Sojourn to Madagascar - Part 14 - Easter Lilies and Sad Dogs

Easter Lily

It is Easter season, and the volunteer Easter lilies are blooming all around us. There are not a lot of flowers now towards the end of the summer. So their gorgeous beauty is a welcome sight.

As I hurried to class on Tuesday afternoon about 4:00, it started to rain. The closer I got to class the harder it rained. Half a dozen students were in class waiting for me. The rest, another dozen or more, dripped in by ones and twos. I had a final exam review prepared using PowerPoint, and we started right in and finished just at 5:00. Outside the window it had been raining steadily. Now the rain picked up to resemble a cloudburst. The driving, heavy rain continued for the next hour. I sat in the classroom for that hour, not wanting to walk a kilometer home with my computer on my back in that downpour.

Several students were sitting around waiting for the rain to let up, too. A student, not from that class, whom I’ll call Marc, walked in. He spoke English much better than any students of my class. He asked if he could talk with me, and I readily agreed. I recognized immediately that he had an agenda but said nothing. I listened to him go on for twenty-five or thirty minutes and said nothing except just enough to keep him talking. Three other students pulled up chairs close to us, but Marc did all the talking. He thanked me for coming to Madagascar to teach them. He wished I would stay until the end of the year. Then he remarked about my going home and knowing a lot of people in America. He kept hinting that all these people would have plenty of money.

Marc pointed out how there were many students who had no money. Yes, there were scholarships available, but if a student had, by no fault of his own, failed a class, then he wasn’t eligible for the scholarship. He finally began to be specific about himself. If he failed a class, the university might require him to stay a fourth year. (A bachelor’s degree at U. A. Z. is a three year program, like the universities in Europe, rather than four years like in the U.S.) He felt that was eminently unfair, but he wanted a degree. I mentioned that he might look for a job and earn some money he needed. He parried by insisting there was nowhere that he could work. I suggested that he speak with the president or the treasurer or the dean or the man in charge of plant maintenance. He immediately indicated that there is money available, but that it came with conditions, with strings attached. He needed money with no conditions. I and the other students still listening to him laughed heartily, and I asked him if there was anybody on earth who would give money away free and with no strings attached.

His request that I could do something for him became more pointed. He was sure that I would like to see him finish his program and would be willing to talk to my friends to see if they could help him. He also was sure that I could help him.

I laughed sympathetically with him and said, “Let me tell you about my experience. I had no support in university, so I worked between 30 and 35 hours a week to pay my school fees. It took me five-and-a-half years to earn my bachelor’s degree because I had to work so much. I feel that my education was worth every effort I put into it. This is why I suggested that you earn your way through university.”

Marc was momentarily stunned. He had set a trap for himself and fallen right into it. True Malagasy style, this didn’t stop his talking. He went right on with all sorts of reasons that he thought would justify his receiving money. If there is anything I have learned while in Madagascar it is that no self-respecting person will say something in ten words if he can say it in a thousand. Just calling for the morning offering in church literally takes at least ten minutes.

By this time it was six o’clock. The downpour had settled back to a steady rain. A woman whom I hadn’t seen before stuck her head into the classroom and asked, in Malagasy, that we leave so she could lock up the building. The students with me told me what she had said. We were all ready for a change of venue and conversation. They headed on out to the highway and their rooms. I headed back up the kilometer long hill. I had a student walking with me who shared my umbrella for a couple hundred meters (yards).

As I write this the neighbors’ pretty little white terrier, Pato, [pronounced pa-too] is howling forlornly. My guess is that she probably weighs less than 10 pounds (4 kg). This is its standard behavior. Pato is confined to a tiny little box outside the back door. Short of feeding it once in a while, the neighbors ignore it completely. We are serenaded by poor Pato’s loneliness. There is no animal rights group to appeal to. Most dogs simply run loose. Most are so underfed that their ribs stick out and they are always hungry. Confining Pato is perhaps the only humane thing to do because some large dogs are severe bullies and appear to kill simply for the joy of killing.

I’ll call another neighbor’s dog Fido, since I don’t know his name. My guess is that Fido is closer to 100 lb (40 kg). People have asked his owner to restrain him, but he runs freely around the more than 400 ha (800 acres) of the campus.

