Sojourn to Madagascar Part 5
Year End
While we were at Domaine Saint Francois (DSF), we asked the
manager, Fanja, Parany’s sister, what the purpose of the institute is. A large
poster explaining their operations hung on the wall, but all of the writing on
it was in Malagasy which is still as mysterious as ever to me. DSF is financed
mainly by lay people in France. It takes 20 destitute families in Tana each
year into the institute. They test them for eligibility and aptitude. As soon
as they are admitted into the program, then both parents must work full time
for DSF for a year. During this time they are intensively trained with classes
for parents and schooling for the children.
DSF Mission
The second year these families learn and practice farming on
the DSF campus. If they pass these two years, they are provided with a brand
new home in a remote area about 200 km (125 miles) west of Tana. They are
financially set up for farming and housekeeping for the full year. They can use
the proceeds of this third year to finance themselves for subsequent years. The
Catholic Church gains 20 new self-supporting families in a region that is semi
arid and has no one living in it. The families develop a loyalty to the church
and have the drive and capability for independence, living on their own and
becoming responsible members of the community.
DSF has very nice rooms that they rent out to people like us
to help raise funds for their program. Fanja thanked us personally for our support
for their program. She is 10 years older than Parany. I guess she is in her
forties. The institute has a small dairy where the cows are still milked by
hand. They have a model garden with a variety of vegetables and fruit and not a
weed. Lovely warblers and some flashy red birds graced the garden.
We were told when we checked in at DSF that there was an
American woman from California who was staying there. She was quite sick and
hadn’t eaten anything for several days. I wondered if that were a tummy bug
that she got as a result of eating the food served at DSF. When we got to
supper, our first meal in the institute’s dining room, she showed up and sat at
a nearby table. We invited her over to sit with us, and she complied weakly.
She looked to be in her sixties and rather frail. They brought
her a salad plate before they brought any of our food. I suggested that we
could pause in the conversation if she wanted to say grace. She demurred by
saying lightly,” Oh it’s all right. I’m sure he understands,” and she pointed
vaguely upwards.
She had flown down to Toliara, a coastal city south west of
Tana. There she had spent a few days then joined a tour that was coming back to
Tana over land. The group spoke about a certain mountain that was very
interesting, and she joined the group to tour it. When the group started up the
slopes of the mountain, she went along. Apparently the group didn’t speak
English, so there was a major lack in communication. She said, “If I had known
they were going to the top, I wouldn’t have gone!”
However, as they climbed higher and higher, she said she
felt as though she was going to die. Finally she made it to the top with them.
From the symptoms she described, I’m sure she was suffering from heat stroke.
Her symptoms sounded very like mine did when I had a stroke as a teenager from
working all day in the tropical sun outside of Bulawayo in the tropics in what
is now Zimbabwe.
We eventually introduced ourselves. She told us that she is
Dr. Diana Prince, with emphasis on the Dr., from San Diego. She has published a
number of books and is working on a travel book, Adventure on Planet Earth. She toured much of Southern Africa a
while back and now is working on her last two chapters on this trip—Namibia and
Mada. She planned to fly out of Tana for home before the new year.
While we were talking about everything, our food arrived.
The other eight of us at the table stopped for grace before starting to eat.
She then apologized for not praying, but it was obvious that it was not her
custom. From her conversation I concluded that at best she is a skeptic.
At one point I mentioned that something we had seen was so
old it must have come out of Noah’s Ark. Her eyes lit up, and she told us that
four years ago she had published, through Amazon, a book called A View from the Ark. In it she reports
on a find on a mountain called something like Chudy or Judy in Turkey about 2
miles (3 km) from the Iranian border. A structure has been pushed up partially
out of the ground that has the exact measurements of Noah’s Ark in Genesis.
Some device something like an ultrasound has revealed compartments in the
structure. The mountain is within sight of Ararat so fits the Genesis account
well. She has written another book on Mary Magdalene which follows her travels
including her sojourn in a cave in France. I think she says she has published
about 12 books.
We saw Diana at breakfast the next morning. The food and
sleep seemed to have revived her considerably. I may have to revise my estimate
of her age downward to upper 50s or close to 60. I asked her if she had family
that she notified about her being so ill. She indicated that she has friends
who were shocked about where she went. I took it that she is single and may
have been single all her life.
