Sojourn to Madagascar Part 01
Preparation and Travel
When we mentioned to our friends, relatives, and
acquaintances that we were planning to spend three months in Madagascar, their
invariable and predictable response was a disbelieving and shocked, “WHY?”
Disney has recently produced some very popular animated movies
entitled Madagascar. We knew enough
to know that the only fact that Disney used is that Madagascar is a large
island. Beyond that they got everything totally wrong. But, after all, Disney
is an organization that cares only for making money by entertaining the voluntarily
gullible public. So dismiss everything Disney has told you and start over. To
help you do this, I’m going to call the island Mada, the popular name for it,
at least amongst the expatriates.
Our long time friends Gideon and Pam have been encouraging
us to come to Mada on a volunteer basis ever since they moved here from Namibia
about 5 years ago. Then earlier this year they requested permanent return to Africa.
By the common political maneuvering in Adventist official circles, they were
persuaded to remain here and for Gideon to assume the role of rector of the
Universite Adventiste Zurcher (UAZ). Rector is the title here for the U.S.
title of university president. The request that we come and teach English
Communication to the university students was renewed and redoubled.
We tentatively agreed, subject to being able to cut through
the red tape that we knew would be wrapped around us. Had we realized how much
red tape there would be, we undoubtedly would have turned them down.
They requested that we go through the Adventist Volunteer Services
(AVS) of the North American Division of SDAs. So we duly applied. We were
immediately shunted to the appropriate obscure and completely confusing website.
Since classes at UAZ started in mid to late November, we realized that we might
be a week or so late. We spent two days filling out an interminable amount of
information (this is just permission for us to spend our own money serving the
church).
The AVS then demanded that we study an introduction to
Adventist Missions online course. We went through the first two lessons and
submitted our responses. In order to proceed to the next lesson, we had to “discuss”
the concepts we had studied via their blog with other currently enrolled
students (there weren’t any) and submit a carefully reasoned term paper. I
think there are 24 lessons total, but I never found out. We realized that this semester
length course would take us at least a month to finish under the most concerted
effort. That would mean it would be mid-semester at the earliest before we
could get to Mada. We sent an impassioned plea to the AVS that because of the
urgency of the time constraints and because we had spent the equivalent of 12
years in the service in the countries of Tanzania and South Africa, we be
permitted to waive the completion of this course.
In case you are unfamiliar with how decisions are made in
the Adventist organization, let me mention that no decisions are made without
being acted on by the appropriate committee. In an amazingly quick action, the
committee approved this request.
We were then allowed to start the process to get health
clearance. This clearance is important in order to get insurance to cover
expenses in case of some life threatening event where we had to be evacuated to
the nearest hospital with the capabilities of treating us. After we applied,
they promptly informed us that since we are both over 70 years of age, they
have an age discrimination policy that they will cover a maximum of 50% of what
they would normally cover for younger volunteers. That didn’t faze us. But what
fazed them is the fact that about 10 years ago I was treated for prostate
cancer which is still in remission. This should not have fazed them because
they also have a clause that they don’t cover any preexisting condition. After
deliberating for two weeks and lots of correspondence later, they finally gave
us tentative go ahead on Thursday, December 3, 2015. According the AVS there
had not been General Conference or Madagascar Union action granting our
request.
We had been strictly instructed not to purchase tickets or
obtain visas until their go ahead had been given; however AVS encouraged us to
start making arrangements since apparently UAZ had authorized our coming. We
immediately requested our travel agent to get us tickets and sent in our
application for visas for Madagascar (the visas cost us $523.00 with overnight service).
Had we gotten our authorization 24 hours earlier, we would have been able to
save $3200 on our airline tickets. Hey, but it’s only money!
In the meantime, God had worked out a plan for someone to
stay in our home and look after our dog, Cleo, while we are away. Thank you,
God, and thank you, Jan, for keeping our home fires burning! In the meantime we
had been able to get a series of vaccinations and inoculations that are recommended
for visitors to Mada.
We flew out of LAX on Turkish Air at approximately 7:15 Tuesday
evening, December 15. This way we still missed most of the huge rate hikes
around the Christmas holidays.
The flights were uneventful except for being very long. We
ordered Asian vegetarian meals on the plane. They were excellent, and we
recommend the choice. The AVM breakfast on Thursday was a mistake because its
major dish was chicken. The attendants apologized and were able to get satisfactory
substitutions for us.
