Sojourn to Madagascar
Part 12
Queen’s Palace and
Lemurs
I had over a million Ariary. Pam and Gideon had an
appointment with an embassy in Tana. After asking if we were interested, they
arranged for us to hire a car in Tana and tour some of the interesting sites there.
Traffic is so really bad in Tana that you’re lucky to get to two or three
places during a whole day. We left home about 5:00 a.m. with the Petersens and
made good time up to the edge of Tana. Then we hit the traffic, and it was 9:30
a.m. by the time we arrived La City, a shopping center.
Noée and Tantely live in the other end of our duplex. Noée’s
brother, Matio, and Tantely’s shirt tail relative, Lova (say Loova), met us in
an old convertible. They took us out to the Queen’s Palace, about a 4 or 5 mile
drive and a little over an hour away in the stop and go traffic. At one point
we were stopped dead for a while on a very narrow one-way street. We could see
that a car had stalled about ten cars ahead of us, and no one could get around it.
Finally all the drivers ahead of us got out and went up to the stalled car. They
bounced and manhandled the thing sideways far enough so that we could put one
set of wheels up on the very narrow sidewalk and squeeze around him.
We got up to the gate of the palace and squeezed into a
non-parking place. Lova stayed with his car. Matio got into the palace free
since he’s Malagasy. We paid 40,000 Ariary for entrance and a guide. You have
to pay for a guide everywhere you stop. I think they are provided to keep an
eye on you more than to provide guidance. Matio was horrified about how much we
had to pay. He kept saying, “I’m sorry.”
Our guide, Tefe, was a young man with a very pleasant
disposition. His English was almost not understandable. He apologized to Sylvia
and told her that he speaks perfect Italian—fat lot of good that does for us.
We walked through the stone gate and into the courtyard. Beyond us lay a fairly
impressive square stone structure about three stories high. On each corner was
a square structure another story higher.
The guide told us that a warrior king had moved a thousand
soldiers into Antananarivo in the 1700s. The word arivo is Malagasy for a
thousand; just look at the 1000 Ariary banknote. So the city name means the
place of a thousand warriors. The main reason that Malagasy words are so long
is that their meaning is a whole sentence. The warrior king, Andrianampoinimerina,
had built a simple palace about 20 km (12 miles) north of Tana. But his queen
liked the Rova, or highest hill in Tana, so she built her own more elaborate
palace on the Rova.
The Queen’s Palace
was designed by a Scottish missionary by the name of James Cameron, and was
built of beautiful rosewood. Rumors have it that there was a certain romantic
tryst between the two of them. The guide said nothing of that. In the late
1800s a Frenchman (and the rumors of a romantic tryst are more probable with
him) built the beautiful stone structure to completely contain the rosewood
palace. In 1995 a fire totally destroyed the wooden palace and damaged the
outer stone palace. They are allegedly restoring the inner palace, only they
are creating it in concrete and then coloring the concrete the dark color of
rosewood. So with our outrageous entry fee, we never got into the palace
itself. They are a long way from getting anything done.
To our right as we walked in lie hundreds of stone blocks
from the part of the stone structure that collapsed in the fire. To our left
are two square burial structures, tombs. The closer one is more highly
decorated, although built out of cement block, and contains the remains of four
queens. The further tomb contains the remains of the three kings, including Andrianampoinimerina.
By the way, the Merina part of the name is that of the warrior tribe that has
kept control of the other 18 or 23 tribes (depending who you listen to) of
Madagascar for hundreds of years. Even now, in the Republic of Madagascar, the
Merinas hold the best positions in the government.
Turning around and looking back, north, at the gate we just
came through, you can see a great stone eagle perched atop a short pillar. The
stone eagle is a gift from Napoleon Bonaparte. To its right is a 2 or 3 meter
tall, erect, circumcised phallus. The circumcision is characteristic of the
Merina tribe, who regard circumcision as the source of their superior power.
In those early years the Merina regarded wood structures as
comfortable and worthy of human habitation. Stone structures are regarded as
inferior and the reasonable home of their zebu (cattle or oxen with a hump on
the front shoulders). It was only after several disastrous fires that they were
persuaded that stone was indeed fit for Merina habitation.
On the east side of the Queen’s Palace is a 25 or 30 foot
(10 meter) Kings Palace made of rosewood. I think it is a replica of the actual
palace about 20 km north of town. We were allowed to walk into the King’s
Palace as long as we stepped over the threshold with our right foot and backed
out of it when we left. The palace has a tall ‘A’ frame structure. On the north
wall there is a wooden ladder going all the way up to a platform about two feet
(65cm) wide and the length of the building immediately under the peak of the
roof.