I had told the group about my experience on a
two-night-three-day bus ride from Ikizu to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania in about
1967. The bus stopped away out in the plains so that people could get out and
take care of their biological needs. The group all filed out and formed a large
circle on the open plain and relieved themselves. I was too self conscious or
too proud to do so. A couple hours later I need to go so badly I was almost
blowing bubbles. When the bus finally stopped at another barren spot like this,
I joined the circle! I asked them why they stopped in such an open area where
there was nothing to provide privacy. They were afraid of snakes and lions. In
an open area they didn’t have to worry about these dangers. Privacy is highly
overrated anyway. After I told him this, Gideon called stopping in the bush to
relieve ourselves “going to Tanzania.”
On our way back from Andasibe National Park, we took things
a little easier. We stopped at a couple of the falls and took some pictures and
“visited Tanzania”. Some of these beautiful spots were on a steep climb from
about 3,340 to 5,570 feet in altitude according to my watch, which measures
altitude by sensing barometric pressure. It is seldom accurate about the
altitude of a spot unless it has been recently set. It is, however, reasonably
accurate when measuring the change in altitude. So the road went up some 2,240
feet (680 m).
While we were eating breakfast in the Parany’s unit at the
Hotel Le Guayave, their five year old Valerie sat next to me. She is a sweet
little girl who speaks a fair amount of English and is both well trained and
well behaved. She sat looking wonderingly at my naked forearm. Finally she
looked into my face and saw that I was amused by her interest. I nodded
approval, and she gently touched the hair on my arm. Satisfied, she removed her
hand and continued eating. Here the people’s arms are hairless as if they had
been waxed. Mine, on the other hand, are closely akin to those of Esau.
Obviously in their eyes I am proof positive that at least my race descended
from apes.
On our way home from Andasibe, just before entering the
terribly narrow streets of Manjakandriana, we turned south on an unmarked dirt
road that leads to Mantesoa, the site of a large man-made lake created to help
in the generation of electricity. It was built in the 1930s and called the
Reservoir de Mantasoa. An English couple who used to work for the Scripture
Union, an international missionary organization, has lived there for 21 years
now. They are Martin and Mary Barb (spelling?). He has built a large campus for
the Scripture Union. On the other side of one arm of the lake he has built
several lovely rooms with space to house various conventions or for people to
rent for rest and relaxation. His buildings are very carefully built to his
exacting standards and completely finished, unlike anything at UAZ or other
places we have stayed in Madagascar. They are built almost exclusively of local
material so are not very expensive.
Main Building on Scripture Union Campus. Martin at the door
Mary has set up a factory staffed with the local people who
produce handicrafts, also to exacting standards, like homemade shopping bags
which she ships to England where they are sold in the better class of shops for
very good prices. Martin says they have twice yearly furloughs back to visit
their relatives in England. This has, I’m sure, benefited their finding ways to
market their handicrafts and earn hard currency.
Vadette in Mary’s factory
Peter and Vadette Delhove run ADRA (Adventist Development
and Relief Agency) in Madagascar. He and his wife were staying in one of the
“homes” Martin has built right at the edge of the high water mark of the
reservoir. The water level was way down because of a severe drought they have
had over the past couple years. Peter remarked that the water had come up
several meters in the last couple days, so I think the rains are helping solve
their problem. Delhoves find it very restful to take the two hour drive out
from Tana and spend a weekend there. Peter claims he does it in an hour. It
took LaLane almost an hour to drive from the Scripture Union campus back to the
tar road. LaLane handles the nasty traffic in Tana much better than he handles
rough dirt roads.
Martin’s latest “Home” L to R: Peter, Gideon, Pam, Sylvia’s
back, Vadette
We stopped short of DSF, and Harimalala got 3 pizzas—two
“grand” size vegetarian and one personal size with meat for LaLane. He was very
happy. That evening we ate back in the DSF dining room. They made us boiled
potatoes and a quiche. Harimalala had suspected that that wouldn’t be enough,
so she purchased the Pizzas to supplement dinner. The dessert was pineapple
slices as it had been two nights previously.