We had a seven (7) hour layover in Istanbul (the locals
informed us that the name should have the emphasis: i-STAN-bul) from 6 p.m.
until after 1:00 a.m. the next morning. We witnessed a number of Muslim pilgrim
flights board in Istanbul to Jeddah and on to Mecca. Of course, the women were
wearing the usual burkas. The men and boys had similar garments, most of them looking
like they had been made-at-home-by-loving-hands out of snow white chenille bedspreads
and bath-towels. Most of those on pilgrimages looked like they came from Turkey
or other nearby Islamic states. Some, however, were blond, blue-eyed Americans
who spoke to us freely about their pilgrimage. We wished them bon voyage and a
blessed time in Mecca.
We flew to Mauritius first. Most of the island was shrouded
in heavy clouds. I wanted to get off at Mauritius just to say I had been there,
but with today’s security problems they wouldn’t let me. An attendant told us
that our flight was only the second Turkish Air flight from Turkey to Madagascar.
That may be one reason why we arrived at Antananarivo (Tana) a full
hour-and-a-half late.
The airport at Tana was a real shock to me. The one in
Mauritius looked state of the art with a great glass façade. It was obvious
that the Mauritius airport is too small because there were a number of
airplanes parked away from the terminal.
The one in Tana looks like it was constructed during WWII
and has had nothing done to it since. We waited in a long “line” (great glob of
people fenced in by ribbons. We had received no arrival forms in the plane, and
I wondered why. The “line” finally dumped us at the head of the immigration.
She handed us the forms and told us we should have filled them out. Sylvia and I
stood behind her writing on her cubicle wall. She leaned over and whispered to
me conspiratorially “You don’t need to fill these out. I will fill them out for
you.” She turned and stamped another passport for someone else. Then she leaned
back again, “For a little present, of course,” and winked at me.
She was busy when we had finished filling out the form and
another clerk beckoned us to come to him. When he saw that were going to UAZ,
he looked at me quizzically and asked, “You Adventist?”
I was momentarily puzzled about how he knew; then remembered
I had UAZ on the form. “Yes. I am. You concluded that from the Universite Adventiste
Zurcher?”
“I am Adventist, too. I don’t work on Sabbath.”
With his help we quickly cleared immigration. After all this
time our bags had not yet arrived on the carousel. We could watch progress on
the feeder side of the carousel through a strategically placed window. By this
time Sylvia was totally exhausted and sat down on the floor near the carousel.
I pulled the bags off one by one and took them over to her.
Pam and Gideon were pacing back and forth wondering what had
become of us. We piled all of our bags and ourselves into his little SUV. They
were also famished and took us to a well secluded little Mediteranean style
restaurant called L’Orientale where we ate.
By the time we left there, night had fallen. They had booked
us rooms in the ADRA (SDA missionary foundation) compound. The next morning we
did a very little bit of shopping (no place to put anything!)
Gideon remarked that the Madagascar method of driving is the
merge method. Everyone drives as though they own the whole road—in other words,
on both sides of the road. Only at the last minute do you forcibly merge back
onto your own side of the road. Thousands of pedestrians, cyclists, and animals
move up and down the road as though there were no cars, trucks, busses and
motorcycles, and in total fearlessness. Needless to say, we did see several
accidents. Driving becomes a death defying experience.
We arrived at UAZ mid afternoon. The country is extensively
farmed with rice paddies and field rice. UAZ is situated on a hilltop in an
open forest of pine and eucalyptus trees. The university roads double as
gullies during the afternoon and evening rains. Compared to much of Africa,
security is very light. The people are friendly. They all seem to speak Malagasy,
which seems to have no cognates with any western languages I recognize nor with
Swahili or Zulu, Arabic or Hebrew, all of which I have had some exposure to.
The physical plant reminds me in many ways of the Solusi we
moved to in 1954. It is spread out and rural. Quiet and peaceful. The people
are very friendly, laugh easily, and suffer from extreme poverty. Many of them
speak some French, a former colonial language. Very few speak English. So our
conversations become very minimal.
I stood and surveyed the place. I could not help but ask
myself, “WHY?” Why have I come? Can I make any difference for the better to
these people’s lives? Have I bitten off way more than I can chew? We will find out!
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