The king who built this structure would climb all the way to
the top and lay hidden from view on this platform anytime visitors would come.
No one explained the right-foot-first principle to visitors. If a hapless
visitor stepped into the palace left foot first, he was received cordially
enough but there was absolutely no chance he would ever see the king. On the
floor of the palace were five short stone supports for a giant pot. Around the
pot were a dozen or so rounded tiles for diners to sit at. They would all eat
out of this giant pot. A wooden fire would be under the pot to cook the food
and later keep it warm. The left-foot enterer would be seated at the dishonorable
(south) end of the pot (only he wouldn’t know it was dishonorable). After
eating he would be ushered outside with apologies that he hadn’t been able to
see the king.
When a person came in right foot first, he was seated at the
seat of honor on the east side of the pot. Then if the king actually decided to
meet with him, he would drop a pebble down onto the floor. The wife (wives)
would know the king’s desire and leave the north seat open for him to come down
the ladder and eat with the guest.
In the northeast corner of the King’s Palace, there was a
depression in the dirt floor. This was where the king and others communed with
the ancestors and the spirit world. The animistic philosophy and religion still
strongly influence the people, even Christians, in Mada. Sylvia has been
putting together several experiences from her students that illustrate this
phenomenon. We backed out of the king’s palace, as required by protocol. On the
outside of the King’s Palace is a statue of a Frenchman who was in charge of
the King’s harem. The king turned him into a eunuch so that he would not molest
the women. This is told along with all the stories of the Merina’s fixation with
the male organ and its source of their power.
We walked on around to the church built next to the palace
and in the Rova complex. It was started by the British before they traded Mada for
Mauritius with the French. So the church is a Protestant church, probably also
due to the influence of Cameron. The king continued to build the church. It is
built of cut stone. Since the Merinas had no cement at the time, they used a
mixture of sand and egg white as mortar. This placed a very high value on eggs,
and citizens were taxed highly for any eggs they used personally. According to Tefe
most Malagasy don’t eat eggs for this reason. This mortar doesn’t last as well
as cement based on lime, so they’re having to replace some of the mortar. The
church has stained glass windows and resembles a miniature cathedral in many
ways.
From the Rova we could look down
on the Tsimbazaza National Park, a forested region, immediately at the base of
the southern edge of the Rova. In spite of the officious name, Tsimbazaza is
merely a zoo. Although it is more in the spirit of many modern zoos where some
of the animals appear to be able to roam the park as they wish, it is that in
appearances only. They use the fact that most lemurs cannot swim and will not
cross a body of water and other restraints that don’t appear as restraints to
us. We certainly could not walk into the Lemur’s area.
Although the Tsimbazaza was literally only a stone’s throw
from the Rova, we had to descend the mountain (really a hill) and that must
have taken at least a half-hour. Remember the proverbial Tana traffic must move
on extremely narrow roads where every house is also a shop for various items
not carried by its neighbor. Parking at the main entrance to the Tsimbazaza
consisted of a slight widening of the road in one spot in which roughly ten
cars were crammed so tightly into the space that it was almost impossible to
open the car door simply to exit the car. We paid the usual 10,000 Ar. apiece
to get in, and the guide demanded 30,000 Ar. Bruno, it turned out, was worth
every bit of the $10 we paid him. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of both the fauna
and flora of the park. Furthermore, he had a wealth of stories to tell about
everything. One had to listen closely because he spoke English using the only
four or five vowels of Malagasy, but he was much easier to understand than Tefe
had been. For example, it is usually impossible to tell whether they are saying
live or leave.
Bruno identified the tan eagles we saw near our home a while
back as yellow-billed kites. There was a rather moth-eaten one in a cage in the
park. We saw about a dozen different species of lemurs. About half of those
live in clumps of trees in the center of the park without cages around them. We
spent about two hours in the park, about twice as long as we did at the Queen’s
Palace. I enjoyed both places, but I definitely like the Tsimbazaza more.
Malagasies get in for about a tenth of what we pay to get in, and there are a
lot of them that just go there to play a few of the limited sports available or
to lounge on the uncut lawns. Lawns are a great rarity in Tana.
