comment about how we wore the same clothes each day. Once again, we did not have bathing suits but chose to run into the ocean in our underwear. We tried to roll around in the sand, believing that the sand would cover our nakedness. Someone had the bright idea of taking a photograph of our craziness. 

Malagasy culture, from what we saw, was about sharing experiences. We went to a baptism, where the whole church was filled with people singing and dancing. Christmas was a grand affair. Large, long service, with a lot of singing and dancing too. The family we were with included us, without question. 

One thing I will not forget, you do not know heat until you have been in Toliara on Christmas day.