When we arrived on campus in December, there was a female stray that would come by Pam’s hoping for a handout. Pam is a pushover, and Stray usually got something. She was obviously pregnant and very skinny. She had her puppies a few weeks ago. Since she didn’t have regular food, she became very gaunt. One day last week I came up to the kitchen to give the cook a receipt so we could eat lunch in the cafeteria. I saw Stray carrying a puppy around the side of the building and towards me. She lay the puppy down in the sunshine to try and get it a little warmer. She licked the fellow all over to clean him up. This was right between the kitchen door and farm produce door. Poor Stray was so gaunt it was a wonder she could even stand up. Who knows how much milk she was able to give the little fellow.

Stray Trying to Protect Her Puppy

The man from the farm came out and carried the puppy back to where it had been staying. Dogs are an essential part of the community but are despised and never treated as pets. Sylvia went around and found where they had put the pup. She came back to me crying her heart out. All of the other puppies had been killed, and this was the only one left. Pam heard about it, fetched Sylvia, and the two of them took the puppy with Stray following around next to Pam’s kitchen door and made them comfortable in a box that used to house turtles. [Sylvia wrote about the cats earlier. Both are now missing and assumed dead.] I took the picture of Stray protecting her last remaining puppy in the box.

While we were down at Morondava for the weekend, the Petersens heard a commotion outside their back door. Gideon went out and found Fido leaving having killed the last puppy. He didn’t eat it, nor does he need food. He just satisfied his bully streak. Stray was standing there, half Fido’s height and staring forlornly at what was her last little piece of joy in a harsh, uncaring world. It seems Fido still continues his reign of terror unhindered.

On Wednesday morning, March 9, I sent out my second issue of the FAMA Newsletter. I sent out 540 copies before the Internet bully, Google, stopped me without so much as an “excuse me.” I then published a copy on this blog site. As usual I sent out a notification on Facebook. Looking down my Facebook page briefly, I saw a picture of my brother’s niece Cindy’s family. They were holding their third little baby with everyone clustered around her. The baby had been in NICU for three-weeks with a defective heart and other troubles, and just hours before I got online, the baby finally gave up the struggle. Our last week here at UAZ has turned out to be a sad one.

This last week is also the time we give our final exams. The rest of the school gives theirs next week. Since we fly out of Tana on Monday, the day before our visa expires, we gave our exams early. I taught only oral English classes. So I spent from 5 to 10 minutes with each of 52 students. Each one made a one to two minute presentation telling me about either her family or her education to date. Some were good; most were interesting. And then there were those that went something like this:

“My fadder’s name is Ravaoharimiaina, and my mudder’s name is Razafimanana. I have two brudders and tree sisters. One brudder’s name is Mahatolimiairina and de udder brudder is Ninjananamaminy…” Unfortunately they mumble and murder each name, because they don’t usually pronounce the whole name. They might just use the first three syllables, or the middle two syllables, or some other concoction. Somehow a student in this group didn’t seem to make as good a grade as some of the others.

Most of the students come from “a small family wid 2 brudder and 1 sister.” “My family is not poor, but nieder are we rich.” They don’t have federal grants for education here, so the very poor cannot go to university. The nation is one of the poorest in the world, as are many former French colonies, like Haiti. In stark contrast, many of the former British colonies are very well off, like the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, India, Hong Kong, Kenya, and the list goes on and on.

Taxi-Brousse, Motor Cycle, and Hand Drawn Carts

Many students’ parents came from larger families, so they had 12 uncles and 14 aunts. Most had parents who lived in the cities and towns and were teachers, lawyers, vendors, doctors, pastors, nurses, and the like. They came from all over Madagascar. As we’ve discovered personally, travel in Mada is very difficult and time consuming. To get to the university, students often travel for days and nights in over-crowded taxi-brousses. These are small busses designed to seat 8 to 12 people but crowded beyond belief with people, animals, and luggage. They sit in each other’s laps, on boards set between seats, and even hang out the back doors. Notice that in the picture the back door is ajar. The “conductor” stands there to pull people in as they try to board the taxi while it is still moving, as well as to collect the fare.