I got up about 5:30 Wednesday morning (December 30) and sat
out in their outdoor dining area and wrote in my journal for about two hours.
Breakfast was the same white bread, “chocolate” croissants (a big croissant
with a minute dab of chocolate inside somewhere) and tea. This time, at our
request, they brought Sylvia and me a couple eggs each.
After breakfast we packed up and were on the road by 9:30.
Gideon phoned Mr. Manda, who lives in Tana, and found out a route that he
reported was clear of traffic. We took it, but by the time we got there, it was
stopped dead with traffic. It took us 3 hours to do 17 km. (10 miles)! At one
intersection it took us ten minutes just to move one car length. I timed it. We
bought a bunch of groceries at Shop Rite.
We sat at this intersection for about a half hour
Pam had been feeling quite sick for the previous two days
and was feeling even worse by Wednesday. At the Seventh-day Adventist Indian
Ocean Union Mission they have a medical clinic that is open 24/7 to help locals
as well as workers and missionaries. This is where they have promised to take
us if we get sick. We got there about 2:30 and found the place closed for the
year and locked. I’m praying that we don’t get sick! Apparently the doctor on
duty wanted to do some shopping before New Year’s Eve and simply went AWOL as
did his whole staff! So much for 24/7! Pam went into the nearby dental clinic
and found Hanitra who joined us in the car and guided us through a maze of
streets to a Doctor Etienne (Steve in English). He felt Pam for a fever,
chatted for 20 minutes or so, gave her a malaria shot, 4 more vials to be given
at home over the next two days, an antibiotic, and some ibuprofen pills to keep
the fever down. Pam was sure this had been a misdiagnosis because “there is no
malaria at UAZ.” However, she started to feel much better by the next day. She
figures she may have gotten it when they stayed overnight at the ADRA compound
the time they picked us up at the airport. We’re taking our anti-malaria
medicine faithfully!
Indian Ocean Union Mission Headquarters
Adventist Medical Clinic
Here people greet friends they haven’t seen for a while by
leaning in towards each other and touching right cheek to right cheek, then
they touch left cheeks, and finally touch right cheeks again. It is done with
either sex and at times with people whom they have only recently met. I don’t
know enough about when it is done it initiate myself.
On our way out of Tana we stopped at Jumbo Scores. It is a
large department store something like Walmart or Target. There is one in
Antsirabe, but it is much smaller, rather like the two other grocery stores in
town. Sylvia had brought her electric curling iron from the States. When she
plugged it in to the standard 220v, without thinking, there were a lot of
popping noises. This brought her to her senses, and she unplugged it
immediately. I don’t know whether she has ruined it or not. My guess is that
the 110v she brought with her is no longer worth carrying back to the States to
see if it works. Anyway, we found another one at Jumbo.
We left Tana in the hot late afternoon sunshine but quickly
ran into heavy rain. The valleys that are carefully bisected into hundreds of
rice paddies that are carefully supplied with enough water to keep about 6
inches of water in them while the rice grows were covered who knows how deep with
the yellow-red water that had rushed off the surrounding hills in floods. The
rivers came up almost to the bottom of the bridges. I felt really badly for the
thousands of peasants who plant the rice as their only income for the year.
They use a hand cultivating device that is a six or seven foot long steel rod
with a handle at one end and two multiple star wheels, each placed one foot and
two feet (30 and 60 cm) respectively from the other end. They run this up and
down between the rows. Of course with everything flooded like it was, cultivation
is also impossible. Fortunately the rivers went down as suddenly as they had
come up. As I write this, two weeks later, we are again getting a lot of rain,
so they may rise again.
Rice paddies from the road
We arrived home close to 7:30 p.m. in the dark. Short of a
few chips and a couple pieces of broken bread, I ate nothing other than the
white bread breakfast for the day. Much of the day had been spent in the
terrible Tana traffic—no traffic lights and few if any traffic police.
#UAZ,
#MADAGASCAR, #ANTANANARIVO, #SAINTFRANCOIS, #ZURCHERUNIV, #TRAFFIC, #RICEPADDY,
#FLOOD, #TOLIARA, #NOAHFLOOD, #SCRIPTUREUNION, #ADRA, #MALARIA