When we left Tsimbazaza, Pam and Gideon suggested we meet
them at the Waterfront Shopping Center, an island of modern shopping in a vast
sea of street side vendors. Matio and Lova said they knew exactly where it was.
I didn’t. I did feel they were taking us the long way around when they went
through a permanently deadlocked tunnel toward the center of Tana. I said
something, and they assured me this was the best way to go. After “parking” for
an hour on the street, we finally pulled up next to La City Shopping Area,
another island of modern shopping. It was evident that neither of them had any
clue how to find the Waterfront. I phoned Gideon; Pam answered, and they said
they would come to us. So we got Lova and Matio to drop us off at La City. (That
is where they had picked us up, after all.)
It was about 3:30, and we hadn’t eaten lunch yet. Our knees
were feeling a bit weak. So we went inside and ordered a passable vegetable
pizza—if you regard broccoli on pizza as passable. Pam and Gideon got Telma to
fix my phone so I could send text messages. I had paid to be able to, but no
one around UAZ could figure out how to tell the phone it could. It’s amazing.
This little phone cost us $8, and for another $3 a month I have virtually
unlimited voice and text. In fact, my plan even has some data capabilities. However,
the simple little phone has no plans of letting me use that feature. A big
difference in the developing nations is that everyone has a phone and phone
coverage is available practically everywhere, even in most remote regions. And all
of this is available for significantly less than I’m paying! In the U.S. I pay more a month for less
service than I pay a year out here!
We did some shopping in ShopRite, similar to a small
supermarket in the States. Then we piled into Gideon and Pam’s Peugeot and “parked”
our way for well over an hour going up and over a couple of Tana’s many hills
until we arrived at the national road, RN 7, going south out of the city. Lest
you get an expanded idea of a national road, it is a simple two lane road
usually with no shoulder. Everybody drives in either direction on whichever
side of the road they find fewer potholes or simply more convenient. At times
you are sure they are going to hit and kill you. Ah, sweet release! But we
missed again. And it took us only about four-and-a-half or five hours to go the
134 km (82 miles) home. That’s just about keeping up with the old pony-express.
It’s almost as bad as the L.A. Freeway system during rush hour.
Don’t think I am complaining! I loved a great day away. I
enjoyed everything I saw, and I would drop everything and do it again at the
merest invitation.
On Friday, we started out for Antsirabe with Pam to see our
students perform in a drama competition with their own original work. En route
the fan quit working. So it took us about 4 hours to limp about 10 km home. Our
students did magnificently without our support, carrying away both the first
and second prizes! We were duly proud of them.
On Sabbath Pam was asked to preach at the little church in
Sambaina that we attended our first Sabbath in Madagascar. It had been women’s
week all week, and this was the culmination. She was given a sermon written
originally at the General Conference. The Mada church feels it must follow
every directive from the headquarters to the letter or they will follow the
damned into perdition. The sermon she received had been translated into Malagasy.
She figured out what the texts were and did a great job of weaving them
together.
The sermon was based on Ephesians 5:33, a text which has
upset feminists for the last I don’t know how many years. The husband is to
love his wife and the wife to respect her husband, according the translation
Pam used. The King James Version states “Let
every one of you … love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she
reverence her husband.” Pam read dictionary definitions for “love”, and “respect”.
These used lots of synonyms for the terms—which drove her game little
translator just about bananas. Kudos to you Pam! We walked about 4 km to get to
church and about 3km home, along a steeper shortcut. We were steaming sweat
from every pore, both when we arrived at church and when we arrived at home.
Humidity was, as usual, about 100%, and it started raining about the time we
got home and continued into Sunday.
I got up this morning, Thursday, February 25, at 5:15 and
went outside. This morning was the first morning since I have been here that I
have been able to see the sky all the way to the horizon in the east. Mercury,
Venus, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, and the Moon stretched three-quarters of the way
across the sky in that order. They were all clearly visible against a beautiful
dawn sky. Actually, the Moon was half covered by a cloud that soon enveloped
Jupiter. What a rare sight. If you’ve got clear morning skies, go out about
three-quarters an hour before sunrise and see the sight. It will be quite
different in just a few days—both Venus and Mercury are moving very rapidly
right now.
#MADAGASCAR, #UAZ, #MALAGASY, #PREACHING, #ANIMISM,
#ROYALTY, #PLANETS, #TRAFFIC, #ANTANANARIVO, #LEMURS, #GECKO, #PHALLUS, #CIRCUMCISION,
#MERINAS, #ZOO, #CELLPHONE