We ate our last meal in the cafeteria on Monday when both Sylvia and I were giving exams. I broke down and took a picture this time. The pile of rice in the center is scooped onto the tray by a large soup bowl. The rice is well cooked and free of all flavoring, including salt. The salad on the left is a sliced local squash and a piece of tomato. The relish at the top is what I used to call cow peas as a kid. The relish on the right is a mixture of local greens and potatoes. Both relishes are slightly over salted so that when they are combined with the rice, the combination is very palatable. They also serve a drink. This is usually the water used to soak out the burned part at the bottom of the pot where they cook the rice with some fruity flavor added. By the way, as a Malagasy you eat with the spoon and use the fork to push food onto your spoon.

Typical Cafeteria Meal

On Thursday, March 5, I completed my last duties at the university. At 7:30 in the morning I told the story of my conversion to Christianity. I have added my notes of what I planned to say at worship. I simplified what I said considerably because it was being translated into Malagasy, and the volunteer translator initially had a difficult time with what I was saying. Later that morning I emailed my grades and some of Sylvia’s grades into the registrar’s office. Finally at 4:00 p.m., I gave approximately three-quarters of an hour presentation on academic cheating and ways to minimize it to an academic policies committee. I noticed from their minutes that they had discussed several cases of cheating during their previous meeting. They also had me give the morning devotional to the Language Department on Monday morning. After those two devotionals, they’ll probably be happy to see me go.

Notes for my Thursday devotional:

My Christian Experience

I am a 4^th generation Adventist. Great Uncle Joe was sent by Ellen White as a missionary to the freed slaves in the south part of the United States.

I attended Adventist schools from standard 1 through Andrews University. I learned a lot of Adventist faith, doctrines and way of life. I had been taught that we must live a perfect, sinless life now because in the Time of Trouble we will continue to live the same way without an intercessor.

I was taught that there is no sacrifice for someone who sins willfully.

I had sinned willfully more times than I could count. Therefore my teachers assured me that Christ’s sacrifice would not cleanse me and I was damned to eternal hell. I was very well versed in Scripture, and I knew they were quoting scripture correctly. I accepted that indeed I was damned to hell, and there was no alternative.

When I was 20 I attended Seminar Marienhöhe in Germany to learn German. I knew absolutely no German when we got there. And all I heard in the dorm, in the cafeteria, in church, and in the classroom was German, which I didn’t understand. In the process I became very depressed when I could understand nothing.

About a kilometer down the hill from the school was an American military base, and I walked down to it every Sunday morning and attended church on base just to hear English spoken. I joined their choir and made a number of very good friends. A Pentecostal soldier took special interest in me. When he learned with horror that I was an Adventist, he warned me strongly to get out of the Adventist church.

Always ready for a good argument, I enjoyed arguing with him. But my heart was not in it. After all, I wasn’t really an Adventist; I had been an Adventist, but I was now on a direct route to hellfire. He read me the texts about how the law was nailed to the cross. I had learned my lessons well and countered that the Ten Commandments were not included in that verse.

Every time I saw him, he would quote Romans 10: 9. If we confess with our mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and if we believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we would be saved. He would keep telling me that my salvation had nothing to do with keeping the law. It had everything to do with believing that Jesus had died for me and that he had risen from the dead.

I searched my Bible carefully. It became more and more evident that this young soldier was 100% right and that the interpretation I had accepted was flawed. Finally I had to agree with him, and I accepted Christ and his sacrifice as the only way I could be saved. So I was baptized as an Adventist when I was 12 and became a Christian when I was 20! Those verses that had troubled me are true, but Christ’s grace saved me just as much as it saved David in his sin with Bathsheba.

For the next ten years I studied Adventism all over again. I read every book Ellen White had written. I read the Bible in several versions and several languages.

If you haven’t done it yet, I challenge you to study for yourself everything you can find about God’s grace and his marvelous, unbelievable love for you. I guarantee it will change your life, forever. Put aside everything you have learned about our doctrines and teachings and do what all the early Adventist pioneers did: study the Bible for yourself. Find out exactly what it says about faith, grace and, love. Every time before you open the Bible or Ellen White, quote James 1:5 in a prayer to God for wisdom, and He will give it to you. Your eternal happiness and very salvation depend only on your relationship to Christ.

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